virtualization with microsoft virtual server 2005 (2006)

His spe-cialties include Microsoft Exchange and ISA architecture, design,implementation, troubleshooting and optimization.Twan has beeninvolved in several Virtual Server 2005 projects wh

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KEY SERIAL NUMBER

Virtualization with Microsoft® Virtual Server 2005

Copyright © 2006 by Syngress Publishing, Inc All rights reserved Printed in Canada Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception that the program listings may be entered, stored, and executed in a com- puter system, but they may not be reproduced for publication.

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The incredibly hardworking team at Elsevier Science, including JonathanBunkell, Ian Seager, Duncan Enright, David Burton, Rosanna Ramacciotti,Robert Fairbrother, Miguel Sanchez, Klaus Beran, Emma Wyatt, KristaLeppiko, Marcel Koppes, Judy Chappell, Radek Janousek, Rosie Moss, DavidLockley, Nicola Haden, Bill Kennedy, Martina Morris, Kai Wuerfl-Davidek,Christiane Leipersberger,Yvonne Grueneklee, Nadia Balavoine, and ChrisReinders for making certain that our vision remains worldwide in scope.David Buckland, Marie Chieng, Lucy Chong, Leslie Lim, Audrey Gan, Pang AiHua, Joseph Chan, June Lim, and Siti Zuraidah Ahmad of Pansing Distributorsfor the enthusiasm with which they receive our books.

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Technical Editor and Lead Author

Rogier Dittner (MCSE NT4, 2000, 2003, MCDBA, MCT, MSFPractitioner) is a consultant at a Microsoft partner offering solutionsbased on Microsoft technology to customers As a consultant hesupports the sales organization and takes part in planning anddesigning complex Microsoft-oriented implementations

Because of his personal interest in Microsoft products and morethan 10 years’ experience, he has deep technical working knowledge

in a broad range of Microsoft products Within his company he forms the leading role in operations management solutions andtraining

per-He would like to thank his wife and children for giving him thetime and space to write (Pascalle, bedankt, je bent een schat!)

Geoffrey Green(Citrix CCA, CCNA, HP ASE, MCSE, RSACSE, VMware VCP) is a senior systems consultant with MTMTechnologies, where he provides MTM clients in the Ohio Valleyregion with advanced infrastructure assessment, design, and imple-mentation solutions As an information technology generalist, Geoffhas developed a broad range of field experience in many areas,including Citrix Access Infrastructure; Cisco routing, switching, andfirewalls; Virtual Infrastructure from both VMware and Microsoft;

HP ProLiant server and storage technology; RSA SecurID nology; and the whole range of Microsoft server technologies Hehas provided integrated infrastructure solutions to clients for over 11years

tech-Geoff currently lives in Cincinnati, OH, with his wife, Colleen,and his two dogs,Trinity and Spock

Geoff wrote Chapter 9.

Twan Grotenhuis(MCT, MCSE NT4, 2000 and 2003,MCSE+messaging 2000 and 2003, CCNA) is a consultant withSylis Netherlands He currently provides strategic and technical con-sulting to several of the Sylis customers in the Netherlands His spe-cialties include Microsoft Exchange and ISA architecture, design,implementation, troubleshooting and optimization.Twan has beeninvolved in several Virtual Server 2005 projects where virtualization

of physical servers was his main focus

Twan wrote Chapter 8.

Contributing Authors

Andy Jones(MCSE+I, MCT, CCIA, CCEA, CCI, CCNA,CCDA, MCIW, Network+, A+) is the Services Director for MTMTechnologies, previously known as Vector ESP He provides compre-hensive solutions focused on Citrix and Microsoft technologies forclients ranging from 50 to 50,000 users, focusing mainly on archi-tecting and deploying Access Infrastructure solutions for enterprisecustomers One of Andy’s primary focuses is in developing bestpractices, processes, and methodologies surrounding AccessInfrastructure that take into consideration and integrate with virtu-ally every part of a customer’s infrastructure

In addition to field work and business development, Andy larly instructs Microsoft and Citrix courses Andy holds a master’sdegree from Morehead State University

regu-Andy cowrote Chapter 6.

