Zeros & Ones

VMM hotfixes... The entire collection :)

Fawzi — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:43:00 GMT

This article describes recommended updates to install to address issues when you are managing hosts or are performing a physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion by using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

Use the information in the "More information" section to help you determine whether a particular hotfix or update applies to your environment.

Now time for the collection

Press here... Or there :) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2397711

do not forget that one too http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2308590

VMM Tricks: VMM Self Service Portal and NLB

Fawzi — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:22:00 GMT

A very interesting question in Technet forums about VMM SSP high availability

“Virtual Machine Manager does not support Network Load Balancing (NLB) clusters in Windows Server 2008, which are required in order to distribute the network traffic among self-service users on multiple Web sites.

what problems or issues present this configuration?”

Well, a basic bing did not get any answer for that so I decided to ask a friend “Brandon” from MS Support and goth that answer

“I understand you are concerning why VMM SSP doesn’t support NLB for load balancing. Please correct me if I have any misunderstanding.

We had intensively discussed this limitation with our development team previously and the main reasons are that it is not a tested scenario and SSP is not stateless.

1. The main thing is that the SSP is not stateless, thus when a user connects to it he/she can’t bounce around without a loss of state.

2. we haven’t tested this scenario as a major scenario for VMM 2008 R2.

3. We know customers that are using it for fault tolerance purposes. In order for this to work you need to enable persistence on your load balancer.

Currently , I think the only gain from NLB would be to protect against the web server failure, in which case only the users who were assigned to that webserver would get booted off, but when they login again they would hit the remaining server(s) and be OK. So you can get some mild reliability enhancements but not really performance gains (loading balance). “

I had tested SSP load balancing before and it was fine. I did not get the cahnce to test it in huge production environment but I think I will try to do that.

That all for now folks..

How to Climb Mountains…

Fawzi — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:21:00 GMT

How to Climb Mountains…

An extract from Paulo Coelho’s latest book: “Like the Flowing River – Thoughts and Reflections”.

Choose the mountain you want to climb:

Don’t be influenced by what other people say: ‘that one’s prettier’ or ‘that one looks easier’. You are going to put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into achieving your objective, and you are the only person responsible for your choice, so be quite sure about what you are doing.

Find out how to reach the mountain:

Often you can see the mountain in the distance – beautiful, interesting and full of challenges. However, when you try to reach it, what happens? It’s surrounded by roads; forests lie between you and your objective; and what seems clear on the map is far more complicated in reality. So you must try all the paths and tracks until, one day, you find yourself before the peak you intend to climb.

Learn from someone who has been there before:

However unique you may think you are, there is always someone who has had the same dream before, and who will have left signs behind that will make the climb less arduous: the best place to attach a rope, trodden paths, branches broken off to make it easier to pass. It is your climb and it is your responsibility too, but never forget that other people’s experiences are always helpful.

Dangers, seen from close to, are controllable:

When you start to climb the mountain of your dreams, pay attention to what is around you. There are, of course, precipices. There are almost imperceptible cracks. There are stones polished so smooth by rain and wind that they have become as slippery as ice. But if you know where you are putting your foot, you will see any traps and be able to avoid them.

The landscape changes, so make the most of it:

You must, naturally, always keep in mind your objective – reaching the top. However, as you climb, the view changes, and there is nothing wrong with stopping now and then to enjoy the vista. With each metre you climb, you can see a little further, so take time to discover things you have never noticed before.

Respect your body:

You will only manage to climb a mountain if you give your body the care it deserves. You have all the time that life gives you, so do not demand too much from your body. If you walk too quickly, you will grow tired and give up halfway. If you walk too slowly, night might fall and you will get lost. Enjoy the landscape, drink the cool spring water, and eat the fruit that Nature so generously offers you, but keep walking.

Respect your soul:

Don’t keep repeating, ‘I’m going to do it.’ Your soul knows this already. What it needs to do is to use this long walk in order to grow, to reach out as far as the horizon, to touch the sky. Obsession will not help you in the search for your goal, and will end up spoiling the pleasure of the climb. On the other hand, don’t keep repeating ‘It’s harder than I thought,’ because that will sap your inner strength.

