Eitan spector

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Deploying Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Best
Practices

• Eitan spector
• OS Virtualization practice leader

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Agenda

• Discuss Hyper-V Architecture
• Hyper-V Storage Best Practices
• Hyper-V Networking Best Practices
• Virtualization and High Availability
• Hyper-V Backup
• Hyper- V performance
• SCVMM Deployment

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Provided by
Hyper-V Architecture
ISV / IHV / OEM
OS
Microsoft Hyper-V
Parent Partition
Child Partitions
Microsoft / Citrix (XenSource)
Applications
Applications
Applications
WMI Provider
VMMS
Applications
User Mode Ring 3
Windows Server 2008
Non-Hypervisor Aware OS
VSP
IHV Drivers
Kernel Mode Ring 0
VMBus
Emulation
VMBus
VMBus
Windows hypervisor
Ring -1
Designed for Windows Server Hardware
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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

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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)

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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
• 4 Gb Fibre Channel
• Networking
• 1 Gb/E NIC (onboard) for VM management/cluster
  heartbeat/migration
• 1 quad-port Gb/E PCI-E for VMs

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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

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• Hyper -V Storage
• Best Practices

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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
• VM writes directly to a disk/LUN without
  encapsulation in a VHD
• Cons
• You cant use VM snapshots
• Dedicating a disk to a vm

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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

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• Hyper -V Networking
• Best Practices

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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

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Parent Partition TCP/IP Properties
Parent Partition LAN Configuration
Virtual Switch Configuration
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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

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Hyper-V Setup, Networking iSCSI
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NetworkingISCSI
Parent Partition
Child Partitions
Applications
Applications
Applications
User Mode
VM 3
Windows Server 2008
VM 2
VM 1
Windows Kernel
Linux Kernel
Windows Kernel
VSC
VSC
VSC
Kernel Mode
VMBus
VMBus
VMBus
VMBus
Windows hypervisor
Ring -1
Designed for Windows Server Hardware
Mgmt NIC 1
iSCSI NIC 2
VSwitch 1 NIC 3
VSwitch 2 NIC 4
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• Virtualization and High Availability

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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

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Quick MigrationFundamentals Planned Downtime

• Save state
• Save entire virtual machine state
• Move virtual machine
• Move storage connectivity from origin to
  destination host
• Restore state and Run
• Restore virtual machine and run

Shared Storage
Network Connectivity
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Quick Migration Storage Best Practices

• Pass-through Disks in a cluster
• 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.
• VHD Based
• One LUN per VM best practice
• Ability to provision more then one VM per LUN but
  all failover as a unit
• 3rd part solutions offer the ability to provision
  a LUN with multiple virtual machines with
  granular failover

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• Hyper-V Backup

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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

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Looking at Hyper-V Performance

• Guest OS processors/cores are not bound to
  physical processors/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

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Looking at Hyper-V Performance

• Measuring Processor Usage
• Measuring the physical host computers (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

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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

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• SCVMM Deployment

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VMM 2008 Architecture
Self Service Web Portal
Administrators Console
Operators Console
Web Console
Windows PowerShell
Connector
Operations Manager Server
Virtual Machine Manager Server
Management Interfaces
VMware VI3
Virtual Center Server
ESX Host
SAN Storage
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VMM 2008 Requirements

• VMM 2008 Server requires Windows Server 2008 x64
  for installation
• VMM 2008 Console will install on Windows Server
  2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008
  x86/x64
• VMM 2008 Agent install on Windows Server
  2003/2008.

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VMM 2008 Installation

• VMM 2008 Server 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)

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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
• 3rd party replication tools (Doubletake)

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Thank You

• eitansp_at_glasshouse.com