I would like to thank my family, Amy, Julia, and Jocelyn, without your patience and support my contribution would not have been possible I would also like to thank my fellow consultants who have helped in ways that cannot be expressed Finally, I would like to thank the editors for this project for their assistance in helping me “refine” my work I would like to dedicate

my contribution to this work to my brother Jeremy and my mother I love you both and miss you dearly.

Kenneth Majors(MCSE, MCSA, Project+, VMware VCP, CitrixCCEA, CCA, IBM X-Series Expert, Avaya ACA) is a consultant forChoice Solutions LLC, a systems integrator headquartered inOverland Park, KS Choice Solutions provides IT design, projectmanagement, and support for enterprise computing systems

Kenneth is a key contributor to defining best practices for ment and implementation of Microsoft technologies, includingWindows Server, Virtual Server, and SharePoint; Citrix PresentationServer; VMware ESX; and development of documentation standards

deploy-He develops technology solutions and methodologies focused onimproving client business processes.These technology solutionstouch every part of a system’s life cycle from assessment, blueprint,construction, and deployment on projects to operational manage-ment and strategic planning for the business process

Kenneth holds a bachelor’s degree from Colorado TechnicalUniversity He currently resides in Olathe, KS, with his lovely, sup-portive wife, Sandy, and near their children,Tabitha and Keith, andtheir grandsons, Wesley and Austin

Kenneth wrote Chapters 3 and 4.

David Rule Jr.(VMware VCP, VAC, MCP, Citrix CCEA, CCA) is

a Senior Consultant for Choice Solutions LLC, an Overland Park,KS-based systems integrator that provides IT design, project man-agement, and support for enterprise computing systems David’s pri-mary role is in developing virtualization strategies for ChoiceSolutions’ clients.The strategies include the virtualization of bothservers and storage, including the development of best practice andstandards documentation.The combination of virtual servers andstorage provides systems with enterprise-class stability, performance,and scalability.These technologies are implemented to provideclients with environments that facilitate management of and increasethe performance of day-to-day operations while also making themmore reliable and cost-effective

David is currently working toward completing a degree fromPark University in Computer Information Systems Management

He resides in Shawnee, KS, with his wife, Kristine, and their twowonderful children, Christian and Collin

David wrote Chapters 1 and 2.

Matthijs ten Seldam(MCSE, CISSP) is a principal consultantwith the infrastructure technologies group at Microsoft ConsultingServices His expertise focuses on virtualization, platform manage-ment and deployment, security, and networking One of his special-ties is automation of management tasks through various interfaceslike WMI and COM using languages like VBScript and C#

He has developed technical training material on Virtual Server

2005 R2 and delivers this to customers and partners He currentlyprovides consulting to enterprise customers, delivers technical work-shops, and runs early adoption programs of the next generation ofvirtualization products like Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1and System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Matthijs wrote Chapters 5 and 7 He also contributed the scripts for Appendix C.

Some of the code presented throughout this book is available for downloadfrom www.syngress.com/solutions Look for the Syngress icon in the marginsindicating which examples are available from the companion Web site

Companion Web Site

Chapter 1 Introduction to

Microsoft Virtual Server 1

Introduction 2

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Dynamics System Initiative 2

