Dario IT Solutions Blog

 

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:

1. On the storage level. Set the alignment of the LUN so that the disk that the Host OS sees will see blocks the same as you storage device.
   Follow this link for best practices for Hyper-V on NetAPP : http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-hyperv-best-practices-0911.html
   Follow this direct link for the complete document, where you will find additional information regarding disk alignment : http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3702.pdf
2. Within the VHD. After aligning the partition on the LUN on the Host server, you should also align the partition that exists within the VHD file. The above link to the NetAPP documentation shows this procedure as well. You should notice, though, these point:

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

 

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

Download Disk2vhd (704 KB)

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:

(click image to zoom)

Download Disk2vhd
(704 KB)

Happy Day at the Microsoft Exchange Team :

 

It is my distinct pleasure to announce today the global availability of Exchange Server 2010. This has been an amazing journey from conception to launch, and the team has delivered an unprecedented line up of innovations in this release. I am incredibly proud of the team and our product.

The dedication of the Exchange community working side by side with us to deliver Exchange 2010 has been inspiring for me. I want to thank you for your commitment over the past 3 years helping us develop new ideas, make product enhancements and test pre-release bits to ensure our final product is rock solid. I believe Exchange has the most impressive IT Pro and Developer community in the world today. We could not have shipped this product without you!

In return, I hope you realize the full value of everything Exchange 2010 offers. We are all working in a very challenging economic environment today. Being cost conscious has never been more important – but also helping your organizations differentiate themselves and compete effectively is just as critical. I am delighted to see how Exchange 2010 is helping early adopters accomplish these goals. I want to share just a sampling of their stories, so you can see for yourself.

Organizations are cutting costs and simplifying administration with Exchange 2010.

“Performance with large mailboxes greatly exceeds our expectations. With the growing amount of data that needs to be retained, it is not uncommon for us to have 30-gigabyte plus mailboxes, making these performance improvements crucial to our business. I have been using Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 for e-mail since June and have been extremely satisfied with the performance and the user experience. It is a robust, very stable platform. And, we found RBAC to be a huge benefit. That is something I have needed for a long time-to have more granular rights for administrators and lower-level IT staff to do targeted tasks.” - Alexander Diaz, CIO, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

“The cost savings from switching from fiber channel to SATA disks is about 70 percent. The I/O system of Exchange Server 2010 is really optimized. If you look at Exchange Server 2007, it’s good; but Exchange Server 2010 is really great. You can significantly reduce the disk costs when you run Exchange Server 2010.” – Thomas Keck, CIO, Elabs

“We’re always moving users around. We’ve been doing that with custom scripts in Exchange Server 2003, but we will definitely be using the Online Move Mailbox feature in 2010. Now we can move them without taking the mailbox offline.” - Allan Tagg, SVP, Global Messaging Exec, Bank of America

Organizations are improving everyday productivity and meeting the expectations of a new generation of workers with Exchange 2010.

“Our salespeople need to respond quickly to dealer concerns. With Exchange Server 2010 and voice-to-text conversion, within 20 seconds after a dealer leaves a voice-mail message, our users see an e-mail preview on their cell phone. Our mobile employees might check voice mail anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day, at 5 to 10 minutes a session. By using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and taking advantage of the voice-mail preview feature in Exchange Server 2010, they can increase their responsiveness while saving more than 15 minutes a day. From a business perspective, that’s an incredibly valuable productivity increase.” - George Hamin, Director of E-Business and Information Systems, Subaru Canada

“Having Conversation View on the new mobile client is really nice. It provides an extremely fast and efficient means of surveying my inbox and taking needed actions on the go.” – Steven Schafer, Director of Collaboration and Network Services, Global Crossing

“By taking advantage of Outlook Web App, employees can start being productive from new locations almost immediately. As soon as they get their workstation and network connectivity, administrators can quickly provide them with access to e-mail and IM at a moment’s notice without having to manage a lot of logistics. That’s tremendous. Just simplifying the process of giving our remote employees access to e-mail and IM with Exchange Server 2010 will increase the productivity of our IT administrators by at least 20 to 30 percent.” - Dan Evans, Manager of Messaging and Collaboration, Morgan Keegan & Company

Organizations of all sizes are better managing risk and the cost of compliance with Exchange 2010.

