Powered by System Center
Posts tagged Hyper-V
Hyper-V.nu event videos
Jan 30th
Carsten Rachfahl en Jan Kappen were two of the many visitors of the Hyper-V.nu event on the 19th of January. But these guys have done a very good job during the event and especially afterwards. They’ve recorded all sessions and have done some nice video editing. You can view the results over here:
Keynote – by Jaap Wesselius and Peter Noorderijk
Windows Server 8 Hyper-V networking – by Aidan Finn
Windows Server 8 Hyper-V storage – by Hans Vredevoort
Windows Server 8 DDDD – by Ronald Beekelaar
SCVMM 2012 – by Maarten Wijsman
These videos are uploaded to the youtube Hypervcommunity channel from our German friends:
http://www.youtube.com/user/hypervcommunity
Again thanks for the really nice job!
Hyper-V.nu event – review
Jan 24th
On the 19th of January we organised our first Hyper-V.nu event for the year 2012. After the registration opened we were over booked within two days and had to disappoint a lot of people, sorry for that!
But…. This meeting was really, really great! With a fully loaded room (people were even sitting on the stairs), great speakers with great sessions and a very satisfied crowd we must be very happy and satisfied, and we are!
Specials thanks to our sponsors: Altaro, VEEAM, Inovativ, PQR, Wortell and Microsoft! Without their support it was not possible to organise this event. Also a special thank to our German friends Carsten Rachfall en Jan Kappen who have recorded all sessions. These video’s will be published very soon, so keep an eye on www.hyper-v.nu for links to these recordings.
We will also thank our guest speakers Aidan Finn and Ronald Beekelaar. Both of them were from overseas! They both have given a great session with a lot of immersion into Windows 8!
Last but not least we will thank the visitors for attending this event. We hope that you all come again to our next event!
Here are the presentations of this great event:
Keynote – Jaap Wesselius and Peter Noorderijk
Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Networking – Aidan Finn
Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Storage – Hans Vredevoort
Windows 8 DDDD – Ronald Beekelaar
Cheers, Peter
Windows 8 Storage and Hyper-V – Part 2: VHDX and PowerShell
Jan 24th
This blog is part of a series that started with Windows 8 Storage and Hyper-V Part 1 – Introduction:
http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/hvredevoort/2012/01/windows-8-storage-and-hyper-v-part-1-introduction/
VHD HISTORY
If you have been working with any of the Microsoft virtualization products, you are familiar with the Virtual Hard Disk format. VHD was introduced with Microsoft’s acquisition of Connectix and their Virtual PC product in 2003. Seven years ago Microsoft decided to make the VHD Image Format Specification available to third parties under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise.
In June 2005 Microsoft promised that the VHD file format would have a future well beyond the then prevalent virtualization products ….. and boy did they keep their promise!
The Microsoft VHD file format specifies a virtual machine hard disk that can reside on a native host file system encapsulated within a single file. The format is used by Virtual PC 2007, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Hyper-V and the format will be used by future versions of Microsoft Windows Server that includes hypervisor-based virtualization technology. Beyond that, the VHD format is broadly applicable, because it is agnostic to the virtualization technology, host operating system, or guest operating system with which it is used.
Customers and partners who invest the VHD file format will have a clear path forward to future Windows virtualization technologies. In addition, Microsoft plans to design its systems management tools around the VHD file format for improved patching and manageability.
Since the release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the VHD format became even more versatile when Microsoft promised not only to standardize the variety of container files, but also introduced native VHD. This technology made it very easy to boot from VHD and have multiple operating systems on one machine. Since then VHD’s could not only be created via the Hyper-V manager but also via the inbox Disk Manager and Diskpart. Because the VHD format was opened up a multitude of VHD tools surfaced (vhdtool, disk2vhd, wim2vhd and many more). There was no easy way to just mount the VHD from the command line so 3rd parties jumped on this as well. I should not forget to mention James O’Neill’s awesome Hyper-V PowerShell Management Library which he created when he still worked for Microsoft.
