Aidan Finn, IT Pro

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last 18 months, you might know that Windows Server 2012 (WS2012) Hyper-V (and IIS and SQL Server) supports storing content (such as virtual machines) on SMB 3.0 (WS2012) file servers (and scale-out file server active/active clusters).  The performance of this stuff goes from matching/slightly beating iSCSI on 1 GbE, to crushing fiber channel on 10 GbE or faster.

Big pieces of this design are SMB Multichannel (think simple, configuration free & dynamic MPIO for SMB traffic) and SMB Direct (RDMA – low latency and CPU impact with non-TCP SMB 3.0 traffic).  How does one network this design?  RDMA is the driving force in the design.  I’ve talked to a lot of people about this topic over the last year. They normally over think the design, looking for solutions to problems that don’t exist.  In my core market, I don’t expect lots of RDMA and Infiniband NICs to appear.  But I thought I’d post how I might do a network design.  iWarp was in my head for this because I’m hoping I can pitch the idea for my lab at the office.  

On the left we have 1 or more Hyper-V hosts.  There are up to 64 nodes in a cluster, and potentially lots of clusters connecting to a single SOFS – not necessarily 64 nodes in each!

On the right, we have between 2 and 8 file servers that make up a Scale-Out File Server (SOFS) cluster with SAS attached (SAN or JBOD/Storage Spaces) or Fiber Channel storage.  More NICs would be required for iSCSI storage for the SOFS, probably using physical NICs with MPIO.

There are 3 networks in the design:

• The Server/VM networks.  They might be flat, but in this kind of design I’d expect to see some VLANs.  Hyper-V Network Virtualization might be used for the VM Networks.
• Storage Network 1.  This is one isolated and non-routed subnet, primarily for storage traffic.  It will also be used for Live Migration and Cluster traffic.  It’s 10 GbE or faster and it’s already isolated so it makes sense to me to use it.
• Storage Network 2.  This is a second isolated and non-routed subnet.  It serves the same function as Storage Network 2.

Why 2 storage networks, ideally on 2 different switches?  Two reasons:

• SMB Multichannel: It requires each multichannel NIC to be on a different subnet when connecting to a clustered file server, which includes the SOFS role.
• Reliable cluster communications: I have 2 networks for my cluster communications traffic, servicing my cluster design need for a reliable heartbeat.

The NICs used for the SMB/cluster traffic are NOT teamed.  Teaming does not work with RDMA.  Each physical rNIC has it’s own IP address for the relevant (isolated and non-routed) storage subnet.  These NICs do not go through the virtual switch so the easy per-vNIC QoS approach I’ve mostly talked about is not applicable.  Note that RDMA is not TCP.  This means that when an SMB connection streams data, the OS packet scheduler cannot see it.  That rules out OS Packet Scheduler QoS rules.  Instead, you will need rNICs that support Datacenter Bridging (DCB) and your switches must also support DCB.  You basically create QoS rules on a per-protocol-basis and push them down to the NICs to allow the hardware (which sees all traffic) to apply QoS and SLAs.  This also has a side effect of less CPU utilization.

Note: SMB traffic is restricted to the rNICs by using the constraint option.

In the host(s), the management traffic does not go through the rNICs – they are isolated and non-routed.  Instead, the Management OS traffic (monitoring, configuration, remote desktop, domain membership, etc) all goes through the virtual switch using a virtual NIC.  Virtual NIC QoS rules are applied by the virtual switch.

In the SOFS cluster nodes, management traffic will go through a traditional (WS2012) NIC team.  You probably should apply per-protocol QoS rules on the management OS NIC for things like remote management, RDP, monitoring, etc.  OS Packet Scheduler rules will do because you’re not using RDMA on these NICs and this is the cheapest option.  Using DCB rules here can be done but it requires end-to-end (NIC, switch, switch, etc, NIC) DCB support to work.

What about backup traffic?  I can see a number of options.  Remember: with SMB 3.0 traffic, the agent on the hosts causes VSS to create a coordinated VSS snapshot, and the backup server retrieves backup traffic from a permission controlled (Backup Operators) hidden share on the file server or SOFS (yes, your backup server will need to understand this).

1. Dual/Triple Homed Backup Server: The backup server will be connected to the server/VM networks.  It will also be connected to one or both of the storage networks, depending on how much network resilience you need for backup, and what your backup product can do.  A QoS (DCB) rule(s) will be needed for the backup protocol(s).
2. A dedicated backup NIC (team): A single (or teamed) physical NIC (team) will be used for backup traffic on the host and SOFS nodes.  No QoS rules are required for backup traffic because it is alone on the subnet.
3. Create a backup traffic VLAN, trunk it through to a second vNIC (bound to the VLAN) in the hosts via the virtual switch.  Apply QoS on this vNIC.  In the case of the SOFS nodes, create a new team interface and bind it to the backup VLAN.  Apply OS Packet Scheduler rules on the SOFS nodes for management and backup protocols.

With this design you get all the connectivity, isolation, and network path fault tolerance that you might have needed with 8 NICs plus fiber channel/SAS HBAs, but with superior storage performance.  QoS is applied using DCB to guarantee minimum levels of service for the protocols over the rNICs. 

In reality, it’s actually a simple design.  I think people over think it, looking for a NIC team or protocol connection process for the rNICs.  None of that is actually needed.  You have 2 isolated networks, and SMB Multichannel figures it out for itself (it makes MPIO look silly, in my opinion). 

The networking chapter of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide goes from the basics through to the advanced steps of understanding these concepts and implementing them:

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• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de

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Microsoft released a hotfix for when you cannot add VHD or VHDX files to Hyper-V virtual machines in Windows Server 2012.