Be prepared to go the extra mile:

The distance to the top of the mountain is always greater than you think. There is bound to come a moment when what seemed close is still very far away. But since you are prepared to go still further, this should not be a problem.

Be joyful when you reach the top:

Cry, clap your hands, shout out loud that you made it; let the wind (because it is always windy up there) purify your mind, cool your hot, weary feet, open your eyes, blow the dust out of your heart. What was once only a dream, a distant vision, is now part of your life. You made it, and that is good.

Make a promise:

Now that you have discovered a strength you did not even know you had, tell yourself that you will use it for the rest of your days; promise yourself, too, to discover another mountain and set off on a new adventure.

Tell your story:

Yes, tell your story. Be an example to others. Tell everyone that it’s possible, and then others will find the courage to climb their own mountains.

The Open vSwitch – Key Ingredient of Enterprise Ready Clouds

Fawzi — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 05:09:00 GMT

Source

posted by Simon Crosby

I’m often asked what Citrix and the open source community are trying to achieve with the Open vSwitch Project. The Open vSwitch is an open source virtual switch for Xen (and therefore XenServer, and in future perhaps Amazon EC2 and RackSpace), and KVM based virtual infrastructure that replaces the Linux bridge code with a powerful, programmable switch forwarding capability as well as programmable per-virtual interface ACLs. The Open vSwitch supports an emerging industry standard protocol for programming the forwarding plane from an outside controller. This protocol is called OpenFlow. OpenFlow based virtual switches in each server can be logically pooled into a single fabric by an external distributed virtual switch controller to build a dynamic, multi-tenant, programmable datacenter fabric that supports key innovations in cloud computing, as well as allowing us to take advantage of standard x86 CPUs to run a set of rich edge packet-processing functions to secure, direct, filter and otherwise control the delivery of cloud based applications. With the Open vSwitch in place, the Open Stack open source cloud orchestration layer will be able to exert direct control over the data center fabric to deliver a rich, enterprise ready network layer with powerful controls for security, multi-tenancy, load balancing, monitoring, compliance, charge-back and more.

To understand the need for the Open vSwitch, you have to realize that while CPU virtualization, including hardware support, has evolved rapidly over the last decade, network virtualization has lagged behind pretty badly. The dynamism that virtualization enables is the enemy of today’s locked down enterprise networks. For example, migrating a VM between servers could mean that network based firewall and intrusion detection systems are no longer able to protect it. Moreover, many enterprise networks are administered by a different group than the servers, so VM agility challenges an organizational boundary. What we want to achieve is seamless migration of all network-related state for a workload, along with the workload. The obvious place to effect such network changes is in the last-hop switch – which now, courtesy of Moore’s Law and virtualization, is on the server itself, either in the hypervisor or (increasingly) in smart hardware associated with a 10Gb/s NIC card. The Open vSwitch enables granular control over traffic flows, with per flow admission control, the option for rich per packet processing and control over forwarding rules, granular resource guarantees and isolation between tenants or applications, and enables us to dynamically reconfigure the network state for each VM, or for each multi-VM OVF package, as it is deployed or migrated. Network state for each virtual interface becomes a property of the virtual interface, and as a VM moves about the physical infrastructure, all of the policies associated with the VIF move with it. Suddenly the network team is no longer required in order to move a VM between servers.

The Open vSwitch, answers many of the shortcomings of our original hypervisor bridge code, which grew up from the Linux bridge code, and adds powerful features traditionally found only in dedicated switching infrastructure, such as packet filtering, flow admission control and programmable forwarding. It permits us to take advantage of the incredible price/performance benefits of packet processing on standard CPUs, and the near term addition of so-called Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) to the edge packet processing feature set will enable the most profound changes in data center and cloud networking architecture since the invention of the router. Most importantly, the Open vSwitch is open source, and will serve multiple hypervisors. I fully expect the community to make it available as a drop-in replacement for the VMware vDS, and to deliver versions of it for a future release of Hyper-V. This then raises the exciting prospect of an entirely open and programmable architecture for networking in the cloud, that is hypervisor independent. As a result, the richness of both private and public cloud networks (and hence their ability to support a greater proportion of enterprise workloads) will not be hypervisor dependent. Open vSwitch offers the ISV ecosystem an enormous opportunity to innovate in edge networking, free of the constraints of traditional network-appliance centric approaches to application delivery, with new, automated management and control plane functions that simplify, accelerate and ease the management of scalable cloud networks.

