VMware and other Virtualization tools

Thinking of a Remote Computing Solution based on Citrix/VDI/BladePC’s? Make sure your Network is up to the task, or you might have curious issues?

Dave Caddick — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:11:06 GMT

Recently I found myself at a school down near Melbourne carrying out what should have been a relatively simple PoC (Proof of Concept) of 20 x BC2500 BladePC’s in an Enclosure with some T5730 Thin Clients, and initially all went pretty well and then I found that I had some issues with the SAM Registration service….. from the BladePC’s not communicating very well (or at all) with the SAM Server

BTW – SAM = HP’s Broker, Session Allocation Manager

So then I was thinking through some ideas about what the next steps might be to help isolate it?

Initially I was getting a note in the Application Event Log for all the BladePC’s that they are unable to contact the SAM Server, and yet:

they can ping it successfully
I can connect to the blades using RGS fine
The Windows Firewall is disabled for now
There are exceptions in the firewall any way for the SAM Service

So I then used WireShark to take a trace and isolated one conversation with a blade and the SAM Server and got it to translate the TCP conversation and the resultant HTTP reply from the SAM Server indicated an internal error – so I simply rebooted all the Blades and the SAM server and I finally got the devices registered – hurrah!! I thought I was out of the woods.

Then as the day wore on it appeared that after a period of time the Blades would become “Offline” with a red circle and the diagonal slash indicating they were offline and they would no longer respond – a reboot will get them going again.

Now if I was just troubleshooting this it would not have been too bad – but I was also seeing some other very curious issues like:

When I connected from the T5730 to the BladePC via RGS direct (no SAM) it is verrrrry slow (5 – 10min login)
When I connected from the T5730 via the SAM Client it is verrry slow just to start the Login process (even longer?)
Once connected the experience is not too bad (not real snappy, but just about useable)
Connecting a USB device to the T5730 to test Video causes the RGS session to drop – with no warning – before the Media Player comes up

Now was I right to suspect the network at this point? I’m not a Network/Switch expert, but I know enough to be dangerous? ;-) but it was starting to look like there was more than just a hint of coincidence with what was going on?

Curiously enough I’ve also found that while my laptop is connected to their network and using the proxy to gain access to the ‘net to get email that the connection to exchange keeps bouncing quite a bit and when I send an email it can sometimes hold in my Outbox for hours before finally getting under way….

Outcome – all now sorted – it would appear that even though the SAM/Altiris Server AND the BladePC Enclosure was plugged in to the Core Switches there was a ProCurve 2650 that was throwing out FCS Errors and causing a ruckus – this also happened to be the unit that I was trying to go through with the T5730 Thin Clients……

This morning a Network Guru from their integrator turned up and updated all the firmware on the Cores and 2650 alike, found the issues were related to the 2650 only, this was then swapped out for a temp unit – then it seemed like nothing was working at all with no connectivity to the Enclosure, then it was discovered that Spanning Tree was the cause of this, so that was hit on the head – and now everything has settled down nicely.

Good news is that apparently HP’s ProCurve Switches come with a lifetime warranty – I learn something new every day? – so as it turns out it’s not too bad?

So a day or two late, but finally back on track.

Incidentally, when I was trying to update the Firmware in the Enclosure for the Switch and the IA (Integrated Administrator) via a simple TELNET I was getting timeouts and errors, after this wayward Switch was replaced it all worked a treat.

Lesson:
As with Citrix and VDI, as well as BladePC/BladeWS, it’s always worth remembering that this is typically the first time that a network will have been asked to provide “real time” network performance. Up to this point even things like email are effectively only “store and forward” process’s so do not be surprised when a relatively simple PoC (Proof of Concept) shines a Spotlight on any Network issues?

I hope this helps others?

Waiting for Windows 7? Want to see what it's like? Here's how to test it yourself.