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You create some failover cluster nodes on computers that are running Windows Server 2012.
• You have the Hyper-V server role installed on the cluster nodes.
• You create virtual machines on one cluster node, and you configure the virtual machines as cluster resources.
• You create multiple Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) resources and create one Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file in each CSV.
• You use Hyper-V Manager to try to add the VHD files to the virtual machines.

In this scenario, you cannot add the VHD files to the virtual machines. Additionally, you receive an error message that resembles the following:

Error applying Hard Drive changes
‘Virtual machine‘ failed to add resources to ‘virtual machine‘
Cannot add ‘C:\ClusterStorage\Volume3\Test3.vhdx‘. The disk is already connected to the virtual machine ‘virtual machine‘. (Virtual machine ID virtual machine ID)
‘Virtual machine‘ failed to add resources. (Virtual machine ID virtual machine ID)
Cannot add ‘C:\ClusterStorage\Volume3\Test3.vhdx‘. The disk is already connected to the virtual machine ‘virtual machine‘. (Virtual machine ID virtual machine ID)

Cause

This issue occurs because multiple CSV volumes have the same 0000-0000 serial number. Therefore, the VHD files on different volumes are recognized as the same file.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft.

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The Failover Clustering group also released a big update today.  It solves a range of issues.

Issue 1
Consider the following scnario:

• You have the Hyper-V server role installed on a Windows Server 2012-based file server.
• You have lots of virtual machines on a Server Message Block (SMB) share.
• Virtual hard disks are attached to an iSCSI controller.

In this scenario, you cannot access to the iSCSI controller.

Issue 2
Consider the following scenario:

• You have a two-node failover cluster that is running Windows Server 2012.
• The cluster is partitioned.
• There is a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) on a cluster node, and a quorum resource on the other cluster node.

In this scenario, the cluster becomes unavailable.

Note This issue can be temporarily resolved by restarting the cluster.

Issue 3
Assume that you set up an SMB connection between two Windows Server 2012-based computers. The hardware on the computers do not support Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX). In this situation, the SMB session is closed unexpectedly.

Issue 4
Consider the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster.
• You have a virtual machine on a CSV volume on the cluster.
• You try to create a snapshot for the virtual machine. However, the snapshot creation is detected as stuck. Therefore, the snapshot set is aborted.
• During the abortion process of the snapshot, the CSV volume is deleted after the snapshot shares are deleted.

In this scenario, the abortion process is paused automatically because of an error that occurs on the cluster.

Issue 5
Assume that you have a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster. Two specific snapshot state change requests are sent from disk control manager to CSV proxy file system (CSVFS). The requests are present in the same message. In this situation, disk control manager is out-of-sync with CSVFS.

Issue 6
Assume that you create a snapshot for a CSV volume on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster. When the snapshot creation is still in progress, another snapshot creation is requested on the same CSV volume. In this situation, the snapshot creation fails and all later snapshot creation attempts on the CSV volume fail.

Note You cannot create a snapshot for the CSV volume until the volume fails over or the volume goes offline and then back online.

Additionally, the update also resolves the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles:

• KB2799728: Virtual machine enters a paused state or a CSV volume goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster
• KB2801054: VSS_E_SNAPSHOT_SET_IN_PROGRESS error when you try to back up a virtual machine in Windows Server 2012
• KB2796995: Offloaded Data Transfers fail on a computer that is running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012
• KB2813630: Virtual machine enters a paused state or a CSV volume goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster
• KB2824600 Virtual machine enters a paused state or goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a CSV volume in Windows Server 2012.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft.

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It was a busy day for Microsoft releasing hotfixes today.  This includes another UR bundle of hotfixes.  There are a few in here that are relevant to Hyper-V, etc.  As usual, this update rollup is available via the Windows Catalog (WSUS, etc).

KB2836121 – An update for Storage Spaces in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 is available

This article describes an update for Storage Spaces in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. After you install the update, Storage Spaces will prioritize regeneration. Specifically, the regeneration time is shorter, but the available bandwidth for the regular I/O buffer is decreased.

2833586 – Virtual machine does not come online after you add a pass-through disk to the virtual machine in Windows Server 2012

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster. 
• A Hyper-V server role is installed on the cluster node.
• You create a virtual machine on the cluster node, and then you configure the virtual machine as a cluster resource.
• You add a pass-through disk to the virtual machine by using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

In this scenario, the virtual machine does not come online.
Note If you add the pass-through disk by using the Failover Cluster Management snap-in, the virtual machine does come online.

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What I love about Hyper-V Replica is that (a) it is free (b) it just works and (c) it works for a wide variety of customers/partners (large and small).  It’s great that you can get your VMs from site A operational in site B with a maximum RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of however long it takes to orchestrate the start of your VMs (from seconds, depending on how many VMs you have to order).  But one question remains – how do I address those VMs in the DR site?

Stretched Subnets

I am not a networking guy.  The term I know is stretched VLANs, but network folks have other mechanisms for this.  Basically, concept is that you enable your subnets to reside and route in the primary and secondary site.  That means a VM with the address of 192.168.1.20 can operate, route, and be accessible to clients (from anywhere) in either site.  That’s great for networks of a certain size.  Small businesses probably can’t do this, and larger enterprises look at the complexity and laugh.

IP Address Injection

With this approach, the Hyper-V administrator pre-configures DR site IP addresses for the VM.  The address is injected into the VM during failover using Key Value Pairs (KVP).  This allows site A and site B to have different IP ranges.  This solution will work pretty well for smaller customers where they own both the primary and the secondary sites.

DHCP

I hate using DHCP addresses for static resources like servers (including VMs).  But you can do it.  With this approach, you have DHCP in the primary site to assign reserved IPs to the VMs in the primary site.  You have something similar in the secondary site, but with a scope that is suitable for there.  Note, you must use static MAC addresses for reservations to work – so be sure to use export/import to move VMs out of band.  This is the one solution that I have the least faith in.  You might want to look at WS2012 DHCP failover to ensure your DHCP is highly available because it has become a very important factor in your business continuing to operate.