From a Citrix-specific perspective, Open vSwitch permits us to dynamically instantiate instances of NetScaler VPX, Branch Repeater VPX, or Access Gateway VPX as value-added networking functions withn cloud based networks, and it will enable us to facilitate the seamless extension of the enterprise network to service provider operated clouds. If, as we expect, the Open vSwitch is more broadly endorsed as a common element of future clouds, with open APIs for dynamic control of the data center fabric, it will catalyze an opportunity for all vendors – including those in the network infrastructure business today – to deliver powerful, secure and differentiated cloud architectures.

Many people wonder if the Open vSwitch is “competitive” with the ambitions of traditional networking vendors or with the Cisco Nexus 1000v virtual switch. The answer is “No – indeed the opposite”: The Nexus 1000v from Cisco provides Cisco customers with a powerful distributed switch architecture that brings the value of the full Cisco edge processing capability to virtualized environments, including Cisco management and toolset support. I would have no hesitation in recommending the Cisco product to Cisco customers. It delivers a value-added proposition on top of the basic concept of a dynamically controllable forwarding plane, very similar to OpenFlow and the Open vSwitch.

It would be easy to implement the Nexus 1000v both in parallel with, or on top of, the Open vSwitch. Indeed the value of OpenFlow has been recognized by one Cisco research group, and HP, Dell and NEC are active participants in the development and use of OpenFlow. Startups, such as Netronome and Solarflare are leading the way toward extensive hardware support of the Open vSwitch, permitting native multi-10Gb/s speed switching on server hardware that also hosts virtualized enterprise workloads.

Open vSwitch can be used to replace the VMware vDS, which is a proprietary, rather prosaic implementation of a modestly richer networking stack for vSphere / vCloud. Unfortunately vDS does not separate forwarding and control plane functions clearly, and therefore limits the ability of the ISV ecosystem to innovate on VMware infrastructure. It is tied to the notion of VLANs as network isolation structure, and provides little in the way of differentiated per-application flow treatment. It also has no mapping onto SR-IOV based hardware functions, and therefore has no clear value in a world where increasingly sophisticated second generation SR-IOV NICs are becoming available, with richly programmable forwarding hardware.

The Open vSwitch is a reminder of the incredible power of open source: It catalyzes the contribution of numerous aligned vendors, commoditizes legacy architectures, accelerates the pace of development, and enables a robust ecosystem of value-added providers to exist around a common core feature set. We can look forward to enabling an ecosystem of many value-added networking vendor products around the (commoditized) forwarding function found in all switches and NICs today.

Novell Looks to Solve Private Cloud Vendor Lock-in

Fawzi — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:37:00 GMT

Source

With its Cloud Manager software released on Monday, Novell hopes to address the vendor lock-in problem facing enterprises building private clouds.

Cloud Manager allows IT staff to manage virtualized resources that may be based on different hypervisors, including VMware, Microsoft's Hyper-V and Xen virtual servers, all from a single management tool, according to Novell.

Today, companies that have private clouds based on different hypervisors typically have to manage them separately, using tools from different vendors. But that can be complicated.

With a single management console, companies may be more likely to use a mix of hypervisors based on their needs, said Ben Grubin, director of data center management at Novell.

"What this allows you to do is make infrastructure choices based on what you need to do to support your business services, rather than trying to maintain a single unified stack," he said.

Microsoft is moving in a similar direction. Its Systems Center software can manage VMware as well as Hyper-V environments today, and Microsoft has said the next version, due next year, will manage Citrix XenServer as well. VMware's tools can manage only its own hypervisors.

