SQL Server 2008 Hyber V Unleashed - p 28 pot

ptg6432687 250 7 Optimizing the Hyper-V Host Server and Guest Sessions . At a minimum, monitor the most common contributors to performance bottlenecks: memory and pagefile usage, processor, disk subsystem, and network subsystem. . Identify and monitor server functions and roles along with the common set of resources. . When monitoring specific roles such as virtual servers, include the common perfor- mance counters such as memory, CPU, disk, and network and counters specific to the role of the server. . Allocate process memory and resources to guest sessions that balance the requested amount of memory for a guest session without over allocating resources that may go unused. . When configuring disk types, for the fastest performance choose a fixed-size disk type so that the dynamic expansion of the image file does not impact the perfor- mance of the host server or guest session. . When placing guest images on a storage system, pick a storage system that has rela- tively high-speed access and throughput. If you don’t, the performance of the guest session will be slowed because the Hyper-V host server will have slow communica- tions with the guest session image files. . Examine network-related error counters. Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 PART IV System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment IN THIS PART CHAPTER 8 System Center Virtual Machine Manager Technology Primer 253 CHAPTER 9 Installing and Getting Familiar with Virtual Machine Manager 2008 273 CHAPTER 10 Creating Guest Images from Existing Production and Virtual Systems 301 CHAPTER 11 Using Virtual Machine Manager 2008 for Provisioning 321 Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 This page intentionally left blank Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 8 System Center Virtual Machine Manager Technology Primer IN THIS CHAPTER . What is Virtual Machine Manager? . History of Virtualization and Virtualization Management . What is Virtual Machine Manager 2008? . Consoles in VMM . Administrative Console in VMM . Heterogeneous VM Management . Cluster Support in VMM 2008 . The VMM Library . Roles-Based Access Control . The Value VMM 2008 Brings to the Enterprise . Who Needs VMM 2008? What Is Virtual Machine Manager? Up to now, we have discussed what Hyper-V provides to the data center and how to deploy and configure single virtual machines. Once the organization understands and adopts the value of system virtualization, IT administrators look for improved ways to deploy, control, and administer the virtual infrastructure. Enter Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008) provides a System Center common management interface for the virtualized data center that allows increased server utiliza- tion and dynamic resource allocation. It also works across multiple virtualization platforms, including those from Microsoft and VMware. Third-party add-ons for XenSource, XenWorks, and others will be available in the near future. VMM 2008 takes a holistic approach to managing the virtual infrastructure by examining and rating the virtual- ization hosts. It compares these hosts against a set of crite- ria and rates the suitability of the virtual machine (VM) to be deployed on the hosts where it can be deployed. This is important because a single physical host server can host tens of virtual machines. History of Virtualization and Virtualization Management Despite Microsoft having a major release of both Windows server virtualization and Virtual Machine Management in Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 254 8 System Center Virtual Machine Manager Technology Primer 2008, their history in virtualization is less than six years old, with virtualization manage- ment being less than year or two. Microsoft History of Virtualization Microsoft obtained its role in virtualization by acquiring the technology and then devel- oping it over time. They first purchased virtualization technology and then developed the technology into both a server and client product. Microsoft’s Introduction to Virtualization by Acquisition Microsoft first entered the operating system virtualization market when it purchased Connectix in 2003. Microsoft’s first VM product was Microsoft Virtual PC, which they released as a free product in 2004. Virtual PC was meant to allow administrators to create VMs on a desktop-class computer for testing purposes. Microsoft’s First Release of Server Virtualization About the same time, they released Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, which was designed to run on server-class equipment and offered more robust features. In Q2 2006, Microsoft made Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition a free download to better compete with the free virtualization offerings from VMware and Xen. Virtual machines are created and managed through a Windows client application tool called VMRCplus or through an Internet Information Services (IIS) web-based interface. Virtual Server 2005 provides more features than Virtual PC and is designed to run in the data center. Microsoft’s Client Virtualization In Q1 2007, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2007. The main advantages over Virtual PC 2004 were support for hardware virtualization, viewing virtual machines on multiple monitors, and support for Windows Vista as both host and guest. The following year Virtual PC 2007 SP1 was released. Microsoft’s History on Virtualization Management While virtual servers and clients have helped organizations minimize the number of phys- ical systems they have, the challenge has been to manage these virtual systems. It wasn’t until 2007 that Microsoft finally had a product dedicated to VM management, which has then led to the current release covered in this book, Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Early Virtualization Management Techniques Up to this point, VM management was performed by the system administrator using the standard Windows monitoring and management techniques: viewing event logs, perfor- mance counters, and system properties of both the VM and the host that runs it. With the Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 255 What Is Virtual Machine Manager 2008? proliferation of VMs in the data center, there grew a need to centralize VM management and to manage the placement and provide disaster-recovery options for these guests. Release of Virtualization Machine Manager 2007 Microsoft’s answer to this need was Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 (VMM 2007). VMM 2007 was available in three versions: System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Workgroup Edition (VMM WGE 2007), and System Center Essentials 2007 (Essentials 2007). VMM 2007 provides comprehensive support for consolidating 32-bit physical servers onto virtual infrastructures and rapid provisioning and deployment of new 32-bit virtual machines. To help IT administrators keep organized, VMM features a library to centrally manage the building blocks of the virtual data center, including virtual hard drives, VMM templates, and P2V conversions. Release of Virtualization Machine Manager 2008 Microsoft System Center VMM 2008 is the latest version of the VMM product line. It replaces System Center VMM 2007 and adds many new features, including