Session Code: VIR311 Deploying Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Best Practices
Agenda Discuss Hyper V deployment strategies Discuss System Center Virtual Machine Manager deployment strategies Understand what is needed to deploy PRO functionality Demo: System Center Virtual Manager Understand Hyper V performance
Hyper V Best Practices
Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V Technology A role of Windows Server 2008 (Std, EE, DC) Can be installed on both Windows Server 2008 Full and Core Production servers can be configured as a minimal footprint Server Core role Hypervisor based architecture Flexible and dynamic virtualization solution Managed by the Microsoft System Center family of products
Hyper-V Architecture Parent Partition WMI Provider VMMS Applications VM Worker Processes Child Partitions Applications Applications Applications Provided by: ISV / IHV / OEM OS Microsoft Hyper-V Microsoft / Citrix (XenSource) User Mode Ring 3 Windows Server 2008 Windows Kernel VSP Supported Windows OS Windows Kernel VSC Non- Hypervisor Aware OS Xen-Enabled Linux Kernel Linux VSC IHV Drivers VMBus VMBus Emulation VMBus Hypercall Adapter Kernel Mode Ring 0 Windows hypervisor Designed for Windows Server Hardware
Hyper-V System Requirements 64-Bit processors with hardware virtualization extensions enabled Intel-VT AMD-V Hardware enabled Data Execution Prevention (DEP) required AMD (NX no execute bit) Intel (XD execute disable) RAM Parent Partition 1GB Each Guest + ~21MB overhead Disk Parent Partition Space to store VHDs Space to store VSS snapshots Space to store VM snapshots Network 1 NIC for parent partition management 1+ NICs for Virtual Networks Guest usage 1 NIC for iscsi (optional)
Choosing the building blocks Build a balanced system Best Practices Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition EE/DTC Server Core Installation Quad processor/quad Core (16 cores) AMD-V or Intel VT Memory 2 GB per core minimum (32 GB) 4 GB per core recommended (64 GB) Storage Networking 4 Gb Fibre Channel 1 Gb/E NIC (onboard) for VM management/cluster heartbeat/migration 1 quad-port Gb/E PCI-E for VMs
Windows Server Core Windows Server frequently deployed for a single role Must deploy and service the entire OS in earlier Windows Server releases Server Core a new minimal installation option Provides essential server functionality Command Line Interface only, no GUI Shell Benefits Fundamentally improves availability Less code results in fewer patches and reduced servicing burden Low surface area server for targeted roles More secure and reliable with less management
Hyper V Storage Best Practices
Hyper-V Storage Best Practices Performance wise from fastest to slowest Fixed Disk VHDs/Pass Through Disks Slight performance difference Dynamically Expanding VHDs Grow as needed Do not use for production workloads Pass Through Disks Pro: VM writes directly to a disk/lun without encapsulation in a VHD Cons: You can t use VM snapshots Dedicating a disk to a vm
Hyper-V Storage Best Practices Leverage MPIO solutions to provide SAN path and bandwidth advantages Use Pass thru disks for I/O intensive workloads Database workloads OLTP/DSS File Servers Leverage ISCSI on the Host (Best Performance) Leverage TOE and offload cards Use ISCSI in the guest for guest clusters
Hyper V Networking Best Practices
Hyper-V Networking Parent Partition Virtual networks bound to physical NICs External limited by the number of NICs Internal - unlimited Private - unlimited Ethernet NICs only Network teaming VLAN Support Trunking No Wireless NIC support Virtual Machine Synthetic NIC Legacy NIC 12 NICs per VM 8 synthetic 4 legacy Up to 10Gb/s VLAN support
Parent Partition: TCP/IP Properties Parent Partition LAN Configuration Virtual Switch Configuration
Hyper-V Best Practices Network Configurations Example: Server has 4 physical network adapters NIC 1: Assigned to parent partition for management NIC 2: Assigned to parent partition for iscsi NICs 3/4: Assigned to virtual switches for virtual machine networking
Hyper-V, Networking & iscsi
Network Flow Parent Partition VM Worker Processes WMI Provider VM Service Child Partitions Applications Applications Applications User Mode Windows Server 2008 VM 1 VM 2 VM 3 VSP P VMBus Windows Kernel VSC Windows Kernel Windows hypervisor VSC Linux Kernel VMBus VMBus VMBus VSC Kernel Mode Mgmt NIC 1 iscsi NIC 2 VSwitch 1 NIC 3 VSwitch 2 NIC 4 Designed for Windows Server Hardware
Virtualization and High Availability
Microsoft Hyper-V Quick Migration Provides solutions for both planned and unplanned downtime Planned downtime Quickly move virtualized workloads to service underlying hardware More common than unplanned Unplanned downtime Automatic failover to other nodes (hardware or power failure) Not as common and more difficult
Quick Migration Fundamentals Planned Downtime 1. Save state a) Save entire virtual machine state 2. Move virtual machine a) Move storage connectivity from origin to destination host 3. Restore state and Run a) Restore virtual machine and run VHDs Shared Storage Network Connectivity
Quick Migration Storage Best Practices Pass-through Disks in a cluster VHD Based Provides enhanced I/O performance Requires VM configuration file to be stored separate from the virtual machine file Create file share on the cluster and store VM configuration files for virtual machines that use pass-thru. One LUN per VM best practice Ability to provision more then one VM per LUN but all failover as a unit 3 rd part solutions offer the ability to provision a LUN with multiple virtual machines with granular failover
