Blog Posts

As a self-acknowledged servergeek, I enjoy learning about the details of Microsoft Exchange 2007, SQL Server Mirroring, Oracle RAC, and VMware HA. I spend a lot of my time analyzing the configuration of systems with tons of processing cores and RAM of 32, 64, and 128 GB. I even have my own open source project (along with Dave) that is a test OLTP database for SQL, Oracle, and MySQL that includes driver programs, build files, and load scripts.

So why should I get involved with desktops? Because a lot of people are now considering using those big servers to host desktops-as Virtual Machines-inside the data center. The advantages of this approach can include better security of data, easier management of clients, and potential cost savings. In some ways it's an extension of many of the advantages of server virtualization, but for desktops. So pay attention: the desktop may be coming into your data center.

Todd

Our recent chat on the benefits of using EqualLogic iSCSI storage for virtualization solutions like VMware and XenServer was great. We had a longtime EqualLogic guy - Tim Sherback - and quite a few expert users who talked in detail about all of the features of EqualLogic that work so well with VMware and XenServer. Things like thin-provisioning, simplified management, and ease of expansion were mentioned. The most compelling aspect to me is the deep integration that has been done with the Auto Snapshot Manager for VMware, Auto Replication with VMware Site Recovery Manager, and the EqualLogic adapter for XenServer 5.0 Dell Edition. In each case the virtualization software (either VMware of XenServer) is able to use the hardware features of an EqualLogic array to accomplish what would have been done in software. For example you can use the snapshot feature of the array to make a VM snapshot. Check out the chat transcript for more details and also check out the demo vidoes to see it in action.

The other really great aspect of the chat was a discussion around when to pick EqualLogic or MD3000i. There was lots of info which should help anybody trying to decide which to use. I recommend that you read the transcript to get the details - this part of the chat is towards the end if you want to just skip right to it.

Todd

To follow up on the Hyper-V Server install video from last week, I added a new page to delltechcenter.com that shows how to configure a connection to an iSCSI storage array for Hyper-V Server. With a full Windows Server 2008 installation there is a GUI tool in Administrative Tools called iSCSI Initiator that is used to configure and manage these connections. Windows Server 2008 Core and Hyper-V Server do not have a GUI, so a command-line version called iscsicli.exe must be used.

The page that I added shows how to create a simple iSCSI connection by first enabling the iSCSI Initiator service with the sc (service console) command, then using iscsicli.exe to map the connection to the target iSCSI LUN, and then using diskpart.exe to do the partitioning and formatting. It's not as bad as it sounds, and is pretty straightforward once you know the commands.

To get an MPIO-type connection set up is only a little bit more involved. There is a script that I found in a Microsoft TechNet forum that is an example of how to do an MPIO connection to an MD3000i using iscsicli.exe. You can also use a GUI-based tool called Storage Explorer that is included with Windows Server 2008 to connect remotely to the Hyper-V server and create additional connections. (It doesn't see anything until you have used iscsicli.exe to get the initial connection.)

Todd

Microsoft released Hyper-V Server as a FREE download from their website on Wednesday. Like lots of other server geeks out there, I downloaded it immediately and installed it to see what it was like. It took me about an hour and a half to complete the whole install process. I recorded the whole session as a video file and then edited it down to 5 minutes by speeding up all of the sections where it is loading files or rebooting.

I have decided to also give away for FREE my video of the Hyper-V Server install. Yes that's right. You can view my video for FREE, just like you can download Hyper-V Server or ESXi and install them for FREE.

I did the entire install remotely from my desk - our servers are in another room. In order to do the install I connected via remote desktop into a "gateway" system in the lab and then used a browser from that system to connect to the Dell Remote Access Card (DRAC) in the target server. Then using the remote console redirection and virtual media features of the DRAC I did the install from the Hyper-V Server ISO that was on our file server.

