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6 Managing, Administering, and Maintaining a Hyper-V Host Server FIGURE 6.19 The Event Viewer filter.. Performing Management Tasks with Server Manager Server Manager is a tool that comes

6 Managing, Administering, and Maintaining a Hyper-V Host Server

FIGURE 6.19 The Event Viewer filter

Some warnings and errors are normal because of bandwidth constraints or other

environ-mental issues The more you monitor the logs, the more familiar you will become with

the messages and, therefore, the more likely you will be able to spot a problem before it

affects the user community

TIP

You might need to increase the size of the log files in Event Viewer to accommodate an

increase in logging activity The default log sizes are larger in Windows 2008 than in

earlier versions of Windows, which were notorious for running out of space

Weekly Maintenance

Maintenance procedures that require slightly less attention than daily checking are

catego-rized in a weekly routine and are examined in the following sections

Checking Disk Space

Disk space is a precious commodity Although the disk capacity of a Windows 2008 system

can be nearly endless, the amount of free space on all drives should be checked at least

weekly if not more frequently Whereas a single server may grow disk space demands at a

steady pace, with several virtual guest sessions running on a Hyper-V host server the use

of disk space can occur exponentially Serious problems can occur if there isn’t enough

disk space, so checking both guest session available disk space and the host server system

will ensure an image or server won’t unexpectedly run out of disk space to cache files,

queue up messages, or buffer database growth required by the system

One of the most common disk space problems occurs on data drives where end users save

and modify information Other volumes such as the system drive, and partitions with

logging data can also quickly fill up

As mentioned earlier, lack of free disk space can cause a multitude of problems including

the following:

Application failures

System crashes

Unsuccessful backup jobs

Service failures

The inability to audit

Performance degradation

To prevent these problems from occurring, administrators should keep the amount of free

space to at least 25%

CAUTION

If you need to free disk space, you should move or delete files and folders with

cau-tion System files are automatically protected by Windows 2008, but data is not

Verifying Hardware

These days, hardware systems tend to be pretty reliable unlike a decade or two ago when

the quality control on memory chips, hard drives, and the like dictated that a burn-in

period was required for all servers to work through faulty components However, even

though reliability is much better today than years past, this doesn’t mean that they’ll

always run continuously without failure Hardware availability is measured in terms of

mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR) This includes

down-time for both planned and unplanned events These measurements provided by the

manufacturer are good guidelines to follow; however, mechanical parts are bound to fail at

one time or another Therefore, hardware should be monitored weekly to ensure efficient

operation

Hardware can be monitored in many different ways For example, server systems might

have internal checks and logging functionality to warn against possible failure, Windows

2008’s System Monitor might bring light to a hardware failure, and a physical hardware

check can help to determine whether the system is about to experience a problem with

the hardware

If a failure has occurred or is about to occur, having an inventory of spare hardware can

significantly improve the chances and timing of recoverability Checking system hardware

on a weekly basis provides the opportunity to correct the issue before it becomes a

problem

6 Managing, Administering, and Maintaining a Hyper-V Host Server

Monthly Maintenance

It is recommended that you perform the tasks examined in the following sections on a

monthly basis

Testing the UPS

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) can be used to protect the system or group of

systems from power failures (such as spikes and surges) and keep the system running long

enough after a power outage so that an administrator can gracefully shut down the

system It is recommended that an administrator follow the UPS guidelines provided by

the manufacturer at least once a month Also, monthly scheduled battery tests should be

performed

Validating Backups

Once a month, an administrator should validate backups by restoring the backups to a

server located in a lab environment This is in addition to verifying that backups were

successful from log files or the backup program’s management interface A restore gives

the administrator the opportunity to verify the backups and to practice the restore

proce-dures that would be used when recovering the server during a real disaster In addition,

this procedure tests the state of the backup media to ensure that they are in working order

and builds administrator confidence for recovering from a true disaster

Updating Documentation

An integral part of managing and maintaining any IT environment is to document the

network infrastructure and procedures The following are just a few of the documents you

should consider having on hand:

Server build guides

Disaster-recovery guides and procedures

Checklists

Configuration settings

Change configuration logs

Historical performance data

Special user rights assignments

Special application settings

As systems and services are built and procedures are ascertained, document these facts to

reduce learning curves, administration, and maintenance

It is not only important to adequately document the IT environment, but it’s often even

more important to keep those documents up-to-date Otherwise, documents can quickly

become outdated as the environment, processes, and procedures change as the business

changes

Quarterly Maintenance

As the name implies, quarterly maintenance is performed four times a year Areas to

main-tain and manage on a quarterly basis are typically fairly self-sufficient and self-susmain-taining

