This discussion provides a preview of the upcoming Microsoft® Windows Server® R2 Hyper-V™ OS with hypervisor technology.

The Dell TechCenter's featured guests are Ryan Weldon and David Waggoner from Dell PG Engineering.

Ryan Weldon is currently leading Dell’s business ready configurations for Hyper-V R2 as a member of the Virtualization Solutions Engineering team. Prior to joining the virtualization team in early 2008, he spent three years as a lead engineer for several storage platforms including the Dell™ PowerVault™ MD3000/MD3000i, PowerVault NX1950, and Dell/EMC CX3 Series arrays. Ryan has a B.S.C.S. from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

David Waggoner has been a development manager in Enterprise OS Engineering for nearly three years. In that role, he has delivered a number of products, most recently the global launches of Windows Essential Business Server 2008 and Windows Foundation Server 2008. He is currently working to deliver Windows Server 2008 R2. He also developed the initial Windows Internet SCSI (iSCSI)/iSCSI boot products for Dell. Prior to joining Dell, he worked at another large OEM in the systems management product area, and at a number of Austin high-tech startups.

Technical Community - Background Reading

Be sure to check out these FAQs put together to address common questions around live migration, Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs), and quick storage migration:

Chat Transcript

DELL-ScottH Hello everyone
Dell-KongY I hope that everyone is ready for this Microsoft Hyper-V R2 chat
JasonPowell Should I take off my "I heart VMware shirt" to be in here? ;-)
Dell-KongY Welcome everyone to the Dell TechCenter Tech Tuesday chat! Today's chat is on Microsoft Hyper-V R2 features with a focus on live migration, CSV, and quick storage migration. But the PG engineering team will field questions on anything Hyper-V R2 on Dell :)
Dell-KongY Let me start by introducing the Dell PG engineers: Ryan Weldon, Brent Douglas, Ranjith Purush, and David Waggoner
Dell-KongY For your reference: www.delltechcenter.com/page/hyper-v+r2+live+migration+faq
Dell-KongY www.delltechcenter.com/page/hyper-v+r2+csv+faq
Dell-KongY www.delltechcenter.com/page/hyper-v+r2+quick+storage+migration+faq
Dell-KongY Sorry, I forgot to mention; right-click and open in a new window, otherwise you get knocked out of the chat
RyanW-Dell Does anyone have any specific questions that they would like to ask?
VirtualTodd Hello all
erson /Me strangles the Flash add on for IE
billf Sure?
RyanW-Dell Hello
erson Ryanw, what is the recommended cluster size/unit allocation size for a LUN that stores VHDs? Go maximum to 64 KB, or just leave it to default?
RyanW-Dell Our recommendation is to leave at default
billf Can anyone give us a comparison of Hyper-V R2 with the current release of VMware (vSphere) in terms of features, performance, ease of setup, and administration?
Aaron_levey Is this Q&A only or a presentation?
RyanW-Dell With 2008 and obviously carried over for R2, the partition alignment is set automatically to align blocks
Dell-KongY @billf, today's chat is mainly on the features of Hyper-V R2 and not a comparison of Hyper-V R2 versus vSphere
Dell-KongY @aaron_levey, this is an open Q&A session
erson Ryanw, was that an answer to me?
billf Okay, then I do have a specific question
RyanW-Dell @erson, yes
VirtualTodd I didn't even ask billf to pose that question :)
Dell-KongY Ask questions around the topic of Hyper-V R2 features
Dell-KongY @virtualtodd :)
Darren_Miller Thank for the invitation
Dell-d_glynn Hey Darren
David_Waggoner Hyper-V R2 is a much more feature-robust product compared to V1. Live migration is a big feature
erson Ryanw, yes, I already know about disk alignment (used it when I was using 2003), but I'm talking about cluster size on partitions, which is not directly related to disk alignment
erson Cluster size on partitions, which store VHDs that is
Aaron_levey Okay, "sneak peek" seems like we'd be presented with information
billf Hyper-V R2 (and beyond). Is there (or will there be) any support for BitLocker on iSCSI storage?
Steve_Stewart Does Hyper-V R2 support Broadcom-teamed NICs now? Or was that a problem with the BACS rather than Hyper-V?
guest Are you aware of any plans for supporting booting off a virtual SCSI device versus IDE only as it is today? As it stands right now, SCSI disks are supported only as additional storage, not boot devices
Bruce We have had issues with Hyper-V and networking. We have had virtual interfaces that we had to disconnect and reconnect to get them to come up. Are there any improvements in R2? Is there a guide to recommended practices around Hyper-V R2 and networking?
