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Last tickets for Hyper-V.nu event up for grabs
Mar 20th
As you can see from the screenshot, only a few tickets are left for the Hyper-V.nu event on April 16th, 2013. The event will be presented in Dutch which is unfortunate for several of our followers in the neighboring countries who wanted to attend. I hope to convince my fellow speakers to present in English again so the last 15 tickets could have been easily sold by now. The event is free by the way.
If you already know you cannot make it, please return your tickets!
Thanks!
Hans
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Dell Compellent and Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX)
Mar 20th
I just finished a remote support session for a customer in New York. My task was to check a Windows Server 2012 cluster using PowerEdge M620 blades with 4x10GbE connected to a Dell Compellent (6.3.1 firmware).
I just had a small window of opportunity to create a fixed sized VHDX (25GB and 250GB).
new-vhd -path C:\ClusterStorage\volume1\25GB.vhdx -size 25GB –fixed
new-vhd -path C:\ClusterStorage\volume2\250GB.vhdx -size 250GB –fixed
Both completed in under 3 seconds. Wow!!!
ODX in its purest form.
So let me reiterate my advice to new SAN array buyers. The first question you should ask your SAN vendor. Does it support ODX? If the answer is negative or if they promise ODX in their next release, just tell them to take a hike and move on to a capable SAN vendor.
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Cosmetic bug in Hyper-V Server 2012?
Mar 14th
Currently I’m involved in a private cloud project. In this project we really using beast of machines. We’re using HP DL980 servers. These servers have 1TB of memory and 8 – 10 Core CPUs. So we have 80 CPU cores available and with hyperthreading enabled 160 logical processors.
We are using Hyper-V Server 2012 as the host OS. After the installation was finished I looked at the Task Manager because I was curious if we had enoug CPU power 
. However when I opened the Task Manager and switched to the Performance tab I see a strange number of CPU’s. Only 64 Host logical processors are shown in Task Manager:
The supported Number of logical processors on a Hyper-V Server 2012 host is 320 so this can not be the problem. The maximum virtual CPUs supported in a virtual machine is 64. Now we all know that the parent partition is also a virtual machine but in previous versions of Hyper-V server we allways see the correct number of host logical processors even if this was more than four (this was the support number of vCPUs in a vm in Hyper-V Server 2008 R2). ..
My question now is this a cosmetic bug in Windows Server 2012? If anyone knows the answer, please let me know!
To be continued….
Only one minute after posting this blog my fellow Hans Vredevoort pointed me to: http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/hyper-v-server/windows-2012-64-logical-processors-144278
So no bug but default behavior, thanks Hans!
Wiki for Windows Server 2012 Cluster Hotfixes
Mar 6th
For Windows Server 2012 clusters it was still very difficult to find a complete list of hotfixes. In the past there were blogs and other locations for Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and clusters, but not always authorized by Microsoft. This could cause a trust issue for customers who don’t want to rely on some blog.
As MVP’s we have also expressed a wish to see an official list which is maintained by Microsoft. It is great to see our request is honored so quickly and you can now find the Windows Server 2012 Cluster hotfixes
Here is a message from John Marlin, Senior Support Escalation Engineer Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support:
In a previous blog, it was discussed on where you can get a list of the Failover Clustering and Hyper-V hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2.
Looking for Windows Server 2008 R2 Cluster and Hyper-V Hotfixes?
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2013/02/15/looking-for-windows-server-2008-r2-cluster-and-hyper-v-hotfixes.aspxIn this blog, we give the links to newly released hotfixes for Failover Clustering and Hyper-V so you know what hotfixes are out there. There are two Wiki pages that will make life easier for you when looking for hotfixes for Windows Server 2012 Clustering and Hyper-V.
Hyper-V: Update List for Windows Server 2012
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15576.hyper-v-update-list-for-windows-server-2012.aspxList of Failover Cluster Hotfixes for Windows Server 2012
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15577.list-of-failover-cluster-hotfixes-for-windows-server-2012.aspxThese Wiki pages are updated on a regular basis. You can setup an RSS Subscription to the Wiki page so you can the updated Wiki page in your favorite RSS app or Outlook.
Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service–Service is missing
Mar 5th
When you configure Live Migration settings on a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host then you have two options for authentication of Live Migration sessions:
- Use Credential Security Support Provider (CredSSP)
- Use Kerberos
Kerberos is my recommendation to customers. This is more secure than CredSSP. However the Kerberos option requires constrained delegation. If you do not configure constrained delegation, Live Migration of a virtual machine is not possible and you will receive a message that the source server does not have enough permissions to migrate the virtual machine to another host.
Yesterday I was at a customer location and I would like to configure constrained delegation so that I can use Kerberos as the authentication protocol for Live Migration.
I opened Active Directory Users and Computers and browsed to the computer objects representing the Hyper-V hosts. I went into the properties of the computer object and selected the ‘Delegation’ tab (just like the screenshot below).
When I would add the service Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service this option was not available in the list of services.
So I start a discussion with the guy who had installed the servers and asked him how he did the installation of the Hyper-V role. Then he told me that he had enabled the Hyper-V role while the servers were not joined to Active Directory….. Tadaaa that’s the reason why the service Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service was not available!!
To solve this you had to register the Service Principal Name for this service. To do so you had to open a Command Prompt or a PowerShell prompt and run the following commands:
- setspn -S "Microsoft Virtual System Migration Services\Servername" Servername
- setspn -S "Microsoft Virtual System Migration Services\Servername.fqdn" Servername
After running those commands you will see the ‘Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service” in the list of services that you can add for delegation using Kerberos.
