Archive
Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Beta
The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Beta Solution Accelerator is a 4 MB download that converts VMware virtual machines to Hyper-V.
About This Solution Accelerator
The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) provides a Microsoft-supported, freely available, standalone solution for converting VMware virtual machines (VMs) and VMware virtual disks (VMDKs) to Hyper-V virtual machines and Hyper-V virtual hard disks (VHDs). MVMC supports converting virtual machines using the following guest operating systems:
- Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2
- Windows Server 2003 R2 with Service Pack 2
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows 7
System Requirements
The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter converts VMware virtual machines created with:
- VMware vSphere 4.1
- VMware vSphere 5.0
To virtual machines for:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V
- Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1
Details
The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter:
- Provides a quick, low-risk option for VMware customers to evaluate Hyper-V
- Converts the virtual disks and the VMware VMs configuration, such as memory, virtual processor, and other machine settings from the source
- Uninstalls the VMware tools on the source VM and installs the Hyper-V Integration Services as appropriate
- Includes an easy-to-use wizard-driven GUI simplifying VM conversion
- Supports offline conversions of VMware virtual hard disks (VMDK) to a Hyper-V based virtual hard disk file format (VHD)
-
Includes a scriptable Command Line Interfaces (CLI) for performing machine conversion and offline disk conversion which integrates with datacenter automation workflows, such as those authored and executed within System Center Orchestrator. The command line can also be invoked through PowerShell.
You can join the program there
https://connect.microsoft.com/site14/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=7594&InvitationID=MVMC-PK9Q-BR47
Hyper-V in Windows 8: Breaking the limits
The next release of Windows Server, Windows Server "8", offers businesses and hosting providers a scalable, dynamic, and multitenant-aware, cloud-optimized infrastructure. Download Windows Server "8" Beta
Hyper-V in Windows Server 8 introduce a new challenge to the world of IT, breaking the limits With Windows Server 8 we have a new Hyper-V features that increase scale, performance, and density of your virtualized environment. The main features included are:
• Hyper-V host scale and scale-up workload support
• Dynamic Memory improvements for Hyper-V
• Resource Metering in Hyper-V
• New virtual hard disk format
• Offloaded Data Transfer support in Hyper-V
• Data Center Bridging (DCB)
• Virtual Fiber Channel in Hyper-V
• Support for 4-KB disk sectors in Hyper-V virtual disks
• Quality of Service
I will try to cover these features on my next posts but the most important part the Hyper-V scale matrix is not going linear it is just breaking the limits 
Windows Server 8 Beta Hyper-V Scale Metrics:
- 160 logical processors per host
- 1024 VMs per host
- 64 nodes per cluster
- 4000 VMs per cluster
- 32 virtual processors per VM
- 1 TB memory per VM (No taxes, no entitlements, no penalty for buying a large scale up server)
- 64 TB per VHDX
In addition, these scalability metrics lead the industry:
- VMware vSphere 5.0 support up to 32 nodes in a cluster. Windows Server 8 Hyper-V supports 64 nodes. (2x over VMware)
- VMware vSphere 5.0 supports virtual disks up to 2 TB in size. Windows Server Hyper-V 8 supports virtual disks up to 64 TB in size (32x over VMware)
- VMware vSphere 5.0 supports 3,000 VMs per cluster. Windows Server 8 supports 4,000
- VMware vSphere 5.0 supports 512 VMs per host. Windows Server 8 supports 1,024
While VMware supports up to 1 TB of memory per VM, you have to purchase vSphere 5.x Enterprise Plus ($3,500 per processor) and then purchase memory entitlements (taxes) to achieve this goal. Hyper-V 8 has no such tax or entitlement. Such taxes are an anathema to our customers. Every version of Windows Server 8 that ships with Hyper-V will support up to 1 TB of memory per VM.
Download Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Software
Source
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx
System Center 2012 Release Candidate plus optional Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 download
A Microsoft private cloud dramatically changes the way your business produces and consumes IT services by creating a layer of abstraction over your pooled IT resources. This allows your datacenter to offer true infrastructure service capability as well as optimally managed application services.
Microsoft private cloud solutions are built on System Center and Windows Server.
System Center 2012 Release Candidate empowers you with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for your business.
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download) will give you improved powerful virtualization capabilities that can transform how you deliver IT services to your end users and enable you to lay the foundation of a private cloud infrastructure.
Please Note: Many Microsoft private cloud scenarios require Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. If you are using an older version, we highly recommend upgrading to experience the full Microsoft private cloud evaluation.
Need more information? See the product details page. Register to access technical product resources at the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page.
The Microsoft private cloud evaluation includes:
System Center 2012 Release Candidate
Available in these languages: English
- System Center 2012 Unified Installer is a utility designed to perform new, clean installations of System Center 2012 for testing and evaluation purposes only. If you want to upgrade from an existing System Center installation or choose set up options such as high availability or multi-server component installs, please refer instead to the System Center 2012 component installation guides located on the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page.