“With Exchange Server 2010, we can give the auditors permission to pull mail out of mailboxes themselves, rather than having me pull the data and ship it to them in a PST file. Now the nine hours a month I spend on compliance will be cut down to zero. Getting rid of PST files using Exchange Server 2010 solves a whole series of nightmares that I’m sure every Exchange Server administrator has had” - Andrew McNair, Wintel Infrastructure Manager, Cell C

“By using the compliance features in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, we can save about $400,000 in hardware and software costs. That’s a big savings.” – Joseph Nguyen, Systems Architect at a large U.S. university.

“With Exchange Server 2010, we can set up transport protection rules for things like social security numbers to comply with HIPAA and for voice mails to ensure that they can’t be forwarded outside the company.” – Thomas Dechmann, Senior Principal IT Technologist, Medtronic

I’m also particularly proud of the work the team has done delivering Exchange as a server and a service. This has been an incredible engineering endeavor that no one else in the industry comes close to delivering. Today, we’ve successfully scaled Exchange 2010 to more than 15 million Outlook Live accounts around the world and, moving forward, to millions more with Exchange Online. Our promise to deliver a seamless Exchange experience on premises with the server, in the cloud as a service or a combination of the two truly gives customers choice and peace of mind.

You can see more customer results from the case studies published today, read about the launch in press coverage, hear from MBD President Stephen Elop in his TechEd Europe keynote launching Exchange 2010 and this evening at the Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas in my keynote.

I know many of you are already underway with your Exchange 2010 deployments and many more will be starting today. The Exchange Server 2010 bits are available for download now. As always, keep the feedback coming. Listening to customers and partners is how the team has made Exchange the premier e-mail solution across the globe and that’s the way we intend to keep it.

Thank you!

- Rajesh Jha

 

 

(Taken from the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog. http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/09/453096.aspx)

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).

1. Click Device Manager.
2. Expand the Computer icon.
3. Right click on the value listed under Computer (either ACPI multiprocessor or MPS multiprocessor) and select Properties.
4. Click the Driver tab and then Update Driver.
5. Follow the wizard by selecting Next and then under "What do you want the Wizard to do?", choose "Display a list of known drivers for this device" and then NEXT.
6. Here is the important step:  if you currently have an ACPI Multiprocessor PC, choose ACPI Uniprocessor PC. If you have MPS Multiprocessor PC, choose MPS Uniprocessor PC. This is critical, make certain you choose correctly.
7. After selecting the correct HAL, follow the rest of the wizard to install the driver. When prompted to reboot, shut the machine completely down.
8. Reboot the computer. Go into Device Manager and see if the correct HAL is loaded.

thanks to this blog.

Exchange 2007 is supported on Windows 2008 SP2. This will be also true for the upcoming Exchange 2007 SP2, when it releases.

Hardware ecosystem support and enhancements

• SP2 adds support for the 64-bit central processing unit (CPU) from VIA Technologies, which adds the ID and vendor strings for the new VIA 64-bit CPU.
• SP2 integrates the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless, which contains support for Bluetooth v2.1 and Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration. Bluetooth v2.1 is the most recent specification for Bluetooth wireless technology.
• SP2 improves performance for Wi-Fi connections after resuming from sleep mode.
• SP2 includes updates to the RSS feeds sidebar for improved performance and responsiveness.
• SP2 includes ability to record data to Blu-Ray Disc media.

Operating system experience updates

• SP2 includes Windows Search 4.0, which builds on Microsoft’s search technology with improved indexing and search relevance. It also helps find and preview documents, e-mail (including signed e-mail messages), music files, photos, and other items on the computer. The search engine in Windows Search 4.0 is a Microsoft Windows® service that is also used by programs such as Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote® 2007. Autotuning Diagnostics in SP2 now interprets current network conditions when implementing Windows scaling. This feature includes full netsh support.
• SP2 improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in the area of content protection for TV.
• SP2 removes the limit of 10 half open outbound TCP connections. By default, SP2 has no limit on the number of half open outbound TCP connections.

Enterprise improvements

• SP2 provides the Hyper-V virtualization environment as a fully integrated feature of Windows Server 2008, including one free instance with Windows Server 2008 Standard, four free instances with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and an unlimited number of free instances with Windows Server 2008 Datacenter.
• SP2 increases the authentication options for WebDAV redirector, enabling Microsoft Office users greater flexibility when authenticating custom applications using the WebDAV redirector.
• SP2 provides an improved power management (both on the server and the desktop), which includes the ability to manage these settings via Group Policy.
• SP2 improves backwards compatibility for Terminal Server license keys. Windows Server 2008 changed the licensing key from 512 bytes to 2,048 bytes which caused clients using older Terminal Server versions to fail. SP2 allows legacy license keys on Citrix applications to work with Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server.

