Tag Archive: hypervisor

SCVMM? errr…System Center Virtual Machine Manager and HyperV whining :)

Posted Jun.10, 2011 under News, Servers

Couple of days ago I installed SCVMM  in order to test it out, since we are developing our IAAS solution. Everything seemed great until I found out that SVCMM doesnt have any API which can be used to create/turn on/off  new machines.  Yes, I know everything can be scripted thru Powershell, but it sucks that we need to create separate applicatons that will give us that feature. Imagine a solution where PRTG, Nagios or any other tools monitors your server… sees that the CPU load went up ( or any other condition) and starts up a new virtual machine  using API?

Its funny how the guys at MS fails to see the basic requirements for a modern cloud solution; do I have to mention that after years of HyperV being RTM-ed, we still dont have an option to limit a machines uplink speed!? Come on guys…SERIOUSLY!?!?

 

I know that you already have this  little piece of software created, release it…pretty please!? I know that Microsoft sees HyperV in some giant corporation where they dont have a need to limit the uplink of a virtual machine, but IMHO, hosters are having a bigger “market” share  than big corporations, think about us, pretty please with sugar on top :) .

Oh, what about promiscous mode for network cards? You  have no idea how much would I like to use SNORT on my HyperV virtual switch, but…I cant :(

What about the limit on only 4 cores per virtual machine? This is a VERY limiting factor. I’m in a situation where i have a 2x six core, 48 GB ram server which I want to turn into ONE virtual machine ( live migrations, scaling, etc…), but I cant…I can only turn it into a 4 core, 44 GB machine, effectively, wasting other 8 cores!?

I would really love to get in touch with someone from Microsoft Virtualization team and send them a list of must-have changes :D Someone knows some insiders? :D

Let me make one thing clear, I love Microsoft, but lets face it, there is lots of work that needs to be done. Admit it or not, the guys at the “Linux Camp” have much more options and features regarding virtualization. I really, really love HyperV, but some limitations are just plain unlogical/stupid.

Sorry for a bitter post, but I had to throw out my frustrations :)

 

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HyperV+ISCSI+Windows 2008 – yes..it works like a charm :)

Posted Oct.21, 2009 under News, Servers, Windows and Powershell

Today, me and my collegaue managed to configure ISCSI on some backup server we had at the office. Iscsi target is based on OpenSolaris and ZFS . ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of filesystem and volume management, snapshots and copy-on-write clones, continuous integrity checking and automatic repair, RAID-Z and native NFSv4 ACLs. ZFS is implemented as open-source software, licensed under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL). The ZFS name is a trade mark of Sun.

Requirements for running any OS in HyperV that will be stored on Iscsi server are:

1. Iscsi target, obviously :)

2.Iscsi initiator software ( bundled in Windows 2008 Server)

3. High speed network, atleast 1Gbit.

4. Drive that you connect to the HyperV machine MUST stay in offline mode.

5. Tons of time to configure it :)

Will you will be able to read more details about configuring OpenSolaris and ZFS on my collegaues blog : toic.org  – linux geek blog

So, like we already know, the disk on that we want to install the OS has to be offline  ( hint: disk2 ).

diskovi

hyperv

Next step is the creation of the virtual machine that will use the disk.  I have recorded that process, so you can see how simple it is :) .

All that you have to do is to install the OS…I didnt do that to the end in the video.

Tommorow we have planned to create a failover cluster with two Windows 2008 servers and see what will happen when one server suddenly get disconnected..ups :)

Bye, Alesandro

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Hyper-V R2

Posted Sep.29, 2009 under News, Windows and Powershell

windows-server-2008-hyper-v-logo-v_2Microsoft has released the latest version of its free standalone server virtualization solution.

The new release, Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, can take advantage of greater computing resources compared with the first version. With R2, Microsoft increased the number of physical and logical processors supported. As well, the product now supports physical memory of up to one terabyte (see Table).

R2 works with various Windows client and server operating systems and can be downloaded here.

Comparing Hyper-V Server V1 vs. V2

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
Physical processor support Up to 4 processors Up to 8 processors
Logical processor support Up to 16 Up to 64
Physical memory support Up to 32 GB Up to 1 TB
Live migration No Yes
High availability No Yes
Management options Hyper-V MMC, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008/R2 Remote Server Administration Tool (Free), Windows Server 2008 R2, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

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