Businesses may want to use hypervisors from different vendors depending on the applications they're running, Grubin said. VMware's software has the biggest market share and the most features but it is also more expensive, he said, and some applications don't require all those capabilities. He argued that companies can keep their costs down by using a lighter-weight, less expensive hypervisor for some applications.

Cloud Manager also includes tools that allow end users to provision their own computing resources, even those that may be hosted across data centers on multiple hypervisors. The provisioning console can display a catalog of services, as well as service tiers with different prices, that the end user can choose from.

When workers or business units want access to new services they typically have to call the IT department and work through a provisioning process that could take months. They may also have to pay for new hardware and software. Allowing them to self-provision resources from a private cloud cuts the time it takes to set up new services and allows them to pay only for the resources they use.

To use Cloud Manager, an enterprise connects the application server, which runs the self-service portal, to orchestration servers at data centers. Each orchestration server can communicate with infrastructures built on different hypervisors.

Novell has created an adaptor that will let users incorporate services running on Amazon EC2, but that capability is at the technology preview stage and not yet shipping, Grubin said. Novell's customers have told it they will want the ability to combine public and private clouds into a single management tool, he said. He expects that in the future, Cloud Manager will support any of the public cloud services that customers ask for.

Novell is not publishing pricing for Cloud Manager. It will sell a version that can run up to 25 workloads, to let customers try it out. They'll then be able to buy add-on packs that support up to 50 additional workloads, he said.

In addition to helping companies realize the benefits of private clouds, Cloud Manager may also help them to get past so-called "VM stall." Some organizations don't get past virtualizing 20 percent or 30 percent of their servers, because business units are reluctant to give up the "visibility, security or compliance" that they feel they get from physical servers, Grubin said.

"One thing the Cloud Manager offers is the ability to give that power back to the app owner, through things like the self-service portal and the ability to manage your own workloads," he said. "You have the visibility, cost transparency and accountability that are critical steps to getting over that hump."

Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager #VMM 2008 R2

Fawzi — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:28:00 GMT

Microsoft KB http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2397711

Improve your Hyper-V Virtual Availability – Live Migrate VMs on Shutdown

Fawzi — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:40:00 GMT

A very useful post from Deliberations from Dave

Hyper-V clustering is a pretty rock solid thing, and Live Migration (introduced as we all know with Server 2008 R2) is virtually identical to VMWare’s long-available VMotion technology – pick up a running VM, and move it to another host in the cluster without users noticing.

Continue there

Top Five Hyper-V Best Practices

Fawzi — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:38:00 GMT

NetApp team had a very interesting article on Hyper-V best practice (Source)

Microsoft® Hyper-V™ virtualization technology has been shipping for more than a year. Tech OnTap profiled the use of Hyper-V with NetApp® technology in several past articles, including an overview article and a detailed case study of one customer’s experiences.

NetApp has been involved with hundreds of Hyper-V deployments and has developed a detailed body of best practices for Hyper-V deployments on NetApp. Tech OnTap asked me to highlight the top five best practices for Hyper-V on NetApp, with special attention to the recently released Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.

Network configuration
Setting the correct iGroup and LUN protocol type
Virtual machine disk alignment
Using cluster shared volumes (CSVs)
Getting the most from NetApp storage software and tools

You can find full details on these items and much more in NetApp Storage Best Practices for Microsoft Virtualization which has been updated to include Hyper-V R2.

BP #1: Network Configuration in Hyper-V Environments

There are two important best practices to mention when it comes to network configuration:

Be sure to provide the right number of physical network adapters on Hyper-V servers.
Take advantage of the new network features that Hyper-V R2 supports if at all possible.

Physical network adapters. Failure to configure enough network connections can make it appear as though you have a storage problem, particularly when using iSCSI. Smaller environments require a minimum of two or three network adapters, while larger environments require at least four or five. You may require far more. Here’s why:

Management. Microsoft recommends a dedicated network adapter for Hyper-V server management.
Virtual machines. Virtual network configurations of the external type require a minimum of one network adapter.
IP storage. Microsoft recommends that IP storage communication have a dedicated network, so one adapter is required and two or more are necessary to support multipathing.
Windows failover cluster. Windows® failover cluster requires a private network.
Live migration. This new Hyper-V R2 feature supports the migration of running virtual machines between Hyper-V servers. Microsoft recommends configuring a dedicated physical network adapter for live migration traffic.
Cluster shared volumes. Microsoft recommends a dedicated network to support the communications traffic created by this new Hyper-V R2 feature.

