The HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 is an automated, downloadable tool that provides quick and helpful sizing guidance for “best-fit” HP server and storage configurations running in a Hyper-V R2 environment. The tool is intended to assist with the planning of a Hyper-V R2 virtual server deployment project. It enables the user to quickly compare different solution configurations and produces a customizable server and storage solution complete with a detail Bill of Materials (BOM) that includes part numbers and prices.

The HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 allows users to create new solutions, open already existing solutions, or use other types of performance data collecting tools, such as the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool (MAP), to build rich Hyper-V R2 configurations based on HP server and storage technology. The tool allows rapid comparison of Hyper-V R2 characterizations using various HP server and storage choices.

HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2: http://g3w1656g-vip.houston.hp.com/sb/installs/Hyper-VR2_Sizer.zip  

One stop Hyper-V Technical Information and Resources page released. 

For all your information about Hyper-V visit the website below. Information regarding the following  subjects can be found there:

• Plan
• Install
• Best Practices
• Deployment
• Pre-Deployment Tools
• Management
• Performance
• Workload Specific Guidance

Microsoft now has one page that lists these resources http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565807.aspx

Physical overview of the hardware:

The Windows Server Migration team’s been cooking…no, not cranberry sauce and stuffing, but a new Windows Server Migration Utilities download package that lets you use the Windows Server Migration Tools to migrate Hyper-V and Routing and Remote Access Services (RRAS). Brand-spankin’-new beta migration guides are available for both Hyper-V and RRAS, with detailed, step-by-step guidance about how to use the Windows Server Migration Tools (after the Utilities package is installed, of course) to migrate to servers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2.

Still not feeling the love? We’ve got new beta migration guides for Health Registration Authority (HRA), Network Policy Server (NPS), and Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 (WSUS). HRA, NPS, and WSUS don’t even require the Windows Server Migration Tools; you can migrate from prep to production, just by following the guides.

Download tools: https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=468&DownloadID=15664

Supported role configurations and settings

This section identifies the configurations and settings that can be migrated by using the migration tools, and the configurations and settings that must be migrated manually. The following table provides a summary:

The following configurations and settings can be migrated automatically:

• Most virtual machine configurations. Virtual machines and their data are moved as part of the migration, but some configurations require manual intervention, as described below.
• Hyper-V settings. These include the system-wide settings and the authorization store.
• Internal and private virtual networks.
• Virtual network adapter settings in the management operating system. When Hyper-V is configured to use a physical network adapter as a bridge that virtual machines can use to access a physical network, a virtual network adapter is created in the management operating system (which runs the Hyper-V role). For this virtual network adapter, the migration process automatically migrates the IP settings, bindings, and MAC address of this virtual network adapter. However, the connection between the virtual network adapter and the physical network adapter must be re-established manually, as described in the migration steps.
• Virtual machine queue (VMQ) and chimney settings for networking.

The following configurations and settings require manual intervention after the migration tools are used:

• Firewall settings. Firewall settings are recreated on the destination server using the default values that Hyper-V is installed with. If you have modified any of the firewall settings from these default values, you will need to make the same modifications on the destination server.
• External virtual networks. The migration tool recreates the virtual networks on the destination server, but recreates external virtual networks as internal virtual networks. You will need to modify each of these networks to connect it to the appropriate physical network adapter on the destination server, as described in the migration steps.
• VFD and ISO files. These files are not migrated because they are not required for the virtual machine to operate and are not supported by the Import and Export cmdlets. To make them available to a migrated virtual machine, manually copy these files to the destination server and then reattach them to the virtual machine after it is migrated.
• Connections to physical disks directly attached to virtual machines. These connections are not migrated because the disk references might not be valid on the destination server. To make a physical disk available to a migrated virtual machine, connect the disk to the destination server and then to the virtual machine after it is migrated, as described in the migration steps.
• Customized remote administration settings. If you have customized Hyper-V for remote access, you will need to perform some additional procedures to recreate the DCOM and WMI Namespace settings. The migration steps identify the point at which you should take perform these procedures, as well as provide a recommended tool or script to complete the procedure.