Setup and deployment improvements

The SP2 standalone installer:

• Provides a single installer for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
• Includes the ability to detect an incompatible driver and either block service pack installation or warn users of any potential loss of functionality.
• Provides better error handling and descriptive error messages where possible.
• Improves manageability through logging in the system event log.
• Provides a secure install experience.
• Includes the ability to service the installer post release.

SP2 also includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe) which helps recover the hard disk space by permanently deleting previous versions of files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2. The Service Pack Clean up tool can also be run offline while creating slipstream images to reduce the size of the image.

SP2 Download is available here:

x86

x64

Thanks to Tonino Bruno for this info.

SCCM uses a lot of log files, it could be quite confusing finding what you need. I gathered a list of all the log files and a description of their content to make life easy.

The client logs are located in the %WINDIR%\System32\CCM\Logs folder or %WINDIR%\SysWOW64\CCM\Logs (for x64 OS).
The SCCM server log files are located in the <INSTALL_PATH>\Logs or SMS_CCM\Logs folder.

IIS logs can be found in %WINDIR%\System32\logfiles\W3SVC1 folder.

NOTE: Use the Trace tool included in the SCCM Toolkit or MS Log Parser to easily view log files.

 

Client Log Files

• CAS – Content Access Service. Maintains the local package cache.
• Ccmexec.log – Records activities of the client and the SMS Agent Host service.
• CertificateMaintenance.log – Maintains certificates for Active Directory directory service and management points.
• ClientIDManagerStartup.log – Creates and maintains the client GUID.
• ClientLocation.log – Site assignment tasks.
• ContentTransferManager.log – Schedules the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) or the Server Message Block (SMB) to download or to access SMS packages.
• DataTransferService.log – Records all BITS communication for policy or package access.
• Execmgr.log – Records advertisements that run.
• FileBITS.log – Records all SMB package access tasks.
• Fsinvprovider.log (renamed to FileSystemFile.log in all SMS 2003 Service Packs) – Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provider for software inventory and file collection.
• InventoryAgent.log – Creates discovery data records (DDRs) and hardware and software inventory records.
• LocationServices.log – Finds management points and distribution points.
• Mifprovider.log – The WMI provider for .MIF files.
• Mtrmgr.log – Monitors all software metering processes.
• PolicyAgent.log – Requests policies by using the Data Transfer service.
• PolicyAgentProvider.log – Records policy changes.
• PolicyEvaluator.log – Records new policy settings.
• Remctrl.log – Logs when the remote control component (WUSER32) starts.
• Scheduler.log – Records schedule tasks for all client operations.
• Smscliui.log – Records usage of the Systems Management tool in Control Panel.
• StatusAgent.log – Logs status messages that are created by the client components.
• SWMTRReportGen.log – Generates a usage data report that is collected by the metering agent. (This data is logged in Mtrmgr.log.)

Server Log Files

• Ccm.log – Client Configuration Manager tasks.
• Cidm.log – Records changes to the client settings by the Client Install Data Manager (CIDM).
• Colleval.log – Logs when collections are created, changed, and deleted by the Collection Evaluator.
• Compsumm.log – Records Component Status Summarizer tasks.
• Cscnfsvc.log – Records Courier Sender confirmation service tasks.
• Dataldr.log – Processes Management Information Format (MIF) files and hardware inventory in the Configuration Manager 2007 database.
• Ddm.log – Saves DDR information to the Configuration Manager 2007 database by the Discovery Data Manager.
• Despool.log – Records incoming site-to-site communication transfers.
• Distmgr.log – Records package creation, compression, delta replication, and information updates.
• Hman.log – Records site configuration changes, and publishes site information in Active Directory Domain Services.
• Inboxast.log – Records files that are moved from the management point to the corresponding SMS\INBOXES folder.
• Inboxmgr.log – Records file maintenance.
• Invproc.log – Records the processing of delta MIF files for the Dataloader component from client inventory files.
• Mpcontrol.log – Records the registration of the management point with WINS. Records the availability of the management point every 10 minutes.
• Mpfdm.log – Management point component that moves client files to the corresponding SMS\INBOXES folder.
• MPMSI.log – Management point .msi installation log.
• MPSetup.log – Records the management point installation wrapper process.
• Ntsvrdis.log – Configuration Manager 2007 server discovery.
• Offermgr.log – Records advertisement updates.
• Offersum.log – Records summarization of advertisement status messages.
• Policypv.log – Records updates to the client policies to reflect changes to client settings or advertisements.
• Replmgr.log – Records the replication of files between the site server components and the Scheduler component.
• Rsetup.log – Reporting point setup log.
• Sched.log – Records site-to-site job and package replication.
• Sender.log – Records files that are sent to other child and parent sites.
• Sinvproc.log – Records client software inventory data processing to the site database in Microsoft SQL Server.
• Sitecomp.log – Records maintenance of the installed site components.
• Sitectrl.log – Records site setting changes to the Sitectrl.ct0 file.
• Sitestat.log – Records the monitoring process of all site systems.
• Smsdbmon.log – Records database changes.
• Smsexec.log – Records processing of all site server component threads.
• Smsprov.log – Records WMI provider access to the site database.
• SMSReportingInstall.log – Records the Reporting Point installation. This component starts the installation tasks and processes configuration changes.
• SMSSHVSetup.log – Records the success or failure (with failure reason) of installing the System Health Validator point.
• Srvacct.log – Records the maintenance of accounts when the site uses standard security.
• Statmgr.log – Writes all status messages to the database.
• Swmproc.log – Processes metering files and maintains settings.