Dave Caddick — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:51:39 GMT

So anyway, I figured that with the stories getting around regarding the recent PDC that there would be Virtual Machines of Windows 7 being handed out on the portable Hard drives that it wouldn't take long for them to appear on Torrent sites etc... And so it would appear ;-) Download 64-bit Windows 7 6801 Pre-Beta ISO (Microsoft.Windows.7.64Bit.Build.6801.DVD-WinBeta Torrent)

So I started looking around to see how easy this might be to crank up under the old trusty VMware Workstation 6 (I really have been slack, haven't I, must update that shortly?) and this again didn't take long at all to find an authoritive article that shows the only real thing that needs to be set is the HDD to IDE as opposed to SCSI? Windows 7 + VMWare 6/VMWare Fusion 2

So this only left the possibility of the O/S complaining about needing to be activated, blah, blah, so I was wondering if this might be able to be bypassed as I was only curious about checking it out - not necessarily running the O/S on hardware anytime soon, and I turned this article out that solves that quite neatly at 15 Windows 7 Pre-Release Preview MAK Unlimited Activation Product Keys

All in all, this might take you about a hour or two after you have finished downloading to install and start testing Windows 7 - happy trails? :-)

Race around the World in your own Yacht - Virtually ;-)

Dave Caddick — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:30:31 GMT

So it's been quite some while since I last did a post of any kind as I was away from Aust. sailing and sampling the hospitality in the British Virgin Islands thanks to my brother (thanks Martin), and then on to New York City, and finally London and Guilford (thanks to Lou and David) before making it back home.

Incidentally just before leaving for this trip the Volvo Ocean Race set off - and if you'd like to navigate your own 70 footer around the world and compete then get on to http://www.volvooceanracegame.org/play.php and sign up?

I'm just getting in to Cochin with 51 miles to go. Look out for “WhyKnot”, and Martin my brother is “EverRest”

See you on Leg 3? :-)

Ask the Core Team : 10 commonly asked questions or issues seen during Hyper-V beta

Dave Caddick — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:50:25 GMT

Given that Hyper-V has now just been released as RTM it’s likely that more people are looking at the product and quite possibly for the first time so this sort of information might be very useful?

10 commonly asked questions or issues seen during Hyper-V beta

With the RTM release of Hyper-V just around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to re-visit some of the top things we have seen customers encounter when installing and configuring Hyper-V for the first time and give pointers to resources we have available to eliminate those when you start rolling this out in production for the first time. I have taken the liberty of linking many of these questions/issues to blogs written by our program managers on the virtualization team. We did a previous post on their sites but I thought this would serve as a quick reference and a pointer to them at the same time.

1. You don't have mouse functionality in your VM. One of the most commonly asked questions during the beta, internally and externally had to do with lack of mouse support in a guest when its running. One of the main reasons we saw this happening was that people were remoted into the parent and then controlling the guest from there, that wont work in Hyper-V. More information about best practices can be found here:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/23/controlling-vms-under-hyper-v-without-the-mouse.aspx

2. Hyper-V wont install. Another common question had to do with Hyper-V not installing at all. People would add the role and either would get errors post installation, prior to installation, etc. So, to revisit the core requirements for the Hyper-V role to be installed and functional on your machine, see the release notes once we RTM. Top issues here though were folks not enabling Virtualization and DEP in their system BIOS, not shutting down the parent completely at the end of installation but rebooting the parent instead, and not adding the proper entries to the BCD store on a Core installation (hint: rebooting twice takes care of this in Core).

3. Import isn't working within Hyper-V for your Virtual Server VMs. Another common question is what the Import Virtual Machine button does within the Hyper-V console. Many people, myself included early on, thought that it was there to import a .vhd from a Virtual Server installation. It's not. It's there to import an exported Hyper-V virtual machine. The proper way to import a previously used Virtual Server .vhd file is to create a new virtual machine and use the existing hard drive function during setup.

4. Hyper-V clustering: Clustering Hyper-V installations is new and different in Windows 2008. Rather than re-inventing the wheel here I strongly encourage you all to use the excellent whitepaper thats out on the external Microsoft site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CD828712-8D1E-45D1-A290-7EDADF1E4E9C&displaylang=en

5. Snapshotting in Hyper-V. Snapshotting confuses a lot of people because they liken them to un-do disks in Virtual Server. They aren't the same thing. Excellent references below to how snapshotting works in Hyper-V and how to get the undo functionality that you're used to are linked below.

http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2008/05/15/getting-undo-functionality-with-hyper-v-snapshots.aspx

and

http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2008/04/26/virtual-machine-snapshots-with-hyper-v.aspx

6. Virtual Networks. Additionally virtual networking has been totally revamped in Hyper-V and many dont understand the purpose of the individual networking options within the console. Linkage to a great article on them is below:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/06/16/how-does-basic-networking-work-in-hyper-v.aspx

and

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/06/17/hyper-v-what-are-the-uses-for-different-types-of-virtual-networks.aspx

7. Using Hyper-V in Windows Server Core. Server Core is the new command line only installation option and its perfect for Hyper-V. For many people it can be hard to navigate and install new roles however. Below is a good link on installing Hyper-V in a Server Core environment.