The following tables will help you choose the right number of physical adapters.

Table 1) Standalone Hyper-V servers.

Table 2) Clustered Hyper-V servers.

Table 3) Clustered Hyper-V servers using live migration.

Table 4) Clustered Hyper-V servers using live migration and CSV.

New network features. Windows Server® 2008 R2 supports a number of new networking features. NetApp recommends configuring these features on your Hyper-V servers and taking advantage of them whenever possible. Be aware that some or all of them may not be supported by your server and network hardware. (See sidebar for details.)

BP #2: Selecting the Correct iGroup and LUN Protocol Type

When provisioning a NetApp LUN for use with Hyper-V, you must specify specific initiator groups (iGroups) and the correct LUN type. Incorrect settings can make deployment difficult and performance can suffer.

Initiator groups. FCP and iSCSI storage must be masked so that the appropriate Hyper-V server and virtual machines (VMs) can connect to them. With NetApp storage, LUN masking is handled by iGroups.

When dealing with individual Hyper-V servers or VMs, you should create an iGroup for each system and for each protocol (FC and iSCSI) that system uses to connect to the NetApp storage system.
When dealing with a cluster of Hyper-V servers or VMs, you should create an individual iGroup for each protocol that the cluster of systems uses to connect to the NetApp storage system.

It’s easier to manage iGroups by using NetApp SnapDrive®. SnapDrive cuts down on the confusion because it knows which OS you are using and automatically configures that setting for your iGroups.

LUN types. The LUN Protocol Type setting determines the on-disk layout of the LUN. It is important to specify the correct LUN type to make sure that the LUN aligns properly with the file system it contains. (See the following tip for an explanation.) This issue is not unique to NetApp storage. Any storage vendor or host platform may exhibit this problem.

Tip: The LUN type you specify depends on your OS, OS version, disk type, and Data ONTAP® version. For complete information on LUN types for different operating systems, refer to the Block Access Management Guide for your version of Data ONTAP.

The following tables will help you choose the correct LUN type.

Table 5) LUN types for use with Data ONTAP 7.3.1 and later.

Table 6) LUN types for use with Data ONTAP 7.2.5 through 7.3.0.

BP #3: Virtual Machine Disk Alignment

Tip: This tip is closely tied to the previous one, since failure to follow the previous tip will result in misalignment. The problem of virtual machine disk alignment is not unique to Hyper-V, nor is it unique to NetApp storage. This problem exists in any virtual environment on any storage platform.

This problem occurs because, by default, many guest operating systems, including Windows 2000 and 2003 and various Linux® distributions, start the first primary partition at sector (logical block) 63. This behavior leads to misaligned file systems because the partition does not begin at a block boundary. As a result, every time the virtual machine wants to read a block, two blocks have to be read from the underlying LUN, doubling the I/O burden.

Figure 1) Virtual disk misalignment.

The situation becomes even more complicated when virtual machines are managed as files within the Hyper-V server’s file system, because it introduces another layer that must be properly aligned. This is why selecting the LUN type is so critical.

NetApp strongly recommends correcting the offset for all VM templates, as well as any existing VMs that are misaligned and are experiencing an I/O performance issue. (Misaligned VMs with low I/O requirements may not benefit from the effort to correct the misalignment.)
When using virtual hard disks (VHDs), NetApp recommends using fixed-size VHDs in your Microsoft Hyper-V virtual environment wherever possible, especially in production environments, because proper file system alignment can be reliably achieved only on fixed-size VHDs. Avoid the use of dynamically expanding and differencing VHDs where possible, because file system alignment can never be reliably achieved with these VHD types.

The best practices guide provides complete procedures for identifying and correcting alignment problems.