Migrating Multiple Roles

The Hyper-V role is not dependent on any other roles. As a best practice, we recommend that no other roles are installed on a server running Hyper-V.

Migration scenarios that are not supported

The following migration scenarios are not supported:

• The saved state of a virtual machine under one of the following conditions:
  • When moving from Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2.
  • When moving between physical computers that have different processor steppings or vendors—for example, migrating from a computer with an Intel processor to a computer with an AMD processor.
• Virtual machine configuration under one of the following conditions:
  • When the number of virtual processors configured for the virtual machine is more than the number of logical processors on the destination server.
  • When the memory configured for a virtual machine is greater than the available memory on the destination server.
• Consolidation of physical servers to virtual machines, or consolidating multiple instances of Hyper-V to one instance.

The Windows Server Migration team is collecting feedback about the beta guides and the Utilities download package through the end of 2009. You can use the following methods to speak your mind about Migration Guides and the Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities Beta package. Share your migration experiences; they’re critical to the quality of the Migration Guides, Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities, and the whole Migration solution for WS08 R2!

• Take the Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities Beta Survey. Nothing goes better with a cup of coffee.
• Got an earful about how to improve Migration guides or utilities? Reply to the Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities release announcement on the Windows Server Migration forum.
• Found a bug in our migration guides? Send e-mail to smcpe at Microsoft.com. Include a description of your migration scenario (especially the operating systems that are running on your source and destination servers), and any workarounds that you used to resolve the problem. Unless the problem defied workarounds, of course; in that case, you can just send us a hard luck story and/or flame mail, we still want to hear from you.
• Found a bug in the tools? Send e-mail to smcpe at Microsoft.com. Include a description of your migration scenario (especially the operating systems that are running on your source and destination servers), the steps to reproduce the bug, and the following logs:
  • %windir%\Logs\SmigDeploy.log
  • %windir%\Logs\ServerMigration.log
  • On Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2: %localappdata%\SvrMig\Log
  • On Windows Server 2003: %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\SvrMig\Log

 Visit the Windows Server Migration Portal on TechCenter to see the complete collection of Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Guides, and a truckload of other migration resources, too.

Hyper-V Podcasts.

Thanks to Tony Soper:  http://blogs.technet.com/tonyso/archive/2009/05/19/hyper-v-how-to-roll-your-own-virtualization-mixtape.aspx