User’s Guide >> - System Center 2012 App Controller provides a common self-service experience across private and public clouds that can help you empower application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage new services.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager provides comprehensive configuration management for the Microsoft platform that can help you empower users with the devices and applications they need to be productive while maintaining corporate compliance and control.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager provides unified data protection for Windows servers and clients that can help you deliver scalable, manageable, and cost-effective protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape, and off premise.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, built on System Center Configuration Manager, provides industry-leading threat detection of malware and exploits as part of a unified infrastructure for managing client security and compliance that can help you simplify and improve endpoint protection.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Operations Manager provides deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring that can help you ensure the predictable performance and availability of vital applications and offers a comprehensive view of your datacenter, private, and public clouds.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Orchestrator provides orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks that can help you to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Service Manager provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes that can help you integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications.
System Requirements >> - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager provides virtual machine management and services deployment with support for multi-hypervisor environments that can help you deliver a flexible and cost effective private cloud environment.
System Requirements >>
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download)
Available in these languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is designed to help you increase control, availability, and flexibility of your datacenter and desktop infrastructure while helping reduce costs.
System Requirements >>
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate is here
So it is here…Get Ready for the new Wave
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/virtual-machine-manager-2012.aspx
System Center 2012 cloud and datacenter management solutions empower you with a common management tool set for your private and public cloud applications and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for your business. Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate (RC) is key to delivering the promise of the System Center 2012 release wave. Virtual Machine Manager 2012 enables you to:
Deliver flexible and cost effective Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). You can pool and dynamically allocate virtualized datacenter resources (compute, network, and storage) enabling self-service infrastructure experience for your business, with flexible role based delegation and access control.
Apply cloud principles to provisioning and servicing your datacenter applications with techniques like service modeling, service configuration and image based management. You can also state-separate your applications and services from the underlying infrastructure using server application virtualization. This results in a “service centric” approach to management where you manage the application or service lifecycle and not just datacenter infrastructure or virtual machines.
Optimize your existing investments by managing multi-hypervisor environments, including Hyper-V, Xen and VMware.
Dynamic optimization of your datacenter resources based on workload demands, while ensuring reliable service delivery with features like high availability.
Best-of-breed virtualization-management for Microsoft workloads like Exchange and Sharepoint.
Benefits
Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate is a core component of the System Center 2012 release wave and offers you the following benefits:
Build your Private Cloud today; provision flexible, agile and cost effective IaaS while maintaining your quality of service (QoS) commitments to the business.
Manage heterogeneous virtual environments using a single tool, thus optimizing your existing datacenter investments.
Optimize your existing applications for private cloud deployment without requiring you to rewrite them from scratch.
Dramatically simplify application provisioning and servicing thus saving operational effort and expense.
Unlock application mobility between your cloud environments as appropriate to your business needs.
So you can start testing and I would recommend to take a look at VMM 2012 Survival Guide
Microsoft TechNet Library content:
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (on the Web)
Download the official VMM 2012 Beta content (may not be as current as the “live” Web version in TechNet)
Videos
System Center VMM 2012 Overview
Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals This is a link to the whole series. For sections specifically related to VMM 2012, see:
Virtualization Jump Start (07): System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012
Virtualization Jump Start (08): Private Cloud Solutions, Architecture & VMM Self-Service Portal 2.0
90 Seconds to the Cloud: Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta with Kenon Owens
Creating a Stand-Alone Virtual Machine with a Blank VHD in VMM 2012
Best of MMS Belgium 2011 video series (Includes “Virtual Machine Manager 2012: Technical Overview”, “Managing Your Fabric With System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012”)
Blogs
System Center Virtual Machine Manager blog (from the Microsoft product team)
Microsoft Server Application Virtualization Blog (from the Microsoft product team)
SCVMM 2012 content on Hyper-V.nu blog
SCVMM 2012 content on Virtualization and some coffee blog
Other
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012: VMM Gets Major Upgrade (TechNet Magazine)
Troubleshooting
Post your question to the VMM forums
Troubleshooting OS Deployment of Hyper-V Through VMM 2012 (Blog post)
[RHS] Error 5023 from ResourceControl for resource Cluster Disk
This week I got a call from one of my team mates (Nashaat Sorial) telling me that he is facing a problem with his Hyper-V cluster..
He is running 3 Hyper-V hosts with Windows 2008 R2 SP1 running multiple applications. One of the hosts keep failing and He can not Live migrate any VM to the other hosts until restart.
