Microsoft Virtualization Strategy
Christof Pfister
Partner Technology Specialist, SMS&P
Microsoft Schweiz GmbH
christof.pfister@microsoft.com
Agenda

Microsoft Virtualization Strategy

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2

Key Scenarios, Features and Benefits

Host-Clustering

Virtualization Licensing

Roadmap

Q&A
Increase
Availability
Server
Administrators
Increase
Responsiveness
Lower Operational
Costs
Application
Developers
Improve
Utilization
Systems “Designed
For Operations”
“Operationally
Aware Platform”
“Intelligent
Management Tools”
Designs include all
information relevant to
management
Rich instrumentation
and hardware resource
virtualization
End to End, automated
management tools
More flexibility and control in the provisioning and
use of your hardware resources.
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
The most cost-effective server virtualization
technology engineered for the Windows Server
System™ platform.

Focused on key customer scenarios



Consolidate server workloads
Automate and consolidate software test and
development environments
Disaster recovery
Reduce



costs and improve IT responsiveness
Reduce hardware costs by at least 50%
Reduce provisioning times by 50-95%
Increase administrator productivity
Virtual Server 2005 R2
Virtualization Benefits



Allows multiple operating
systems to run
simultaneously on the
same processor
Each independent virtual
machine functions as a
self-contained computer
Workloads are decoupled
from hardware
Server consolidation increases hardware
utilization
Quicker deployment and provisioning of new
applications and services
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
Increases operational efficiency

Consolidate infrastructure, application,
and branch office server workloads

Consolidate and re-host legacy
applications

Simplify disaster and recovery
planning

Automate and consolidate software
test and development environments.
Virtual Server Architecture today
Guest OS &
Applications
Guest OS &
Applications
Virtual
Hardware
Virtual
Hardware
Virtual Server 2005
Windows Server 2003
Server Hardware
• (Windows NT 4.0 Server)*, Windows 2000
Server, Windows Server 2003 and 3rd party
OS supported
• No custom drivers required
• Runs most x86 operating systems
• Up to 1 CPU per virtual machine
• Up to 3.6GB of memory per virtual machine
• Multi-threaded Virtual Machine Monitor
(VMM) provides isolation x86 and x64
• Windows Server 2003 x86 and x64
supported host
• Broad device compatibility
• Optimized for 2 to 8 way servers(x86, x64)
• Scales up to 32 CPUs and up to 64GB
Support Policies

Virtual Server is full supported (897613, 897614)

All server applications except for the following are
fully supported





Speech Server
ISA Server
SharePoint Portal Server
No physical server repro required
3rd Party Virtual SW is not supported (897615)



Applications running in non-Microsoft hardware
virtualization software are not supported
Premier customers get commercially reasonable
effort for problem resolution
Requires a physical machine repro
VHD Formats and Functionality

Dynamically expanding virtual hard disks


Fixed-size virtual hard disks


Allows conversion of a linked physical data disk to a VHD
Differencing virtual hard disks



Fixed-extent file that resides on host hard disk
Linked virtual hard disks


File size grows as data is added
Changes stored on a hierarchical “child” disk
Specified per-VHD
Undo disks


Changes can be committed or discarded
Specified per-virtual machine
Differencing Disks
Virtual machine viewpoint: DD = single drive
Scenario: testing an application patch
Parent
R-
R-
R+
GM
Undo
SP1
SP2
SP3
SP2
t0
R-
t1
R-
t2
R-
t3
R+
If patch works, drives can be merged
VMs can share parent drives
VM1
VM2
GM + SP1
Child
R+
Host viewpoint: DD = two files on filesystem
SP2
Child
SP3
GM
SP1
SP2
SP3
Virtual Networking

Create an unlimited number of virtual
networks with these topologies:



Guest to network
Guest to guest via simulated Ethernet and
Virtual DHCP
Guest to host system via loopback adapter
Administration
Easy to Manage




Virtual Server Administration Website
 Enables secure, authenticated administration
and client remote access.
Microsoft integrated tools and solutions
 Active Directory integration
 MOM 2005, ADS, SMS 2003 SP1
Physical server equivalency
 Use existing management tools
Virtual Server Management Pack for Microsoft
Operations Manager 2005
Management Pack for MOM 2005
Displays all hosts
including knowledge
of physical vs virtual
Generate scripts
leveraging COM API to
automate tasks
MOM 2005 –
Single pane
for managing
physical servers
to virtual
machines
Mapping guests
to host with
visibility into
server health
Consolidated health status and reporting

Provides one to many monitoring and
control

Available as a free download
Fine grained
control over
virtual
machines
(guests)
Virtual Server Migration Toolkit




Command line tools to help automate P2V migration
Leverages Automated Deployment Services (ADS)
Provides V2V functionality also
It is for free :-)
Verify suitable
configuration, capture
image and generate
task sequences to use
with ADS
NT 4.0 Server
Transform ADS image
to VHD and deploy to new
target system
W2K3 Server
with ADS 1.0 & VSMT
Configure new
virtual machine
running NT4 and
legacy applications
W2K3 Server
w/Virtual Server & VSMT
The State of 3rd party products for
Virtual Server 2005

3rd party Solutions for Virtual Server 2005
divided into very concentrated focus
areas:



Physical to Virtual - Virtual to Physical –
PlateSpin
Virtual Machine Lifecycle Management LeoStream
High Availability and Virtual Machine
Clustering support – PolyServe
Virtual Server 2005 R2
Host Clustering
What’s new in Virtual Server 2005 R2?