BP #4: Using Cluster Shared Volumes

Cluster shared volumes are a completely new feature in Hyper-V R2. If you’re familiar with VMware®, you can think of a CSV as being somewhat akin to VMFS (although there are significant differences).

A CSV is a “disk” that is connected to the Hyper-V parent partition and shared between multiple Hyper-V server nodes configured as part of a Windows failover cluster. A CSV can be created only from shared storage, such as a LUN provisioned on a NetApp storage system. All Hyper-V server nodes in the failover cluster must be connected to the shared storage system.

CSVs have many advantages, including:

Shared namespace. CSVs do not need to be assigned a drive letter, reducing restrictions and eliminating the need to manage GUIDs and mount points.
Simplified storage management. More VMs share fewer LUNs.
Storage efficiency. Pooling VMs on the same LUN simplifies capacity planning and reduces the amount of space reserved for future growth, because it is no longer set aside on a per-VM basis.

CSV Dynamic I/O Redirection allows storage and network I/O to be redirected within a failover cluster if a primary pathway is interrupted. The following recommendations apply specifically to the use of CSVs and are intended to minimize the impact of I/O redirection:

In addition to the NICs installed in the Hyper-V server for management, VMs, IP storage, and more (see Best Practice #1), NetApp recommends that you dedicate a physical network adapter to CSV traffic only. The physical network adapter should be a gigabit Ethernet (GbE) adapter at a minimum. If you are running large servers (16 LCPUs+, 64GB+), planning to use CSVs extensively, planning to dynamically balance VMs across the cluster by using SCVMM, and/or planning to use live migration extensively; you should consider 10 Gigabit Ethernet for CSV traffic.
NetApp strongly recommends that you configure MPIO on all Hyper-V cluster nodes, to minimize the opportunity for CSV I/O redirection to occur. CSV I/O Redirection is not a substitute for multipathing or for proper planning of storage layout and networking, which will minimize single points of failure in production environments.
Once you recognize that I/O redirection is occurring on a CSV, you may want to live migrate all affected VMs on the affected cluster node to another Hyper-V cluster node to restore optimal performance until any I/O pathway problems are diagnosed and repaired.

The best practices guide describes additional best practices that pertain specifically to backup and VM provisioning with CSVs.

BP #5: NetApp Storage Software and Tools

NetApp provides a variety of storage software and tools that can simplify operations in a Hyper-V environment. With the release of Hyper-V R2, minimum requirements have changed for many software elements:

As a minimum, NetApp recommends using Data ONTAP 7.3 or later with Hyper-V virtual environments.
The Windows Host Utilities Kit modifies system settings so that the Hyper-V parent or child OS operates with the highest reliability possible when connected to NetApp storage. NetApp strongly recommends that the Windows Host Utilities Kit be installed on all Hyper-V servers. Windows Server 2008 requires Windows Host Utilities Kit 5.1 or later. Windows Server 2008 R2 (Hyper-V R2) requires Windows Host Utilities Kit 5.2 or later.
Highly available storage configurations require the appropriate version of the Data ONTAP DSM for Windows MPIO. Windows Server 2008 requires Data ONTAP DSM 3.2R1 or later. Windows Server 2008 R2 requires Data ONTAP DSM 3.3.1 or later. You should set the least queue depth policy when using MPIO. (This is the default setting.)
NetApp recommends NetApp SnapDrive on all Hyper-V and SCVMM servers to enable maximum functionality and support of key features. For Microsoft Windows Server 2008 installations where the Hyper-V role is enabled and for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, install NetApp SnapDrive for Windows 6.0 or later. For Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 installations where the Hyper-V role is enabled and for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 to support:
- Existing features (no new R2 features), install NetApp SnapDrive for Windows 6.1P2 or later.
- New features (all new R2 features), install NetApp SnapDrive for Windows 6.2 or later.
NetApp SnapDrive for Windows 6.0 or later can also be installed in supported child operating systems that include Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2.

For the latest information on supported software versions, refer to the NetApp Interoperability Matrix. (You must have a NOW™ (NetApp on the Web) account to access this resource.)