We went through all well known workarounds for such cases like
1- if you have AV please disable
2- Also check http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773533%28WS.10%29.aspx
3- Please if you have teaming..Break it and check again
4- Please check http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981618
5- Make sure that you enable the "file and printer sharing" as well as the "client for MS networks" on the heartbeat networks cards on all nodes. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2008795
So we have to start reading more in the cluster logs. You can generate the cluster logs as per
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2008/09/24/8962934.aspx
We got some interesting data and errors in the logs just like:
In Win2008 the Physical Disk resource type private property that stores the disk signature change from "Signature" and it is now "DiskSignature" in Win2008. The lack of the DiskSignature property not being populated was resulting in the resource failing to come online
ERROR_CLUSTER_GROUP_MOVING(5908)’ because of ”Virtual Machine Configuration R-Web2003′ is owned by node 2, not 1.’
mm.. So it looks like something from the Hardware level. Searching HP blades errors come with more useful information
he HP Integrated Management Log shows ‘ASR Detected by System ROM‘ along with the following events in the System event log on an affected machine:
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: hpqilo2
Event Category: None
Event ID: 57
Failed GET SENSOR READING, sensor 16
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: hpqilo2
Event Category: None
Event ID: 57
NetFN 0x4, command 0x2D timed out
The solution for this was to perform the following:
- Install the latest ILO Firmware Update v. 1.81
- Install the HP iLO Management Channel Interface Driver v. 1.15.0.0
- Install the HP ProLiant iLO2 Management Controller Driver v. 1.12.0.0
All of these drivers can be downloaded form the following location, selecting your operating system:
SQL Server / Dynamic Memory Whitepaper
Today SQL Server team published a whitepaper about considerations for Dynamic Memory in SQL Server VMs.
You can download the paper from:
Running SQL Server with Hyper-V Dynamic Memory – Best Practices and Considerations
Or
Summary: Memory is a critical resource to Microsoft SQL Server workloads, especially in a virtualized environment where resources are shared and contention for shared resources can lead to negative impact on the workload. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 introduced Hyper-V Dynamic Memory, which enables virtual machines to make more efficient use of physical memory resources. Hyper-V Dynamic Memory treats memory as a shared resource that can be reallocated automatically among running virtual machines. There are unique considerations that apply to virtual machines that run SQL Server workloads in such environments. This document provides insight into considerations and best practices for running SQL Server 2008 R2 in Hyper-V Dynamic Memory configurations on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
I am not SQL Expert but I will try to provide any hints or comments on this Whitepaper
Enjoy it 
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1– Now Available for Download!
Using System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1, you can respond more effectively—and at a lower cost—to the rapidly changing needs of your organization. Built on Windows Server® 2008 R2, Hyper-V™ technology, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, VMMSSP enables you to offer infrastructure as a service in your organization.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 is a partner-extensible toolkit that enables customers to dynamically pool, allocate, and manage their datacenter resources, to offer infrastructure as a service for their organization. The self-service portal is a free Solution Accelerator, and is fully supported by Microsoft. In addition to providing users the ability to import virtual machines created outside the self-service portal, this new version is now localized in Japanese, simplified Chinese, and traditional Chinese.
Please send any questions or comments to the VMMSSP team at sspfeedback@microsoft.com. We will respond within two business days.
Please download VMMSSP here, and visit www.microsoft.com\SSP for more information, including a free Datasheet and FAQ. You can also follow System Center and Solution Accelerators on Twitter to keep up-to-date on new releases and features.
VM Create from VMM SSP v2.0 SP1 (beta) fails with boot from ISO
A very interesting problem that I saw before in my testing
If I create the VM from VMM 2008 R2 it "fails" on "Install VM Components" because there is no OS yet. But I can then start VM from VMM and boots from ISO just fine.
From SSP it fails with:
Parameters cannot be specified for the guest operating system because the selected template was created as a non-customizable template (-NoCustomization parameter). (Error ID: 730) Please retry the operation without specifying guest operating system parameters.
Have tried with/without a synthetic network adapter and have also tried a custom action without the -Owner $SubmittedBy -ComputerName $vmName -FullName $submittedBy from the New-VM entries in the createvm task.
Santos from MS give one shoot solution
The Action xml segment which does not have " -Owner $SubmittedBy -ComputerName $vmName -FullName $submittedBy" needs to be associated with Service role in which virtual machines are being created and then select that service role during create virtual machine wizard. This should resolve your issue. You can also refer to "Associating an Action XML Segment with a Service Role" in VMM08R2_VMMSSPExtensibilityGuide.
Hyper-V Backups Fail with Error 2155248001
One interesting case for hyper-V backup is logged there
Description
“ I have several Hyper-V boxes where windows server backups are failing.
Error message number from event viewer is 2155348001.
If I shutdown or save the guests, the backup works. Host OS is Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 installed. Guests are server 2003 or Windows XP.
So far I have tried deleting all shadow copy snapshots from the host as well as making sure the guests have enough free space.
I have deleted and re-created the backup several times and tried several backup devices ranging from USB to iSCSI to adding a second internal drive array. Guests are also running the newest version of the guest additions.
I have one server where I was able to figure out which guest the backup does not like. If I pause or shutdown that one guest, the backup works with the other guest still running. At think the problem is somewhere in Hyper-V, but I am not sure where to look next.”
Cause
it was due to the timeout for VSS creation. Default is 10 min.
Resolution
This article shows how to set it to something else. Increasing the timeout fixed the backup. On my server creating the snapshots took 10min 30 seconds.
LUN configuration best practices to boost virtual machine performance
A very nice post by Rob McShinsky about LUN configuration best practices to boost virtual machine performance.
Microsoft® MVP System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management
Zeros & Ones 