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Cloud Computing, Virtualization, .NET / SQL Server Development; Consultant / Author / Speaker

Archive for July, 2008

Optimizing Hyper-V Performance

Jul 28

Posted by Anil Desai in Best Practices, Management, Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtualization | No Comments

If you’re in touch with your geeky side, there’s a good chance that you’re always looking for ways to squeeze more performance out of your IT investments.  This is especially true for situations that involve virtualization, where some of the primary motivation is reducing costs through server consolidation. 

I have recently written two articles for SearchServerVirtualization.com that cover the  topic of monitoring and optimizing your VMs that are hosted on Microsoft Hyper-V.  Some might be obvious, but others are somewhat cleverly-disguised.  The first article, Optimizing Hyper-V performance: Monitoring tips focuses on ways in which you can make sure your host servers and VMs are running smoothly.  From the introduction:

How can you be sure whether your Hyper-V host servers and virtual machines (VMs) have been optimally configured? Installing and enabling Microsoft Hyper-V and creating VMs is a fairly straightforward process; but the techie tendencies in all of us seems to nag the question "Isn’t there something more I should do to improve performance?" This tip targets system administrators who have deployed Hyper-V and want to ensure that they’ve made the most of host servers and VMs.

The second article, Optimizing Hyper-V performance: Advanced fine-tuning provides details on Integration Services, synthetic vs. emulated drivers, and ways in which you can improve overall performance of storage and network resources.

I hope these articles will serve as a useful checklist for Hyper-V management.  If you have any further suggestions, feel free to leave them as comments here or on SearchServerVirtualization.com.

Managing Virtualization: The Art of War

Jul 18

Posted by Anil Desai in Articles, Management, Virtualization | No Comments

ArtOfWarMy latest article for Virtual Strategy Magazine is now available for free online.  This one covers some best practices and suggestions for keeping tracking of VMs and keeping IT departments in control of all of their physical and virtual systems.  From the introduction to Managing Virtualization: The Art of War:

"The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations." – David Friedman

Make no mistakes, my friends. Virtualization technology is serious business. The stakes are high and the stakeholders are highly-motivated. War is a dirty word, and we did not choose this situation. However, today, we are called upon to defend ourselves against a vicious and unforeseen onslaught of virtual machines. They have attacked from every direction, and we now find ourselves in the middle of a battle for control. These once gentle automatons now threaten our very way of life within the IT department. Their unmanaged proliferation must be stopped here and now.

This will not be an easy fight, so heed these words carefully. The fate of entire data centers hangs in the balance, and mismanagement of one or a few VMs could tip the balance in favor of the enemy. But rest assured, my friends: There is hope, if only we allow cooler heads to prevail. Batten down the hatches, up the irons, release the Jolt! Cola, and prepare for Managing Virtualization: The Art of War.

Migrating from MSVS to Hyper-V

Jul 15

Posted by Anil Desai in Microsoft Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server, Virtualization | No Comments

With the official release of Microsoft’s Hyper-V, I’ll bet that many systems administrators are weighing their options for moving existing VMs to their platform.  Fortunately, there are several approaches that will work, each with it’s own blend of pros and cons.  My recent SearchServerVirtualization.com article, Migrating from Microsoft Virtual Server to Hyper-V covers the details.  From the article:

Birds have the right idea: Why not move to where the weather’s better? Sure, it takes a lot of time, effort and energy to cross entire continents, but the trip is often worth it. The same can be said of platform migrations, as technical advantages may come with potential difficulties. Now that Microsoft’s Hyper-V is finally available as an official, fully-supported platform on Windows Server 2008, many IT managers might be thinking about migration.

If you’ve been standing on the sidelines waiting for the official release of Hyper-V, you no longer have any excuses for waiting to at least deploy it in a test environment. If you’ve been working with the beta and release candidate versions, you’re probably ready to deploy some production virtual machines (VMs) with Microsoft’s latest virtualization product. If your data center environment has an existing investment in Microsoft Virtual Server (MSVS) 2005, this article will help you decide why and how you might want to migrate.

Assuming to decide to make the move, the general process is fairly painless (even if you choose to do it completely manually).  Such is the price of keeping up with technology, and I think most administrators will find that they’re much happier after the move to Hyper-V.

Microsoft Hyper-V Guide

Jul 1

Posted by Anil Desai in Management, Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtualization | No Comments

If you’re having trouble making sense of Microsoft’s Hyper-V and would like to get up and running quickly, TechTarget’s SearchServerVirtualization.com has a handy resource.  The Microsoft Hyper-V Guide provides a handy overview and index to other articles and screencasts (including several written by me).  From the introduction to the Guide:

Hyper-V is the latest virtualization product from Microsoft. The new hypervisor platform works with Windows Server 2008 to create and manage a virtual infrastructure. As with any virtualization platform, Hyper-V makes for a more efficient data center, maximizing resources and reducing costs.

Hyper-V consists of a 64-bit hypervisor that can run 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines concurrently. Hyper-V virtualization works with single and multi-processor virtual machines and includes tools such as snapshots, which capture the state of a running virtual machine.

Hypervisor-based virtualization with Microsoft’s newest offering promises more efficient virtual machine hosting as well, with new "synthetic" drivers.

For more information on Hyper-V, consult the resources in this introductory guide.

Also, keep a look out for many other articles by me and other writers on the site!  A good way to keep up is to sign up for the site’s newsletter.