Windows

You are currently browsing articles tagged Windows.

BlueStripe Releases FactFinder 1.1

Monday, November 10, 2008 in Virtualization by slowe | No comments

BlueStripe Software has released version 1.1 of its flagship product, FactFinder. Readers may recall that I met with BlueStripe back during the VMworld 2008 timeframe, and I’ve spoken with them on a number of occasions at other times as well.

Improvements in the new version include:

  • Application-centric views give users the ability to more easily see application dependencies within the overall IT infrastructure
  • Task and user workflow reporting allows users to benchmark application performance before, during, and after migrations (P2V, V2P, or V2V) to help identify changes and potential areas of concern
  • More in-depth detail reporting allows FactFinder to correlate additional on the servers on which it resides

The full press release is available here as a PDF.

Tags: , ,

Where is Bluebear Going with Kodiak?

Friday, November 7, 2008 in Linux, Macintosh, Virtualization by slowe | 36 comments

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I broke the news on Kodiak, but since my first post on Kodiak back in August, Bluebear has seen quite a bit of coverage around the Internet. Fellow virtualization blogger Duncan Epping of Yellow Bricks has discussed Kodiak a number of times (here are only a few):

Bluebear’s Kodiak!
Bluebear’s Kodiak, what’s all the fuss about…
Kodiak 0.02 coming out real soon…

That’s not to mention coverage by virtualization.com, Reuters.com, and numerous other bloggers, experts, and analysts.

But where is Bluebear headed with Kodiak? What is their vision? Well, I don’t speak for Bluebear, but I did want to share some insight I’d gathered during a conversation with one of the Kodiak developers. I was curious to know how VMware’s announcements of cross-platform vCenter Server and cross-platform VI Client at VMworld 2008 would affect Kodiak. Perhaps because of VMware’s market leadership, most people see Kodiak as only a cross-platform VI replacement. The truth is, according to my information, Kodiak’s true value lies elsewhere. While it can be viewed as a VI Client replacement, and while it does bring cross-platform functionality to the table, there’s more to it than just that. Thus, cross-platform support by VMware—while sorely needed for quite some time—shouldn’t really impact Kodiak all that much.

So what is the value of Kodiak beyond cross-platform support? Good question! Here’s a couple of points I gathered from of our conversation:

  • Multi-hypervisor management: One stated goal for Kodiak has always been to provide the ability to manage multiple, different hypervisors—not only ESX and ESXi, but also Xen, VirtualBox, etc. This is an area that only Microsoft is dabbling in with SCVMM, which will manage Hyper-V and ESX (via VirtualCenter only). Kodiak can manage ESX directly or via VirtualCenter.
  • Management via visualization: I don’t know if this is what drove Bluebear to use Adobe AIR or if it’s a result of using Adobe AIR, but the idea behind managing virtualization with Kodiak is more through visualization than anything else. Bluebear wants users to be able to respond quickly to potential issues by making it possible to see those potential issues instead of waiting for a notification or an e-mail that something’s wrong.

I’m sure that Bluebear has all sorts of super-secret stuff in the works that will further differentiate their product from VMware’s cross-platform VI Client, even though the two products aren’t intended to directly compete.

And, of course, this doesn’t take into account Bluebear’s hardware side, aka Koala, which doesn’t get nearly the same amount of attention as Kodiak. Personally, I’m kinda hoping that the Koala will end up affordable enough for me to pick one up, as I could surely use it to host various virtual servers at home for media streaming, home automation, etc. But I digress…

Anyway, I think I have a pile of beta invites for Kodiak, so if anyone is interested post a comment here and I’ll see what I can do. Then you can take a look at the product yourself—keeping in mind that it is a very early beta—and see what you think about the future of Kodiak.

Tags: , , , , ,

Now Cisco’s Participation in SVVP Becomes Clearer

Thursday, October 2, 2008 in Microsoft, Networking, Virtualization by slowe | 9 comments

Some while ago, it was noted that Cisco was signed up as a participant in Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). Many wondered why—what did Cisco have up its sleeve?

This article today from InfoWorld seems to make the story much clearer:

With the new product, called Windows Server on WAAS, branch offices can host services locally including Active Directory, Microsoft Print Services, Microsoft Domain Name System Server and Microsoft Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Server. That can improve performance for branch workers and reduce costs related to wide area network connectivity and branch systems management. An IT administrator can remotely manage the Windows Server functions using Microsoft System Center.
 
Cisco used embedded virtualization technology in its appliance to enable Windows Server 2008 to run on it.

Now, the real question is this: what “embedded virtualization technology” did Cisco use?

UPDATE: Based on the comments below, it looks like KVM is the technology Cisco chose to virtualize Windows Server on WAAS. Very interesting!

Tags: , , , ,

Hyper-V Server Released

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 in Microsoft, Virtualization by slowe | 3 comments

Microsoft announced the release of Hyper-V Server 2008 today via a blog post on the Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog (man, is that a mouthful!). Available “later today” as a free download, Hyper-V Server is Microsoft’s “bare metal” hypervisor-based virtualization product. Although the blog post said later today, I tried downloading it right away anyway, but the download link apparently doesn’t yet work.