Hyper-V Server is basically Windows Server 2008 Core with only the Hyper-V role included. Did I mention that it is free? Which is a really big deal - I don't remember Microsoft ever giving away something like this before. Because it is based on Windows Server Core it does not have a GUI. It does include a text based configuration tool that enables you to set the hostname, IP, subnet, etc (This is included in the FREE video). Once a Hyper-V Server is on the network you can then use the Hyper-V Manager MMC from a Windows Server 2008 or Vista system to manage it.

Todd

I just posted a new whitepaper that I have been working on for the last month or two. It was a great opportunity to test out how well Hyper-V performs with a large number of virtual machines (VMs) on a richly configured R900. You'll have to check out the whitepaper for the complete details. Here I'm going to give you a little bit of the background into how the paper was done.

I found out in early summer that we would be announcing and shipping some new 6-core Intel Xeon processors in our PowerEdge R900 server (4-socket, 4U). I was being asked what I thought would be a good way to show how well it performed for virtualization and recommended that we use Hyper-V and the Dell DVD store in a test similar to some tests that I had done in the past with ESX. At the time, Hyper-V was still just a release candidate, and I was told that I wouldn't get the processors until early August. Both of these things changed-Hyper-V went officially final with an RTM build (which was great), and I ended up not getting any 6-core processors to test with until late August (which was bad because I had only one week to complete testing at that point).

I switched over to EqualLogic for the storage in this test. Previous tests had mostly been with Dell | EMC CX series storage, but I wanted to get a chance to run a heavy load against the EqualLogic iSCSI storage. It was fun to set up and test with the new arrays. I thought that setup was much easier, and I learned about setting up MPIO with the iSCSI initiator on Windows 2008.

Showing that the R900 with 24 cores was able to support 40 VMs, achieving a total of 74K DVD Store Orders per minute, wouldn't mean anything unless it was compared to something else. Using an R900 and an HP DL585 as quad-core comparison points, the testing showed an advantage in not only performance, but performance per watt as well.

So check out the full paper, and let me know if you have any questions.

I was at VMWorld 2008 in Las Vegas all last week and it was the best conference I have ever attended. During the show Scott and I used the delltechcenter twitter account to interact with other twitter heads and provided some basic coverage for those not able to attend. We also have a virtual booth and blogs (here and here) on VMworld.com where some of the fun of the conference was captured. I also uploaded all of my pictures from the conference as well.

VMware's big announcement was really more of a vision for where their virtual infrastructure is going over the next few years. Initially there are some changes coming with Virtual Center and ESX that will allow for better management and interaction with 3rd party tools. There was much more talk of creating a platform with APIs and partners than in previous years. Client vitalization and VDI is now a much bigger area of focus based on the amount of time that it was discussed in the keynotes and the number of breakout sessions. Ultimately, VMware talked quite a bit about being able to use the "cloud" as part of future solutions.

Some things are still going on over on VMworld.com and I will be posting some things here and there. Some will only be in one place. Just trying to put the content where it belongs. Chime in with comments anytime.

Todd

I just finished up testing for a new whitepaper on Hyper-V performance and one of the initial things I had to figure out was how to measure the CPU utilization on the server. What is known as the parent partition (the initial Windows Server 2008 that is installed on the server and then used to enable the Hyper-V role) does not include the CPU utilization for its VMs in the main Processor Utilization performance counter. This was surprising to me at first, but makes sense when you consider the architecture of Hyper-V. In this architecture, the VMs do not go through the parent partition to access the processors. (Although I/O does to use the device drivers of the parent partition.)

In order to solve this problem Microsoft has created some new performance counters that are specific to the Hyper-V Hypervisor. Early on in the betas for Hyper-V it wasn't clear what these counters did, as I blogged about back in January, but it is now much clearer with some guides from Microsoft.

In order to measure the total CPU utilization on a Windows Server 2008 system running VMs under Hyper-V use the Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor % Total Run Time counter in Performance Monitor (more affectionately known as perfmon). If you just look at the % CPU Utilization or the performance tab of Task Manager you will only see the CPU utilization of the parent partition and not the VMs.

Todd