• Virtualization in a Nutshell01:07:19
• Hyper-Green Virtualization: Scaling Enterprise IT for Energy Efficiency58
• Understanding the Microsoft Server Virtualization Portfolio, Including Hyper-V01:04:27
• TechNet Radio: Green IT (Part 2 of 2): Virtualization45:50
• The Virtues of Virtualization00:50:05
• A 360 View Inside the Virtual World01:21:12
• Why Virtualization Is More Than Server Virtualization01:00:30
• Virtualization and Windows Server 200801:45:28
• Windows Server Virtualization Under the Hood00:57:45
• Examining Virtualization with Windows Server 200801:08:34
• Spotlight on Cost: Reducing Operational Costs in Your Data Center60
• Spotlight on Cost: How to Control Costs in Your Branch Infrastructure56
• Lower Total Cost of Ownership with Virtualization on Windows Server 200345:45
• Overview and Road Map of the Microsoft Virtualization Strategy 01:23:26
• Virtualization Capabilities of Windows Server 200857:55
• Platform Solution Blueprints: Virtualization and Infrastructure Management57:56
• TechNet Radio: How Microsoft Does IT: The Future of Server Virtualization23:36
• How Microsoft Designs the Virtualization Host and Network Infrastructure1:30:05
• Introduction to Microsoft Core Infrastructure Optimization Model and Virtualization50:10
• How Microsoft Does IT: Best Practices for Deploying Virtual Machines using Hyper-V Virtualization Technology77
• Using Virtual Machine Manager and Windows PowerShell to Deploy HP Windows Server 2008 Academy Labs01:24:53
• TechNet Radio: Get Ready for Microsoft Virtualization Technologies with the Assessment and Planning Solution31:31
• TechNet Radio: Michael Murphy and Kevin Remde interview Jeff Woolsey on exciting new features of Windows Server virtualization.26:48
• Windows Server 2008 Product Workload Scenarios01:35:22
• Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 1 of 8): Product Workload Scenarios01:23:43
• Best Practices for Sizing Server Workloads with Microsoft Hyper-V and Intel Xeon Processor Families01:20:22
• Virtualizing Test and Development Environments for a Quick Return on Investment00:59:40
• Assess Your Server IT Infrastructure for Windows Server 2008 Migration and Virtualization00:58:00
• Selecting the Right Virtualization Technology: Planning for Hyper-V and Terminal Services01:15:19
• How to Implement Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Intel Virtualization Technology01:17:31
• If I Virtualize It, How Do I Manage It?01:30:37
• TechNet Radio: Managing Virtualization with Virtual Machine Manager 200732:26
• The New Server Core Installation Option in Windows Server 200801:26:05
• Running a Minimal Windows Server 2008 Environment with Server Core01:13:29
• Hardening Windows Server 2008 Deployments with the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide01:02:35
• HP Virtualization with Microsoft Hyper-V01:05:27
• Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 7 of 8): Windows PowerShell and Manageability Improvements01:50:36
• How Microsoft does IT: Management and Operations in Windows Server 200800:57:32
• IT Manager Community Talk with Kevin – Virtualization35
• TechNet Radio: Managing a Virtualized Environment today and in the future00:27:13
• Managing a Virtual Solution with System Center01:16:57
• Managing the Virtualized Test and Development Environment00:52:58
• Windows PowerShell in Windows Server 200801:16:29
• Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager44:56
• Protect Your Windows Virtual Environment with System Center Data Protection Manager 01:05:55
• How Microsoft Does IT: Enhancing High Availability with Server Core in Windows Server 200800:59:42
• High Availability with Hyper-V01:09:26
• High Availability Basics with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V23
• Innovating High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes70
• Build High-Availability Infrastructures with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering00:57:30
• Introduction to Failover Clustering60
• Failover Clustering 10101:10:35
• Failover Cluster Validation and Troubleshooting with Windows Server 200801:16:59
• Delivering High Availability to Your Infrastructure00:51:39
• Failover Clustering Feature Road Map for Windows Server 2008 R264
• Storage Best Practices for Virtual Server00:54:23
• Virtual Server 2005 and HP: Better Together00:48:38

Hyper-V 2008 R2: News  from the front.

64 logical processor support. This is a 4x improvement over Hyper-V R1 and means that Hyper-V can take advantage of larger scale-up systems with greater amount of compute resources. As our friends at AMD and Intel drive up core counts, we want you to know that Hyper-V is ready to take advantage of the compute resources in your server today and those you’re buying tomorrow.

Support for up to 384 Concurrently Running Virtual Machines & 512 Virtual Processors PER SERVER. (No, that’s not a typo.) Going hand in hand with our support for 64 logical processors, we’re upping the maximum number of concurrently running virtual machines to 384 per server and the maximum number of virtual processors to 512 for the highest virtual machine density on the market. Here are a few examples. You could run:

• 1. 384 single virtual processor vms OR
• 2. 256 dual virtual processor vms (512 Virtual Processors) OR
• 3. 128 quad virtual processor vms (512 Virtual Processors) OR
• 4. any combination so long as you’re running up to 384 VMs and up to 512 Virtual Processors

Live Migration & Processors.

With the addition of Live Migration in Hyper-V R2, one of the immediate questions we’re asked is: “Do the physical processors have to be exactly the same?”

