Advanced Microsoft Network Solutions

John Gilham
Principle Consultant
Gilham Consulting
www.Gilham.org/Blog

Advanced Microsoft Network Solutions

Microsoft Virtualization Suite

Hyper-V Key Points

Management Infrastructure

Hyper-V Architecture
Hardware Requirements
Processor Support
Memory Support
Storage Requirements
System Center

Hyper-V Architecture Guidance

Implementation and Deployment

SMB Customer Sample

Microsoft Sample
Enterprise Customer Sample

Virtualization Business
Requirements

Server Consolidation

Test and Dev

Business Continuity

Dynamic Datacenter

New 64Bit Architecture

New 64-bit micro-kernelized hypervisor architecture enables Hyper-V to provide a

broad array of device support methods and improved performance and security.
Broad OS Support
Broad support for simultaneously running different types of operating systems,
including 32-bit and 64-bit systems across different server platforms, such as Windows,
Linux (Suse/Redhat), and others
Multi-Processer Support
Ability to support up to four multiple processors in a virtual machine environment
enables you to take full advantage of multi-threaded applications in a virtual machine.
Network Load Balancing
Hyper-V includes new virtual switch capabilities. This means virtual machines can be
easily configured to run with Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service to
balance load across virtual machines on different servers.
Driver Sharing Architecture
With the new virtual service provider/virtual service client (VSP/VSC) architecture,
Hyper-V provides improved access and utilization of core resources, such as disk,
networking, and video.

Quick Migration
Hyper-V enables you to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from
one physical host system to another with minimal downtime, leveraging
familiar high-availability capabilities of Windows Server and System
Center management tools.
Virtual Machine Snapshots
Hyper-V provides the ability to take snapshots of a running virtual
machine so you can easily revert to a previous state, and improve the
overall backup and recoverability solution.
Scalability
With support for multiple processors and cores at the host level and
improved memory access within virtual machines, you can now vertically
scale your virtualization environment to support a large number of
virtual machines within a given host and continue to leverage quick
migration for scalability across multiple hosts.
Extensibility
Standards-based Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
interfaces and APIs in Hyper-V enable independent software vendors
and developers to quickly build custom tools, utilities, and enhancements
for the virtualization platform.

SAN

iScsi (Host or Guest Based)

iScsi SAN Failover Supported by Microsoft iScsi Target
FAC Fibre Channel
FAC SAN Failover- Requires SAN reconfiguration or NPIV
support, unless using a failover cluster

DAS
SATA
SCSI
IDE

NAS/UNC
Slower
Not Supported for Quick Migration or P2V in SC

VHD or Passthrough

VHD
VHD functions simply as a set of blocks, stored as a regular

file using the host OS file system (typically NTFS)

Maximum size of a VHD continues to be 2040 GB (8 GB short
of 2 TB)

Passthrough
This raw disk,, can be a physical HD on the host or a logical

unit on a SAN. This is referred to as LUN passthrough, if the

disk being exposed to the guest is a LUN on a SAN from the
host perspective.
With passthrough disks you will lose some nice, VHDrelated features, like VHD snapshots, dynamically
expanding VHDs and differencing VHDs.

IDE
Required for boot partition
Same performance as SCSI w/Integration Components
Limited to 4 Drives

SCSI
Requires integration components
256 virtual SCSI disks on the guest (4 controllers

with 64 disks each)

VHD Type

Features

Use Instructions

Guest receives pass-through access to the

physical device for exclusive use. Highest
performance; least flexible.
Creates a dedicated file the size of the VHD
that doesn't change regardless of
content. High performance; less efficient.

Used for production servers when

performance is top priority. These drives are
not available to other guests.
Used for production servers where
performance is important.

DYNAMIC SIZE

File size starts as zero, grows only as data is

added, allocated in blocks. File size is limited
by the specified size. Slower performance,
and subject to fragmentation.

Used for test and development when disk

space is uncertain or limited. Dynamic drives
only reserve physical drive space as the need
grows. However, they must be manually
shrunk (offline).

DIFFERENCING

Records only the changes that differentiate a

VHD from its parent file. Allows for flexible
versioning and fast reversion to parent
image. Always configured as dynamic, so
performance is slower.

Used for test and development scenarios

where branching is a high priority and
performance is less important. Parent drives
should be located on separate spindles from
the differencing drives for best performance.

UNDO

Provides quick "back to original state" imaging Undo drives are only to be used for testing
solution. Similar to differencing, but doesnt purposes. They should not be turned on in
require parent-child relationship.
production.

DEDICATED
(Passthrough)
FIXED SIZE

x64 w/ hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel

VT or AMD-V)
Data Execution Prevention in BIOS
Hardware Virtualization Enabled in BIOS

32-bit (x86) operating systems

64-bit (x64) operating systems
Both 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines can run
concurrently.

