Cool New Hyper-V Features in Windows Server 2012 R2 Aidan Finn
About Aidan Finn Technical Sales Lead at MicroWarehouse (Dublin) Working in IT since 1996 MVP (Virtual Machine) Experienced with Windows Server/Desktop, System Center, virtualisation, and IT infrastructure @joe_elway http://www.aidanfinn.com http://www.petri.co.il/author/aidan-finn Published author/contributor of several books
Books System Center 2012 VMM Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V
Agenda The vision Improving virtualisation Private cloud Disaster recovery Hybrid cloud
Conditions To Be Cloudy WS2012 R2 focuses on the vision of a cloud OS One single platform a hybrid cloud spanning: Private cloud Hosting company Windows Azure Enable software-defined & service centric Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Built with System Center 2012 R2 WINDOWS AZURE CUSTOMER Cloud OS SERVICE PROVIDER
Windows Azure IaaS Windows Azure uses the same Hyper-V virtualization service built-into Windows Server 2012 Complete virtual machine compatibility between on premise Hyper-V and Azure IaaS
Generation 2 Virtual Machines Legacy free UEFI based Many emulated devices removed Boots from virtual SCSI or synthetic network adapters Enables UEFI secure boot standard PXE boot from synthetic NIC Supported guest operating systems: 64-bit versions of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 64-bit versions of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 And yes, System Center 2012 R2 (GA) can manage Generation 2 VMs
Enhanced Session Mode RemoteFX (Remote Desktop) via VMBus Full remote desktop capabilities Shared clipboard Audio redirection Enhanced login and more. Works even when the VM s network is down Integrated into Hyper-V Management experience Disabled by default in WS2012 R2 Hyper-V host settings Requires Windows 8.1/WS2012 R2 guest OS
Automatic VM Activation (AVMA) Zero touch activation of virtual machines Virtual machines automatically activated according to the hosting environment Reduces configuration for hosters / enterprises Install AVMA product key when creating template VM using SLMGR Create VM template Deploy VMs from that template Requires: Activated WS2012 R2 Datacenter edition on the host management OS Guest OS to be WS2012 R2 Datacenter/Standard/Essentials
Cross-Version Live Migration Make it easier to migrate VMs to newer version of Hyper-V New zero service downtime migration option Live migrate virtual machines from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2012 R2 One-way operation Only from WS2012 to WS2012 R2 Includes support for: Live Migration of VMs on SMB 3.0 storage Shared-nothing live migration
Cross-Version Compatibility Increased compatibility for VMs on Windows Server 2012 R2 from Windows Server 2012 R2 Saved states Checkpoints (formerly known as Hyper-V Snapshots) Less clean-up work (loss for devs/testers) when: Upgrading hosts Using Cross-Version Live Migration
Faster Live Migration Compression Makes the most of existing network/hardware investment Uses spare CPU cycles CPU monitored by Hyper-V Over 2x improvement in live migration time Enabled by default SMB Direct For 10 GbE or faster networks Make the most of network investment for SMB 3.0 Converged networks Enables high-speed & low impact live migrations Uses SMB Multichannel to leverage multiple interfaces Uses SMB Direct to minimise impact on hosts CPUs
Online VHDX Resize Increase and decrease the size of virtual hard disks While the virtual machine is running!!! Requires: VHDX Attached to VM s SCSI controller Tips: Always put data into dedicated VHDX, e.g. D: drive When using Hyper-V Replica, place VM s paging file into dedicated VHDX for selective replication
Storage QoS Control IOPS of VMs Enables constant SLA delivery Dynamically configurable while the virtual machine is running Can restrict disk throughput for overactive / disruptive virtual machines
Shared VHDX Guest Clustering Guest Clustering with commodity storage Sharing VHDX files provides shared storage for Hyper-V Failover Clustering Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) on block storage Scale-Out File Server for file based storage Guest Clustering Maintains separation between infrastructure and tenants Virtual SAS VM presented a shared virtual SAS disk Appears as shared SAS disk to VM VHDX Block Storage VHDX File Based Storage
Live Virtual Machine Export/Clone While the virtual machine is running: Export a complete copy including memory state Export any snapshot of a virtual machine Useful for diagnostics, pre-testing upgrades, etc Without impacting production services
Improved Features For Linux Guest OS Continued investment in Hyper-V Linux Integration Services Built into the Linux distributions Dynamic Memory Same features as Windows guests Live VM Backup File system consistent Linux video driver Online VHDX resize Kdump/kexec Linux Specification of Memory Mapped I/O (MMIO) gap Linux Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI)
Hyper-V Replica Most popular feature of WS2012 Hyper-V Lots of feedback Finer Grained Interval controls: Choose between asynchronous replication intervals 30 seconds ( near synchronous ) 5 minutes (as in WS2012) 15 minutes Extended Replication Replicate from Site A to Site B Extend replication from Site B to Site C It is not A-B & A-C
Failover Clustering Always add a witness disk/file share Dynamic Witness Vote manipulated to get quorum if witness fails Configurable GUM Mode: All nodes must receive and process an update before it is committed to avoid inconsistencies on Hyper-V enabled clusters Hyper-V Cluster Heartbeat Increased to avoid needless VM failover due to brief cluster network glitch Protected Networks Live migrate VMs if physical LAN connection fails CSV Auto-rebalancing across cluster nodes Up to 64 TB volumes with no CHKDSK
System Center 2012 R2 For the first time ever Windows Server & System Center were developed together Same release date You must use System Center 2012 R2 to manage WS2012 R2
Software Defined Networking Hyper-V Network Virtualization added in WS2012 AKA Windows Network Virtualization Improved in WS2012 R2 NVGRE gateway built into WS2012 R2 Deploy appliance VMs on dedicated hosts in edge network Virtual switch extensions can manage in/out NVGRE traffic Use extensions such as the Cisco Nexus 1000V Self-learning of customer addresses Works with DHCP in VM Subnets Support for NVGRE offload
Summary Hyper-V for private cloud & hybrid is just getting better Increasing virtual machine up-time is always a priority Listening to customers and refining features Innovating in virtualization
Dankeschön! Aidan Finn @joe_elway www.aidanfinn.com Petri IT Knowledgebase