Admin Console Log Files

• RepairWizard.log – Records errors, warnings, and information about the process of running the Repair Wizard.
• ResourceExplorer.log – Records errors, warnings, and information about running the Resource Explorer.
• SMSAdminUI.log – Records the local Configuration Manager 2007 console tasks when you connect to Configuration Manager 2007 sites.

Management Point Log Files

• MP_Ddr.log – Records the conversion of XML.ddr records from clients, and copies them to the site server.
• MP_GetAuth.log – Records the status of the site management points.
• MP_GetPolicy.log – Records policy information.
• MP_Hinv.log – Converts XML hardware inventory records from clients and copies the files to the site server.
• MP_Location.log – Records location manager tasks.
• MP_Policy.log – Records policy communication.
• MP_Relay.log – Copies files that are collected from the client.
• MP_Retry.log – Records the hardware inventory retry processes.
• MP_Sinv.log – Converts XML hardware inventory records from clients and copies them to the site server.
• MP_Status.log – Converts XML.svf status message files from clients and copies them to the site server.

Mobile Device Management Log Files

• DmClientHealth.log – Records the GUIDs of all the mobile device clients that are communicating with the Device Management Point.
• DmClientRegistration.log – Records registration requests from and responses to the mobile device client in Native mode.
• DmpDatastore.log – Records all the site database connections and queries made by the Device Management Point.
• DmpDiscovery.log – Records all the discovery data from the mobile device clients on the Device Management Point.
• DmpFileCollection.log – Records mobile device file collection data from mobile device clients on the Device Management Point.
• DmpHardware.log – Records hardware inventory data from mobile device clients on the Device Management Point.
• DmpIsapi.log – Records mobile device communication data from device clients on the Device Management Point.
• dmpMSI.log – Records the MSI data for Device Management Point setup.
• DMPSetup.log – Records the mobile device management setup process.
• DmpSoftware.log – Records mobile device software distribution data from mobile device clients on the Device Management Point.
• DmpStatus.log – Records mobile device status messages data from mobile device clients on the Device Management Point.
• FspIsapi.log – Records Fallback Status Point communication data from mobile device clients and client computers on the Fallback Status Point.

Mobile Device Client Log Files

• DmCertEnroll.log – Records certificate enrollment data on mobile device clients.
• DMCertResp.htm (in \temp) – Records HTML response from the certificate server when the mobile device Enroller program requests a client authentication certificate on mobile device clients.
• DmClientSetup.log – Records client setup data on mobile device clients.
• DmClientXfer.log – Records client transfer data for Windows Mobile Device Center and ActiveSync deployments.
• DmCommonInstaller.log – Records client transfer file installation for setting up mobile device client transfer files on client computers.
• DmInstaller.log – Records whether DMInstaller correctly calls DmClientSetup and whether DmClientSetup exits with success or failure on mobile device clients.
• DmInvExtension.log – Records Inventory Extension file installation for setting up Inventory Extension files on client computers.
• DmSvc.log – Records mobile device management service data on mobile device clients.