<aside>I don’t know that it can really be called a “bare metal” virtualization solution since it still does require Windows Server 2008, albeit a heavily stripped-down version, in the parent partition in order to provide I/O drivers.</aside>

Hyper-V Server 2008 can be downloaded here.

Technical resources for Hyper-V Server 2008 can be found here.

Tags: , , ,

A Collection of Hyper-V Links

Thursday, September 25, 2008 in Microsoft, Virtualization by slowe | No comments

While trying to clear out the backlog of articles that have accumulated in my Reading/Review context in OmniFocus, I’ve come across a number of Hyper-V articles on various topics:

  • Robert Larson has a good article at VirtualizationAdmin.com that covers how to work with VLANs with Hyper-V. That includes information on configuring the parent partition to use VLANs as well as configuring child partitions to use VLANs. The title of the article is completely wrong for the content, but it’s still a useful article nevertheless.
  • Via Ben Armstrong, I saw that there is a VMC to Hyper-V import tool. More information on the tool is available here. In addition, Ben also recently mentioned a Hyper-V VSS hotfix that fixes a problem with VSS failing to backup any VMs if even a single VM has a corrupt or invalid configuration file.
  • And while we’re on the subject of migrating to Hyper-V from Virtual Server or Virtual PC, this blog post provides a checklist of things to do when migrating virtual machines from those older platforms to Hyper-V.
  • Hyper-V’s Linux Integration Components—the paravirtualized drivers (or synthetic devices, or virtualization-optimized components, or whatever else you want to call them) that provide better performance under Hyper-V—have been officially released.
  • By the way, this page provides a comparison of Hyper-V Server 2008 and more “traditional” implementations of Hyper-V with a full Windows Server 2008 parent partition.
  • Looking for a comparison of performance with dynamic VHDs and fixed VHDs? Inquiring minds want to know! Get the scoop here.

That’s it for now. If any readers have other useful or helpful Hyper-V links, please share them in the comments.

Tags: , , ,

Hyper-V Update Released

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 in Microsoft, Virtualization by slowe | 1 comment

I was alerted to this by a friend of mine within the Borg mothership…er, who works at Microsoft. An update has been released for the Hyper-V role of Windows Server 2008 x64 (available for download here) that increases the number of processors and virtual machines supported. With the update, Hyper-V can support up to 24 logical processors and up to 192 virtual machines. My contact also tells me that the update doubles the address space cache limit (up to 384 from 192), although I didn’t see that documented anywhere.

The related Microsoft KB article for the Hyper-V update also makes mention of a couple of interesting tidbits:

  • Although the update does allow Hyper-V to run up to 192 virtual machines, a Registry edit is required if users want to run more than 150 virtual machines.
  • If you want to run Windows Server 2008 on a 6-core CPU, you may also have to install hotfix 950182. Apparently, Windows expected CPU core counts to always be powers of 2 (i.e., 2, 4, 8). This update fixes that assumption.

Thanks to my contact for the tip.

UPDATE: My contact (need to think up a cool code name for her/him) supplied a link to the documentation on the increase of the address space cache limit. That information is here.

Tags: , , , ,

The New Microsoft-Seinfeld Ads…

Friday, September 5, 2008 in Microsoft by slowe | 9 comments

…are incredibly stupid. What in the world does watching Jerry Seinfeld help Bill Gates find a pair of shoes have to do with Windows? If Microsoft thinks that Jerry and Bill talking about churros and making Windows delicious is going to help improve Windows’ tarnished image, I’d say they need to fire the ad agency and try again.

Tags: ,

Thinking on Microsoft’s Licensing Changes

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 in Microsoft, Virtualization by slowe | 2 comments

Much has transpired since yesterday, when I urged VMware to join the SVVP and get their software validated for full support by Microsoft. Since that time, it has come to light that VMware has joined the SVVP, although a formal announcement has not yet been made, and Microsoft has announced some significant licensing changes regarding virtualization. I’ve been reading the various announcements and analyses regarding this information and I thought it might be beneficial to try to pull all this together.

First, refer to Patrick O’Rourke’s blog entry, which does a great job of summarizing the need for application mobility licensing. Clearly, customers needed the ability to move applications freely between physical servers, and Microsoft themselves needed to allow customers to do this now that they have a more robust virtualization solution in place (Hyper-V and SCVMM 2008). While the licensing changes do benefit all virtualization vendors, it’s important to note that Microsoft needed these changes for themselves as well.

Patrick’s post also brings to light that while VMware has joined the SVVP, cooperative support is not yet in place. That won’t come until validation via SVVP is completed, which may take some time. The joining of SVVP was necessary, as it is merely one step toward a larger goal.

