Microsoft System Center Boot Camp

Are you a Microsoft Partner and want to dig into the great new contents that ships with System Center 2012?

Then you should sign up for the System Center Boot Camp in Tønsberg (Norway) at http://blogs.technet.com/b/partnerbloggen/archive/2012/03/01/er-du-klar-for-fremtiden-bli-med-p-229-lanseringsbootcamp-p-229-system-center-2012.aspx

I`ll have quite a few sessions during the boot camp where I`ll be touching Data Protection Manager, App Controller and...behold... Virtual Machine Manager.
At least, that`s my agenda, but I`ll also show the components in the context of a private cloud that also includes Orchestrator, Operations Manager and Service Manager - it`s all a part of my demo environment, so I can give the audience the demos they need and expect, and a true understanding of how to increase the value they`re already giving to their customers and clients.

By the way, I`m also counting the days for next week where I`ll talk about Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3.0 for hosters as well as SC 2012 during the "Hosting Day" at Microsoft HQ at Lysaker.

Alright, I have some slides to polish.

Cluster-Aware updating in Windows Server 2012 ("8)

It`s not new that Microsoft have made some significant improvements in the private cloud fabric recently, where you can integrate WSUS with System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager, so you can on-demand update your Hyper-V hosts and Hyper-V Clusters, in an automated fashion.

VMM will place the hosts (one at a time) in maintenance mode, live migrate the VMs to the other nodes, patch the node, eventually reboot the node and take it out of maintenance mode before it goes on with the next host.

So, this is brilliant. I can`t tell how many times I`ve done this manually prior to VMM 2012, when I rather should be home watching some random Barcelona match on TV.

So with Windows Server 2012 (yes- Windows Server “8” will be named Windows Server 2012), you have an inbuilt role for patching your failover cluster, that will work in a similar fashion.

Let`s take a look at the easy configuration for Cluster-Aware updates.

1.       Connect to your cluster that you want to enable for Cluster-aware updating. In my case, I have a cluster that hosts my highly available VMs, connected to a Windows Server 2012 iSCSI target.

2.       Click ‘Configure cluster self-updating options’ to configure this role

3.       You`ll be able to add the CAU clustered role if this is not already added on the server. Click next

4.       Configure the frequency of self-updating. I`m leaving it with the defaults in this case

5.       During the page for advanced options, you can use the settings based on a configuration you have created elsewhere (xml file) if you want the same options to be applied across your clusters, or specify new parameters in this view. I have enabled the ‘RequireAllNodesOnline’ and ‘MaxFailedNodes’ in this example

6.       Additional options lets you get recommended updates the same way that you receive important updates through Windows Update

7.       Confirm your choices, and if you scroll down you`ll see the PowerShell code workflow that will take place during completion.

8.       The Clustered Role is completed

Now, let`s wait for some new updates for Windows Server 2012 J

Understanding Microsoft Private Cloud - White paper

I`ve created a tiny white paper that explains cloud computing in general and the value that System Center 2012 brings to the table.
Based on research and work I`ve done over the last year, there is a huge need of knowledge and understanding of the subject. And it`s very important to know what cloud is, and how Microsoft offer cloud computing through System Center 2012 prior to the deployment.

Hopefully, this document will provide you with an overview and introduction, targeting both the CIO and the IT-pro.

Download the white paper here!

Cheers,

What I`m going to do next week with Windows Server "8"

I have just received a HP Proliant Microserver for my lab.

This tiny little sexy thing is about to leverage some cool features in Windows Server “8”.

Current setup:

HP Proliant Microserver – installed with 4 x 1 TB SATA disks with RAID 0 and RAID

I have installed Windows Server “8” Beta and played around with storage pools and storage spaces.I have also tested the built-in iSCSI target in Windows Server “8”, which is currently hosting my Hyper-V 2008 R2 clustered VMs.

The Microserver has currently only 1 NIC, which should give you a hint that it`s possible to simulate the foundation of a private cloud using budget hardware.