Infrequent maintenance is required to keep the system healthy This doesn’t mean,

however, that the tasks are simple or that they aren’t as critical as those tasks that require

more frequent maintenance

Checking Storage Limits

Storage capacity on all volumes should be checked to ensure that all volumes have ample

free space Keep approximately 25% free space on all volumes

Running low or completely out of disk space creates unnecessary risk for any system

Services can fail, applications can stop responding, and systems can even crash if there

isn’t plenty of disk space

Changing Administrator Passwords

Administrator passwords should, at a minimum, be changed every quarter (90 days)

Changing these passwords strengthens security measures so that systems can’t easily be

compromised In addition to changing passwords, other password requirements such as

password age, history, length, and strength should be reviewed

Performing Management Tasks with Server Manager

Server Manager is a tool that comes with Windows Server 2008 that provides a central

location for managing roles and features on a Windows 2008 system Server Manager has

been used several times already in this chapter for the installation of Windows Backup

features or to enable Remote Desktop connections The balance of this chapter covers

other tasks within Server Manager specific to Hyper-V and its server components

Server Manager in general enables the administrator to complete the following steps:

Add and remove roles and features from the server

Monitor and manage the server

Administer the roles and features on the server

Server Manager is a one-stop shop for all the administrator management and monitoring

needs The features of Server Manager are available via the Server Manager console

Selecting the server name in the folder tree will show the Server Manager main window in

the Details pane This consists of several section windows The Server Summary window

(shown in Figure 6.20) shows computer information such as the computer name,

network-ing information, and whether Remote Desktop is enabled It also shows security

informa-tion such as whether Windows Firewall is enabled and the Windows Updates status The

6 Managing, Administering, and Maintaining a Hyper-V Host Server

FIGURE 6.20 Server Manager Server Summary window

window also has active links that enable the administrator to launch wizards to change

the configuration or get help

Server Manager launches automatically when the Initial Configuration Wizard is closed

and each time a user logs on to the server

The next sections discuss the components and features of Server Manager

Server Manager Roles Page

The Server Manager console has a folder tree dedicated to the roles of the server When

the Hyper-V role was installed on the host system as covered in Chapter 3 of this book,

the Hyper-V Server role was added to the Roles folder in Server Manager Selecting the

Roles folder in the console tree shows a summary of the roles installed on the server

(which Hyper-V will be shown) and a summary page for each of the roles The summary

page for each role shows the role status, such as the status of the system services and the

events for the role

However, selecting the folder for a specific role shows the Server Manager role-specific

page for that role The role-specific pages are dedicated to the role and contain operational

information about the role The following sections discuss the sections included in the

role-specific page

Events Section

There is a problem with going to the full Event Viewer and seeing all the events for all

roles, services, and the operating system There is usually so much information that it

ends up overloading the administrator, making it difficult to see real problems The Events

section in the role-specific page addresses this by presenting only the role-specific events

From the Events section, the administrator can see a summary of the events that pertain

to the role, review the details of the events, and filter the events as needed The default

filter shows only events in the past 24 hours, but this can be adjusted via the Filter

Events control

The full Event Viewer can also be launched from this section

System Services Section

The System Services section lists the services that the role depends on and their status It

also describes each service and includes control links to stop, start, restart, and to

config-ure preferences

The Preferences control allows the administrator to adjust the dependency services For

example, in Hyper-V, some of the corresponding services used for Hyper-V that may be

displayed in the System Services section include the following:

Microsoft Hyper-V Image Management Service

Microsoft Hyper-V Networking Management

Virtual Machine Management

Resources and Support Section

The Resources and Support section is a useful section It provides a brief recommendation

on configurations, best practices, and links to resources The recommendations are listed

in a window; highlighting the recommendation shows a brief explanation of the

recom-mendation with a link to a more detailed explanation This is great for researching the

recommendations The section also includes links to online resources, such as the

appro-priate TechCenter and Community Center for the role

For example, the Resources and Support section for Hyper-V role (shown in Figure 6.21)

includes five different recommendations on configuration optimization One of the

recommendations is “Increase the availability of your virtual machines by using clustering

to configure failover for the physical computer.” Highlighting this recommendation shows

a brief paragraph explaining the recommendation and includes a link to get more detailed

information about the recommendation

6 Managing, Administering, and Maintaining a Hyper-V Host Server

FIGURE 6.21 Resources and Support section

An important note is that these recommendations are static and don’t adjust to changes

in the environment

Server Manager Diagnostics Page

The Diagnostics page in Server Manager consolidates three different consoles into a

conve-nient location The three consoles are as follows:

Event Viewer

Reliability and Performance

Device Manager

The next sections review the various features of the three consoles on the Diagnostics page