Hyper-V Network Virtualization (HNV)

HNV, or software defined networking (SDN), is a very scalable solution.  It also allows VMs to operate with their normal IP addresses (consumer addresses) while really communicating with the physical network via provider addresses.  The VM simply moves/starts on a predefined VM Network(s) in the DR site and continues to communicate.  For this to work in production, you need VMM 2012 SP1 and a network virtualization gateway (see Iron Networks.  F5 also have something coming).

This solution is a nice one for large enterprises that want to use SDN to abstract networks from a central console).  It also allows service providers to support many tenants with overlapping subnets (192.168.1.0/24 or 10.0.0.0).

OK, great, so we get VMs operational in the DR site.  Some of these solutions require the VM to change IP address while some don’t.  If the IP changes, how do clients find the servers?  DNS will be out of date!

DNS TTL

You can reduce the TTL for the A records of your VMs to something small.  If there’s a disaster, is it a big deal if VMs can’t resolve the names of servers for 5 minutes?  Keep in mind DNS replication to local sites – so this might become 15, 20, 60 minutes, depending on TTLs and replication windows.  You can force replication to happen and DNS server caches to flush, but those are manual tasks (and prone to not happening in a disaster).

IP Address Abstraction

Imagine this scenario: a large corporate has an offsite data centre.  The business operates across a WAN.  A DR data centre is deployed, also offsite.  A network appliance(s) are deployed and configured to abstract the actual IP addresses of the servers.  This allows servers to use IP-A in site A and IP-B in site B.  However, the servers are known to the network via IP-C, the abstracted IP managed by the device(s).  This solution is for the very largest of businesses.  For clients on the WAN, DNS is simple: there is only one A record and it’s for IP-C, the abstracted IP.

Personally, I find SDN to be the most elegant solution but there are requirements of scale to make it work.  For the smaller biz, maybe DHCP or IP address injection are the way forward.  There are options – it is up to you to choose the right one.  And I am certainly not going to claim that I have presented all options.

You can learn more about Hyper-V DR and Hyper-V Replica from two chapters on those subjects in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V from the book, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide:

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• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de

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Microsoft has released a hotfix for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V for when you cannot open the Hyper-V Settings dialog box on a Hyper-V host.

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You enable Microsoft RemoteFX on a Hyper-V server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
• You create a long logon banner on the server by changing the Group Policy settings.
• You connect to the server by using a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection.
• You try to open the Hyper-V Settings dialog box.

In this scenario, you cannot open the Hyper-V Settings dialog box.

Cause

This issue occurs because a worker session cannot display or dismiss long logon banners when RemoteFX is enabled.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft

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As usual, I will not be answering licensing questions.  All emails and comments will be deleted without a response.  Please ask your reseller these questions instead – that’s why they add a margin to the license when they sell it to you, so make them work for it.

You cannot legally deploy an image of an OEM media installation of Windows.  According to a Microsoft licensing brief:

Organizations do not have the right to reimage by using OEM media.

An OEM image can only be preloaded on a PC by the OEM during manufacturing. An image can be individually recovered by the organization (or a service provider it chooses) by using the recovery media. The OEM recovery media should match the product version originally preinstalled on the system; no other image can be used to restore the system to its original state

That means a company that buys hundreds or thousands of PCs, intent on using the OEM license, cannot create a custom image from OEM media (assuming OEM media can even be acquired!).  Businesses hate OEM builds because they are full of crap-ware and unmanaged security vulnerabilities.  So what can you do to re-image these PCs?  Do you need to buy a VL for every single machine?  There are benefits to doing that, especially with SA attached, but that’s not for everyone.

There is a little known legal trick that you can apply.  According to Microsoft:

Reimaging is the copying of software onto multiple devices from one standard image. Reimaging rights are granted to all Microsoft Volume Licensing customers. Under these rights, customers may reimage original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or full packaged product (FPP) licensed copies using media provided under their Volume Licensing agreement.

These finer points are detailed in the licensing brief.

Basically:

• Say you buy 2,000 PCs and want to use their OEM licensing for Windows 7/8 Pro
• You want to deploy a custom build/image to these machines
• You buy a single volume license for Windows 8 Pro (includes downgrade rights)
• You use the MAK/KMS key to create and deploy an image of Windows 7/8 Pro
• You’re legit!

You must be sure that you understand:

• The OEM and the VL license must be the same edition, e.g. you cannot deploy a Pro VL image to Home OEM licensed PCs using this licensing technique.
• You must ensure that the versions are matched, e.g. the OEM license entitles you to Windows 7 (including downgrades) if deploying Windows 7 images.  For example, you can’t deploy a Windows 7 VL image to a PC with a Windows Vista OEM sticker/license using this licensing technique.
• The languages must be matched as well.

What if you company does not have a VL agreement?  You need to 5 products to start one.  You can buy a single copy of Windows (to get the ISO download and MAK/KMS keys) and 4 cheap dummy CALs – now you have a VL at minimum cost, and you can re-image your OEM-licensed PCs with an image made from your VL media.

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A few people have started to figure out that Windows 8 sales are down.  It’s clear that retail sales are down.  Annuity licensing agreements (you always buy the latest volume license version and can choose to downgrade, e.g. Windows 7) and the cheap upgrade offers have boosted numbers, but the 20 million/month norm appears to have slid quite a bit.

I’m not going to get into the whys of this; that’s been talked to death.

I am wondering if we will see a reverse course caused by business customers.  Windows XP end of support is coming in April of next year.  Businesses, who have mostly clung to Windows XP like a zombie Charlton Heston grips his gun, are starting to look at upgrades to Windows 7. 

There is a general misunderstanding with enterprise licensing.  Not every company has an annuity agreement such as OVS (SMEs) or an Enterprise Agreement (EA – larger enterprises) that includes Software Assurance (SA – one of the benefits is upgrade rights).  And even if they do, they will be choosey about what is included: maybe they’ll include a Core CAL or an Enterprise CAL for servers, but they won’t get licensing for the desktop OS.  That might be because they’ve been happy with Windows XP and stuck with the OEM license that came with the PC.  Some of those PCs have Windows 7 stickers (licenses) and some don’t.  My experience is that business PCs hang around for a lot longer than most retail PCs, well after their hardware support expires.

Let’s summarise for a moment:

• Businesses are using Windows XP, and XP end of support is April 2014, making XP a security risk to the business.
• Businesses that do have annuity licensing agreements don’t necessarily have licensing for Windows 7.

That means they need Windows 7 licensing for those machines not covered.  They’ll likely get that through volume licensing.  As I said earlier, you can’t buy a legacy version of Windows via VL.  You always buy the latest version (Windows 8 at the moment) and choose to downgrade (e.g. Windows 7).  The estimate is that somewhere around half of business PCs are running Windows XP.  If a significant percentage of those PCs upgrade to Windows 7 (really Windows 8, license-wise) then we could see a big spike in license sales in the coming year.  Microsoft uses the EA Sports calendar, and their new financial year starts in July, therefore we could see big Windows 8 sales from the enterprise then.

And yes, if “Windows 8.1” includes certain features, it could help both consumer and business adoption of “Windows 8.1” (and therefore “Windows 8” sales) in FY14.

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You might have noticed a lot of comments about Adobe in the cloud over the last few days.  What’s happening is that Adobe has launched a new way to buy Adobe software.  You can buy it direct online.  Or you can buy a card in a store (it must be activated by the till) and download the software.  I knew Adobe was making a change quite a while ago.  I knew they were very serious about it.  And I like it – for the most part.

I’m a pretty serious photographer.  I’m far from the best, but I take it seriously as a way to get away from work stuff.  But just like in work, when I shoot and process, I like to do it right.  I use Adobe software to edit my photos (all photos, even Ansel Adams’ classic b&w’s, are edited in some way).  And the serious Adobe software is expensive.

Imagine this:

• You have a Canon 50D.
• You buy some expensive Adobe software that allows you to convert/edit RAW photos from your camera.
• You are a happy customer for 12-18 months.
• Adobe launches a new version (Y) of the software but you don’t need it because version X is just fine as it is.
• You upgrade to a Canon 60D that has a new RAW format.
• Whoops!  Version X doesn’t have support for the new RAW format and you have to buy version Y to edit your photos.

We can blame Adobe for not upgrading version X to edit the RAWs from the 60D.  But here’s a cold reality: Adobe is a business that is there to make a profit.  If they continued to support older products then no one would ever buy the new software.  Therefore all their efforts at research and development in new versions would be loss making and Adobe would go out of business.

The switch to cloud distribution changes things.  The really serious graphics editors can subscribe to things like the Creative Cloud suite.  That’s one serious mama-jamma of a package.  Maybe you like Photoshop CS but are but off by the huge price tag?  And that nasty price tag might seem worse if you consider the short life of your product if you change camera bodies every 18-24 months.  Well, have a look at Photoshop through the cloud.  You get a modest monthly fee (from 1 month, annual agreement, and CS3+ upgrades), upgrades, and 20 GB of online storage.

That makes the cloud distribution model look very very nice.

There is a fly in the ointment.  Adobe’s currency calculator must be broken.  The price for Photoshop per month (annual commitment) is (conversion based on pricing on 6/May/2013):

• US Dollars: $19.99
• Euro: EUR24.59 ($32.15)
• UK Pound: 17.58 ($27.32)

That makes the Euro price for Adobe Photoshop through the cloud:

• 60.8% more expensive than the US price
• 17.7% more expensive than the UK price

No taxation can be blamed for that price difference.  If retail distribution had a place here, then we could blame that … but one of the perks of cloud computing is that there is a uniform distribution cost – it’s the same data center.  Something doesn’t smell right to me.

If Adobe fixes this stinker then I’m all in favour of the switch.  Until then – I have a problem with it, just like I did with Windows Intune pricing until it was fixed in “Wave D”.

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Microsoft has released guidance on how to design and manage IaaS clouds using Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, storage, networking, and System Center 2012 SP1.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Architecture Guide

This document provides customers with the necessary guidance to develop solutions for a Microsoft private cloud infrastructure in accordance with the IaaS PLA patterns that are identified for use with the Windows Server 2012 operating system. This document provides specific guidance for developing fabric architectures (compute, network, storage, and virtualization layers) of an overall private cloud solution.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Management Architecture Guide

This document provides customers with the necessary guidance to develop solutions for a Microsoft private cloud infrastructure in accordance with the IaaS PLA patterns that are identified for use with the Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1). This document provides specific guidance for developing a management architecture for an overall private cloud solution.

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I will be speaking at an event in London UK called The Path To Windows 8.

The Path to Windows 8 event brings together the brightest IT professionals from around the world to talk about Windows 8 and how Microsoft can help you migrate your current desktop infrastructure to Windows 8.

In addition, the team will demonstrate all aspects of a Windows migration and, with Windows XP life support ending april 2014, it is time to learn what and how you can do these tasks.

• Date: 5 July 2013
• Location: Microsoft UK Cardinal Place, 80-100 Victoria St, London SW1E 5JL
• Capacity: 104 people
• Click here to register

Agenda:

• 8:30 – 9:30         Registration
• 9:30 – 10:00       Keynote, Edward Cook – Microsoft Partner Technology Advisor
• 10:00 – 11:15     Path to Windows 8, David Nudelman – Microsoft MVP
• 11:15 – 12:30     Successful migrations to Windows 8 with Configuration Manager, Raphael Perez – RFL Systems – Microsoft MVP
• 12:30 – 13:15     Lunch Break and Networking
• 13:15 – 14:30     Creating your Configuration Manager Infrastructure with Hyper-V, Aidan Finn – Technical Sales Lead at MicroWarehouse – Microsoft MVP
• 14:30 – 15:45     The Future of Desktop, Simon May – Microsoft Evangelist
• 15:45 – 16:00     Break
• 16:00 – 16:45     Ask the experts and Prize draw

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I can’t say I know anything beyond the text in this new KB article, so don’t bother asking.  See the Edit1 note below.  This one is just for Storage Server 2012.

This update introduces a new feature for the OEM Appliance Out-Of Box Experience (OOBE) feature to support four-node failover cluster deployment in Windows Server 2012. This update also adds a wizard to create a domain controller on a Hyper-V virtual machine for using in a first-server environment. The wizard is added to support the Cluster-in-a-Box design.

Note Currently, the OEM Appliance OOBE feature supports only two-node failover cluster deployment.

It reads like it’s aimed at manufacturers for a set-up wizard.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft.

EDIT1:

I got a clarification from the Failover Clustering group.  This update is intended for Storage Server appliances.  Everyone else: please ignore!

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1. Download updates from Microsoft, WSUS, etc, or a file share, to the hosts (and this is expandable to 3rd party updates such as OEMs).
2. Put host 1 into maintenance mode – that drains it of virtual machines using Live Migration and … Quick Migration (for VMs marked as LOW priority, by default, which I DO NOT agree with).  You can make it 100% Live Migration so no services suffer an outage during the moves.  The more bandwidth your Live Migration network has, the faster this will be – using 1 Gbps networking for 512 GB RAM hosts is stupid!
3. Patch and reboot host 1
4. Wait for host 1 to come back online
5. Bring host 1 out of maintenance mode
6. Repeat steps 2-5 for each host

• You can manually invoke CAU from a Failover Cluster Manager console not running on a cluster member
• You can set up a special CAU role on the cluster with a patching schedule – it’s a clustered role so it will move just like the VMs

1. Live Migration keeps services online so the business should not notice.
2. I’m “in” the office already.  If something does go wrong, I am not getting a call at 3am or at the weekend.  I’m sober, awake (as much as I will be, anyway), and able to respond immediately.
3. Any support services will have their primary staff available.  If I do need to call someone for hardware or software support, they are online, and I’m not dealing with the red-eye team at 3am on a Sunday morning.
4. I can monitor for exceptions quite happily.
5. The business doesn’t need to pay me overtime or give me time-in-lieu.
6. Peak business in IT is at either end of the week (“password reset Monday” and “I didn’t want to bother you” Friday afternoons) so Wednesday seems like a nice balance.

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Back in January I posted a possible design for implementing iSCSI connectivity for a host and virtual machines using converged networks. 

In that design (above) a pair of virtual NICs would be used for iSCSI, either in the VM or the management OS of the host.  MPIO would “team” the NICs.  I was talking with fellow Hyper-V MVP Hans Vredevoort (@hvredevoort) about this scenario last week but he brought up something that I should have considered.

Look at iSCSI1 and iSCSI2 in the Management OS.  Both are virtual NICs, connecting to ports in the iSCSI virtual switch, just like any virtual NIC in a VM would.  They pass into the virtual switch, then into the NIC team.  As you should know by now, we’re going to be using a Hyper-V Port mode NIC team.  That means all traffic from each virtual NIC passes in and out through a single team member (physical NIC in the team).

Here’s the problem: The allocation of virtual NIC to physical NIC for traffic flow is done by round robin.  There is no way to say “Assign the virtual NIC iSCSI1 to physical NIC X”.  That means that iSCSI1 and iSCSI2 could end up being on the same physical NIC in the team.  That’s not a problem for network path failover, but it does not make the best use of available bandwidth.

Wouldn’t it be nice to guarantee that iSCSI NIC1 and iSCSI NIC2, both at host and VM layers, were communicating on different physical NICs?  Yes it would, and here’s how I would do it:

The benefits of this design over the previous one are:

• You have total control over vNIC bindings.
• You can make much better use of available bandwidth (QoS is still used)
• You can (if required by the SAN vendor) guarantee that iSCSI1 and iSCSI2 are connecting to different physical switches

Don’t worry about the lack of a NIC team for failover of the iSCSI NICs at the physical layer.  We don’t need it; we’re implementing MPIO in the guest OS of the virtual machines and in the management OS of the host.

Confused?  Got questions?  You can learn about all this stuff by reading the networking chapter in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide:

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Ever been confronted by a Hyper-V error box like this?

This one isn’t a great example because the error is pretty clear.  But the above error box illustrates the sort of information that is returned from the management layers of the Hyper-V management OS (which runs in the parent partition).  What does it all mean?  Where does it come from?

Understanding Hyper-V Management

Take a wander over to MSDN to re-familiarise yourself with Hyper-V’s architecture.  It’s always good to revisit and refresh yourself with how Hyper-V works because this information can make troubleshooting much easier.

See what the page calls the root partition?  That’s actually the parent partition, where you’ve installed the host’s OS, which then became the management OS when:

1. You enabled Hyper-V
2. The physical machine rebooted
3. The type 1 hypervisor slipped itself in between Windows Server and the hardware

Let’s focus on 3 pieces that run in User Mode in the management OS:

• WMI: Everything that you do to manage Hyper-V should go through the Hyper-V WMI.  All the MSFT tools do this: Hyper-V Manager, Failover Cluster Manager, PowerShell, and VMM.  3rd party tools should do the same.  Doing otherwise can … cause issues.  WMI is the interface to managing Hyper-V and the VMs on the host.
• VMMS: The Virtual Machine Management Service … manages Hyper-V.
• VMWP: There is one Virtual Machine Worker Process for each running virtual machine.  It’s a small process called VMWP.EXE.  It’s involved with all sorts of things for managing the VM: taking part in Live Migration, managing the state transitions of the VM (start, stop, shutdown, etc), Dynamic Memory, and so on.

Event Logs

Each module produces its own information and logs it in the Windows event logs.  Open up event viewer and browse to Applications And Service Logs > Microsoft > Windows and you can see a series of folders for Hyper-V components:

• Hyper-V-Config
• Hyper-V-High-Availability
• Hyper-V-Hypervisor
• Hyper-V-Integration
• Hyper-V-SynthFC
• Hyper-V-SynthNic
• Hyper-V-SynthStor
• Hyper-V-VID
• Hyper-V-VMMS
• Hyper-V-Worker

Ben Armstrong (@VirtualPCGuy) blogged about these back in 2009.  You’ll notice some changes in WS2012 since then, such as the addition of a log for virtual Fibre Channel events (Hyper-V-SynthFC).

As Ben notes, Hyper-V-VMMS is the place to start looking when there’s a problem with Hyper-V.  It gives us the WMI interface into Hyper-V.  And Hyper-V-Worker is a good place to look if you’re troubleshooting anything to do with the responsibilities of a Worker Process.

Understanding The Error

What you see in the error box is an accumulation of information from several sources.  In fact, you’ll find some of this text in the event logs.  To demonstrate this, I have:

• Created a virtual machine with a VHDX file
• Deleted the VHDX file
• Attempted to start the virtual machine

Below, I have expanded the resulting error to see much more information:

Let’s start with the text blocks that are highlighted in red, working our way from the bottom one to the top.  These are errors related to the VMWP-managed state transition of the VM.  As a result, these text blocks are errors that are logged by the Worker Process in Hyper-V-Worker.

The bottom error, which was the first to be logged by the VMWP, is here:

Note that the text is identical.  This continues with the subsequent VMWP text blocks & error log entries:

And again:

Now onto the text block that I’ve highlighted in green.  That you can find in the Hyper-V-VMMS log:

Read from top to bottom, the story is:

• The virtual machine could not start
• The IDE controller had a problem
• The VHDX file could not be found
• The folder that the VHDX is supposed to be in is OK, but Hyper-V could not find the specified file

The Lessons To Learn

There are 3 things to pick up from this post:

1. Get familiar with Hyper-V’s architecture.  I’d expect a mechanic to know how an engine works, so a Hyper-V engineer should understand at least the basics of this subject.
2. Understand that the error dialog presents information from various modules involved in the requested action.
3. When confused, the Hyper-V-VMMS log is a pretty good place to start digging for treasure.

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After reading yet-another-uninformed-pro-vSphere blog post on a tech “news” site, I just have to say something.  Stop.  Please stop.  Today I read on Tech World that Microsoft does not have anything to compare with DRS.  Eh, Dynamic Optimization anybody?

Then there’s the package comparisons.  VMware’s packaging is a nightmare to figure out.  What feature is in what version of vSphere?  I don’t have a friggin clue.  Pricing vSphere makes choosing a phone plan or a health insurance plan look easy.  To be safe, the “journalists” (I reserve real use of that word for a very small subset of the tech news biz) choose Enterprise Plus, the most expensive SKU of vSphere.

How can we compare Hyper-V versus vSphere?

The first comparison compares apples with apples.  The second, the one that lazy “journalists”, like those on TechWorld, choose to use.  It’s not a fair comparison.  Microsoft and VMware do not bundle their products in similar packages.  The missing piece from the Microsoft bundle is System Center – Virtual Machine Manager.  VMM is a central host management solution that does pretty much everything vCenter can do, and more.  But you can’t buy VMM on it’s own.  Let’s keep searching options …

Comparing CIS/ECI to vSphere suites is *giggles* not fair to VMware – who thought I’d ever say that!?!?!?  In the Microsoft CIS/ECI stack you have all of System Center, a complete service delivery, cloud, backup, health monitoring, infrastructure deliver/management, and so on, for a automating data centre.

I don’t know the VMware stack – as I said, I find it completely confusing compared to the simple Microsoft bundling – but the vCloud suite seems to have a tonne of stuff in it. You could compare the $11,495 vCloud Suite Enterprise with $5,959.20 ECI bundle. You should remember that the price of Windows Server Datacenter for licensing your VMs in $4,809 per 2 CPU host.  That means that to run Windows Server VMs on your vSphere, your cost per 2 CPU host has gone up to $16,304.

So what about the apples-to-apples comparisons for the top end?  Then you need to compare:

In summary, Mr/Miss “journalist” for future apple-to-apple comparisons you should stick to one of the following:

• Hyper-V Server versus ESXi Free
• Microsoft ECI suite versus VMware vCloud Suite Enterprise plus Windows Server Datacenter

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I’m hooked on Storage Spaces, the mechanism in Windows Server 2012 where we can aggregate non-RAID disks and create thinly provisioned (optional), fault tolerant volumes, just like you’ve been doing on a modern SAN (but Storage Spaces is more flexible, if not as feature rich).

It appears that some like this feature so much that they’ve started to implement it inside of virtual machines:

THIS IS NOT A SUPPORTED CONFIGURATION

Sure, you might see presenters like myself do this in demos.  I make it clear: I only do this because I don’t have the hardware to do Storage Spaces at the physical layer.  Storage Spaces was designed to be created using physical disks … and then you can store your virtual machines on a Storage Space virtual disk.