Conclusion

If you pay attention to the best practices I’ve outlined here, you can avoid most of the pitfalls of configuring your Hyper-V environment. For complete details on these procedures and much more, refer to the Hyper-V best practices guide and Hyper-V implementation guide.

#Hyper-V: #Linux Integration Services no longer function after a kernel upgrade

Fawzi — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:38:00 GMT

Consider the following scenario:

You are running Linux based virtual machines on Hyper-V with the 2.1 version of the Linux Integration Services installed.
You apply an updated kernel in the Linux based virtual machine.

After applying the kernel update, the Linux based guest operating system fails to boot with “Unable to mount root file system”.

This problem occurs because the Linux Integration Services must be recompiled after a kernel upgrade to function.

To prevent this issue, enable Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) before applying kernel updates.

Check MS KB http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2387594&sd=rss&spid=14134

Cloud Service Experience: The Service Measurement Index (SMI)

Fawzi — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:38:00 GMT

The Service Measurement Index (SMI) is a standard method for measuring the end-to-end consumer experience for any number of IT services. The SMI Framework is designed to help organizations measure any number of IT services available to them, regardless of whether that service is internally provided or sourced from an outside company, and permits weightings of importance based upon the organization’s requirements as to what defines a good service. From procurement and ongoing service levels, to business viability and security, the SMI Framework provides a holistic view into the entire customer experience for cloud service providers in six primary areas: Quality, Agility, Risk, Capability, Cost and Security. Users of the SMI Framework can not only compare cloud service vendors based on their specific business and technology requirements, they can also make dynamic, real-time decisions on where to best migrate an application. The Framework provides a single, standard way to evaluate, monitor and implement services demanded by the business. The framework was created by CA. and is, independently developed and run by a consortium of academic institutions and representatives of business and government.

SMI Ratings published on Cloud Commons

In order to provide a baseline of information to enable service comparisons, the Service Measurement Index is initially pre-populated through a research effort conducted by a leading analyst firm. The responses are results from a set of indicator questions related to quality, agility, risk, cost and security that were asked of IT professionals across North America regarding the specific business services of eMail, CRM and eCommerce. The 600 individuals who participated in this research effort, are at the manager level and above within organizations who have $5M+ in revenue as well as similarly sized non-profits. This invitation only business panel represented over 40 business profile dimensions, 24 job title categories, and was made up of decision-makers and influencers for the design or purchase of IT services.

You can interact with the SMI data by accessing the ratings on business services through the provider directory in the marketplace section

Hyper-v Error When you connect to VM “An Authentication error has occured.”

Fawzi — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:36:00 GMT

Another interesting problem form Hyper-V forum, Cédric from Hyper-V forum had a problem with new installed Hyper-V server when he tried to connect to VMs.

From the Hyper-V Manager console, when you try to connect to a local VM, no problem. But when i try to connect to a VM owned by another node, you get the following Error.

“Remote Desktop Connection”.
An Authentication error has occured.
The specified data could not be encrypted.
Remote Computer: “FQDN of the targeted host”

All other operation (stop, start etc work perfectly).The cluster validation report was “all green”.

The cluster nodes have this hotfix installed.

KB977238 (HV BPA)
KB981791 (Stop Error on intel Westmere)
And cumulative update 2 for operation manager 2007 R2.

After some digging with MS Support to find the cause of the problem it turns out to be a problem with CredSSP Kerberos ticket length, there is a KB for Windows 2008R2 that solved this issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978918

This problem occurs because the CredSSP incorrectly encrypts the data when the size of the security token for the user account exceeds 16 kilobytes (KB).

To resolve this issue, install this hotfix on the terminal server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and on any Remote Desktop clients that are running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

Quote of the Month

Fawzi — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:14:00 GMT

“The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before.”
– Bill Gates

VMM tricks: Saving and re-applying the #virtual machine metadata in #VMM

Fawzi — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:30:00 GMT

Michael Michael has posted a great blog that outlines exactly how to restore the metadata through the use of powershell scripts.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/m2/archive/2010/04/16/saving-and-re-applying-the-virtual-machine-metadata-in-vmm.aspx

The saved metadata can be applied later on in the event that you add and remove the host from VMM management. A scenario where this issue comes up is when something goes wrong with your host in VMM and you need to remove it from management and re-add it to VMM (the host can also be a cluster). Typically in a situation like this you will loose all the metadata associated with your virtual machines. Such metadata includes the custom properties, descriptions, tags, owner, cost center, etc. If it is 1 or 2 VMs, its not a big deal to add them back, but when you are talking about a cluster with 200 VMs it is quite an effort.