The VHD related commands in that library are:
Get-VHDDefaultPath, Get-VHDInfo, New-VHD, Compact-VHD, Test-VHD, Convert-VHD, Merge-VHD, Mount-VHD, Unmount-VHD
VHDX
During the \\build conference we learnt that Microsoft will introduce a new advanced version of the Virtual Hard Disk format called VHDX in Windows 8 (both client and server). What do we currently know about this VHDX?
Windows 8 Storage and Hyper-V – Part 1: Introduction
Jan 21st
If you are a server, storage or network vendor, please also read the last section.
Now that the Windows Server 8 beta can be expected any time now – but promised before the last week of February 2012 – it might be a good idea to start looking at several of the groundbreaking storage related technologies that could turn up in Windows 8. I stress the word could because we must always be careful since functionality shown in Pre-RTM builds is never guaranteed to be in the GA release.
I am planning to write a couple of blogs about Windows 8 Storage which in many cases is related to the new version of Hyper-V.
If you are running a SAN but also if your company simply can’t afford a SAN, chances are that you will see significant performance increases when reading, writing, copying, moving data with Windows Server 8. In-box storage manageability with PowerShell will strongly contribute to making Windows 8 Storage one of the major pillars of the Microsoft Private Cloud Fabric. As I have looked at it so far, storage is handled extremely well in Windows Server 8. Mind you this is only what I have determined based on what I have heard and seen on \\build and have personally tested since September 2011 with the Windows 8 Developer Preview.
This edition is not at all intended to be stable and testing with de Developer Preview is a true challenge. As a preparation for the Hyper-V.nu event with several sessions on Windows Server 8, I wanted to try out and show some unique new functionality for moving living Hyper-V guests between different types of storage. I had time for building up the pre-requisites and was able to successfully show a Live Storage Migration of a guest between two SMB2 shares on a ScaleOut File Cluster. But there were several other Live Storage moves that I tested but also want to explore further:
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest from USB disk to a local disk
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest from a local disk to a new Windows 8 Pool and Spaces virtual disk
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest from local disk to shared storage on a single host
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest from a shared disk on a single host to a shared disk on a Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest from a shared disk on a cluster to a CSV version 2 volume on the same cluster
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest from any location to an SMB2 file share on a ScaleOut Fileserver with Continuously Available Shares
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest between two SMB2 file shares on the same Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster while the ScaleOut Fileserver cluster is moved between nodes.
-
Live Storage Migrate a guest between an SMB2 file share used by one Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster to another Hyper-V cluster or even to another SMB2 file share on another server.
Am I now running out of options? On the contrary, I have only just started!
Recommended post W2K8R2 SP1 Clustering and Hyper-V Hotfixes
Jan 12th
LAST UPDATE: 12-01-2012
One of the visitors of this blog asked the question if we could publish a list of recommended post Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 hotfixes related to either Clustering or Hyper-V. Well here it is!
For a complete overview of what was rolled-up in SP1 take a look at the Excel sheet (Updates in Win7 and WS08R2 SP1.xls) which can be found on here.
Note I. Microsoft will release hotfixes if an issue occurs that needs to fixed before releasing a roll-up update or a service pack. However, the hotfix in question is intended to correct only the problem that is described in the article. Apply the hotfix only to systems that are experiencing the problem that is described in the articles. The hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.
Note II. Updates can be applicable to Windows Server 2008 R2 (RTM) and/or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
Big day for System Center and Microsoft Private Cloud
Jan 4th
Don’t miss the big public webcast about System Center 2012 & Microsoft Private Cloud with Satya Nadella (President of Server and Tools) and Brad Anderson (CVP of System Center and Management).
The new System Center 2012 vision will be laid out in full detail!