What Is Virtualization, and When Should You Use It? 3

Advantages of Virtualization 3

Production Data Centers 4

Test and Development Data Centers 5

Disaster Recovery 6

What Virtualization Tools Are Available? 7

Third-Party Virtualization Tools 7

How Does Virtualization Work? 9

Virtual PC versus Virtual Server 2005 10

Features That Are Found in Both Virtual PC and Virtual Server 2005 R2 10

Differences between Virtual PC and Virtual Server 2005 R2 11

Supported Features in Virtual PC 11

Supported Features in Virtual Server 2005 R2 12

Scenarios for the Use of Virtual PC 13

Help Desk 13

Training 13

Testing 14

Legacy Applications 14

Virtual Server 2005 versus Virtual Server 2005 R2 14 Summary 15

Solutions Fast Track 15

Frequently Asked Questions 17

xiii

Contents

Chapter 2 Installing and

Configuring a Virtual Server 19

Introduction 20

Determining the Physical Size of the Server 20

Physical Server Sizing 20

Evaluating Existing Physical Servers .21

Planning for New Virtual Servers 21

Installing Virtual Server 2005 R2 22

Preinstallation Tasks 22

Installation Tasks 23

Setting Up a Virtual Server Administration Web Site 28

Virtual Server Administration Web Site Installation 29

Installing in a Multiserver Environment 29

Virtual Machine Remote Console 35

Setting Access Permissions for the Virtual Machine Remote Console 35

Setting Default Location and Search Paths 37

Setting Resource Allocation 39

Summary 42

Solutions Fast Track 42

Frequently Asked Questions 44

Chapter 3 Virtual Machines 45

Introduction 46

Creating the Virtual Server 47

Using the Administration Web Page 49

Virtual Machine Configuration 53

Adding Hardware to the Server 75

Building the Host Server 75

Processors 75

Memory 76

Storage Systems 76

Network Cards 77

COM an LPT Ports 77

USB Ports 77

Installing a Windows OS 78

Loading the Operating System 79

Booting from the Virtual Floppy Disk Drive 81 Starting the Virtual Machine 83

Installing the Operating System 87

Installing Virtual Machine Additions 89

Removing Virtual Machine Additions 91

Installing a Non-Windows OS 92

Creating the Virtual Machine 93

Virtual Machine Additions for Linux 96

Summary 105

Solutions Fast Track 106

Frequently Asked Questions 109

Chapter 4 Virtual Networks 111

Introduction 112

Introduction to Virtual Networks 112

Virtual Networks 113

Viewing the Virtual Networks 114

Using the “Internal Network” 122

Using the Loopback Adapter 124

Installing the Loopback Adapter 124

Configuring Host-to-Guest Networking and File Sharing 128

Using the ICS 133

Creating a Virtual Network 139

Binding a Physical Network Adapter to a Virtual Network 141

Changing the Binding of a Virtual Network 142 Changing the Virtual Network for a Virtual Machine 145

Using the Virtual Server Network Services 147

Summary 152

Solutions Fast Track 153

Frequently Asked Questions 155

Chapter 5 Virtual Disks 157

Introduction 158

Removable Virtual Disks 158

CD/DVD Drive 159

Floppy Disk Drive 161

Virtual Hard Disks 166

Dynamically Expanding Virtual Hard Disk 168

Compacting 170

Converting 177

Fixed-Size Virtual Hard Disk 178

Converting 179

Differencing Virtual Hard Disk 180

Chaining 186

Merging 187

Summary 192

Solutions Fast Track 192

Frequently Asked Questions 194

Chapter 6 Introduction to ADS

and Virtual Server Migration Tool 197

Automated Deployment Services 198

Rapid Deployment Using ADS 198

What Components Does ADS Use? 200

ADS Controller Service 200

ADS Network Boot Service 200

ADS Image Distribution Service 201

ADS Host Server Requirements 202

ADS Client-Server Requirements 202

ADS Network and Management Requirements 203

Installing ADS 204

Installation Options 204

Installation Process 205

Post-Installation: Configuring ADS 214

Automatically Accepting New Clients 214

Enabling Multicast 218

Administration Agent Installing 219

Adding Hardware Drivers in the Boot OS 223

Editing Using the Sequence Editor 223

Installing Virtual Server Migration Toolkit onto the Virtualization Server 227 Summary 231

Solutions Fast Track 231

Frequently Asked Questions 233

Chapter 7 Managing Virtual Server 235

Introduction 236

The Management Interface 236

Configuring a Central Virtual Server Management Site 237

Using the Virtual Server COM API 247

Using the Virtual Server Programmer’s Guide 248 Connecting to the Virtual Server COM Object 254