Operating System Deployment Log Files

• CCMSetup.log – Provides information about client-based operating system actions.
• CreateTSMedia.log – Provides information about task sequence media when it is created. This log is generated on the computer running the Configuration Manager 2007 administrator console.
• DriverCatalog.log – Provides information about device drivers that have been imported into the driver catalog.
• MP_ClientIDManager.log – Provides information about the Configuration Manager 2007 management point when it responds to Configuration Manager 2007 client ID requests from boot media or PXE. This log is generated on the Configuration Manager 2007 management point.
• MP_DriverManager.log – Provides information about the Configuration Manager 2007 management point when it responds to a request from the Auto Apply Driver task sequence action. This log is generated on the Configuration Manager 2007 management point.
• MP_Location.log – Provides information about the Configuration Manager 2007 management point when it responds to request state store or release state store requests from the state migration point. This log is generated on the Configuration Manager 2007 management point.
• Pxecontrol.log – Provides information about the PXE Control Manager.
• PXEMsi.log – Provides information about the PXE service point and is generated when the PXE service point site server has been created.
• PXESetup.log – Provides information about the PXE service point and is generated when the PXE service point site server has been created.
• Setupact.log Setupapi.log Setuperr.log Provide information about Windows Sysprep and setup logs.
• SmpIsapi.log – Provides information about the state migration point Configuration Manager 2007 client request responses.
• Smpmgr.log – Provides information about the results of state migration point health checks and configuration changes.
• SmpMSI.log – Provides information about the state migration point and is generated when the state migration point site server has been created.
• Smsprov.log – Provides information about the SMS provider.
• Smspxe.log – Provides information about the Configuration Manager 2007 PXE service point.
• SMSSMPSetup.log – Provides information about the state migration point and is generated when the state migration point site server has been created.
• Smsts.log – General location for all operating system deployment and task sequence log events.
• TaskSequenceProvider.log – Provides information about task sequences when they are imported, exported, or edited.
• USMT Log loadstate.log – Provides information about the User State Migration Tool (USMT) regarding the restore of user state data.
• USMT Log scanstate.log – Provides information about the USMT regarding the capture of user state data.

Network Access Protection Log Files

• Ccmcca.log – Logs the processing of compliance evaluation based on Configuration Manager NAP policy processing and contains the processing of remediation for each software update required for compliance.
• CIAgent.log – Tracks the process of remediation and compliance. However, the software updates log file, *Updateshandler.log – provides more informative details on installing the software updates required for compliance.
• locationservices.log – Used by other Configuration Manager features (for example, information about the client’s assigned site) but also contains information specific to Network Access Protection when the client is in remediation. It records the names of the required remediation servers (management point, software update point, and distribution points that host content required for compliance), which are also sent in the client statement of health.
• SDMAgent.log – Shared with the Configuration Manager feature desired configuration management and contains the tracking process of remediation and compliance. However, the software updates log file, Updateshandler.log, provides more informative details about installing the software updates required for compliance.
• SMSSha.log – The main log file for the Configuration Manager Network Access Protection client and contains a merged statement of health information from the two Configuration Manager components: location services (LS) and the configuration compliance agent (CCA). This log file also contains information about the interactions between the Configuration Manager System Health Agent and the operating system NAP agent, and also between the Configuration Manager System Health Agent and both the configuration compliance agent and the location services. It provides information about whether the NAP agent successfully initialized, the statement of health data, and the statement of health response.

System Health Validator Point Log Files

• Ccmperf.log -Contains information about the initialization of the System Health Validator point performance counters.
• SmsSHV.log – The main log file for the System Health Validator point; logs the basic operations of the System Health Validator service, such as the initialization progress.
• SmsSHVADCacheClient.log – Contains information about retrieving Configuration Manager health state references from Active Directory Domain Services.
• SmsSHVCacheStore.log – Contains information about the cache store used to hold the Configuration Manager NAP health state references retrieved from Active Directory Domain Services, such as reading from the store and purging entries from the local cache store file. The cache store is not configurable.
• SmsSHVRegistrySettings.log – Records any dynamic changes to the System Health Validator component configuration while the service is running.
• SmsSHVQuarValidator.log – Records client statement of health information and processing operations. To obtain full information, change the registry key LogLevel from 1 to 0 in the following location:HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMSSHV\Logging\@GLOBAL

Desired Configuration Management Log Files

• ciagent.log – Provides information about downloading, storing, and accessing assigned configuration baselines.
• dcmagent.log – Provides high-level information about the evaluation of assigned configuration baselines and desired configuration management processes.
• discovery.log – Provides detailed information about the Service Modeling Language (SML) processes.
• sdmagent.log – Provides information about downloading, storing, and accessing configuration item content.
• sdmdiscagent.log – Provides high-level information about the evaluation process for the objects and settings configured in the referenced configuration items.

