Archive for the ‘ Virtualization ’ Category

Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud

If you’re even remotely interested in Microsoft technologies and private cloud deployments, you definitely shouldn’t miss today’s webcast:

Hear from other senior IT professionals about how cloud computing can help you gain maximum competitive advantage with minimal risk.

Learn about Microsoft cloud offerings, including private, public, and hybrid cloud models.

Experience Microsoft private cloud solutions through the Microsoft Technology Center.

The virtual event agenda is the following:

Private cloud discussion with Microsoft executives: Insights and news

  • Satya Nadella, President, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft
  • Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, Management and Security Division, Microsoft
  • 8:30AM PST | 16:30 UTC

Executive panel and Q&A: Guidance and best practices

  • Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, Management and Security Division, Microsoft
  • Jacky Wright, Vice President, IT Strategic Services, Microsoft IT
  • Rand Morimoto, Chief Executive Officer, Convergent Computing
  • 9:00AM PST | 17:00 UTC

Envisioning Your Private Cloud: A scenario based demonstration from the Microsoft Technology Center in Redmond, WA.

  • 9:30AM PST | 17:30 UTC

Once again, the registration link is here - enjoy! :)
2012
01/17
CATEGORY
Cloud
Events
Microsoft
Virtualization
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Hyper-V 3.0 and Windows 8

Now that the Build Conference is over and the buzz is starting to wear off, I’d like to wrap up the things I’m most excited about when it comes to Hyper-V 3.0 and Windows 8.

First off, the fact that we now have Hyper-V on the client version of the OS made me dump my old dual boot setup and install Windows 8 Client as the main OS on my laptop. I’m very satisfied with how it runs so far, so it’ll probably remain that way until the Beta/RC versions come out.

But even cooler are the new features added to Hyper-V 3.0 – and here I’m thinking of things like:

  • 160 LPs (logical processors) and up to 2TB of RAM support on the host
  • 32 vCPUs (virtual-CPUs) and 512 GB of RAM support inside guests
  • NUMA architecture support inside the guest
  • Multiple concurrent Live Migration tasks (along with Live Migration queuing support in Failover Clustering)
  • Live Migration without Failover Clustering
  • Live Migration with no shared storage
  • Hyper-V Replica (a feature which was announced a few months ago, Hyper-V Replica allows replicating a virtual machine to another Hyper-V host without the need for expensive storage hardware and replication software – it even works with local storage!; this brings in new Disaster Recovery scenarios which were very hard to achieve previously)
  • Support for NFS storage (using SMB 2.2)
  • Storage Live Migration without the need of a shared storage solution and a clustered setup
  • Online Snapshot merge (the root cause of many issues with Hyper-V in the past was that the snapshot merge could only be done while the virtual machine was offline, and it usually took a *very* long time)
  • VHDX format (the 2TB limit on VHDs is now raised to 16TB with VHDX)
  • Offloaded Date Transfer (ODX) – enables Hyper-V to take advantage of the storage features on backend storage systems, i.e. when performing file copies, an ODX-enabled SAN will handle the data transfer itself with zero to minimal CPU utilization
  • Dynamic Memory now allows you to specify a minimum memory value in addition to the startup and maximum values, as well as enables changes while the VM is running allowing you to increase the maximum or decrease the minimum memory
  • Fiber Channel support inside guests
  • Extensible Virtual Switch (the new virtual switch has a number of additional capabilities such as bandwidth shaping, while also being extensible and allowing a number of new features)
  • Virtual machine priority on Failover Clustering setups (allows VMs to be started according to their set priority in case of a cluster node failure)
  • Hyper-V now works fine with a wireless NIC as well (no more wireless connection sharing workarounds)
  • In-box Metering – support for tracking virtual machine utilization (CPU, memory, network and disk space), currently only available via PowerShell cmdlets and not exposed in the GUI (this is amazing if you want to add a billing component to your virtualized infrastructure setup, for instance)
  • Speaking of PowerShell, Hyper-V 3.0 now comes with a complete set of native PowerShell cmdlets – basically allowing you to script anything you can do via the UI
  • Support for backing up virtual machines in Windows Server Backup

Windows 8 itself brings a number of new features as well, some of which do contribute to the overall Hyper-V experience, such as NIC teaming (finally!) and the native ISO and VHD support (no need for 3rd party tools to mount ISOs anymore).

All in all, I’m extremely excited about all the changes in Hyper-V 3.0, and I can’t wait to start “spreading the news” in my upcoming events and workshops. ;)

If you want to test out Windows 8 (Server/Client), a Developer Preview version of the Windows 8 Client OS is available for free. In case you want to run it inside a virtual environment, this blog post should help you out. Also, as Ben Armstrong mentioned on his blog, while the Windows 8 Developer Preview does run under Hyper-V – there is a known problem with running the Windows 8 Developer Preview on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2.  If you are planning to do this you should have a look at this hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2526776

2011
09/30
CATEGORY
Free stuff
Microsoft
Virtualization
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Hyper-V on Windows 8 Client!

A recent post of Steven Sinovsky on the Building Windows 8 blog states that the client version of Windows 8 will support virtualization using Hyper-V. How cool is that?