Dell-KongY @aaron_levey, there is also feature set discussion but we keep this open for the community's questions
RyanW-Dell @steve, with the latest BACS drivers, you can support teaming with R1...these capabilities will be carried over to R2
David_Waggoner @billf, BitLocker on iSCSI booting systems?
RyanW-Dell @guest, there is not support for SCSI disks as boot devices with R2
Dell-Ranjith @erson, we would recommend leaving it as default. We have not found any reason to change it for LUNs hosting the VHDs
Steve_Stewart @dell-kongy, thanks
erson I think the best new feature of Hyper-V R2 is the Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), which enables live migration and the possibility to have multiple VMs on a single LUN (which wasn't really a possibility if you wanted to use quick migration with R1, since then you had to quick migrate all VMs on a LUN)
billf David, no. Just on storage LUNs. Need to encrypt sensitive data
erson guest, there is no point in booting a virtual SCSI device on Hyper-V; the performance on virtual IDE and virtual SCSI in Hyper-V are the same
RyanW-Dell @bruce, the guides we have around best practices with Hyper-V will be updated for R2. This will include the networking best practices guide
erson Ryanw, any idea when those will be published/updated?
brennels Hey Kong just catching up on the discussion
Dell-Ranjith @erson, you are absolutely right about CSVs. Additionally, CSVs also provide high availability by providing an alternate path (through network) in case the storage path from a host fails
erson Ranjith, yes, that is also a great feature that CSV enables
RyanW-Dell @erson, the best that we can say is that it will be shortly after Microsoft RTM
erson /Me highly recommends Microsoft Press Windows 2008 Hyper-V Resource Kit
David_Waggoner @billf, Re: BitLocker: there is no change that I am aware of to enable BitLocker on LUNs
guest Without getting into a comparison discussion, is there a compelling reason to migrate from ESX to Hyper-V with the R2 release in regard to performance?
erson Also the Microsoft Press Exam 70-652 gives a very solid understanding for setting up an advanced Hyper-V environment
RyanW-Dell @guest, we haven't specifically run any perform comparisons for ESX versus Hyper-V R2. However, we have seen significant disk performance increases when moving from V1 to R2
erson Another large improvement on Hyper-V R2 is the performance of dynamic and fixed disks compared to pass-through disks. It is commonly said that dynamic disks on R2 have the same performance that fixed disks had in R1 and that fixed disks in R2 are almost as fast as pass-through disks
Steve_Stewart Is the migration from R1 to R2 seamless?
erson Ryanw, nicely timed :)
RyanW-Dell :)
billf David, thanks for the answer. It's not a matter of enabling it. It actually works. Just can’t seem to find anything that says that Microsoft supports (or doesn't) it in that configuration
erson Steve_stewart, yes, just upgrade the drivers for R2
RyanW-Dell @steve, the migration is straightforward; however, there are some things to look out for
erson If you have a cluster you can do a rolling upgrade and move all the VMs off a node, upgrade the node, move VMs back, and then upgrade any other node in the same manner
RyanW-Dell @steve, you will want to update the integration services within the VMs
ianm Will there be any options for people to get Hyper-V Server 2008 embedded on Dell's (or other) servers like ESXi or Xen with R2 release?
David_Waggoner @billf, Re BitLocker: I will get an official support answer, and post it here later
billf Thanks
RyanW-Dell @steve, you may also want to utilize the quick storage migration feature to move from a "one VM per LUN" to a CSV environment
Dell-KongY To the audience- any one planning on rolling out a Hyper-v R2 cluster now or in the near future?
erson ianm, Windows Hyper-V Server R2 should support that. No idea if Dell will offer it?
RyanW-Dell Quick storage migration is a capability provided by SCVMM R2
Dell-KongY If so, what does your cluster look like?
erson Kongy, lab cluster is up, production coming up in probably about a month
Dell-KongY Also, what applications are you running on your Hyper-V R2 cluster?
Dell-KongY @erson, thanks for the information, as always my friend :)
Darren_Miller @kongy, I recently deployed a three-node R2 cluster with SQL Server and Oracle running on VMs
David_Waggoner Ianm, Re: VSKU, at this time, we do not have a concrete schedule on when or if the embedded Hyper-V will be offered