Scenario 1: Suppose you bought three servers for live migration and created a three node cluster. Everything’s working well and a 6-12 months down the road you want to add another couple of nodes to increase the compute resources in your cluster. In the meantime, your OEM has upgraded their server hardware line with new processors, now what do you do?

Scenario 2: You work in a small/medium business or K-12 education and you need to squeeze every nickel you can out of your budget. You want to use virtualization and would love to use Live Migration, but you have a mix of different servers ranging from Pentium 4, Core 2 and maybe next year you’ll get budget to purchase a new Core i7 server.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could Live Migrate virtual machines across different processor generations?

We think so too.

Introducing: Processor Compatibility

With Hyper-V R2, we include a new Processor Compatibility feature. Processor compatibility allows you to move a virtual machine up and down multiple processor generations from the same vendor. Here’s how it works.

When a Virtual Machine (VM) is started on a host, the hypervisor exposes the set of supported processor features available on the underlying hardware to the VM. This set of processor features are called guest visible processor features and are available to the VM until the VM is restarted.

When a VM is started with processor compatibility mode enabled, Hyper-V normalizes the processor feature set and only exposes guest visible processor features that are available on all Hyper-V enabled processors of the same processor architecture, i.e. AMD or Intel.  This allows the VM to be migrated to any hardware platform of the same processor architecture. Processor features are “hidden” by the hypervisor by intercepting a VM’s CPUID instruction and clearing the returned bits corresponding to the hidden features.

Just so we’re clear: this still means AMD<->AMD and Intel<->Intel. It does not mean you can Live Migrate between different processor vendors AMD<->Intel or vice versa.

In addition, you may be aware that both AMD and Intel have provided similar capabilities in hardware, Extended Migration and Flex Migration respectively. Extended and Flex Migration are cool technologies available on relatively recent processors, but this is a case where providing the solution in software allows us to be more flexible and provide this capability to older systems too. Processor Compatibility also makes it easier to upgrade to the newest server hardware. In addition, Hyper-V Processor Compatibility can be done on a per VM basis (it’s a checkbox) and doesn’t require any BIOS changes.

Processor Compatibility In Action

Here’s an example of a cluster we’ve been testing. This is a 4 node cluster using 4 generations of Intel Processors with VT all attached to a small iSCSI SAN over 1 Gb/E. We have a script that continuously Live Migrates VMs from one node to the next every 15 seconds. We’ve been running this test for about a week and have successfully completed over 110,000 Live Migrations.

Time To Get Uber-Geeky

Now that I’ve explained what processor compatibility mode does and the flexibility provides, I’m guessing there are a few propeller heads who want to go further and know exactly what a “normalized processor” means from a processor feature standpoint. Happy to oblige. When a VM in processor compatibility mode is started, the following processor features are hidden from the VM:

FAQ

Q: What happens if a vendor has written an application that uses one of these features that isn’t visible with processor compatibility enabled?

A: Since the feature isn’t exposed to the virtual machine, the application won’t “see it” and it’s up to the application to determine how to proceed; however, there are two likely paths.

Path 1: The application will check to see if a specific processor feature is available and use it if it’s available. If the processor features isn’t available, it will use a different code path. Remember that applications that make use of these advanced processor features are generally written in a flexible fashion to accommodate the servers in market today and there are still thousands of older Xeons and Opterons on the market that don’t have some of the latest processor features.

Path 2: The application requires a specific processor feature and refuses to launch. At this point in time, we haven’t found any application that fall into this category. It’s possible they exist, but we haven’t hit one yet. Since we can’t test every application out there, processor compatibility is defaulted off. (We’re conservative by nature.).

BTW, if there were issues with Hyper-V Processor Compatibility, you’d also see it with other virtualization products which rely on underlying hardware capabilities to mitigate this problem as well.

Q: Does processor compatibility have a hardware requirement? Does it require Intel Flex Migration or AMD Extended Migration?

A: Hyper-V processor compatibility mode has no dependencies on these technologies.

