Microsoft Offers iSCSI Target as a Free Download

Microsoft is making it's iSCSI Target Software for Windows Server 2008 R2 a free download! Now you can create shared storage for production or test deployments of Hyper-V servers to have Live Migration and High Availability without the need to deploy a NAS or SAN in your envirornment. Read more about it here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2011/04/04/free-microsoft-iscsi-target.aspx

SP1 announced for Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

SP1 plans have been released for Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2010/03/18/announcing-windows-server-2008-r2-and-windows-7-service-pack-1.aspx

Two big features that will be included primarily benefit Hyper-V; Dynamic memory and RemoteFX. RemoteFX allows VMs to have richer content and visual experience.
Dynamic memory has been requested since Hyper-V first launched. Microsoft talks about that with Dynamic Memory companies can get for VDI workstations on Hyper-V hosts.

Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Intel Xeon 5500 Series Processor Problem

So I have been helping our internal IT implement Hyper-V to consolidate our server infrastructure. We implemented a two node Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster on Dell R710 servers. Everything was going pretty good until this past Sunday. Our IT Manager converted the second of two SQL Servers to be a VM using SCVMM 2008 R2 P2V process. The conversion went pretty good. On Monday, all our consultants are required to submit their timesheet for the previous week, and custom application developed and located on SharePoint. This puts a little bit of a load on the Front End and SQL backend servers in the morning as everyone is trying to submit thier timesheets and our internal workers are pulling reports and getting invoices ready to be sent out (Need to get paid for the great work we all do!)
Well this Monday became challenging as now the entire SharePoint Environment plus, Exchange, and several other servers are hosted VMs on the cluster. The challenge came from the fact that our Hyper-V Host servers began to crash and reboot, failing the cluster and all VMs running on them. Initially it appeared to be a network problem. So we decided to move the last SQL box converted to a dedicated VSwitch and Physical NIC (We have a three NIC team setup to a single VSwitch for all of the VMs on both Hosts) This one done thinking that the network errors we were seeing on the Hosts were caused by the newly added SQL server. This did not solve the problem. We also saw some storage issues and reviewed everything to ensure that it was sound (Fiber Attached Storage on the Hosts; most VMs OS Drive is provided a couple Clustered Shared Volumes, CSV, thru the fiber connections with thier data drives utilizing Pass-Thru disks).
So with the problem still being sporadic we looked to VMM and removed the cluster from VMM and rebooted the Hosts separately to check things out. This seemed to solve the problem a bit (Tuesday no issues) . Today we had crashes again, our IT Manager walked thru the crash dumps with a fine tune comb and found the culprit: 0x00000101 - CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error message. Didn't take him long to find this KB article documenting the problem, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530
There is a know issue with Intel Xeon 5500 Nehalem Processors. The problem happens sporadically so initial identification of the problem is a little tough. Their is a hotfix for this as well as some work around documented in the KB article.
This problem is only with the new Nehalem processors and Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role installed. The problem is documented by Intel as well here: http://www.intel.com/assets/pdf/specupdate/321324.pdf

Hope this information helps. Would be very interested to see who else has experienced this problem.

SCVMM 2008 R2 Problem with P2V from Dell Physical Server

Had a client that I upgraded to 2008 R2 Hyper-V and SCVMM 2008 R2. When they tried to P2V Dell Physical servers they received BSOD or errors on the Install Integration Services step. We tried over and over and could not successfully P2V the server. We then tested to see if a new VM build had any problems with installing Integration Services, worked perfectly. So we ended up getting Microsoft Premier Support involved. After several tests and trials later the problem was solved; the problem dealt with the physical server being build with the Dell OpenManage startup CD. Seems this method of build set a registry key that conflicts with the Integration Services install. The key in question is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wdf01000\Group] = Base
changing the key to "WdfLoadGroup" and rebooting the VM allowed the Integration Services to install successfully.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

I have already done a couple upgrades of Hyper-V from R1 to R2 and must say that Microsoft has taken a huge leap in their data center virtualization offering! I think most everyone who follows virtualization knows about the BIG improvement, LIVE MIGRATIONS. But Live Migrations are not the only new feature/enhancement with the R2 Hyper-V release. One of the small features that might not get a lot of notice but I really appreciate is a check mark on the Virtaul switch that allows you to turn off administrative access on a physical NIC when connected to a virtual switch. This to me not only reinforces the best practice to have a separate, dedicated NIC for admin access to the host computer but really cleans up the Network Interface connections on a host computer. With R1 each time you created a Virtual Switch a "duplicate" Network Interface was created and without proper naming (side note: ran into this at a client sight, they did not properly name the Network Interfaces and it made troubleshooting and administration a nightmare) would result is numerous Network interfaces only differentiated buy a number appended to the end of the standard name. Now check the check box does not create this second Network Interface, nice work Microsoft.

Another cool feature, and what actually enables Live Migrations, is Clustered Shared Volumes. Along with allowing for multiple hosts to access a single LUN at the same time, it eliminates the requirement for creating and individual LUN for each virtual machine. This provides for better utilization of shared storage space. Now you can create a single large LUN and present it to all hosts in the cluster and place multiple VMs within this LUN separated by simple folders.

More to come!

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 have gone RTM

Microsoft announcing on several blogs that both new OS's have gone RTM!

VMWare Core Tax

The guys over at Windows Virtualization Team Blog have a very interesting post about VMWare vs Hyper-V licensing and a "VMWare Core Tax" once processors begin shipping with more than 6 cores per processor. This is a compelling argument when you look at costs for virtualization.

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/06/28/Beware-the-VMware-Core-Tax-and-More.aspx

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 RTM Date

Several sites have reported that Windows 7 will RTM on October 22nd, and now from the Windows Server Team Blog, Windows Server 2008 R2 will also RTM at the same time!

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/06/02/windows-server-2008-r2-rtm-and-general-availability.aspx