Register for it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/events/en-us/PrivateCloudExec
Date: January 17th 2012
Time: 17:30h CET
Live online training: Failover Clustering with Hyper-V
Dec 2nd
Designing a Highly Available Infrastructure for the Private Cloud
If you are new to Hyper-V and building a highly available infrastructure for the Private Cloud then don’t miss this free session by Symon Perriman and Elden Christensen on December 6, 2011. Symon was our Cluster MVP lead until early 2011 before he became a Technical Evangelist for Private Cloud traveling the globe and spreading the word. Elden is still going strong in the Cluster product team in Building 34 working as a Principal Program Manager Lead for Clustering.
If you can spare the time, I warmly recommend their 3-hour training which includes:
-
Module 1 – Introduction to clustering
-
Module 2 – Hyper-V high-availability
-
Module 3 – Private Cloud HA (System Center, Multi-Site).
Go and register as soon as you can!
Updated Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V Version 3.2
Dec 2nd
[Update: from Mike Sterling’s mail detailing the changes since version 3.1]
Microsoft released an updated version of Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V v3.2 and can be found here: http://207.46.154.156/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=216de3c4-f598-4dff-8a4e-257d4b7a1c12
When installed on a virtual machine that is running a supported Linux operating system, Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V provides the following functionality:
- Driver support: Linux Integration Services supports the network controller and the IDE and SCSI storage controllers that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
- Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices now take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
- Time sync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the virtualization server with the help of the pluggable time source device.
- Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager by using the “Shut Down” command.
- Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine. SMP support is not available for 32-bit Linux guest operating systems running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008.
- Heartbeat: Allows the virtualization server to detect whether the virtual machine is running and responsive.
KVP (Key Value Pair) Exchange: Information about the running Linux virtual machine can be obtained by using the Key Value Pair exchange functionality on the Windows Server 2008 virtualization server. - Integrated Mouse Support: The cursor is no longer bound to the VMConnect window when used with the Linux Graphical User Interface.
These are the changes since version 3.1:
- Synthetic Mouse Support: The virtualized mouse device is no longer bound to the VMConnect window, and can now be used with a RDP session.
- Merged Device Drivers: We now present a single device driver for both IDE and SCSI devices (hv_storvsc).
- Windows 8 Fix: The synthetic network device (hv_netvsc) can now be used with a Windows 8 host, eliminating the hang on boot that was previously seen.
- SCVMM Fix: This release fixes the issue as described in KB2586286.
- Improved Setup Experience: Users now only need to run install.sh (as root) to automatically detect the correct architecture and install the appropriate drivers.
The private cloud explained
Nov 28th
Everybody is talking about the cloud these days. However the term Cloud is completely over-hyped! Suppliers rebrand their products into cloud products even when it has not only one Cloud property. People say that they are using Cloud computing, but they mean virtualization… and so on.
In this article I’ll try to explain the Internal Cloud and what you need for the Internal Cloud. We also will take a look if we can build an Internal Cloud with Hyper-V and System Center.
Let’s first take a look at the Wikipedia definition of Cloud computing:
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).
When you look at this definition I can imagine that you say: Hey we’re already doing this for a couple of years and that can be true. Cloud is just a marketing term!
Ok now we’ve clarified the term Cloud let’s take a look at the difference between an internal cloud and a public (external) cloud. The main difference is that an internal cloud is only dedicated to your company and a public cloud is shared with many. An example of a public cloud service is Office 365. Many companies share this platform with other companies and it’s not possible to get a dedicated Exchange server or Sharepoint server within this service. The opposite is true for a private cloud service. Within a private cloud you can get dedicated servers or dedicated hardware.
However, the question is: when are we talking about a private cloud? Well Gartner made a nice model with required en preferred components for a private cloud:
When any of the required components is missing we’re not talking about a private cloud.
Hyper-V interview video’s in cooperation with NGN
Nov 23rd
A couple of weeks ago the Hyper-V.nu team visited the Netwerk Gebruikersgroep Nederland (NGN) to record some interviews about Hyper-V. The NGN record and edit the video’s. Jaap Wesselius interviewed Hans Vredevoort, Maarten Wijsman and me. The first of the three video’s is just published online at the site of NGN.
You can watch the video here
Twitter
RSS