erson Kongy, three PowerEdge M710s with dual E5520 and 12 4 GB of RAM with redundant 2 GbE mezzanine cards hooked up to an EqualLogic PS6000
Dell-KongY @darren_miller, sweet :) Any lessons learned that you can share?
ianm erson, David_waggoner, thanks for the information
Dell-KongY @erson :)
RyanW-Dell FYI to all, we are currently working on a video that will showcase live migration. The configuration will include three PowerEdge M710 servers running Hyper-V R2, a PowerEdge M805 running SCVMM 2008 R2, four PowerConnect 6220 switches, and EqualLogic PS Series arrays
Darren_Miller @kongy, I had some issues upgrading from the beta R2, but once I got the RTM bits the rolling upgrades went pretty easily; but it's important to move all VMs off the node you're upgrading. I neglected to move one VM and ended up losing it during the upgrade.
RyanW-Dell I was messing around with quick storage migration in the lab the other day and was able to move a VM from a PowerEdge M710 cluster with an EqualLogic back end to a PowerEdge 2950 with EMC FC storage. The VM was only unavailable for about 30 seconds at the end of the process
Dell-KongY @darren_miller, sorry to hear that but thank you for the tip
RyanW-Dell To do so, I had to utilize the "processor compatibility" settings introduced with R2
David_Waggoner Another improvement in Hyper-V R2 is the processor compatibility feature. This allows you to create clusters with slightly different hardware and still get successful migrations
RyanW-Dell Is anyone planning to utilize QSM or have ideas on how they would use it? QSM = quick storage migration. We see several interesting use cases as noted in the FAQ that Kong referenced in the beginning of the chat session
Dell-KongY www.delltechcenter.com/page/hyper-v+r2+live+migration+faq, www.delltechcenter.com/page/hyper-v+r2+csv+faq, www.delltechcenter.com/page/hyper-v+r2+quick+storage+migration+faq
Dell-Ranjith Hyper-V R2 also has made several enhancements in the networking stack with features like VMQ and support for VM Chimney and Jumbo frames in VMs
Dell-Ranjith VMQ is the feature that leverages the capability in NICs to offload some of the receive-side traffic queues (for each VM) to NIC hardware
erson Other new features in Hyper-V R2 is second-level address translation (SLAT), which means that Hyper-V doesn't have to keep a shadow address table and which in R1 claimed about 10 percent of your CPU cycles and a bunch of MBs per VM in RAM
RyanW-Dell These capabilities that Ranjith is referring to are automatically enabled in Hyper-V on 10 Gb adapters. R2 also adds support for the hot addition of storage to VMs
wantmoore It’s about time :)
David_Waggoner With R2 (in general), TCP offload and iSCSI offload is much improved. This can result in lowered CPU uil%, and with that, increased power savings as well as performance
erson Core parking is also a new feature that can, depending on your load, place your processors and cores into deep C-states that can significantly lower a server’s power consumption. This will for sure be a nice feature during out-of-office hours
Dell-KongY @david_waggoner, thanks for the insight
RyanW-Dell For those of you that haven't played with the beta, the Failover Cluster Manager integration is much better with R2
erson A note on hot addition of storage to VMs with R2 is that you must use a virtual SCSI controller
RyanW-Dell Cluster Manager updates: No Automatic failover and restart when the VM is shut down, update VM settings, connect to VMs, select multiple VMs and perform actions on the group, support for quick/live migrating VMs
Dell-KongY What are best practices for live migration?
erson Hyper-V R2 also adds the possibility to manage the MAC address pool in the Virtual Network Manager. There is also a new feature regarding enabling or disabling MAC address spoofing
RyanW-Dell @kongy, provide two private networks to provide failover capabilities, deselect public networks in Failover Cluster Manager as available for live migration traffic
RyanW-Dell @kongy, in addition, if live migration times are critical, then a network team of 1 Gb adapters can be utilized or a 10 Gb network
erson Another new feature is the ability to allow a user to take snapshots and not turn off/on the VM. On R1 you could only let users take snapshots if you also gave them the rights to turn off/on the VM
RyanW-Dell Live migration can only occur between two nodes of a failover cluster at one time. So, if you want to "evacuate" a server of all VMs, then that is a sequential process
Darren_Miller Can you live migrate between two non-CSV volumes?
RyanW-Dell @darren, Yes, live migration does not require CSV. To move between volumes you would have to utilize quick storage migration