Windows Server 2008 64-bit 4

Windows Server 2003 32-bit - 2
Windows Server 2008 32-bit - 4
Windows Server 2003 64-bit - 1
Windows Vista SP1 32-bit / 64bit - 1
Windows XP SP3 32-bit / 64bit -1
Windows 2000 32bit - 1
SUSE/RedHat LINUX 1
Misc - 1

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise/Datacenter

Editions

Up to 1 TB of physical memory
Up to 64 GB of memory per virtual machine

Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition

Up to 32 GB of physical memory
Approximately ~31.5 GB total used for all running
virtual machines

Physical Processor support: Hyper-V is supported

on systems with up to 16 logical processors; A
logical processor can be a core or a hyper-thread.
Examples include:

Single processor/Dual core system = 2 logical processors

Single processor/Quad core system = 4 logical processors
Dual processor/Dual core system= 4 logical processors
Dual processor/Quad core system=8 logical processors
Quad processor/Dual core system= 8 logical processors
Quad processor/Dual core, hyper-threaded systems=16
logical processors
Quad processor/Quad core systems=16 logical
processors

12 network adapters per virtual machine

8 synthetic network adapters (VMBus)

4 emulated network adapters

Each virtual network adapter can use either a

static or dynamic MAC address
Each virtual network adapter offers integrated
VLAN support and can be assigned a unique
VLAN channel
Unlimited number of virtual switches with an
unlimited number of virtual machines per
switch

Health Monitoring

Management and Provisioning

Host, Guest, and Application

Data Backup / Recovery

System Center Operations Manager

Host, Guest and Application layers

Host and Guest

Guest and Image Maintenance

Software Updates

Server health monitoring & management

Performance reporting and analysis

Server consolidation via virtual migration

VM provisioning and configuration

Patch management & software upgrades

Virtual machine backup and recovery

Disaster recovery

Typical of any virtualization project

Key virtualization candidates:

Legacy (older) hardware

Infrastructure servers

Domain Controllers
DNS/DHCP, File

Testing and Development

Workgroup/Departmental Systems
Distributed/Branch Locations
Business Continuity env.

Use the MAP Microsoft Assessment and

Planning Tool for Concrete Data

Microsoft Assessment and Planning

Make deployment easier

Understand what customers have

Identify Microsoft products and technologies

Deliver environment specific

and actionable proposals

Windows
Server
2008
Other
Products

Virtual
Server
2005 R2

Scalable agent-less inventory of servers,

workstations, devices and software
Provide a single platform for
Microsoft product and technology
statement

System
Center
VMM

Terminal
Services

Hyper-V

MAP

Microsoft
Application
Virtualization

Windows
Vista

2007
Microsoft
Office

SMB Customer Sample

Microsoft Real World Example
Enterprise Customer Sample

Migrating Physical Servers to Virtual (Guests)

Library
Server

Workload
Simulation

Server A

Server B
SAN

Key Facts
Microsoft kept the back-end database on physical boxes, but moved 100%
of its IIS7 frond-ends on Hyper-V RC0 VMs with 4 virtual CPUs and 10GB
RAM.
The virtualization hosts (no mention of the brand obviously) are powered by
2 Intel quad-core CPUs and 32GB RAM (2GB are reserved for the Windows
Server 2008 parent partition).
Results
Hyper-V CPU overhead (as measured by the parent partition utilization) was
5% to 6% with linear progression as the number of requests increased.
CPU oversubscription (three four-processor VMs on an eight-processor
physical server) resulted in 3% lower overall performance per physical server
based on overall requests per second per 1 percent CPU.
Requests per second per 1% CPU performance of MSDN over the previous
physical server platform improved. This demonstrates to us the viability of
efficient consolidation from dedicated older physical servers to shared
virtualized platforms.
Physical MSDN handled 21% more requests per second per 1% CPU than
virtualized MSDN.

Library
Server

Administrator
Console

Site A

Site B
SAN
Storage

Geo-Cluster

SAN
Storage

Clustered
Hyper-V
Hosts

Hyper-V
Hosts

HW considerations

Scale Up or Scale Out

Multi-core/Multi-proc servers
Blade Systems

VM Density: Guests per server

Network and Storage requirements

Utilization, I/O
Shared Storage: SANs, iSCSI, others
Network and Storage allocation

Host OS Provisioning

Tools/methods
Server Core

Host Standards
Security guidance
Storage considerations

Passthrough Disk
Virtual Hard Drive types

Guest Provisioning

Guest Standards

Storage considerations
Passthrough Disk

Access Methods

Templates, Image Library

Role Based Permission

Backup Strategy

TBE
Phase II
106 servers

Servers out of scope

87 servers
Applications / Services at end of life
20 servers

Branch Servers to be centralized

50 servers
Windows Servers to be consolidated
309 servers (222 NA and 87 Europe)
Server Population (~ 570 servers)

Expected
TRANSITION
FROM
CURRENT
18 Month
ARCHITECTURE
TO
SHARED
Growth
ENVIRONMENT 11 5 3

11 Servers!
TRANSITION FROM CURRENT ARCHITECTURE TO SHARED ENVIRONMENT 11 5

Architecting a Virtualization Utility

Have a Service Oriented Mindset
Plan for Growth
Consider the importance of Storage
Tiered Services

Microsoft Virtualization

Web: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization

System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Email: scvmm@microsoft.com
Web: http://www.microsoft.com/scvmm

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

Web:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/virtualization/default.mspx

Microsoft Application Virtualization

Email: softinfo@microsoft.com
Web: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/default.mspx

Terminal Services
Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/ts
Web: www.microsoft.com/terminalserver

Virtual PC 2007

Web: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc