Cloud Computing, Networking & Security, SDLC, VMware, Microsoft, AWS, and Related Technology Topics
“A Microsoft private cloud dramatically changes the way your business produces and consumes IT services by creating a layer of abstraction over your pooled IT resources. This allows your datacenter to offer true infrastructure service capability as well as optimally managed application services.
Microsoft private cloud solutions are built on System Center and Windows Server.”
You can get the software here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“iSCSI Software Target is an optional Windows Server component that provides centralized, software-based and hardware-independent iSCSI disk subsystems in storage area networks (SANs).”
You can download the new package here and find additional information by reading Jose Barreto’s blog posts: The Basics of the Virtual Disk Services (VDS), Configuring the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target, Step-by-step: Using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target with Hyper-V (Standalone, Full, VHD) and Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 for Windows Server 2008 R2 available for public download.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“Disable time synchronization on the host by using Integration Services, and then configure the virtualized domain controller to accept the default Windows Time Service (W32time) domain hierarchy time synchronization. To do this, follow these steps:
More information here – Microsoft KB article 976924.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
Microsoft Disk2vhd v1.61 (New Version) - 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)
VKERNEL Free VM Tools Page (ESXi, ESX, vCenter, etc)
New vSphere 4.1 Windows Active Directory Authentication Video by David Davis
Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 (New Version) - Network Monitor 3.4 is a protocol analyzer. It allows you to capture network traffic, view and analyze it. Version 3.4 is an update and replaces Network Monitor 3.3. Network Monitor 3.x is a complete overhaul of the previous Network Monitor 2.x version
Prepare your Domain for the Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller by Daniel Petri
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“Hyper-V is Hypervisor-based virtualization technology from Microsoft. It is available both as Windows Server role (starting with Windows Server 2008) and as a free stand-alone product called Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
Following is a list of Hyper-V-related topics in TechNet Wiki.
General information
- About Microsoft Virtualization
- Hyper-V Survival Guide
- Hyper-V TV
- Hyper-V Terms
Hyper-V / hypervisor Concepts
Hyper-V Resources
Technical Information
- Hyper-V Architecture
- Hyper-V Virtual Networking Best Practices
- Hyper-V VM Migration — R1 to R2
- Hyper-V Live Migration”
You will find the Microsoft Hyper-V Portal/Wiki page here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“This guide describes how to configure your network to use the live migration feature of Hyper-V™. It provides a detailed list of the networking configuration requirements for optimal performance and reliability, as well as recommendations for scenarios that do not meet these requirements.
For information about the complete requirements for using Hyper-V with Cluster Shared Volumes, see Hyper-V: Using Live Migration with Cluster Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2008 R2”
You can access the Microsoft Hyper-V Live Migration Network Configuration Guide here (TechNet).
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“HP Virtual Connect for HP BladeSystem simplifies the setup of server connections to LANs and SANs, allowing server administrators to quickly add or replace servers and move workloads without needing to involve network and storage teams. HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 is the first interconnect technology to reduce the cost and amount of network equipment needed compared to switches, while providing precise bandwidth control for every server Ethernet connection. Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager provides a single intuitive console that manages server connectivity for hundreds of Virtual Connect domains and thousands of servers.”
You can download the HP Virtual Connect for Dummies pdf here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
I came across this site today and wanted to share it here. It has a collection of pre-built Virtual Machines that can be downloaded for various hypervisors and platforms like VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, KVM, VirtualBox and Parallels.
Here is the site description:
“Thunderflash is the new one-stop source for pre-built virtual machine images, featuring high speed downloads and supporting all popular hypervisors and platforms. Search through a huge selection of virtual machine images by entering your search terms on the left.
You must create an account and verify your email address before you can directly download images, but it only takes a moment and is completely free.”
You can access the site here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
Via virtualboy blog & SMB Virtualization group:
“The following table shows the list of software updates and hotfixes for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008/R2. Updates that are available on Windows Update are indicated, as well as the download location for those that are available at the Microsoft Download Center. These updates and hotfixes can help avoid some known issues and may save you a support call.”
Microsoft Hyper-V Updates are available here (2008 R2) and here (2008).
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“If you are a VMware administrator or you are considering a virtualization platform purchase, then this webcast is for you. Using demonstrations, we compare Microsoft and VMware virtualization platforms and highlight the differences in the two platforms. Topics we cover include Failover Clustering, the Microsoft high availability solution; live migration, how Microsoft does VMotion; using Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) to move virtual machines; and much more.”
The Microsoft TechNet Webcast Hyper-V for the VMware Administrator can be downloaded here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“This video, with a mix of slides and demo, walks through networking in Hyper-V. We take a look at the different types of networks: Private, Internal and External, along with vLANs and Teaming.
Duration: 52m 14s:
- Demo: Private Networking & vLANs @ 17m 38s
- Demo: Internal Networking & vLANs @ 27m 03s
- Demo: External Networking & vLANs @ 33m 25s
- Demo: NIC Teaming @ 45m 19s”
You can download the video here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
“The following are some of the most frequently asked questions about Hyper-V. These questions are based on actual calls and e-mails to Microsoft and might save you time and effort.”
You will find the Microsoft Hyper-V FAQ here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
This guide includes information about hardware requirements and limits, supported guest operating systems, and instructions for installing the role and management tools. It also includes information about configuring security, network, and storage for the Hyper-V role.
You can download the guide here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
This book will teach you about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions. The technologies covered include: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2009, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
You can download your free copy here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
Overview:
Licensing Microsoft Server Products in Virtual Environments (Word file, 2.25 MB) is an overview of Microsoft licensing models for the server operating system and server applications under virtual environments. Licensing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 to Run with Virtualization Technologies (Word file, 1.39 MB) describes how Windows Server 2008 and other Microsoft server products are licensed when they are used with other virtualization technologies.
Here is the link to the document.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
Here is a very nice post from the Ask the Core Team blog that enumerates the top support issues for Microsoft Hyper-V:
Hyper-V Beta was released as part Windows Server 2008. The final release of Hyper-V happened shortly after the Windows Server 2008 release and can be downloaded here. After a few months of supporting customers, we now have enough case data to report on the top issues being reported for Hyper-V. The issues are categorized below with the top issue(s) in each category listed with possible resolutions and additional comments as needed. These may change as time passes, but as of this post, this is how we see it here in CORE. As always, we welcome your comments.
- Deployment\Planning
- Issue #1: Customers looking for Hyper-V documentation
Resolution: Information is provided on the Microsoft Hyper-V TechNet Library which includes links to several Product Team blogs. Additionally, the Microsoft Virtualization site contains information that can be used to get a Hyper-V based solution up and running quickly.- Issue #2: How to migrate virtual machines from Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper-V?
Resolution: The CORE Team blog provides tips and suggestions to help with the migration process.- Installation Issues
- Issue #1: System hangs on restart at "Configuring Updates Stage 3 of 3" after the Hyper-V role is enabled, disabled, or updated.
Cause: HP Network Configuration Utility.
Resolution: Perform the steps documented in KB950792.- Issue #2: After the Hyper-V role is installed, a virtual machine fails to start with the following error: The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running
Cause: Hardware virtualization or Data Execution Prevention (DEP) was not enabled in the BIOS.
Resolution: Enable Hardware virtualization or DEP in the BIOS. In some cases, the server must be physically shutdown in order for the BIOS settings to take effect.- Virtual Devices\Drivers
- Issue #1: A Synthetic NIC was listed as an unknown device in device manager.
Cause: Integration Components were not installed.
Resolution: Install Integration Components package in the VM.- Issue #2: Unable to associate the virtual COM port to a physical COM port.
Cause: By design.- Issue #3: Dynamic disks attached to the SCSI controller in a Windows Server 2003 virtual machine show as Offline on restart.
Cause: Storsvc is set to the incorrect start value in the registry.
Resolution: Perform the following step in the Guest OS registry: Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storvsc change the "Start" value from 3 to 0.