In building Windows 8 we worked to enable Hyper-V, the machine virtualization technology that has been part of the last 2 releases of Windows Server, to function on the client OS as well. In brief, Hyper-V lets you run more than one 32-bit or 64-bit x86 operating system at the same time on the same computer. Instead of working directly with the computer’s hardware, the operating systems run inside of a virtual machine (VM).

Hyper-V enables developers to easily maintain multiple test environments and provides a simple mechanism to quickly switch between these environments without incurring additional hardware costs. For example, we release pre-configured virtual machines containing old versions of Internet Explorer to support web developers. The IT administrator gets the additional benefit of virtual machine parity and a common management experience across Hyper-V in Windows Server and Windows Client. We also know that many of you use virtualization to try out new things without risking changes to the PC you are actively using.

Below is a short overview on how Hyper-V works in Windows 8 (video taken from the Building Windows 8 blog entry):


Download this video to view it in your favorite media player:
High quality MP4 | Lower quality MP4

Also, as a nice perk, Ben Armstrong confirmed that Hyper-V under Windows 8 client will also support sleep/hibernate. This will finally allow me to use my laptop as a demo machine without having to use dual-boot (W7/W2008R2) for that.Yay!

As a reminder, you will still need to license any operating systems you use in the VMs. Head on to the full blog post for more details.

2011
09/08
CATEGORY
Microsoft
Virtualization
Windows
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SCVMM 2012 Beta is out

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 beta (evaluation) is now available for download. More info on what SCVMM 2012 brings in to the table:

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 delivers industry leading fabric managment, virtual machine management and services deployment in private cloud environments. Virtual Machine Manager 2012 offers key new features that include hypervisor creation and management, network management, storage management, private cloud creation, self-service usage and service creation. It features deep investments in server application virtualization, service design and service modeling all of which can be used to efficiently offer an on-premises private cloud.

  • Fabric Management
    • Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
    • Third Party Virtualization Platforms – Add and Manage Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters
    • Network Management – Manage IP Address Pools, MAC Address Pools and Load Balancers
    • Storage Management – Classify storage, Manage Storage Pools and LUNs
  • Resource Optimization
    • Dynamic Optimization – proactively balance the load of VMs across a cluster
    • Power Optimization – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed
    • PRO – integrate with System Center Operations Manager to respond to application-level performance monitors
  • Cloud Management
    • Abstract server, network and storage resources into private clouds
    • Delegate access to private clouds with control of capacity, capabilities and user quotas
    • Enable self-service usage for application administrator to author, deploy, manage and decommission applications in the private cloud
  • Service Lifecycle Management
    • Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, os images and applica tion packages
    • Compose operating system images and applications during service deployment
    • Scale out the number of virtual machines in a service
    • Service performance and health monitoring integrated with System Center Operations Manager
    • Decouple OS image and application updates through image-based servicing
    • Leverage powerful application virtualization technologies such as Server App-V

Again, download is available here (both as an installer and in VHD format).

2011
03/22
CATEGORY
Downloads
Free stuff
Microsoft
Virtualization
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New Hyper-V component architecture poster

An updated version of the Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Component Architecture poster, including the new SP1 features (Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX) has recently been published on Microsoft Downloads.

The new poster provides a visual reference for understanding key Hyper-V components and technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, focusing on architecture, snapshots, live migration, virtual networking, storage, RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory.

You can also refer to the previously published Windows Server 2008 Hyper-v Component Architecture, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 component posters.

2011
02/21
CATEGORY
Downloads
Microsoft
Virtualization
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Windows 7 / 2008R2 SP1 reaches RTM

An official announcement confirmed yesterday that the SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 has reached RTM. Quoting from the Windows Team blog:

On February 16th Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 will be available for MSDN and TechNet Subscribers as well as Volume License customers. On February 22nd, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 will become generally available for folks to download via the Microsoft Download Center and available on Windows Update.

I believe this is actually the first Service Pack that’s highly anticipated for the new features it brings, and not for the fixes. What features is that you ask? SP1 brings RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory to Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2 (and client-side support for those on Windows 7).

Dynamic Memory lets you increase virtual machine density with the resources you already have—without sacrificing performance or scalability, while RemoteFX is an exciting technology that lets you virtualize the Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) on the server side and deliver next-generation rich media and 3D user experiences for VDI. RemoteFX is also enabling new low cost ultra-thin client devices to enter the market.

More details on this in the Windows Server Division Weblog.

2011
02/11
CATEGORY
Virtualization
Windows
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Future Hosting conference 2010

I attended #FHC10 in Cluj this Friday as a guest speaker, with a talk on how to host your virtual private cloud (more info on FHC on the conference web page). The slides are below:

First of all, I’d like to thank the organizers (@wbfro and @lorandm) for this opportunity – it was an interesting day, with quite a few of the players in the local hosting industry attending the event. The conference ended with a very heated discussion panel, with @todipruteanu from Microsoft, @manac from Appnor, and @horiavasiliu from WebFactor.

All in all, the conference has definitely grown as compared to last year’s event, and my view is that it’s going the right way.

2010
10/24
CATEGORY
Events
Life
Microsoft
Virtualization
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