However, there’s more here than perhaps many people are realizing. Fortunately, there are a number of sites out there pointing out important caveats to the new licensing changes:

  • Rich at VM /ETC correctly points out that the new licensing does not apply to the Windows Server OS itself. So you are still going to have problems with VMware HA and VMware DRS automatically moving VMs from server to server unless you use Windows Server Datacenter Edition (see below).
  • Chris Wolf points out (both on his personal blog as well as the Data Center Strategies blog) that the lift on the 90-day license transfer does not apply to licenses purchased outside of a volume license agreement. Using OEM licenses? Then you’re out of luck; those licenses still fall under the old restrictions.
  • eWeek’s Joe Wilcox points out that because the Windows Server OS isn’t included in the 90-day license relief, some customers will simply license Windows Server Datacenter Edition for every CPU in their data center. Of course, the fact that you now get Hyper-V for free with Windows puts Microsoft…ahem, ahead of the game, shall we say? Read Joe’s full report here.

So, while Microsoft’s licensing changes are a good first step, there’s still more work to be done. Let’s applaud the changes, which were necessary, but let’s continue to press Microsoft to fix the issues that remain.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

VMware Workstation Beats Hyper-V?

Friday, August 1, 2008 in Microsoft, Virtualization by slowe | 6 comments

If this is indeed accurate, then this is big news. The Hypervisor recently published a comparison between VMware Workstation 6 and Hyper-V, and found that VMware Workstation 6 was faster than Hyper-V for a variety of tasks.

This is quite surprising, and I’m hoping we won’t find out that the testers installed VMware Tools for VMware Workstation but didn’t use the enlightenments for Hyper-V (or some other similar move). That would just be wrong. If you’re going to use optimizations available on one platform, you should also use optimizations on the other platform as well.

In the meantime, if anyone turns up more information on this comparison and the details behind the comparison, I’d love to hear it.

Tags: , , , ,

More on Hyper-V for the ESX Engineer

Thursday, July 31, 2008 in Microsoft, Virtualization by slowe | 2 comments

My colleague and friend, Aaron Delp, recently published a post titled Hyper-V for the ESX Engineer. It’s a good post, and provides a good overview of Hyper-V for someone who might already be familiar with VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3). With sincere apologies to Aaron for plagiarizing his title, I thought I might add a few thoughts, comments, or clarifications to his post.

  • Aaron mentions that Hyper-V is paravirtualized. Well, sort of. Hyper-V does support a paravirtualization interface (Hypercall, I believe?) for guest operating systems (i.e., Linux) that support it. In addition, future Windows guests will be “enlightened” as well. The confusing part about this is the fact that Microsoft (and Citrix, too) use the term “paravirtualization” to refer to the use of paravirtualized drivers instead of referring to the guest OS itself. Paravirtualized drivers are really nothing more than virtualization-optimized drivers, and it’s possible to use paravirtualized drivers even when the guest OS has no idea it’s being virtualized. In my mind, that’s not the same as “true” paravirtualization. Note that VMware ESX supports VMI, another paravirtualization interface, for guests (i.e., Ubuntu Linux) that support it. Also keep in mind that every major virtualization vendor offers optimized/paravirtualized drivers, including VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, Virtual Iron, and Novell.
  • You’ll also see the base Windows Server 2008 (or Server Core) installation referred to as the “Parent Partition.” All I/O travels through this installation. Whereas ESX uses a direct I/O model (drivers embedded in the virtualization engine), Hyper-V uses indirect I/O (drivers residing in the parent partition). Each side thinks their approach is the best, of course.
  • Aaron makes some comparisons between Quick Migration and VMotion, which is understandable but not entirely appropriate. Quick Migration is not live migration, but is really more comparable to VMware HA. Quick Migration has some advantages over VMware HA (can be configured on a per-VM basis), but also has some disadvantages (requires a dedicated LUN for each VM for which Quick Migration is enabled). I’ve discussed Quick Migration vs. Live Migration before.
  • Aaron briefly mentions SCVMM and expresses some doubt regarding using SCVMM 2008 (currently in beta, due to be released Q4) to manage VI3. It’s certainly possible, and it does require VirtualCenter in order to work. Whether it’s the home run that Microsoft hopes it will be is another story.

Thanks to Aaron for providing a good overview of Hyper-V. For more information, I’ll refer readers to some of my Hyper-V and SCVMM session liveblogs from Tech-Ed back in June:

VIR367: Hyper-V Security and Best Practices
A Discussion with Jeff Woolsey
VIR253: Microsoft System Center VMM 2008, Part 1 of 2
VIR360: Microsoft System Center VMM 2008, Part 2 of 2
VIR250: Advanced Storage Connectivity for VMs
VIR358: Hyper-V Architecture, Scenarios, and Networking
VIR350: System Center VMM Advanced Integration

For even more resources, readers can also use the HyperV tag to browse the site for all articles tagged for Hyper-V.

Oh, and if you don’t have Aaron’s RSS feed in your RSS reader, you’re missing out. He’s producing some really great stuff that you need to be reading. Go subscribe now!

Tags: , , , , ,

« Older entries § Newer entries »