Why are people implementing Storage Spaces in a production VM?  My primary guess is that they want to aggregate virtual hard disks to create a larger volume.  VHD format files can only expand up to 2040 GB.  OK … that’s the wrong way to go about it!  The correct solution would be one of the following:

• Deploy Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and use VHDX files.  They scale out to 64 TB – the maximum size of a VSS snapshot BTW.
• If you’re stuck on vSphere (2 TB VMDK) or pre-WS2012 Hyper-V (2040 GB VHD) then (I hate saying this …) use a physical disk of some kind until you can upgrade to a scalable hypervisor like WS2012 Hyper-V and convert to the more flexible VHDX.

A second possible excuse is: “I want to create volumes inside a VM”.  Anyone who has spent any time owning a virtualised platform will laugh at this person.  There is a simple rule in our business: 1 volume = 1 virtual hard disk.  It gives us complete flexibility over volume management both at the physical (placement) and virtual (resizing) layer.  If you need an E: volume, hot-add a VHDX to the SCSI controller.  If you need an F: volume, hot-add a VHDX to the SCSI controller.  If you need to expand the G: volume, expand the G: VHDX and then expand the G: volume.

The other reason I expect to hear via comments is “we’re scared of virtual hard disk corruption so we want to RAID the disks in some way using Storage Spaces”.  Where to start?

• I have never personally witnessed a corrupt virtual hard disk.  When I have heard of such things it’s because people do stupid things with snapshots or differential disks and they deserve what follows.
• The VHDX format has built-in protection for corruption that can be caused by power loss.
• DOING STORAGE SPACES INSIDE A VM IS NOT SUPPORTED!  It’s no one’s fault, other than yours, when it misbehaves or breaks.

Please, just start using VHDX format virtual hard disks ASAP.

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If you’ve heard me speak on Windows Server 2012 or Hyper-V recently, then you know that:

• I did not really do any PowerShell before March of 2012
• I started then to solve small problems
• I’m a total convert to the ways of PowerShell because it speeds up work, gives me predictable results (minus my typos), and saves me from those repetitive tasks

Not only will you find PowerShell all over Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide, but you’ll find that a new valuable resource has appeared on the TechNet Wiki.  There you will find the “Hyper-V PowerShell Script Cookbook”.

The goal of this site is to shared PowerShell snippets and scripts.  Right now, the categories include:

• Virtual Machine
• Virtual Hard Disk
• Network Virtualization
• Virtual Switch
• Additional scripts

As all good scripters know, you first start by searching, then copying/pasting, and then modifying to get the results you want.  Why not start here … and then contribute any new stuff you create!?!?!

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I recently recorded a podcast with Richard Campbell of Run As Radio.  The topic was, as you might guess, Hyper-V, but this time we focused on Client Hyper-V, the edition of Microsoft’s hypervisor that comes in Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise.

You can find the podcast episode here, and I would strongly recommend that you scroll through previous episodes too see what else you can learn from this valuable resource.  The podcast has been on my iTunes subscriptions for quite a while now, and teaches me loads while out on road trips for work.

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April 2003 was such a fine month.  SARS caused every person with a sniffle to think they’d die.  The war in Iraq was coming to an end (!?).  BA and Air France announced the end of supersonic flight.  We suspected that North Korea might be playing with nukes.  Something called iTunes was launched.  I think that was a fad and disappeared quickly (I’m really hoping a digital Indiana Jones reads this in 10,000 years and thinks it’s the truth).  And on April 24th 2003, Microsoft released Windows Server 2003.

Happy 10th birthday Windows Server 2003!  You were a wonderful operating system.  In my first job where I designed/ran a global infrastructure for a corporate, I chose you just 1 month after GA as the basis for the business.  Sure, it was a bit bleeding edge.  Yes, people did question my decision.  But it worked out fantastically.

I don’t drive a 10-year old car.  I wouldn’t want to use a van in a courier business that I can’t get spare parts for.  In business I want to look forward and be competitive & flexible, instead of clinging to what was right 10 years ago.  Makes you wonder why 57% of servers are still running W2003.

End of support is coming on 14/July/2015.  I really don’t want to hear excuses.  The fact is that the end of extended support is coming.  It is time to start planning your migration from the decade-old operating system.  It’s time to move to an OS that is built for the way we work now.  It is time to pressure vendors and suppliers to support an OS that will actually have some level of support.

Microsoft will not change the date that extended support ends.  Stop fooling yourself, and stop listening to people who eat from their own rear-ends.  Security patches stop, and Microsoft Support will stop taking your calls.  You now have approximately 2 years and 3 months to get moving.  And trust me, that time will fly by so don’t procrastinate.

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Update your RSS feeds: I have just signed up with the Petri IT Knowledgebase to write about Microsoft virtualisation.  I will absolutely be continuing to blog on here.  My goal is to do different kinds of topics on both sites.

Yes, I know this site has been kind of quite in the last 2 weeks – I’m snowed under with prepping and delivering presentations for various road shows and events.

You can see part 1 of my newest article on Petri, where I start exploring the various kinds of storage that you can use in a Hyper-V virtual machine.

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I recently reported on a new KB article that says:

Changes and improvements in Windows Hyper-V Server 2012 no longer support pass-through disks if Live Migration is to be used.

In other words, Live Migration was allegedly not supporting the use of passthrough disks.

That article was incorrect. 

The story is:

1) Hans Vredevoort told me that found a contradicting blog comment/response by Jeff Woolsey where he stated that Live Migration of VMs with passthrough disks would be supported in what I’ll call legacy scenarios:

Pass through disks are still supported with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Live Migration (just like they were with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V) as long as the migration of a clustered VM and the pass through disk is managed by the cluster. For migrations outside of a cluster, such as:

• Shared Nothing Live Migration or
• Using standalone hosts with file on a SMB share (without clustering enabled)

…pass through disks aren’t supported because the pass through disk doesn’t have a way to move between hosts.