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/30/how-to-add-the-hyper-v-role-to-a-windows-server-2008-server-core-machine.aspx

8. Remote Management. Managing Hyper-V installations, be they GUI or Server Core, is always a concern. An excellent two part article on this is located here:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/28/part-1-hyper-v-remote-management-you-do-not-have-the-requested-permission-to-complete-this-task-contact-the-administrator-of-the-authorization-policy-for-the-computer-computername.aspx

and

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/28/part-2-hyper-v-remote-management-you-do-not-have-the-requested-permission-to-complete-this-task-contact-the-administrator-of-the-authorization-policy-for-the-computer-computername.aspx

9. Issues deploying virtual machines within a virtualized environment. I have seen this a lot internally, you have a RID/WDS server in a VM that you've used forever in Virtual Server. You decide to move that installation to Hyper-V and now you cant deploy new children VMs in Hyper-V. The problem here lies in the fact that you need to use the legacy network adapter rather than the synthetic device for the child VM you are trying to deploy to. We dont support PXE boot on the synthetic NIC in Hyper-V. You can add a Legacy NIC in the Add Hardware section of the Virtual Machine Settings.

10. One other virtualized hardware issue we have seen is SCSI boot. Or more specifically, the lack of it. We no longer support booting from the virtualized SCSI controller in Hyper-V. You can still use the SCSI controller for storage drives and you can utilize iSCSI or SAN storage as well, you just cant boot SCSI anymore.

Author: Joseph Conway
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Ask the Core Team : 10 commonly asked questions or issues seen during Hyper-V beta

Released: Microsoft Hyper-V 1.0 now RTM and available for download

Dave Caddick — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:05:27 GMT

So this mornings news from Alessandro is the release of Hyper-V - Download a trial here.

I have also included at the bottom of this post a number of links that Justin Zarb helped collate regarding where to find all kinds of info relating to Hyper-V

Release: Microsoft Hyper-V 1.0

Thursday, June 26, 2008 | 0 Comments |

After over three years of development (the product was originally announced at WinHEC 2005 conference) Microsoft finally releases today its first bare-metal virtualization platform: Hyper-V.
During this very long process the product was delayed, changed name, and lost some planned key features.

Unlike Virtual Server and Virtual PC, Hyper-V is a type-1 virtual machine monitor (aka hypervisor) which features an architecture very similar to the one used by Xen and its commercial derivatives.
This allows a direct comparison with platforms like Citrix XenServer, Virtual Iron, the upcoming Sun xVM Server and obviously with VMware ESX.

Unlike the latter, Hyper-V adopts a microkernel developed from scratch (so it's not the Windows kernel) which is less than 1MB in size and delegates most of the tasks to a so called Parent Partition.
Depending on the configuration you adopted, the parent partition automatically loads a full copy of Windows Server 2008 or the new Windows Server 2008 Core.

Being a first generation product, Hyper-V cannot really compete with the above in features, but it clearly offers a performance boost (up to +107% in case of disk I/O activity) and some much deserved improvements over Virtual Server 2005 R2:

Support for 32bit and 64bit virtual machines

Support for up to 4 virtual CPU per VM (the actual number depends on the guest OS)

Support for up to 64GB RAM per VM

Support for the Windows 2008/2003/2000, Windows XP/Vista and Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux guest operating systems

Quick Migration (the capability to suspend, migrate and resume a VM from one host to another)

Automatic patching through Windows Update and WSUS

……

Microsoft Hyper-V is fully integrated with Windows Server 2008 64bit so any download of the OS includes it. Download a trial here.
For those customers already using the beta or the release candidate of Hyper-V, the product will be updated through the Windows Update service beginning July 8.

To demonstrate how much the company bets on this new product, Microsoft is internally adopting Hyper-V since a while and already migrated inside its virtual machines all the web front-ends that serve TechNet and MSDN websites.

Now the customers wait for the upcoming System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, currently in beta, to centrally manage Hyper-V (along with Virtual Server and VMware ESX), and MAP 3.1, in beta as well, to perform accurate capacity planning.

Release: Microsoft Hyper-V 1.0 | virtualization.info

Where should I look for Hyper-V Information?