As I stated in my previously post, I will have 2 clusters. One 2008 R2 running System Center 2012 workloads for POC, and one Windows Server “8” cluster with the new and improved version of Hyper-V.

So while it`s currently running the SC 2012 workloads (which works pretty good, and I was able to deliver 4 hours of presentations/demos today, using this environment), I am looking forward to build the next generation of Hyper-V clusters next week with Windows Server “8”.

I have currently all my W8 workloads running on my lap top (yeah, Windows Server “8” directly on my lap top, forcing me to deal with powershell and other stuff that I wanna be able to manage), and I will use/test/play with the different migration options to move my workloads over to the Hyper-V 3.0 Cluster, with no downtime, using my WiFi.

I`ll post the examples and demos next week.

Windows Server "8" with Hyper-V and Powershell

I`m just about to get my hands on my SAN to be able to do some cool things covering both the SC 2012 suite (Private Cloud scenarios) and Windows Server “8” with Hyper-V.

I need access to both environments since I`ll deal a lot with both of them in different scenarios, like proof of concept, demos and researching. Sounds fun? – it is!

Below is a very simple overview of my environment, showing you that I have 2 clusters in a single domain. 1 Windows Server “8” Hyper-V cluster and 1 Windows Server 2008 R2 Sp1 Hyper-V Cluster with the current SC 2012 components installed and orchestrating the magic.

To run a SAN, I`ll use Windows Server “8” with the inbuilt iSCSI target, and i`m looking forward to test and play with Storage Pools and Storage Spaces.

So what have I done to this point, with no SAN for my VMs? People who know me also know that I`m addicted to clusters. I need them in my life. But the life has treated me good because I`ve been running Windows Server “8” directly on my laptop.

There are several reasons for this. Here`s a couple of them.

1.       Kristian, you better start learning Powershell. No discussion. Do it.

2.       Do all the possible research related to Hyper-V, and especially by using Powershell.

3.       Remember to learn well, since this will be your bread and butter.

So, let`s talk a bit about Powershell in this blog post.

Several top dogs at Microsoft have stressed that it is extremely important for the technologist to be able to manage things through Powershell. And if you see this in the cloud context where as much as possible should be considered for automation, powershell is the key since the robust API towards SC 2012 and Windows Server “8” would be …. Powershell!

So here`s some handy Powershell cmdlets that I have been using the last days.

(Note, this is not rocket science but it`s very handy)

Start all your VMs

Get-VM * | start-VM

Shut down all your VMs

Get-VM * | stop-VM

Move storage

Move-VMStorage “VM name” “Destination” (Example: Move-VMStorage “SCOM2012” “E:\VHDs\SCOM2012”

Enable Dyanmic Memory on every VM

Get-VM * | set-VMMemory –Dynamicmemoryenabled $true –startupbytes 512MB –minimumbytes 100MB –maximumbytes 6GB

(Thanks to Aidan Finn)

Clean up your environment after some heavy Storage Migration demos

Get-VM | % { Move-VMStorage $_.Name “E:\VMs\$($_.Name)” }

(Thanks to Benjamin Armstrong)

And of course, there`s a lot of new cmdlets related to the Hyper-V Role.

To get an overview, type:

Get-commands –module Hyper-V

This will list all the cmdlets for you. You can also play around and use Powershell ISE tool to help you to build, test, and evaluate scripts that you create by using Powershell.

Oh, I have created some scripts as well, but I`ll save them for later in another blog post.

So my next step would be to move all my VMs with SC 2012 installed from my laptop over to the newly created lab. I will show the examples of how this was done in another blog post later.

Cheers,

Some OpsMgr resources

I had to do some sessions this week, covering the major components that compose Microsoft Private Cloud.
That would include to become a master of SCOM 2012. To be honest, I needed some tips and guidance for some experts prior to this.