That makes total sense.  The passthrough disk (which is not a CSV) has to be passed from one host to another, and only a cluster-managed disk can do this.

Therefore the new scenarios in WS2012 Hyper-V cannot support Live Migration.  Again, that makes total sense:

• Non-clustered SMB-stored-VM Live Migration – you can’t store a LUN on a file share!
• Shared-Nothing Live Migration – until you can transport a LUN from one server to another Star-Trek-style, it isn’t happening.

2) Who was correct, Jeff Woolsey or the KB article?  We needed clarity so I reached out to the Hyper-V group in Redmond.  They responded overnight and Jeff was right.  The KB article was … a … bit enthusiastic (I personally loved the message – I’m quite clear in my training that I’ll smack anyone who I find using passthrough disks).  In fact, that KB article has been deleted by Microsoft.

So those of you who are panicking about your passthrough disks, you can calm down now.

…

However …

The advice from everyone who knows anything about Hyper-V is that you should switch to using VHDX files.  This isn’t just me.  Check out any of the Virtual Machine MVPs on this topic.  Read what Didier Van Hoye or Hans Vredevoort (both being the top 2 storage guys in our group IMO) have to say on the topic.

• VHDX scales out to 64 TB
• It has new health features to limit corruption
• It supports 4K sector matching for performance
• It offers the legacy VHD types, where Fixed will be nearly the same speed as the underlying disk

I heard loads of complaints over the “death” of passthrough disks in the last 7 days.  To you I say, you need to put down your toys of the 2000s. and join us in the 2010s.  We virtualise now for flexibility.  The business demands it, and passthrough disks are not flexible.

The one argument I’ll give some credence to is “I can’t hot expand a VHDX”.  If you are hot expanding LUNs every couple of days then you’ve got other issues, but I too would like this feature.

Anywho, panic over.  You can Live Migrate a VM with passthrough disks as long as both the VM and the passthrough disks are managed by a Hyper-V cluster.  I’m going back to my lazy vacation day now.

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Microsoft Ireland are running a free 2-day technical deep dive event on Windows Server 2012 on April 22-23 in Dublin.  The agenda is below.

Monday22nd April

Tuesday23rd

A large collection of Microsoft speakers appears to be presenting the content.  I’m presenting the 2 highlighted sessions on Hyper-V and storage.

Remember, there are also some regional events that will be discussing the reasons to upgrade to Windows Server 2012 that are starting next week.

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So it seems that the vFanboys are chuckling to themselves today because they saw some bug fixes being released for Windows Server 2012 & Hyper-V.  I hate to burst your vBubble, but it seems that VMware also releases fixes.

For you IT pro wanabees out there, pretty much any decent amount of code is going to have bugs.  You can test all you want, but it’s really only when code gets out into the real world that the product gets truly stressed across scenarios, hardware, drivers, firmwares, and so on.  So, what can we find on the VMware site?  I did a search on ESXi 5.1 and saw this:

So VMware’s developers are human too!  Am I making fun of VMware here?  No.  Am I saying vSphere isn’t fit for usage?  No.  I expect to find bug fixes for heavy duty software.

Am I making fun of the fact that you need to install Java to download these fixes?  You bet your ass I am   Seriously?!?!? You need to use the biggest security vulnerability on the planet to download security and bug fixes from VMware?  Damn!

What about the size of these fixes?  The smallest one is 306.1 MB and the largest is 602.4 MB.  Hmm.  You know how vFanboys love to gufaw about having to install the “bloatware” that is Windows Server to get Hyper-V?  The April update rollup for Windows Server that fixes a long list of things is just 45.4 MB. 

I’m thinking the vFanboys in question need to check their facts first.  You know who you are

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Don’t bother waiting for SP1 before deploying Windows Server 2012.  It’s not coming (to be clear: I haven’t been officially told that or anything else).  It’s looks like Microsoft is switching release cycles from every 3 years to annually.  That makes service packs an impossibility without Microsoft hiring an a lot more developers, testers, and PMs.

What was a service pack?  It was a collection of security and bug fixes.  Security fixes came from the Windows catalog via Windows Update, WSUS, etc.  Bug fixes were normally downloaded manually from the Support site.  A service pack would normally group all these together, maybe add some minor features to avail of recent device enhancements, and be tested by Microsoft as a unit.  This would be a big point release, seen by some as a mark of maturity.

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 actually included some significant new features for virtualization: Dynamic Memory for Hyper-V and RemoteFX for Remote Desktop Services.

Since the release of Windows Server 2012 (and Windows 8) we’ve seen update rollups being released pretty regularly via the Windows Catalog (therefore via Windows Update).  These consist of bug fixes, not security fixes.  The security fixes are still coming down as usual.

To be honest, the earlier update rollups irked a few of us because they listed the KB numbers of the bugs they fixed, but those KB articles weren’t publicly available so we didn’t know what bug fixes we were getting.  But it seems like Microsoft listened to our feedback with the release of the April 2013 Update Rollup and listed/linked/summarised the contained bug fixes.

I’ve lost track of how many of these URs have been deployed since RTM.  It could be 3, maybe 4, possibly 5.  They come via Windows Update so I’m pushing them out with the security updates via WSUS in the lab.

So, if you are waiting for “Service Pack 1” for Windows Server 2012, I’m happy to tell you that we’re at least at Windows Server 2012 “SP3” and maybe even at Windows Server 2012 “SP5”.  Stop delaying and join the rest of us in this decade which we’re already 3 years into.

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