Wake On LAN Log Files

• Wolmgr.log – Contains information about wake-up procedures such as when to wake up advertisements or deployments that are configured for Wake On LAN.
• WolCmgr.log – Contains information about which clients need to be sent wake-up packets, the number of wake-up packets sent, and the number of wake-up packets retried.

Software Updates Site Server Log Files

• ciamgr.log – Provides information about the addition, deletion, and modification of software update configuration items.
• distmgr.log – Provides information about the replication of software update deployment packages.
• objreplmgr.log – Provides information about the replication of software updates notification files from a parent to child sites.
• PatchDownloader.log – Provides information about the process for downloading software updates from the update source specified in the software updates metadata to the download destination on the site server.
• replmgr.log – Provides information about the process for replicating files between sites.
• smsdbmon.log – Provides information about when software update configuration items are inserted, updated, or deleted from the site server database and creates notification files for software updates components.
• SUPSetup – Provides information about the software update point installation. When the software update point installation completes, Installation was successful is written to this log file.
• WCM.log – Provides information about the software update point configuration and connecting to the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server for subscribed update categories, classifications, and languages.
• WSUSCtrl.log – Provides information about the configuration, database connectivity, and health of the WSUS server for the site.
• wsyncmgr.log -Provides information about the software updates synchronization process.

WSUS Server Log Files

• Change.log – Provides information about the WSUS server database information that has changed.
• SoftwareDistribution.log – Provides information about the software updates that are synchronized from the configured update source to the WSUS server database.

Software Updates Client Computer Log Files

• CAS.log – Provides information about the process of downloading software updates to the local cache and cache management.
• CIAgent.log – Provides information about processing configuration items, including software updates.
• LocationServices.log – Provides information about the location of the WSUS server when a scan is initiated on the client.
• PatchDownloader.log – Provides information about the process for downloading software updates from the update source to the download destination on the site server. This log is only on the client computer configured as the synchronization host for the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates.
• PolicyAgent.log – Provides information about the process for downloading, compiling, and deleting policies on client computers.
• PolicyEvaluator – Provides information about the process for evaluating policies on client computers, including policies from software updates.
• RebootCoordinator.log – Provides information about the process for coordinating system restarts on client computers after software update installations.
• ScanAgent.log – Provides information about the scan requests for software updates, what tool is requested for the scan, the WSUS location, and so on.
• ScanWrapper – Provides information about the prerequisite checks and the scan process initialization for the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates on Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 clients.
• SdmAgent.log – Provides information about the process for verifying and decompressing packages that contain configuration item information for software updates.
• ServiceWindowManager.log – Provides information about the process for evaluating configured maintenance windows.
• smscliUI.log – Provides information about the Configuration Manager Control Panel user interactions, such as initiating a Software Updates Scan Cycle from the Configuration Manager Properties dialog box, opening the Program Download Monitor, and so on.
• SmsWusHandler – Provides information about the scan process for the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates on SMS 2003 client computers.
• StateMessage.log – Provides information about when software updates state messages are created and sent to the management point.
• UpdatesDeployment.log – Provides information about the deployment on the client, including software update activation, evaluation, and enforcement. Verbose logging shows additional information about the interaction with the client user interface.
• UpdatesHandler.log – Provides information about software update compliance scanning and about the download and installation of software updates on the client.
• UpdatesStore.log – Provides information about the compliance status for the software updates that were assessed during the compliance scan cycle.
• WUAHandler.log – Provides information about when the Windows Update Agent on the client searches for software updates.
• WUSSyncXML.log – Provides information about the Inventory Tool for the Microsoft Updates synchronization process. This log is only on the client computer configured as the synchronization host for the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates.

Windows Update Agent Log File

• WindowsUpdate.log – Located in %WINDIR%. Provides information about when the Windows Update Agent connects to the WSUS server and retrieves the software updates for compliance assessment and whether there are updates to the agent components.

(Taken from: HELO Windows Blog- http://blogs.msdn.com/lxchen/archive/2009/04/03/a-list-of-sccm-log-files.aspx)

 

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) is a comprehensive management solution for the virtualized data center, enabling increased physical server utilization, centralized management of virtual machine infrastructure, and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines by the administrator, delegated administrator, and authorized end users. VMM 2008 can manage hosts that are running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, and VMware ESX through VirtualCenter Server.