Dell-KongY @erson, thanks for the good information :)
RyanW-Dell or export, copy, import the VM
erson Darren_miller, but live migration does require that it's a shared storage off course
guest @erson, good to know. How do you assign that right and how can the user perform the snapshot? In our project, all VMs are either XP or Vista clients
erson Guest, you use the Authorization Manager policy
David_Waggoner For reference, here is the R2 main page, where we have a server compatibility list (including Hyper-V). This will be updated shortly after RTM: www.delltechcenter.com/page/microsoft+windows+server+2008+r2
guest @erson, thanks
erson Guest, I highly suggest that you look into System Center Virtual Machine Manager self-service portal if you want to delegate usage of VMs to your users
RyanW-Dell There have been some questions around what we recommend for networking configuration in R2. Here are the minimum recommended: one adapter for Hyper-V management (doubles as Cluster Public), one adapter for Cluster Private (CSV traffic will default to this network), one adapter for live migration, two adapters for virtual networking (teamed), two adapters for iSCSI (assuming that is the storage back end)
erson Visual Studio Team System 2010 has made enormous advantages in the field of testing, and a part of that is coupling it with Hyper-V to make it easy for testers to test code and applications on VMs
RyanW-Dell Each traffic type should be logically separated with VLANs, and, if possible, physical separation should be utilized for iSCSI traffic
guest @erson, I definitely will. We have been using ESXi hosts and are investigating Hyper-V—so anything helps :)
erson Okay, everything above is nothing compared to this new feature... :)
David_Waggoner One new R2 feature is the ability to boot a server from a VHD, so for deployment purposes, you could use the same VHD placed directly on the hardware, or within Hyper-V. There is a bit of a performance cost, but it's very convenient if you want to be completely consistent with your OS configurations
erson Hyper-V R2 does not create a default floppy disk drive on VMs :)
Dell-KongY Great point, @david_waggoner
erson Which R1 did
Dell-KongY The hour has certainly flown by. Before I forget, I would like to thank the featured guests, Ryanw, David_waggoner, Brent_douglas, and Ranjithp. Also, I'd like to thank the community for your continued support, attendance, and participation
RyanW-Dell When teaming Broadcom adapters for virtual networking with BACS, if you need multiple VLANs you can create BACS virtual adapters on the team and create individual virtual switches on those virtual VLAN adapters
erson R2 also has two new folders under %systemdrive%\programdata\microsoft\windows\hyper-v\ as well that keep copies of the XML files for the VMs so it can display the correct VM names, even when storage is offline or at least those files are not readily available. On R1 it displayed the GUID, which wasn't pretty
RyanW-Dell When you do so, all traffic from the VMs that have virtual adapters on those switches will be tagged with the VLAN set on the virtual VLAN adapter
RyanW-Dell This allows for load balancing, failover, and traffic segregation on a single team
Dell-KongY And lastly, I want to thank our Twitter community and our TechCenter regulars
erson BTW, for live migration your CPUs must be from the same manufacturer
Dell-KongY Any last minute questions?
RyanW-Dell Thanks for running the session Kong
David_Waggoner Thanks everyone for your questions and participation
erson Great job, Ryanw, David Waggoner, Brent Douglas, and Ranjith!
RyanW-Dell If anyone has feedback on the FAQs, please post questions on the wiki page
erson Hope you'll be back here later on when you have the BACS ready and with updated guides for another session when people really start getting their R2 production systems going
RyanW-Dell @erson, that is the plan
erson Great. I'll end this with great tip: Don't interrupt your piri-piri slicing session to go number one without washing your hands in between. Hell, last time I danced around so much was in college... :) Girlfriend wasn't really helping either, lying of the floor laughing and telling me that cold milk usually helps. Okay guys, see you next week when we dive into the wonderful world of Unified Fabric on the Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade enclosure. I will for sure re-read the Architecture white paper for that chat session
billf David was going to get me some "official" Microsoft information on Bitlocker. How can I contact him?