I reached out to a couple of SCOM gurus in the community last week, to get a better overview of some key concepts in the 2012 version.
I`d like to thank Pete Zeger for giving me a kick start - he is a veteran in the SCOM community, and last but not least, one of our future MVP`s in the SCOM expertise - Kevin Greene, a SCOM king who`s working hard  for the community. I knew he`d done some gigs with Aidan Finn and Damian Flynn recently, regarding a SC event in UK, and reached out to him for some insight to the APM feature in SCOM 2012.
To make a long story short, he wrote 3 major blog posts about the subject and gave me the preview of it.
Thank you Kevin! Read his superb blog posts at http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/scom-2012-configuring-application.html

Windows Server "8" for hosters

Windows Server «8» for hosters

A quick reference for what`s new and exciting for hosters in Windows Server «8»

·         Windows Server «8» is a cloud optimized operating system with some major enchancements related to mobility, scalability, flexibility and highly availability

·         Support for multi-tenancy through network virtualization which provides isolation in a secure and reliable manner

So, we have access to the Beta bits of Windows Server “8” now, and what`s the first impression?

To be honest, I have never been so excited about technology my entire life – I think.

And just to clarify, the content provided here is basically related to private cloud, virtualization and infrastructure in general.

If you`re in the hosting industry, you are most likely pulling your hair once in a while to figure out how to scale properly. One of the major concerns about cloud and multi-tenancy is security and isolation. How can Windows Server “8” help you with that?

·         Network Virtualization and extensible virtual switch

What exactly is network virtualization? In a nutshell, it makes it possible to have several VMs with the same IP-configuration living on the same physical network.

VMs have so far – been tied to the network they`ve lived on. If you want your VM to access anything on the LAN and also have access to the big great internet, you must create a virtual switch which is bound to a physical NIC on the host. The same still apply, of course, but the physical NIC must be patched to the correct physical network to be able to present networking in general to the VMs. This is not ideal at all – and not well suited for scale, since you`re most likely to run out of available IP-addresses, have too many VLANs and so on. In Windows Server “8”, you can have VMs can be presented for a subnet that differs from the physical network.

So how does this work? It’s enabled by using two IP addresses for each VM together with a virtual subnet that indicates which virtual network the VMs belongs to.

So for hosters, they can receive the customers VMs without having to reconfigure the IP-settings – which is such a pain for the applications that rely on IP configuration. This means that VMs running on-premise in a customer’s site can be replicated (via Hyper-V Replica) to the cloud/hoster and operate as usual.

With the new Hyper-V Extensible Switch, you can provide the required isolation for an Infrastructure as a Service multi-tenancy by leveraging Private Virtual LANs (PVLAN),  VLAN in trunk mode, protect against spoofing (ARP poisoning) and DHCP snooping and Router Guard (so that VMs who pretend to be a router will not create a mess in your infrastructure).

With QoS policies, the IaaS provides can ensure to meet the SLA based on maximum and minimum bandwidth limits on a per VM basis.

·         Hyper-V over SMB2

What keeps the storage vendor up all night?

-          Windows Server “8”.

Because of support for file servers and storage combined with RDMA, storage spaces and storage pools, you`ll have a budget solution for “high availability” to reduce cost. RDMA can take care of the performance requirements if this is supported in your environment. So in Windows Server “8”, the file server is actually cool.

This is not a solution for a unplanned failover, but for planned failover

·         Migration

You can now migrate your VMs between clusters, in and out of a cluster, and between stand-alone hosts over different subnets – with no downtime, and also do concurrent live migrations.

Live Storage Migration will work in the same way, and let you move storage of running VMs so that you can do maintenance on the storage subsystem and to free up space. Your imagination is the limit here, though the live migration requires the servers to be in the same domain. And if that`s a limit, you`ll always have Hyper-V Replica.

A thing that I have not tested yet is the advantages of network offloading technologies, like SR-IOV, RSC, RDMA and RSS so that the main processor can take care of more workloads.

·         Hyper-V Replica

Check this blog post I`ve wrote earlier about how to get started with Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server “8”.

This was just a quick reference and there`s a lot to cover the upcoming weeks. 

But if you`re looking for a more reliable, mobile and well suited platform for hosters and cloud, you`re at the right place.