Recently, Windows Server 2008 released an R2 version that included significant feature improvements to Hyper-V. VMM 2008 R2 leverages these new platform enhancements and extends the feature set of VMM 2008. This topic provides an overview of the new features that are included in VMM 2008 R2.

 

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Host Management

With VMM 2008 R2, you can create and manage virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V hosts. When you add a host that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and that does not have Hyper-V enabled, VMM 2008 R2 automatically enables the Hyper-V role on the host.

VMM 2008 R2 supports the following new features of Windows Server 2008 R2:

• Live migration between Windows Server 2008 R2 clustered hosts. With live migration, you can migrate a virtual machine from one node of a Windows Server 2008 R2 failover cluster to another node in the same cluster without any downtime. Because the virtual machine does not experience any downtime, the move is completely transparent to the users that are connected to the virtual machine.

• Network optimization detection during virtual machine placement. VMM 2008 R2 supports both Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and TCP Chimney, which are Windows Server 2008 R2 features that improve network performance for virtual machines.

• Network adapters that support the VMQ feature are able to create a unique network queue for each virtual network adapter and then connect that queue directly to the virtual machine’s memory. This connection routes packets directly from the hypervisor to the virtual machine, bypassing much of the processing in the virtualization stack.

• Network adapters that support the TCP Chimney feature are able to offload the processing of network traffic from the networking stack. Both of these features increase network performance and reduce CPU utilization.

• Hot addition and removal of virtual hard disks (VHDs). In Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V allows users to add and remove VHDs from a virtual machine while it is running.

Enhanced Support for Shared Storage and SAN Transfers

VMM 2008 R2 provides the following enhancements:

Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) Support

VMM 2008 R2 supports the Windows Server 2008 R2 clustered shared volume (CSV) feature. CSV enables all hosts on a Windows Server 2008 R2 failover cluster to concurrently access virtual machine files on a single shared logical unit number (LUN). Because all nodes on the cluster can access a single shared LUN, virtual machines have complete transparency with respect to which nodes actually own a LUN. This enables live migration of virtual machines within the cluster because all nodes in the cluster can access any LUN.

Support for Sanbolic Clustered File System

VMM 2008 R2 supports the Sanbolic Clustered File System (CFS), a third-party shared volume solution for quick migration on hosts running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, and live migration on hosts running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.

Support for Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows

VMM 2008 R2 supports Veritas Storage Foundation 5.1 for Windows (SFW), an online storage management solution for creating virtual storage devices from physical disks and arrays. Volumes created as part of a cluster resource group by using SFW are detected by VMM 2008 R2 and can be selected during virtual machine placement or migration. An SFW volume is limited to one virtual machine.

SAN Migration into and out of Clustered Hosts

VMM 2008 R2 supports the use of SAN transfers to migrate virtual machines and highly available virtual machines into and out of a cluster. When you migrate a virtual machine into a cluster by using a SAN transfer, VMM checks all nodes in the cluster to ensure that each node can see the LUN and automatically creates a cluster disk resource for the LUN. Even though VMM automatically configures the cluster disk resource, it does not validate it. You must use the Validate a Configuration Wizard in Failover Cluster Management to validate the newly created cluster disk resource. To migrate a virtual machine out of a cluster, the virtual machine must be on a dedicated LUN that is not using CSV.

Expanded Support for iSCSI SANs

VMM 2008 supports SAN transfers of virtual machines that use initiator-based iSCSI target connections, which requires one iSCSI target for every LUN. VMM 2008 R2 adds support for LUN masking, which allows multiple LUNs per iSCSI target and expands VMM support for iSCSI SAN vendors.

 

Quick Storage Migration

For a Windows Server 2008 R2 host or a Storage VMotion-capable host, you can migrate a running virtual machine’s files to a different storage location on the same host with minimal or no service outage. If you use a wizard to migrate a virtual machine to a host that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and you use a network transfer, VMM 2008 R2 now gives you the option to specify separate storage locations for each virtual hard disk (.vhd) file for the virtual machine. 

 

Maintenance Mode for Hosts

In VMM 2008 R2, you can start maintenance mode for a Windows-based host anytime you need to perform maintenance tasks on the host, such as applying updates or replacing a physical component.

