Tag Archive for 'hyper-v'

Lync 2010 Virtualization Support Summary

Published by Bret Fisher on Feb 21, 2011 in Microsoft and Tech. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Taken from the Deployment Guide and the Server Virtualization Guide:

  • If you decide to go virtual, Lync only supports Hyper-V R2 or ESX 4.0 platforms. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is NOT supported as “A number of enhancements that are critical for running virtualized Lync Server media workloads were implemented with Windows Server 2008 R2 to address network packet loss.”
  • If you choose virtual. All roles in virtual must run on Windows Server 2008 R2 as the guest/child OS, citing more network optimizations.
  • In general, all roles can be virtualized, except for the 3rd party Survivable Branch hardware appliance (obviously).
  • You need to decide physical or virtual on a per pool basis. Inside the pool, the roles on separate servers (physical or virtual) need to be of similar resources (hardware), as “Balanced end-to end-performance is required.”
  • The exceptions to this rule, is you can always choose the Front End to be virtual and the DB backend to be physical in any scenario.
  • Virtualization high availability features (Windows clustering, VMotion, Live Migration, etc.) are not a substitute for Lync’s built-in redundancy features inside its architecture (multiple front-end’s, SQL redundancy, etc.).
  • Even in a small virtualized pool, the following are not recommended: shared networking port for host and guests, shared disk spindles for host and guests or for multiple guests, network connectivity less than 1GB, and dynamic disks.
  • Disabling IPv6 on the host and guests will improve performance (although it doesn’t specify which technique to use for disabling. Is unchecking the box in Network Connection Properties enough even though it doesn’t completely disable IPv6?).
  • Notes are included for enabling VMQ on Intel network adapters and other driver/reg modifications to improve performance.

Maybe it’s just me, or maybe I’ve not read other Microsoft server virtualization recommendation white papers… but this one was particularly detailed and full of real-word guidance for sizing virtual and physical machines, including what perfmon counters to use for baselining. Bravo Lync team. If only all server apps came with this level of detail.

DPM 2007 with SP1: how it works

Published by Bret Fisher on Apr 19, 2009 in Microsoft and Tech. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Best video I’ve seen to date on the harry details on how the backups work throughout the day and week.  Cleared up tons of questions I had around the difference in workloads like SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, Hyper-V, and File Servers.

Watch the 23min High Quality WMV, or the TechNet Edge page with other viewing options.

Using Windows Server 2008 as a client desktop

Published by Bret Fisher on Jul 17, 2008 in Microsoft, Networking and Security and Solution Writeups. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

There are many other posts about the pros/cons of Windows Server 2008 as a client machine/desktop/laptop/workstation.  Mostly false claims of faster-then-Vista performance, etc.  I’m using it on a laptop in x64 strictly for training purposes (not as my main OS) and had to work out these few issues before I could fully use it in that scenario:

  1. WebDAV Access.  Lets say you want to browse to a SharePoint site using UNC path names, or maybe use the new fabulous sysinternals \\live.sysinternals.com\tools way of getting their tools quickly… we’ll you can’t until you add the 2008 feature “Desktop Experience” which will then add the WebClient service.  That service is what allows you WebDAV access to other servers.  Don’t confuse this with the IIS 7 WebDAV which will allow you to serve up WebDAV content to others.  Also note that in Windows Server 2003 the WebClient service is disabled by defaut so if you have the same issues in that OS, enable and set to automatic.  It’s a security thing since most don’t use servers to browse web content.
  2. Wireless Access.   You need to install the feature Wireless LAN Service to use a WiFi card.
  3. Hyper-V. = no sleep/hibernate (fixed: read update below).  It’s been said on many other sites, but once you add the Hyper-V role to Server 2008 these features are disabled… making it harder to use it on a laptop.
  4. Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC).  To make the web useable from IE, you need to disable this, which you’ll find under Server Manager Summary page where the Security Information is at.

update: Have a GUI do all this for you and more! Over at the Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter blog.

update 11/15/2008: A reg entry has been found for disabling Hyper-V and allowing power states and sleep/hibernate to work.  However, in my experiance, each change of the setting requires a full reboot, so if you disable Hyper-V and reboot, then want to start a VM in Hyper-V, you’ll need to change the setting back and reboot again.

TechEd 2008 ITPro: BOF911 The Physical Datacenter in a Virtual World

Published by Bret Fisher on May 27, 2008 in Microsoft and TechEd. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

I’m hosting my 2nd year of a TechEd ITPro Birds-of-a-Feather session.  Didn’t attend this BoF last year?  Read my post session summary.  It’s on Wednesday, June 11th at 4:30pm to 5:45pm in S330 E (vCalendar Apt.)

The datacenter is rapidly changing as we shift to vitalizing many of our application and Web servers to virtual workloads. This is a forum to discuss physical design changes from the “one box, one OS” to various options like blade heads (build out), 16-way heads (build up), and SAN storage of disks. Topic starters like “NFS, LUN, or CIFS for virtual hard drive storage?”, “Why NOT to use iSCSI?”, “What do you require before considering the jump from VMWare to Microsoft for hosting or management”, “Anyone using Citrix over the others?”, “Anyone aggressive with SCVMM and/or Hyper-V yet?”. Hear big and small shops describe what works and what doesn’t for them; how they address F.U.D., bottlenecks, disaster recovery, backups, and more. This discussion is product agnostic and focused around how we can do more OS’s with less hardware. We had this BOF last year—come by to talk about how much has changed.

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