Q: Does Hyper-V processor compatibility allow you to migrate a VM from an AMD host to an Intel host and vice versa?

A: No. Processor compatibility allows you to move a virtual machine up and down multiple processor generations from the same vendor. It does not allow migrating a VM (with or without processor compatibility mode) from AMD based hosts to Intel based hosts, and vice versa.

Read the full story: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/05/12/tech-ed-windows-server-2008-r2-hyper-v-news.aspx

Microsoft App-V

This online course provides IT Professionals the knowledge to implement and manage Microsoft Application Virtualization. Topics covered in the clinic include:

• Features and functionalities of Application Virtualization
• Deployment and maintenance of Application Virtualization
• Management of Application Virtualization by using the Application Virtualization Management console

 
Exploring Microsoft Application Virtualization

SCVMM 2008

This online course provides IT Professionals the knowledge to implement and manage Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Topics covered in the clinic include:

• Features and functionalities of VMM
• Implementation and management of VMM
• Management of VMM library
• Management of hosts by using VMM
• Implementation of virtual machine Self-Services

Exploring Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
 
Terminal Services in Server 2008

This online course provides IT Professionals the knowledge to implement and manage Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008. Topics covered in the clinic include:

• Implementation of Terminal Services
• Working with Terminal Services RemoteApp, Terminal Services Web Access, Terminal Services Gateway, Terminal Services Session Broker, and Terminal Services Licensing

 
Exploring Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Hyper-V

This 2-hour online course provides IT Professionals the knowledge to implement and manage Hyper-V in an IT environment. Topics covered in the course include:

• Features of Hyper-V
• Features of server consolidation
• Hyper-V implementation
• Creation of virtual machines
• Dynamic datacenters
• Clustering in virtual environments

 
Introducing Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008

If you want to now the architectural differences between Hyper-V and ESX then the following article is a must read. Greg Shields made good overview of both products from an architectural point of view.

Check out the article: http://www.realtime-windowsserver.com/virtualization/2009/04/how_to_correctly_explain_the_a_1.htm

Today I was doing some testing on my home datacenter. I’m installing the first public release of Server 2008 R2 (build 7000). I was running on all my hosts Windows Server 2008, until now. 

My configuration is standardized on:

• 1x Q6600 CPU,
• Intel P45 Express chipset with the ICH10R Sata controller (http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Chipsets/P45/P45-overview.htm )
• 8Gb of RAM,
• 2 SATA drives in RAID 1 for the OS install and some other data. (semi Hostraid within ICH10R utility)
• 1 SATA drive for Local VMs. (using ISCSI for SAN connection to test Live migration)

Everything ran ok after the default OS install, but when I enabled the Hyper-V role and did a reboot something happened within my Raid configuration and gave me an “initialize status” when booting. Something was happening downtown. This doesn’t felt good.

The second time I started from scratch I also did an install of the chipset drivers or the Intel Storage manager within the Server 2008 R2 OS. Maybe this could help. No luck either. The reason I did this because I saw the “sm bus controller” missing in the device manager.

Luckily the company I work for has the ability to test some newer builds. After installing the new build (yes that is 3 times in a row) everything went very smooth and the installation was extremely fast.

The first build has no problems with the ICH9R and Intel P35 systems. A colleague of mine runs on this configuration @ home in his datacenter.

Case closed for now.

To be able use VSS based backups of Hyper-V VMs using Windows Server Backup, we need to add the following registry keys to register the Hyper-V VSS Writer with Windows Server Backup. WindowsServerBackup key is not created when we install the Windows Server Backup feature. We have to create this key manually.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\Application Support\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}

When the keys listed above created, we also need to create a String Value with the following parameters / settings:

Name: Application Identifier
Type: REG_SZ
Value: Hyper-V

When backing up virtual machines, we must select all volumes where VM related files is present, because Windows Server Backup only supports volume based backups.

For more information about Hyper-V virtual machine backups, take a look on the KB958662.