So your looking for information on Hyper-V and struggling for where to look! So I wanted to get a nice bit of compiled information that Jeff did....

Websites

Microsoft Virtualization Home Page
Virtualization Case Studies
Virtualization Solution Accelerators
Windows Server 2008 Virtualization & Consolidation:
Hyper-V FAQ
Optimized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI and much more):
Virtualization TechCenter:
How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V RC
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Performance Tuning Guide
MSDN & TechNet Powered by Hyper-V
MSDN & TechNet Powered by Hyper-V Whitepaper

Blogs:

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/
http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/
http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualworld/
http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/
http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/
http://blogs.technet.com/stbnewsbytes/

Webcasts:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032368894&CountryCode=US
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032372420&CountryCode=US

Login Consultants benchmarking tool to compare VDI vs. SBC?

Dave Caddick — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:31:03 GMT

My only disappointment is that we are currently in the middle of moving our current Solutions Centre from one Office location to the other so it'll be some while before I get a chance to test this.

It certainly looks quite impressive and it does have some lofty aims, but from a brief look through as well as their well deserved reputation based on Flex Profiles I'm sure this will stand up to it's promises.

Test Scenario’s
With login VSI you can compare many different scenarios:
• VDI vs. SBC
• VMware, XenServer or Hyper-V running virtual desktops or Terminal/Citrix Servers
• Virtualized XP desktops versus virtualized Vista Desktops
• Performance impact of application streaming technologies
• Impact of (different) virus scanners
• Performance impact of tuning parameters
• Different VDI platforms
• Different Storage platforms
• Impact of changes or updates like service packs or security fixes
• Hardware differences
• x64 vs. 32 bits
• Etc…

I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who does have the facility to test?

Login Consultants develop presentation virtualization benchmarking tool

Monday, May 12, 2008 | 0 Comments |

The consulting firm Login Consultants just opened the beta program of the first benchmarking tool for presentation virtualization: Login Virtual Session Index (VSI).

The product will measures the performance of a remote desktop session served by a Microsoft Terminal Services / Citrix XenApp server or a VDI virtual machine.

To run the tool it's required to have a 4 tiers infrastructure: a domain controller for the authentication a file server for logging user sessions, a server to host the TS/XenApp/VDI service and a workstation to launch the user sessions.

The firm is also working to introduce support for application streaming.

Enroll for the beta here.

virtualization.info: Login Consultants develop presentation virtualization benchmarking tool

Thinstall to be reborn as ThinApp under VMware's new management?

Dave Caddick — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:45:25 GMT

So along with Alessandro I'm curious as to why the name ThinApp has been chosen as it does have more than a passing resemblance to Citrix's new XenApp?

I wonder if this is any indication of the coming marketing campaigns in the push for customers attention in the Desktop Virtualization market? ;-)

VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

In January 2008 VMware, a hardware virtualization company, acquired an application virtualization startup called Thinstall.
The plan is to use the Thinstall technology to stream virtualized applications on the virtual desktops that VMware spawns through its connection broker: the Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM).

So fare VMware has been pretty fast in rebranding the Thinstall Application Virtualization Suite: the beta program for the new version is open since end of February and the testers can already download the beta 2.
The final version of the product, temporarily called Project North Star, is expected for the H2 2008.

The only information missing so far was the final name that VMware wants to use.
Now Micheal Keen, Director and Senior Solutions Architect in the Enterprise Architecture group at Alliance Technologies, reveals that the final name is ThinApp.

Duncan Epping further validates the news reporting that a former Thinstall employee confirmed.

The choice is interesting considering that Citrix just renamed its Presentation Server product in XenApp.

virtualization.info: VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

Future vision of VDI? What if the Hypervisor was cheaper and flexible enough to run on BladePC's/BladeWS's - could vMotion/XenMotion then switch on demand?

Dave Caddick — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:58:13 GMT

I am sure this is not really what VMware had in mind when they were touting VMware OnDemand? I'm guessing they had more of an idea that it would combine some of the benefits of ACE with ESX? ;-)

I have just got back from some training in Houston and while listening to a question from a colleague from the UK where he asked if "VDI was going to be able to use the full suite of Hypervisor functionality like vMotion..." and that got me thinking...

Some of the Conventional Wisdom around the place holds that VDI by itself will likely not be able to cover all of any one customers needs and most will more than likely need to look at quite possibly a number of different approaches to cover ALL employees and ALL Applications.