Quick Migration Storage Best Practices SAN/iSCSI Leverage MPIO solutions for path availability and I/O throughput Leverage VM provisioning via GUID ID instead of drive letter \\?\<GUID>\ Use Mountvol.exe to find GUID of provisioned LUN
Live Migration Live Migration coming in Windows Server 2008 R2 Allows you to move virtual machines with no network downtime Built on top of Windows Failover Clustering High Availability + Mobility Today s investments in clustering will prepare you for this technology
Hyper V Backup
Hyper-V Backup Best Practices Ensure your backup solution supports VSS Support for the VSS writer in Hyper V specifically Virtual Machine Backup Best practices Leverage the Hyper V VSS writer to take online snapshots of virtual machines System Center Data Protection Manager Will provide Hyper V VSS snapshots Ability to quickly recover virtual machines Replicate snapshots to backup location for DR
Hyper-V Backup Best Practices Install KB956697 Addresses problem with VSS backups not working when a virtual machine configuration file is missing http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/956697
Looking at Hyper V Performance
Looking at Hyper-V Performance Performance Things to Understand Guest OS processors/cores are not bound (affinitized) to physical processsors/cores Physical Memory Must match the Combined Memory of All of the Guest Computers 1GB for parent partition + memory of VM +21MB The parent partition is a Virtual Machine Only run Ecosystem applications (backup, Antivirus) Measure Hyper V and Virtual machine performance using new Hyper Performance counters 29 new Hypervisor related performance counters
Looking at Hyper-V Performance Measuring Processor Usage Measuring the physical host computer s (Root Partition) Processor Capacity Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor(*)\% Total Run Time: The percentage of time spent by the processor in guest and hypervisor code. Measuring Guest Computer Processor Utilization \HyperVisor Hyper-V Logical Processors(*)\% Guest Run Time:
Looking at Hyper-V Performance Measure Memory usage Measuring Available Memory on the Hyper-V Host Computer: \Memory\Available MBytes: Available MBytes is the amount of physical memory available to processes running on the computer, in Megabytes. Same for measuring memory usage in the Virtual machine
Demo Hyper-V
SCVMM Deployment Best Practices
VMM 2008 Architecture Administrator s Console Self Service Web Portal Operator s Console Web Console Windows PowerShell Windows PowerShell Virtual Machine Manager Server Connector Operations Manager Server Management Interfaces VMM Library Server VMware VI3 Virtual Center Server VM VM VM Template VM VM VM VM ESX Host VM VM ISO VHD Script VM VM VM VM VM VM VM VM SAN Storage
VMM 2008 Requirements VMM 2008 Server requires Windows Server 2008 x64 for installation PowerShell feature should be added before install VMM 2008 Console will install on Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 x86/x64 Non-Windows Server 2008 installations will require local installation of PowerShell 1.0 VMM 2008 Agent install on Windows Server 2003/2008. Windows Server 2008 installs require WinRM locally
VMM 2008 Installation VMM 2008 Server requires requires Active Directory for security Can manage non-ad computers, but needs AD for installation Each VMM 2008 component can be separate servers or on a single server (demo/test) VMM 2008 can be run inside a VM Just be aware of the chicken & the egg issue (understand you will need Server Manager to start the VMM VM)
VMM 2008 Scalability Support 400 hosts 8000 virtual machines per VMM Server. Best practice VMM server per datacenter Split host management by location Create library servers close to hosts In branch offices load the library server on the VM host Assign to separate spindles for I/O Replication of library servers VMM does not provide a built in replication mechanism Leverage DFS-R 3 rd party replication tools (Doubletake)
Demo VMM 2008 Overview
Host and Cluster Configuration Remote enable the Hyper-V role or Virtual Server installation Hyper-V can be remotely enabled rather than using Server Manager Virtual Server can be installed on Windows Server 2003 hosts, but WinRM needs to be installed first on the host Easy management of Hyper-V host clusters Add entire Hyper-V host cluster in a single step Cluster needs to be created outside of VMM Automatic detection of node additions/removals Management of Windows Server 2008 Failover clusters for Hyper- V Specify number of node failures you want to sustain but still have all your HA VMs running Intelligent Placement ensures that new HA VM creation will not overcommit the cluster Node failures automatically trigger overcommit re-calculation
Placement and Cluster Reserve Cluster reserve = 1 node Can the cluster sustain 1 node failure? YES Place the VM Clustered Host 1 Clustered Host 2 Clustered Host 3
Virtualization and Knowledge Convergence Knowledge Here
Performance And Resource Optimization (PRO) Workload and application aware resource optimization Extensible through the Operations Manager 2007 MP framework Create policies that VMM acts upon tips automatically or manually Can be applied equally to both VMware and Microsoft hosts Leverage PRO to maximize the utilization of your hosts.
Performance And Resource Optimization (PRO)
PRO Out Of the Box Hyper-V and VMware Host Performance CPU and Memory VM Right Sizing CPU and Memory Extensible Framework
Q & A
Resource Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv.aspx Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/default.mspx System Center Virtual Machine Manager http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/default.aspx Virtual PC Guy http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/
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