Cool New Hyper-V Features in Windows Server 2012 R2

Aidan Finn

About Aidan Finn

• Technical Sales Lead at MicroWarehouse (Dublin)

• Working in IT since 1996

• MVP (Virtual Machine)

• Experienced with Windows Server/Desktop, System Center, virtualisation, and IT infrastructure

• @joe_elway

• http://www.aidanfinn.com

• http://www.petri.co.il/author/aidan-finn

• Published author/contributor of several books

Books

System Center 2012 VMM

Windows Server

2012 Hyper-V

Agenda

• The vision

• Improving virtualisation

• Private cloud

• Disaster recovery

• Hybrid cloud

CUSTOMER

SERVICE PROVIDER

WINDOWS AZURE

Cloud OS

Conditions To Be Cloudy

• WS2012 R2 focuses on the vision of a “cloud OS”

• One single platform – a hybrid cloud spanning:• Private cloud

• Hosting company

• Windows Azure

• Enable software-defined & service centric Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

• Built with System Center 2012 R2

Windows Azure IaaS• Windows Azure uses the same Hyper-V virtualization service

built-into Windows Server 2012

• Complete virtual machine compatibility between on premise Hyper-V and Azure IaaS

• Legacy free

• UEFI based• Many emulated devices removed• Boots from virtual SCSI or synthetic network adapters• Enables UEFI secure boot standard• PXE boot from synthetic NIC

• Supported guest operating systems:• 64-bit versions of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012• 64-bit versions of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2

• And yes, System Center 2012 R2 (GA) can manage Generation 2 VMs

Generation 2 Virtual Machines

• RemoteFX (Remote Desktop) via VMBus

• Full remote desktop capabilities• Shared clipboard• Audio redirection• Enhanced login• and more….

• Works even when the VM’s network is down

• Integrated into Hyper-V Management experience• Disabled by default in WS2012 R2 Hyper-V host settings

• Requires Windows 8.1/WS2012 R2 guest OS

Enhanced Session Mode

Automatic VM Activation (AVMA)• Zero touch activation of virtual machines

• Virtual machines automatically activated according to the hosting environment

• Reduces configuration for hosters / enterprises• Install AVMA product key when creating template VM using SLMGR

• Create VM template

• Deploy VMs from that template

• Requires:• Activated WS2012 R2 Datacenter edition on the host management OS

• Guest OS to be WS2012 R2 Datacenter/Standard/Essentials

• Make it easier to migrate VMs to newer version of Hyper-V• New zero service downtime migration option

• Live migrate virtual machines from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2012 R2• One-way operation

• Only from WS2012 to WS2012 R2

• Includes support for:• Live Migration of VMs on SMB 3.0 storage

• Shared-nothing live migration

Cross-Version Live Migration

• Increased compatibility for VMs on Windows Server 2012 R2 from Windows Server 2012 R2• Saved states

• Checkpoints (formerly known as Hyper-V Snapshots)

• Less clean-up work (loss for devs/testers) when:• Upgrading hosts

• Using Cross-Version Live Migration

Cross-Version Compatibility

• Compression• Makes the most of existing network/hardware investment• Uses spare CPU cycles – CPU monitored by Hyper-V• Over 2x improvement in live migration time• Enabled by default

• SMB Direct • For 10 GbE or faster networks• Make the most of network investment for SMB 3.0

• Converged networks

• Enables high-speed & low impact live migrations• Uses SMB Multichannel to leverage multiple interfaces• Uses SMB Direct to minimise impact on hosts’ CPUs

Faster Live Migration

• Increase and decrease the size of virtual hard disks• While the virtual machine is running!!!

• Requires:• VHDX

• Attached to VM’s SCSI controller

• Tips:• Always put data into dedicated VHDX, e.g. D: drive

• When using Hyper-V Replica, place VM’s paging file into dedicated VHDX for selective replication

Online VHDX Resize

• Control IOPS of VMs

• Enables constant SLA delivery

• Dynamically configurable while the virtual machine is running

• Can restrict disk throughput for overactive / disruptive virtual machines

Storage QoS

File Based StorageBlock Storage

VHDX VHDX

Guest Clustering

Guest Clustering with commodity storage

Sharing VHDX files provides shared storage

for Hyper-V Failover Clustering

Maintains separation between infrastructure

and tenants

Virtual SAS

VM presented a shared virtual SAS disk

Appears as shared SAS disk to VM

Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

on block storage

Scale-Out File Server

for file based storage

Shared VHDX Guest Clustering

Live Virtual Machine Export/Clone• While the virtual machine is running:

• Export a complete copy – including memory state

• Export any snapshot of a virtual machine

• Useful for diagnostics, pre-testing upgrades, etc• Without impacting production services

Improved Features For Linux Guest OS• Continued investment in Hyper-V Linux Integration Services

• Built into the Linux distributions

• Dynamic Memory• Same features as Windows guests

• Live VM Backup• File system consistent

• Linux video driver

• Online VHDX resize

• Kdump/kexec

• Linux Specification of Memory Mapped I/O (MMIO) gap

• Linux Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI)

Hyper-V Replica• Most popular feature of WS2012 Hyper-V

• Lots of feedback

• Finer Grained Interval controls:• Choose between asynchronous replication intervals

• 30 seconds (“near synchronous”)

• 5 minutes (as in WS2012)

• 15 minutes

• Extended Replication• Replicate from Site A to Site B• Extend replication from Site B to Site C• It is not A-B & A-C

Failover Clustering• Always add a witness disk/file share

• Dynamic Witness• Vote manipulated to get quorum if witness fails

• Configurable GUM Mode:• All nodes must receive and process an update before it is committed to avoid

inconsistencies on Hyper-V enabled clusters

• Hyper-V Cluster Heartbeat• Increased to avoid needless VM failover due to brief cluster network glitch

• Protected Networks• Live migrate VMs if physical LAN connection fails

• CSV• Auto-rebalancing across cluster nodes• Up to 64 TB volumes with no CHKDSK

System Center 2012 R2• For the first time ever …

• Windows Server & System Center were developed together

• Same release date

• You must use System Center 2012 R2 to manage WS2012 R2

Software Defined Networking• Hyper-V Network Virtualization added in WS2012

• AKA Windows Network Virtualization

• Improved in WS2012 R2

• NVGRE gateway built into WS2012 R2• Deploy appliance VMs on dedicated hosts in edge network

• Virtual switch extensions can manage in/out NVGRE traffic• Use extensions such as the Cisco Nexus 1000V

• Self-learning of customer addresses• Works with DHCP in VM Subnets

• Support for NVGRE offload

Summary• Hyper-V for private cloud & hybrid is just getting better

• Increasing virtual machine up-time is always a priority

• Listening to customers and refining features

• Innovating in virtualization

Dankeschön!

Aidan Finn

@joe_elway

www.aidanfinn.com

Petri IT Knowledgebase