Additional Comment: This has been fixed in Windows Server 2008 SP2.- Integration Components
- Issue #1: Attempting to install the Integration Components in a Windows Server 2003 virtual machine fails with the following error: Unsupported Guest OS An error has occurred: The specified program requires a newer version of Windows
Cause: Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 wasn’t installed in the virtual machine. You can hit this error for other OS’ that don’t have the appropriate service pack installed (Vista, Windows XP, etc..).
Resolution: Install SP2 in the Windows Server 2003 VM before installing the integration components.- Virtual Machine State and Settings
- Issue #1: Virtual machines show a state of "Paused-Critical" in the Hyper-V Management Console
Cause: Lack of free disk space on the volume hosting the .vhd or .avhd files.
Resolution: Free up disk space on the volume hosting the .vhd or .avhd files.- Issue #2: When you attempt to create or start a virtual machine, you receive the following error: The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open. (0x800704C8)
Cause: This issue can be caused by antivirus software that is installed in the parent partition and the real-time scanning component is configured to monitor files used by Hyper-V.
Resolution: Configure the real-time scanning component within the antivirus software to exclude the following files and directories:
- Default virtual machine configuration directory (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V)
- Custom virtual machine configuration directories
- Default virtual hard disk directory (C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks)
- Custom virtual hard disk directories
- Snapshot directories
- Vmms.exe
- Vmwp.exe
- High Availability (Failover Clustering)
- Issue #1: Virtual machine settings that are changed on one node in a Failover Cluster are not present when the VM is moved to another node.
Cause: The 'Refresh virtual machine configuration' option in the Failover Cluster Management interface was not used prior to moving the VM to another node in the cluster.
Resolution: When virtual machine settings are changed in a VM that’s running in a Failover Cluster, you must select the 'Refresh virtual machine configuration' option before the VM is moved to another node.
Additional Comment: We have a CORE blog which discusses this issue.- Issue #2: Customers looking for documentation on how to configure Hyper-V in a Failover Cluster.
Resolution: A step-by-step guide is available which covers how to configure Hyper-V in a Failover Cluster.- Hyper-V Snapshots
- Issue #1: Snapshots associated with a VM are lost.
Cause: Parent VHD was expanded.
Resolution: Restore data from backup.
Additional Comments: There is a warning about this in the Edit Disk wizard which should not be ignored.- Issue #2: Virtual machine fails to boot.
Cause: Virtual machine had associated snapshots and to recover disk space the .avhd files were deleted.
Resolution: Restore data from backup.- Backup (Hyper-V VSS Writer)
- Issue #1: How to backup virtual machines using Windows Server Backup (WSB).
Resolution: There is a CORE blog which discusses the steps needed to register the Hyper-V VSS writer with Windows Server Backup. A KB article has also been written.- Hyper-V Management Console
- Issue #1: When remotely managing a Hyper-V Server and trying to perform a task such as creating a virtual machine or modifying virtual machine settings, you may receive the following error: You might not have permission to perform this task
Cause: There are multiple causes for this error but the most common cause is that a beta version of the Hyper-V Management Console was being used to manage a Hyper-V server that was running the RTM build.
Resolution: Install the RTM version of the Hyper-V Management Console.
Additional Comment: There is a multi-part Product Group blog that discusses this error and provides several possible solutions which are scenario dependent.Chuck Timon
Senior Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
This is a new introductory video to VMware Site Recovery Manager that explains what SRM can do and provides a demo of the product.
You can watch the video here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
If you are interested in watching any of the PDC 2008 sessions (Windows 7, Azure, Live Services, Power Shell, Windows Server, etc) just follow this link.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
"This search brings you all the video tagged Hyper-V across: MSN, AOL, MTV, Hulu, ESPN, YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion, Metacafe."
To search other video use http://www.live.com/?scope=video.
You can find the Hyper-V Videos here.
Source Tonyso.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel
The VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant (VIMA) allows administrators and developers to run scripts and agents to manage ESX and ESXi systems. VIMA is a virtual machine that includes prepackaged software, a logging component, and an authentication component that supports non-interactive login. You can use VIMA to perform most of the tasks commonly performed in the ESX service console.
You can download the appliance here.
Posted by Gabriel Maciel