Lesson learned: first join the Hyper-V server to Active Directory and after the server is joined you can enable the Hyper-V role.
5Nine Security Manager for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V part-2
Mar 3rd
My first plan was to write a two part blog article about 5Nine Security Manager. But because of some bugs in the firewall part of this solution I decide to split it up in three parts. In the first part I described a global overview and a look at the installation of 5Nine Security Manager for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. Now it’s time to take a look at the antivirus solution.
Anti-virus/ Anti-mallware
We will first take a look at the anti-virus/ anti-mallware part of the solution. It sounds great that you didn’t have to install an agent inside a virtual machine and that the Hypervisor wil take care of this. Enabling the antivirus option is very simple:
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Open the menu ‘Settings’ and select ‘Antivirus’. |
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You can select which VM’s you want to scan with 5Nine virusscanner. |
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The extension tab allows you to configure which file type extension must be scanned or exclude from scanningUnfortunately it is not possible to exclude filepaths and this is a feature that is needed in an enterprise antivirus solution.
5Nine let me know that in one of the following versions this feature still will be added! |
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And this is an interesting feature which I will explain a little bit more… |
Hyper-V Virtual Switch Extension Cisco Nexus 1000V
Mar 2nd
This week is an important day for Microsoft’s new Hyper-V Extensible Switch in Windows Server 2012. We already know this switch is capable of many new features including capturing, filtering and forwarding extensions from several vendors.
Damian Flynn (fellow author on Microsoft Private Cloud Computing and co-author of Windows Server 2012 Installation and Configuration Guide (appearing very soon!), informed me that major networking player Cisco is about to make a big announcement and that Damian will be co-presenting the announcement with Cisco.
On Wednesday March 6th at 6pm CET, Cisco will unveil its greatly anticipated Distributed Switch solution for Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V; the Nexus 1000V.
What is the Nexus 1000V?
Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches provide a comprehensive and extensible architectural platform for virtual machine (VM) and cloud networking. The switches are designed to accelerate server virtualization and multitenant cloud deployments in a secure and operationally transparent manner. Integrated into the Windows Server 2012 Extensible Switch, and fully compatible with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1,
Please blog, tweet, and pass on the message, to learn about the Nexus 1000v, and how to join the beta program; grabbing the all-important Beta Code!
For more information, and registration details please follow and share Damian’s link:
http://www.damianflynn.com/2013/03/01/cisco-nexus-1000v-public-beta-program/
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Dutch System Center User Group Event (April 18th, 2013)
Feb 28th
[UPDATE 28-2-2013] The Dutch System Center User Group Event has been rescheduled for April 18th, 2013. This is in the same week as the Dutch Hyper-v.nu Event. Two great event in one week and both for free, what more can you ask for.
On March the 5th the Dutch System Center User Group Event will take place. The event is hosted by HP in Amstelveen. The presentations are in Dutch and I also have the privilege of presenting a session.
In this session I will explain the new networking features of System Center VMM 2012 SP1 (VM Networks and the Logical Switch).
13.00 – 13.15 uur: Welcome
13.15 – 14.15 uur: DevOps with System Center 2012 SP1, an infrastructure perspective (Walter Eikenboom)
14.15 – 14.30 uur: Break
14.30 – 15.30 uur: Mobile Device Management via Cloud Intune and SCCM 2012 SP1 (Ronny de Jong)
15.30 – 15.45 uur: Break
15.45 – 16.45 uur: System Center versus Windows Azure en de Hybrid omgeving (James van den Berg)
16.45 – 17.00 uur: Break
17.00 – 18.00 uur: System Center VMM 2012 SP1 Networking Spaghetti (Marc van Eijk)
You can find more information on the SCUG site. If you like to attend you can register for free by sending an email to info@scug.nl.
SMB 3.0 and ODX both appear in EMC VNX mainstream release
Feb 27th
Today I received news that EMC has released its latest version of the VNX Operating System which covers NAS and Block functionality (VNX OE 32/8) and Maintenance Release 1 (MR1). If you are an EMC customer, this important release is now available for download:
For Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V customers this is especially very good news because VNX now supports SMB 3.0 and ODX (Offloaded Data Transfer), apart from some VAAI performance enhancements which are of course more interesting for the other guys. ODX is very similar to Block XCOPY in vSphere.
EMC is probably the first vendor offering SMB 3.0 support in its storage array. Several vendors are still working on adding SMB 3.0 and ODX support so this is important news for acceptance of Microsoft storage technology and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. NetApp SMB 3.0 support is targeted at ONTAP 8.2.
The software can be downloaded from PowerLink or http://support.emc.com.
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HP adds Windows Server 2012 Support for several HP ProLiant G6 Servers
Feb 27th
Just in time for a new project for a Dutch municipality, involving HP c7000, HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, HP released a new firmware ISO and a new HP ProLiant Service Pack. With version 2013.02.0 (19 Feb 2013) HP adds Windows Server 2012 support for the following HP ProLiant servers:
- HP ProLiant BL460c G6 Server .
- HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Server
- HP ProLiant DL360 G6 Server
- HP ProLiant ML350 G6 Server
Click on picture for link to PDF.
Additionally a number of new HP ProLiant network adapters are now supported:
HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 366FLR Adapter
HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560M Adapter
HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR SFP+ Adapter
HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 530T Adapter
Download HP ProLiant Service Pack 2013.02.0
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