Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V SP1 Component Architecture Poster

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

To download the poster click on the picture
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System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta Evaluation

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.

Feature Summary

  • 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

System Requirements

  • Supported Operating Systems:Windows 7 Enterprise;Windows 7 Professional;Windows 7 Ultimate;Windows Server 2008 R2;Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter;Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
    • Windows Server 2008 R2 (full installation) Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter x64
    • Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate x32, x64
    • Windows Remote Management (WinRM) 2.0
    • Windows PowerShell 2.0
    • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    • Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7
    • SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
    • Windows Deployment Services (WDS) – (Version on Windows Server 2008 R2)
    • Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 SP2 64bit

Download System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta Evaluation HERE

SCVMM RDS Connection Broker plugin released

SCVMM RDV plug-in enables dynamic placement of VDI VMs for both personal and pooled VMs. The key benefit of using this plug-in is that it reduces the number of Hyper-V servers required since VMs are placed on demand rather than statically placed.  Dynamic placement is achieved by integrating SCVMM 2008 R2 with the RDS Connection Broker in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Dynamic Placement for Personal VM is available in Windows Server 2008 R2. Pooled VM requires Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.

Figure below shows the integration:

The bits and content are available at: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=195952

For those of you that don’t understand how this works Ill write a little process workflow so you understand.

1. The VDI client tries to connect to the last VM it was using via the Connection Broker.

2. The Broker, knowing where it was in the cluster, in communication with SCVMM, tries to wake the VM from a save state

3. Problem is that the server its trying to start the VM on is already at capacity and it cant start there

4. SCVMM gets involved as part of this and moves the VM to another node in the cluster based on its dynamic placement algorithm, via a SAN move

5. The Connection Broker is then told which host the VM is now on and running

6. The user connects to the VM

Nice huh Winking smile

Microsoft Desktop Virtualization is going to be a real competitor against VMware View

HyperV Monitor 1.8 Released

HyperV_Mon screen shot

HyperV_Mon is my free tool for monitoring and diagnosing performance issues with Hyper-V.

After prompting from a user with a lot more processors then the test systems here, I updated the HyperV_Mon tool to handle resizing in general, and to adjust the root partition processor display.  This new version is a minor release (1.8.0).

In the works will be a version 2.0 that will look at 2008 R2 with SP1 changes.  This should come out in Q1 of next year.

Download it HERE

VMMUpdate Script to Check if all Hyper-V hosts & SCVMM Server are Up to Date

Jonathan has created a nice script. This script checks witch updates are missing from Hyper-V hosts and SCVMM Server.

What updates?

Updates are regularly released for SCVMM Server, Hosts, and the Admin Console. These updates must be applied to all Hosts no matter how many you have. Updates are also released for technologies SCVMM leverages:

  • Windows
  • Hyper-V
  • Failover Cluster

As well as components SCVMM cannot function without:

  • WinRM
  • BITS
  • WMI
  • VDS
  • VSS

The difficulty is in making sure all systems are fully updated. This is a time-consuming task.

WSUS takes care of this for me…

Not necessarily. There are certain Hotfixes that need to be downloaded manually, but for the most part Windows Update is the key. WSUS is Microsoft’s solution to distributing Windows Updates within an enterprise, and this pulls from Windows Update as well. Unfortunately, rules in WSUS are sometimes set up such that all updates required do not find their way to SCVMM systems. So, there are layers of complexity in keeping systems up to date.

Prevent problems with VMMUpdate

With this script you now or that your Hyper-V hosts & SCVMM Server are up to date.

To download the latest follow the link HERE

vmmupdate

Defrag your Virtual Machines (VMs’)

Just like any other operating system, over time, a disk will become fragmented. Virtual machines are no different. The time that it takes for a disk to become fragmented depends on what data is being added to and removed from the virtual machine hard drive.

Why use MyDefrag instead of the standard Windows defragger?

  • Much faster.
  • Totally automatic, extremely easy to use.
  • Optimized for daily use.
  • Disk optimization, several strategies.
  • Directories are placed together.
  • Reclaims NTFS reserved areas after disk-full.
  • Maintains free spaces for temporary files.
  • Can defragment very full harddisks.
  • Can defragment very large files.
  • Can defragment individual directories and files.
  • Can be run automatically with the Windows Scheduler.
  • Can be used from the commandline.
  • Can be used as a screen saver.
  • Can be run from cdrom or memory stick.
  • Script language, can be customized.
  • Better voor VCB, VDR, DPM & Snapshots.

When you run MyDeFrag.exe with /verysilent it detect automatically the OS and then install x86 or x64 version from MyDefrag. It’s always installed at c:\program files. You can deploy it with MDT 2010 automatically when installing the OS. Or run it from a network share.

You can use Group Policy Preferences to schedule it. 
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