Check out this web page:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565807.aspx
You’ll find plenty of useful links about Hyper-V, including :
A bit of an Israeli pride..
Core Configurator 2.0 is now available to download from: http://coreconfig.codeplex.com/
If you are unfamiliar with this tool – it is a graphical tool that allows you to configure a whole bunch of system settings on a Windows Server Core installation:
Core Configuration tasks include:
I’ve summarized several notes about Hyper-V and VMM. It may be useful for you to take it into account when planning or handling Hyper-V platforms.
1. Enabling NLB on a VM
Follow this procedure in case you need to enable NLB on a VM running under Hyper-V 2008. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953828
Note that when your VM is running under Hyper-V 2008 R2, you will no longer need to specify a certain MAC. You will only need to check the option to “Enable MAC spoofing”.
Follow this link for detailed steps: http://robwhitehouse.com/virtualisation/enable-nlb-in-a-hyper-v-guest/
2. Max CPUs per VM
This Technet article shows the max number of allowed CPUs per VMs : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794868(WS.10).aspx
3. Disk alignment
Set the disk alignment on two levels:
i. 2008 R2 allows you to mount a VHD to the host (without booting it to a VM). This allows you to create / change / align partitions from the host itself, before creating the VM.
ii. Aligning the VHD is only relevant for fixed virtual disks. Alignment of Incremental or dynamic disks won’t last, due to the nature of the file.
4. IDE / SCSI
Your boot disk has to be connected to an IDE controller on the VM (SCSI controller is a synthetic device http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.10.hyperv.aspx?pr=blog ). Connect all Other drives to a SCSI controller for better performance.controller.
5. Pass Through Disks
For best application disk performance, use Pass-Through disks. Pass-Through disks will give the VM direct access to a physical drive. For more information on this feature: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768521(BTS.10).aspx
6. Moving VMs from 2008 to 2008 R2
After moving VMs from a Server 2008 to Server 2008 R2 be sure to install the integration services again.
7. General Host / VM Performance
Follow this link for explanation about measuring basic Memory / CPU / Disk performance: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.08.pulse.aspx?pr=blog . Pay special attention to the disk monitoring. It is very likely that you’ve placed several disk intensive VMs on the same LUN.
8. Disconnect ISO files
When working on a Hyper-V cluster, make sure that you disconnect any ISO file from a VM when you’re done using it. Otherwise, when moving or live migrating your VM, it may fail because it wouldn’t find the ISO to connect to on the other node.
9. What’s new in VMM 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/whats-new-r2.aspx
10. Disk size planning
When planning the size of the disk holding the VM’s VHDs, make sure that you have enough free space to save also the VM’s snapshots and entire memory. When Saving / Moving or Live Migrating the VM, the VM’s entire memory content is saved to disk.
When trying to Live Migrate a virtual machine, the process might fail and inform you that your virtual machine is not compatible with the target node.
If you try to Move (instead of Live Migrate) the virtual machine to another node, the process will again fail and you the following event will be logged:
Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering
Event ID: 1205
The Cluster service failed to bring clustered service or application ‘xxxxx’ completely online or offline. One or more resources may be in a failed state. This may impact the availability of the clustered service or application.
This situation is indeed caused, as the error indicated, by different processor capabilities. Check the exact processor version of your Nodes. You can use msinfo32 to get a detailed view. Here’s, for example, the types of CPUs I see:
Node1
Node2
![clip_image001[5]](http://www.dario.co.il/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/clip_image0015.jpg "clip_image001[5]"){kind=small}
What happens is that when the virtual machine starts, the hypervisor exposes certain CPU capabilities to the virtual machine. When Live Migrating or Moving the VM to a different host, the VM isn’t aware of the hardware change, tries to use capabilities that it’s new CPU doesn’t support, and fails to start.
Luckily, the solution is simple. Open the VM’s settings, and under the CPU settings check the option named “Migrate to a physical computer with a different processor version".
Note that the VM has to be off in order for you to check this option.
When checking this option, the hypervisor is only exposing the VM to the features of the processor that are available on all versions of a virtualization-capable processor by the same processor manufacturer. Note that this option doesn’t allow you to migrate between AMD and Intel CPUs. Check this Microsoft Technet article for further details: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446679(WS.10).aspx
It is important to read between the lines in this case. Although you will be able to migrate without errors, your VM does LOSE PERFORMANCE .
This means that when planning to build a new Hyper-V Cluster, make sure that you get exactly the same CPUs on your physical hosts. Otherwise, you will have to downgrade the CPU capabilities of your VMs.
Hope this is helpful.
Kobi
Check out this new and very handy tool from Sysinternals:
Disk2vhd v1.0
By Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell
Published: October 7, 2009
Introduction
Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk – Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).