P2V fails with Error 2912 0x80072F0C with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Fawzi — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:38:00 GMT

When using System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to perform a Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion, the job may fail at 60% with the following error:

Error (2912)
An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on the vmmserver.contoso.com server.

Recommended Action
Ensure the agent is installed and running. Ensure the WS-Management service is installed and running, then restart the agent.

Cause:

During the ‘Make operating system virtualizable’ step, files are copied from the destination host (the server that will host the virtualized system) to the SCVMM Server. This BITS operation fails due to a certificate problem as indicated by the error 0x80072F0C (ERROR_INTERNET_CLIENT_AUTH_CERT_NEEDED).

Resolution:

To resolve this issue, remove the managed host from the SCVMM server and also delete any residual certificates from the host on the VMM server, then re-add the host:

1. On the SCVMM server, remove the managed host from the console. The steps on how to remove a managed host are outlined in the following TechNet article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc956121.aspx (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc956121.aspx)

2. Now we need to locate and delete any certificates for the Host computer.

3. Open the Certificate console on the SCVMM server.

a. Open a new mmc and add the certificates snap-in.
b. Select the option of ‘computer account’ and ‘local computer’.
c. Select Finish and Ok to load the snap-in.

4. The certificates for the Host computer can be in any of the following locations.

a. Personal Certificates.
b. Trusted People (if the host is W2K8 or W2K8 R2).
c. Trusted Root Authorities (If the host is W2K3).

5. In each store, expand the Friendly Name field and locate the certificate[s] for the Host server that have a Friendly Name starting with ‘SCVMM_CERTIFICATE_KEY_CONTAINER’ followed by either the FQDN / IP address / NetBIOS name of the Host server and delete them.

6. Re-add the host in SCVMM which recreates the certificates as needed.

More Information:

SCVMM uses BITS to transfer payload between SCVMM managed computers. These data transfers are encrypted by using a self-signed certificate generated at the time a host machine is added to SCVMM. If these certificates are missing or corrupted from the SCVMM server or managed computers, the payload deployment job can fail. Deleting the certificates and re-adding the host will cause the certificates to be regenerated.

For the latest information on this issue see the following Knowledge Base article:

KB2385280 – P2V fails with Error 2912 0x80072F0C with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 or System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

Virtual Storage Integrator for Hyper-V

Fawzi — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 13:19:00 GMT

Scott form blog.scottlowe.org shared yesterday a very cool stuff, thank you for sharing it.

Most of my virtualization focus centers on VMware and its product portfolio, but VMware isn’t the only virtualization solution in town. I’m sure they (VMware) probably wish they were the only solution in town, but competition keeps everyone on their toes. (Consider Proverbs 27:17.)

With that thought in mind, I wanted to bring everyone’s attention to a new Hyper-V plug-in from EMC: the Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) for Hyper-V.

Much like VSI for vSphere, the VSI for Hyper-V provides additional visibility from System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) into the storage layer. The VSI for Hyper-V has two components: Storage Viewer and Disaster Restart: The Storage Viewer component provides mappings from NTFS volumes to the underlying CLARiiON or Symmetrix devices, mappings from LUNs to VMs, and mappings from storage array to Hyper-V hosts, including array target ports. In this regard, it is quite similar to the Storage Viewer component of VSI for vSphere.

The Disaster Restart component displays disaster recovery sites, groups of VMs online at each site, and enables live migration/quick migration of individual VMs or the ability to migrate cluster groups. PowerShell cmdlets are available to automate the complete functionality of the VSI for Hyper-V. If you’re interested, you can download the VSI for Hyper-V for free from PowerLink (login needed). Here’s a link to the download on PowerLink.