Deploying Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Best
Practices
Eitan spector
OS & Virtualization practice leader
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
Provided by:
Hyper-V Architecture
ISV / IHV / OEM
OS
Microsoft Hyper-V
Parent
Partition
Microsoft / Citrix (XenSource)
Child Partitions
WMI Provider
VMMS
Applications
Applications
Applications
Applications
Supported
Windows OS
NonHypervisor
Aware OS
Xen-Enabled
Linux Kernel
VM Worker
Processes
Windows
Server 2008
Windows
Kernel
VSP
Windows
Kernel
Linux
VSC
VSC
IHV
Drivers
VMBus
VMBus
VMBus
Emulation
User Mode
Ring 3
Kernel Mode
Ring 0
Hypercall Adapter
Windows hypervisor
“Designed for Windows” Server Hardware
Ring -1
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 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)
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
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
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 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
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 Setup, Networking & iSCSI
Networking&ISCSI
Parent
Partition
Child Partitions
VM Worker
Processes
Applications
Applications
Applications
VM 1
VM 2
VM 3
WMI Provider
VM Service
Windows
Server 2008
Windows
Kernel
VSC
Windows
Kernel
VSC
Linux
Kernel
User
Mode
VSC
VSP
VS
P
VMBus
VMBus
VMBus
Windows hypervisor
Mgmt
NIC 1
iSCSI NIC
2
VSwitch 1
NIC 3
VSwitch 2
NIC 4
“Designed for Windows” Server Hardware
VMBus
Kernel
Mode
Ring -1
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
VHDs
Shared Storage
2. Move virtual machine
a) Move storage
connectivity from origin
to destination host
3. Restore state and Run
a) Restore virtual machine
and run
Network Connectivity
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 passthru.
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
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
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
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
VMM 2008 Architecture
Administrator’s
Console
Self Service
Web Portal
Operator’s
Console
Web
Console
Windows
PowerShell
Windows® PowerShell
Connector
Virtual Machine Manager
Server
Operations Manager
Server
Management Interfaces
VMware VI3
VMM Library
Server
Virtual Center Server
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
Template
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
ESX Host
VM
ISO
VHD
Script
SAN Storage
VM
VM
VM
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.
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)
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)
Thank You
eitansp@glasshouse.com