The Disk2vhd user interface lists the volumes present on the system:
It will create one VHD for each disk on which selected volumes reside. It preserves the partitioning information of the disk, but only copies the data contents for volumes on the disk that are selected. This enables you to capture just system volumes and exclude data volumes, for example.
Note: Virtual PC supports a maximum virtual disk size of 127GB. If you create a VHD from a larger disk it will not be accessible from a Virtual PC VM.
To use VHDs produced by Disk2vhd, create a VM with the desired characteristics and add the VHDs to the VM’s configuration as IDE disks. On first boot, a VM booting a captured copy of Windows will detect the VM’s hardware and automatically install drivers, if present in the image. If the required drivers are not present, install them via the Virtual PC or Hyper-V integration components. You can also attach to VHDs using the Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Disk Management or Diskpart utilities.
Note: do not attach to VHDs on the same system on which you created them if you plan on booting from them. If you do so, Windows will assign the VHD a new disk signature to avoid a collision with the signature of the VHD’s source disk. Windows references disks in the boot configuration database (BCD) by disk signature, so when that happens Windows booted in a VM will fail to locate the boot disk.
Disk2vhd runs Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher, including x64 systems.
Here’s a screenshot of a copy of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V system running in a virtual machine on top of the system it was made from:
.jpg "clip_image005")
(click image to zoom)
Download Disk2vhd
(704 KB)
Microsoft has published some very nice eBooks free of charge! enjoy!
Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2
Learn about the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 in the areas of virtualization, management, the Web application platform, scalability and reliability, and interoperability with Windows 7. Download Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2, written by industry experts Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker along with the Windows Server team at Microsoft.
Microsoft Press / Oct. 2009 / Version 1.0 / 200 pages / 11.1 Mo / PDF
Deploying Windows 7 Essential Guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine
Microsoft’s eBook Deploying Windows 7 Essential Guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine combine selected chapters written by industry experts Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, Jerry Honeycutt, Ed Wilson, and the Windows 7 Team with select Windows 7 articles from TechNet Magazine. Sample topics include: Deployment Platform, Planning Deployment, Testing Application Compatability, and 8 Common Issues in Windows 7 Migrations.
Microsoft Press – Microsoft TechNet / Oct. 2009 / Version 1.0 / 332 pages / 6.5 Mo / PDF
Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions
http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urmvs17u33
This guide will teach you about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions. The technologies covered include: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
Microsoft Press / Oct. 2008 / 452 pages / 14.4 Mo / PDF
NB : This download requires a Windows Live account
7 Development Projects for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services Version 3.0
Get a hands-on introduction with seven practical projects. This guide highlights architectural underpinnings, the latest enhancements for developers, and code samples to get you started with building custom applications and solutions with Windows SharePoint Services products and technologies. (Note For developers)
Microsoft Press – Microsoft TechNet / May 2006 / 236 pages / 7.76 Mo / PDF
Hi all,
Microsoft recently announced that customers can now deploy Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux and a range of select applications, virtualized on Red Hat and Microsoft virtualization products, knowing that the combined solutions will be supported by both companies.
Here are the details:
Beyond the OS, both companies have select applications that would receive technical support when running on certified server virtualization software.
The Microsoft applications can be seen in KB article 957006. On the Red Hat side, you can now run JBoss Enterprise Middleware within a virtual machine guest on Hyper-V and receive coordinated technical support.
This is a step forward for enterprise customers, hosting providers, systems integrators, and those who want to offer their customers the top x86 operating systems to run applications.
Good news for everyone that uses both Microsoft & Red Hat products, I hope more collaboration news like that will continue to come out.
Apparently Windows 2000 will provide poor performance after P2V to Hyper-V machine
The reason for that is the Windows 2000 HAL will provide poor performance when you configure more then one virtual processor.
In case you get poor performance from windows 2000/XP Virtual guest machine please do the following:
First of all make sure that you configure the machine to have one virtual processor
Second check what is the HAL of the virtual machine
You can do this by clicking Start, right-clicking My Computer and clicking Manage. Then locate to Device Manager, in the right hand pane, expand the Computer branch and see what it shows underneath the Computer node.
If it is Multiprocessor, you may need to change the computer type to Uniprocessor.
Note that you may need to back up the system so that you can restore it if it cannot boot after changing the HAL (the snapshots of virtual machine may be of help).
Hi guys,
We’ve uploaded all the presentations that will be delivered at the Windows 2008 R2 Open House held on September 23th 2009 at Microsoft Israel.
These sessions will focus on the most existing Windows 2008 R2 features and new capabilities.
Feel free to contact any of us to get more details. Contact information of all presenters is located in the presentations below.
The Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 7 RTM have been released.
Among other things, RSAT include the Hyper-V tools for remote management of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.
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