Host Clustering,

Support for additional hosts and 3rd party guests (Linux)
x64 host support
Performance improvements


Higher availability Support for iSCSI allows clustering virtual machines across hosts and Virtual
Server host clustering allows availability for both planned and unplanned downtime using SAN,
iSCSI or direct attached storage.!!!
Greater performance for virtual machines running memory-intensive applications

PXE network boot support


Hyperthreading
F6 Disk
Virtual Disk Precompactor
Open necessary ports at install time

Reserve space for saved states


Virtual Server 2005 R2: Overview

Higher Availability


Virtual Machine Clustering: Support for iSCSI allows clustering
virtual machines across hosts
Virtual Server R2 Host Cluster support

The ability to cluster Virtual Server hosts.



Planned downtime:



Servicing the host hardware or patching the host operating system
Virtual machine migration. Virtual machines can be moved from one
cluster node to another with minimal downtime. (Downtime dependent on
speed of storage infrastructure)
 Less than 10 seconds to move 128 MB vm via 1GbE iSCSI (faster on
SAN)
Unplanned downtime:


Virtual Server host clustering uses Windows Server 2003 clustering
Virtual Server host clustering supports SAN, iSCSI or direct attached
storage
Failover to another cluster node due to hardware failure
Other benefits:


Guest OS agnostic. Any virtual machine running any OS can be moved or
failover to another cluster node
FREE. Virtual Server host clustering will be available as a free download
in the same time frame as Virtual Server 2005 R2
Out-of-the-Box High Availability
Virtual Server 2005 R2 host cluster: Host updating
WSUS server
Shared
Storage

WSUS
Shared
Storage
Node 1
Node 2
VM
VM

Node 3
VM

Administrator wants
to update node 1
with Windows
Server Update
Services
Microsoft Cluster
Administration
Console saves the
state of virtual
machines and
restores them on
another node
Node 1 is ready for
update installation
Out-of-the-Box High Availability
Virtual Server 2005 R2 host cluster: Unplanned downtime
Shared Storage

Shared
Storage

Node 1
Node 2
Node 3
X
VM
VM
VM
Node 1 suffers a
power outage or a
network failure
A simple script
attached to the
Microsoft Cluster
Administration
Console notices the
lack of heartbeat
and starts the virtual
machines
associated with
node 1 on other
nodes
Licensing
Windows Server R2 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server R2 Enterprise Edition
INCLUDES 4 Instances
Windows
Windows
Windows
Windows
Virtualization Layer
Windows Server 2003 R2 EE
Hardware
Current License Model :
New with Windows Server R2 EE:
Total: 5 Windows Licenses
Total: 1 License
Add an additional license and get up to 4 more guests
Windows Server “Longhorn” Datacenter Edition will allow unlimited guests!
Licensing by Running Instance
License by “running instances”
Library with 100
images of Windows
7 Servers running
images
(1 per server)
Promotes the use of
virtualization and a more
dynamic data center
Create as many images
as you would like
Store the images where
you need them
Current License model
Total: 107 Windows Licenses
New License rights:
Total: 7 Windows Licenses
License the machine for
the instances you use.
Virtual Server 2005 R2 Product
Overview
Virtual Server 2005 R2
Standard Edition
99$
Virtual Server 2005 R2
Enterprise Edition
199$
Roadmap
Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1: Overview

Benefits

Support for Intel VT and AMD Pacifica technology




Non-Windows will be much faster




Generally, Windows performance is neutral
We already tune and optimize for Windows
Windows installation is faster
Linux
OS/2
Netware
Milestones


Beta publicly available in Q1/CY06

Beta: Greater than 6 months

Maintain consistently high product quality
Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 scheduled to ship in
Q3/CY06
Windows Server Virtualization Longhorn Wave

VHD format:
 Royalty-free
license
 Enables migration
from Virtual Server to
Windows hypervisor
Windows Hypervisor:

Powerful virtualization built
into the Windows platform
Management tools
Windows Virtualization for Servers

Some features











32-bit and 64-bit guests
x64-only hosts
Guest multiprocessing
Virtualized devices
WMI management and control API
Save & restore
Snapshoting
CPU and I/O resource controls
Tuning for NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access)
Dynamic resource addition & removal
Live migration