So with this in mind I'd be interested in your thoughts on the following idea?

Just a few thoughts around VDI??

Let's say that we stock a couple of decent servers with loads of resources and allows us to run quite a few VDI instances? OK? So one of the possible issues with the classic VDI so far is that if a user places a bit too much pressure on the resources then it has the potential to impact on all other users, being as it is a shared resource? (This is still one of the classic gotcha's in Terminal Server and Citrix PS - the session is sticky and it stays with the same server unless a logout/login occurs)

So one idea I'm kicking around is the possibility that if a user started something like a 120Mb Excel spreadsheet that might consume quite a bit of CPU then would it be possible to use the vMotion to transfer him to a BladePC, if they started 3 or 4 of them (or they needed more resources?) then transfer them to a BladeWS.....?

Seamlessly!! with the user completely unaware that this has happened!!

Now the fundamentals of vMotion (or XenMotion for that matter?) requires shared boot storage - BUT I don't think it needs to be NFS or iSCSI, etc. - the Citrix Provisioning Server or OS Streaming method like Neoware IM would probably work just as well in this scenario? As this then leaves the Virtual HardDisk/Storage in a common area accessible by the Vitrual Desktops regardless of whether they are running on VDI's, the BladePC's or the BladeWS's.

The other point is the similarity of CPU would possibly cause an issue, and this probably extends beyond just Intel/AMD? This appears to be a fundamental of vMotion/XenMotion? So this might not fly today, but it is possible that with improvements in the Hypervisors this issue might be overcome at some stage soon?

Anyway, what do you think of the *idea/concept*? As a user requires more CPU and resources they might be able to be transferred from shared resources (VDI on ESX) to individual resources (BladePC) and then high powered resources (BladeWS) - once the high intensity workload has finished then the user would be transferred seamlessly back through the stack to a VDI instance on the ESX server.

Please bear in mind that this is only a concept at the moment and there are clearly problems and issues to be overcome - but the main reason for this post is to ask if you think it has legs? What do you think?

Clearly the ESX/Hypervisor would need to be able to run on hardware outside of it’s current Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) but with Xen this might not be such an issue?

Is wonder if this is where XenDesktop is headed? ;-)

SoftGrid Visio Stencils

Dave Caddick — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:53:53 GMT

Justin Zarb has a blog linked below that comes up with some very useful bits of info relating to SoftGrid, these Visio Stencils just happen to represent the "eye candy" ;-) , there is loads more and this is an extremely usefully resource if you're quite involved in SoftGrid Sequencing?

SoftGrid Visio Stencils

It must have been at least 3/4 months ago I came across these stencils and I said than I would blog about them..... well as you can tell I never did!

ubba cool stencils for visio when your designing all your pretty high level design for application virtualization.

The World Simplified is a Virtual World : SoftGrid Visio Stencils

Will Altiris ever be more than a subsidiary?

Dave Caddick — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:47:13 GMT

It is something of a shame that Symantec is not making the best of this acquisition, especially when you consider the amount of change and hype in the Virtualization space over the last 14 months since Symantec announced the purchase?

I made the comment only a few weeks ago (Thinstall quick out of the blocks) that it was quite gratifying to see good technology not sitting by the sidelines waiting for the politics and marketing to settle before it can again back on with getting the work done - but in this case it looks like Symantec are still dragging the chain?

Symantec creates an Endpoint Virtualization Business Unit

Friday, March 21, 2008 | 0 Comments

After over one year since the acquisition, Symantec is finally operating the integration of Altiris in its corporate departments.

It's not clear anyway if and in which way the security giant will pitch the successful Altiris application virtualization product: SVS.

The subsidiary in fact will disappear inside the Symantec Security and Compliance department, while a brand new Endpoint Virtualization department will be created, as reported by eWeek.

There are no details available yet but this reorganization may mean just two things:

the first option is that Symantec plans to use SVS only to deliver virtualized versions of its endpoint security agents (the anti-virus is probably the first in the list)

the second option is that Symantec will seriously enter the corporate desktop virtualization market, a space where VMware, Microsoft and few others are already busy with VDI, application virtualization and virtual machines security wrappers

In the first case Altiris SVS would be clearly out of the application virtualization market. In the second case Symantec may soon need more than just SVS to compete with the other players.

virtualization.info: Symantec creates an Endpoint Virtualization Business Unit