Event Viewer

The Windows 2008 Event Viewer functionality has been improved over the previous

version of Windows Server The version in Windows 2008 is the version that released in

Windows Vista The event logs can contain an overwhelming volume of information,

which the new Event Viewer summarizes and drills into very effectively

Selecting the Event Viewer folder under Diagnostics shows the Overview and Summary

page The Summary of Administrative Events section on this page shows a high-level

summary of the administrative events, organized by level:

Critical

Error

Warning

Information

Audit Success

Audit Failure

The view shows the total number of events in the past hour, 24 hours, 7 days, and the

total Each of these nodes can be expanded to show the counts of particular event IDs

within each level Double-clicking the event ID count shows a detailed list of the events

with the matching event ID This is useful for drilling on the specific events to see when

they are occurring

The Overview and Summary page also has a Log Summary section, which shows a list of

all the various logs on the server This is important because there are now more than 100

different logs in Windows 2008 In addition to the standard system, security, and

applica-tion logs, there is a setup log and a forwarded events log Then there are the numerous

application and services logs, which include logs for each application, service, and a huge

number of diagnostic and debugging logs For each of the logs, the Log Summary section

shows the log name, current size, maximum size, last modification, if it is enabled, and

what the retention policy for the log is This allows the administrator to quickly see the

status of all the logs, which would be a daunting task otherwise

Of course, the logs can be viewed directly by expanding the Windows Logs folder or the

Applications and Services Logs folder The Windows Logs folder contains all the standard

application, security, setup, system, and forwarded events logs The applications and

services logs contain all the other ones

Custom views can be created to filter events and combine logs into a coherent view There

is a default Administrative Events view, which combines the critical, error, and warning

events from all the administrative logs There is also a custom view created for each role

that is installed on the server New ones can be created by the administrator as needed

Subscriptions can collect events from remote computers and store them in the forwarded

events log The events to be collected are specified in the subscription The functionality

depends on the Windows Remote Management (WinRM) and the Windows Event

Collector (Wecsvc) services and they must be running on both the collecting and

forward-ing servers

6 Managing, Administering, and Maintaining a Hyper-V Host Server

FIGURE 6.22 Resource Overview graph

Server Manager Reliability and Performance Monitor

The Reliability and Performance monitor is incorporated into Server Manager, too The

Reliability and Performance Monitor was introduced with the Windows Vista platform

This diagnostic tool enables the administrator to monitor the performance of the server in

real time and to save the performance data to logs for analysis

The top-level folder of the Reliability and Performance monitor displays the Resource

Overview This gives a comprehensive overview of the CPU, disk, network, and memory

utilization during the past 60 seconds (shown in Figure 6.22) The graph shows the server

overall usage for each of the four categories In addition, a Details pane for each of the

categories shows the utilization by process

The Monitoring Tools in the Reliability and Performance monitor contain the

Performance Monitor and the Reliability Monitor These tools enable you to monitor the

performance and reliability of the server

The Performance Monitor has not really changed from earlier versions of Windows It

allows you to select performance counters and add them to a graph view for real-time

monitoring The graph can be configured to be a line graph, a bar graph, or even a simple

text report of the counters being monitored The monitor shows the last, average,

minimum, maximum, and duration of the windows (1 minute 40 seconds by default)

The Reliability Monitor tracks events that could potentially affect the stability of the

server, such as updates, installs, and hardware issues It uses this information to generate a

System Stability Index, which is a number between 1 (least stable) to 10 (most stable) The

index tracks the following:

Software Installs/Uninstalls

Application Failures

Hardware Failures

Windows Failures

Miscellaneous Failures

It plots all these events on the chart and uses them to compute the System Stability Index

This is useful for assessing the overall health of the server and for troubleshooting You

can see these events on the chart over time and see how they potentially impact the

stability of the server, and then correlate the events to actual stability issues

Finally, for longer-term tracking, the Data Collector Sets can be used Data Collector Sets

can log data from the following data sources:

Performance counters

Event traces

Registry key values

This data can be logged over an extended period of time and then reviewed

Device Manager

The Device Manager node shows the hardware that is installed on the server It shows the

hardware grouped by type of device, such as disk drives, display adapters, and network

adapters Each instance of the device type is listed in a node underneath the device type

The Device Manager can be used to update the device drivers of the hardware, to change

settings, and to troubleshoot issues with the hardware Specifically, you can perform the

following tasks:

Scan for new hardware

Identify hardware problems

Adjust configurations

View device driver versions

Update the device drivers

Roll back device driver upgrades

Enable or disable hardware

For example, sometimes older video drivers or network card drivers will cause problems

with the system It is easy to check the Microsoft online driver repository using Device