When you start maintenance mode on a host in a Windows Server 2008 R2 cluster with highly available virtual machines, you can do one of the following:

• If the option is available, use live migration to evacuate all virtual machines to other hosts on the same cluster. If the migration fails for any virtual machine on the host, maintenance mode is not started on that host and VMM does not migrate back the virtual machines that have already migrated.

• Place all virtual machines on the host into a saved state.

When you start maintenance mode on a stand-alone Windows-based host, on a host in a Windows Server 2008 cluster, or on a Windows Server 2008 R2 host that has any non-highly available virtual machines, VMM automatically places all virtual machines into a saved state.

Important

When VMM places virtual machines into a saved state, any users of the virtual machines will experience a loss of service.

When you start maintenance mode on any host, VMM automatically does the following:

• Blocks virtual machine creation operations on the host.

• Excludes the host from the host ratings during placement.

• Displays a host status of In Maintenance Mode in Host view of the VMM Administrator Console.

When you stop maintenance mode on a host, VMM allows virtual machine creation operations on the host, includes the host in the host ratings during placement, and displays a host status of OK in Host view of the VMM Administrator Console. However, VMM does not automatically do a live migration to move highly available virtual machines back onto the host in a Windows Server 2008 R2 cluster, and it does not restart any of the virtual machines on the host.

To start or stop maintenance mode, in Host view of the VMM Administrator Console, right-click a host, and then click the appropriate command.

 

Support for VMware Port Groups for Virtual Switches

VMM uses the network location and tag specified for the virtual network adapter in the hardware configuration to determine the network availability of a virtual machine on a host. In VMM 2008 R2, if you are deploying the virtual machine to a VMware ESX Server host, you can select from the VMware port groups that are available for virtual switches.

 

Support for Virtual Machine Permissions Assigned in Hyper-V

In VMM 2008 R2, VMM preserves changes made to role definitions or role memberships in the root scope of the Hyper-V authorization store. All changes to any other scope are overwritten every half hour by the VMM user role refresher. This differs from user role processing in VMM 2008. In VMM 2008, VMM determines access to virtual machines, hosts, and resources based solely on the rights and permissions associated with VMM user roles. VMM 2008 does not make any changes to Hyper-V role definitions and role memberships; it simply ignores the Hyper-V authorization store while the hosts and virtual machines are under its management. 

For more information about user roles and scopes, see Role-Based Security in VMM (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=119337).

Operations Manager 2007 R2 introduces key new and enhanced functionality, including:

Enhanced application performance and availability across heterogeneous platforms

• Delivers monitoring across Windows, Linux and Unix servers-all through a single console
• Extends end to end monitoring of distributed applications to any workload running on Windows, Unix and Linux platforms
• Maximize availability of virtual workloads with integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Improved management of applications in the data center

• Delivers on the scale requirements of URL monitoring of your business
• Meet agreed service levels with enhanced reporting showing application performance and availability
• More efficient problem identification and action to resolve issues

 

Microsoft announced the availability of the Operations Manger 2007 R2 Release Candidate (RC)  on Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com).

There are a number of enhancements over the beta released in November, including:

• New Power Management MP template (the monitored system must be either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7)
• Updated branding across all user interfaces, including a new skin
• Improved trace configuration tools to help support issues escalated to Customer Support (if applicable)
• Improved Run As Account Distribution Configuration
• Ability to run inline tasks for non-Microsoft servers
• Support for upgrade from Beta deployments to the Release Candidate
• New and updated documentation, including the Usage Guide, Design Guide, Deployment Guide, Upgrade Guide, Security Guide, and Operations Guide
  The RC should be upgradeable to the RTM version once it is available, but since this is a test version, do not run it in a production environment unless you have made special arrangements with Microsoft.

A new white paper has been published that compares the options to use multiple instances of SQL without Hyper-V with having multiple virtual machines with single instances of SQL Server. Not only it looks at the different pros and cons, but also provides interesting performance information.

Here’s are the topics covered in this 26-page white paper:

• Executive Overview
• Introduction
• Considerations for Consolidation and Virtualization
  • Identification of Underutilized Servers
  • Server temperature
  • Consolidation Approaches
  • Virtualization Platform: WSRM vs. Hyper-V
• Implementation of the SQL Utility
  • Service Offerings
  • Identification of Candidates for Migration
• Attributes of System Quality
  • Availability and Business Continuity
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Manageability
  • Performance
  • Predictability and Repeatability
  • Reliability
  • Scalability
  • Security
  • Monitoring
  • Supportability
• Conclusion

Download the white paper from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd557540.aspx