full Hyper-V support, 64-bit VM support, the ability to manage both Microsoft and VMware virtual infrastructures, and more. What Is Virtual Machine Manager 2008? Microsoft System Center VMM is a server application that administrators can use to manage a large number of VMs across the virtual infrastructure. Components of VMM VMM is a series of components that include Windows Server, SQL Server, a local agent, an Administrative console, and a self-service console. The components that make up VMM include . A Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later server on which the VMM service (server component) is installed. . A Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database. This database contains all VMM objects. . Servers on which the VMM local agent is installed. These servers act as hosts on which to deploy VMs using VMM. A host computer runs Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1), or Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V. Be sure to read the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V requirements in Chapter 4, “Installing Windows 2008 Server and the Hyper-V Role.” 8 Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 256 8 System Center Virtual Machine Manager Technology Primer FIGURE 8.1 The VMM 2008 command shell. . Servers on which the VMM local agent is installed that act as library servers. Library servers store resources for the VMM environment. . Computers on which the VMM Administrative console is installed. These computers or servers provide the administrative GUI and command shell to manage the physi- cal and virtual infrastructure. . Web servers that act as self-service portals. Self-service portals allow designated users to create/manage their own VMs. NOTE VMM components can be combined on the same server. Please see Chapter 4, “Installing Windows 2008 Server and the Hyper-V Role,” for details. VMM on Top of PowerShell The VMM command shell is built on Microsoft Windows PowerShell, an administrator- focused interactive command-line shell and scripting platform that is integrated into the Windows platform. Windows PowerShell and the VMM command shell are installed with VMM. Administrators can use the VMM command shell as an alternative to (or in addition to) the VMM Administrative console for centralized management of the physical and virtual system infrastructure. Anything that can be done in the Administrative console can be done using the VMM command shell. The Administrative console even enables you to view the command shell commands that the console will run before actually executing them. Windows PowerShell and VMM both provide commands (called cmdlets, shown in Figure 8.1) that administrators can use alone to perform simple administrative tasks or in combi- nation with other cmdlets or command-line elements to perform more complex tasks. Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 257 Consoles in VMM FIGURE 8.2 PowerShell command sequence. PowerShell Support in VMM 2008 Like Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, VMM 2008 is written completely on top of Windows PowerShell. Anything that can be done in the Administrative console or the self- service portal user interfaces can be done in PowerShell. As a matter of fact, everything done in these consoles is done in PowerShell. When the administrator performs an action from a console, that command, shown in Figure 8.2, is passed down to the PowerShell for execution. 8 The Administrative console offers a button at the execution of an action that displays the PowerShell commands that will be run. This allows the administrator to copy, modify, and save a collection of cmdlets for easy automation of tasks. They can then be run directly from the command line. Consoles in VMM The VMM server component manages the different components that make up the VMM system. Through the Administrative console, administrators manage the objects, templates, and scripts stored in the VMM library server. The self-service portal component provides a way for designated users to provision/save their own VMs in the VMM library. The VMM server component recommends the best physical host server to host the VM or best library server to store the VM image. Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 258 FIGURE 8.3 The self-service portal. VMM Self-Service Portal The self-service portal, as shown in Figure 8.3, is a web console that provides a way for self-service users to access any VM, regardless of whether it is VMware or Hyper-V. Using this console, users with appropriate rights can create, manage, and store VMs. 8 System Center Virtual Machine Manager Technology Primer VMM Administrative Console The VMM Administrative console is the main console with which VMM administrators and delegated administrators manage the virtual infrastructure components. This includes physical servers, virtual servers, virtual networks (VLANs), and the VMM library and all its objects. Administrative Console in VMM VMM 2008 provides a heterogeneous centralized management platform for VM manage- ment. The administrator can manage hosts running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, VMware ESX, and Microsoft Virtual Server using the same familiar System Center console. The VMM 2008 console, shown in Figure 8.4, offers the same consistent look, feel, and behavior as other System Center products, including System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM 2007) and System Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM 2007). Like other System Center products, the VMM Administrative console offers a Navigation pane, Views pane, Details pane, and Actions pane. Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 259 Administrative Console in VMM 8 FIGURE 8.4 The VMM 2008 console. The Navigation Pane The VMM has in the Administrative console a Navigation pane. The Navigation pane enables the administrator to select which collection of objects the administrator wants to work with. The Navigation pane contains the following buttons: . Hosts . Virtual Machines . Library . Jobs . Administration Hosts Provides access to the Virtual Machine Overview, which displays a graphical dashboard of hosts, VMs, recent jobs, and library resources in multicolor pie and bar charts. Here you can get a visual representation of the health of the hosts, the state of the VMs (running, paused, stopped, and so on), status on recent jobs (running, canceled, failed, and so forth), and the number of library resources (templates, virtual hard drives, answer scripts, and the like). Clicking any one of the graphs will drill down to the corresponding naviga- tion item. Download at www.wowebook.com . Server 2008 with Hyper -V. Be sure to read the Windows Server 2008 Hyper -V requirements in Chapter 4, “Installing Windows 2008 Server and the Hyper -V Role.” 8 Download at www.wowebook.com ptg6432687 256. the VMM library server. The self-service portal component provides a way for designated users to provision/save their own VMs in the VMM library. The VMM server component recommends the best physical. Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later server on which the VMM service (server component) is installed. . A Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database. This database contains all VMM objects. . Servers on