Accessing a Virtual Server Using Script 256

Listing Virtual Server Properties 256

Setting Virtual Server Properties 259

Creating a Virtual Machine Using Script 261

Creating a Virtual Hard Disk 263

Putting It All Together 264

Creating a Virtual Network Using Script 267

Retrieving Guest OS Information Using Script 268 Changing a Virtual Machine State Using Script 271 The Virtual Machine State Model 272

Attaching Scripts to Virtual Server Events 275

Attaching Scripts to Virtual Machine Events 277 Scripts in Action 278

Summary 283

Solutions Fast Track 283

Frequently Asked Questions 285

Chapter 8 Migrating Physical Machines 287

Introduction 288

Getting the Virtualization Environment Ready for Usage 288

Setting Up the Virtualization Tools 288

Installing VSMT and ADS Agent on the Virtual Server Host 289

Creating the Virtual Network 292

Capturing the Physical Machine 293

Hardware Inventory 297

Creating the Scripts 299

Validating Hardware 299

Creating Migration Scripts 301

Data Capture 305

Creating the Virtual Machine on the Virtual Server Host 310

Deploying the Virtual Machine on the Host OS 313 Summary 316

Solutions Fast Track 316

Frequently Asked Questions 318

Chapter 9 Troubleshooting 319

Introduction 320 Troubleshooting Virtual Server 2005 R2 320 Troubleshooting Virtual

Server Administration Web Site 320 Troubleshooting LsaLogonUser() failed! 320 Troubleshooting Internal Server Error 500 327 Troubleshooting Access Denied Errors 329 Troubleshooting VMRC

Server Disabled Errors 329 Troubleshooting Virtual Server Settings 331 Troubleshooting

Disappearing Server Settings 331 Troubleshooting Virtual Network Changes 332 Troubleshooting Virtual

Machine Performance Issues 336 Disabling TCP Segmentation Offload 336 Don’t Use Network

Adapter Auto-Configuration 337 Use ISOs instead of

CDs Whenever Possible 337 Don’t Overallocate Memory 337 Use a Separate Disk

Controller for Guest Machines 338 Troubleshooting Automated Deployment Services 338 Troubleshooting PXE 338 Check the DHCP Configuration 339 DHCP Relay Agent 339 Check for Other PXE Servers 341 Check Your Network Drivers 341 Check Your Storage Drivers 342 Check Your BIOS Clock 342

Troubleshooting the ADS Services 342 Check That the ADS Services Are Running 342 Confirm the ADS Controller’s IP Address 343 Check the ADS Certificates 343 Troubleshooting the Virtual Server Migration Tool 343 Troubleshooting the Virtual Network Setup 344 Troubleshooting Script Creation 344 Troubleshooting ADS Integration 345 Troubleshooting Migration

from VMware to Virtual Server 345 Troubleshooting the Migration Process 345 Imaging Problems 346 IDE Disks Cannot Exceed 127 GB 347 Converted SCSI Disks Fail to Boot 347 Summary 351 Solutions Fast Track 351 Frequently Asked Questions 353

Appendix A The Pros and Cons

of Running Virtual Server 355

Introduction 356 Why Is Virtual Server Beneficial? 356 Performance Issues 357 Licensing Issues 358 Security Issues 359 Conclusion 359 About Brien M Posey .360 Note 360

Appendix B Solutions Fast Track 361

Chapter 1 362 Chapter 2 364 Chapter 3 366 Chapter 4 369 Chapter 5 371 Chapter 6 372 Chapter 7 374 Chapter 8 376 Chapter 9 378

Appendix C Windows Script Files for Virtual Server 2005 R2 381

Code Listings for Virtual Server 2005 R2 382

Appendix D Integrating Non-Windows Systems with MOM 2005 Using

Virtual Agents 401 Index 451

Introduction

to Microsoft Virtual Server

Solutions in this chapter:

■ Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Dynamics System Initiative

■ What Is Virtualization, and When Should You Use It?

■ What Virtualization Tools Are Available?

■ How Does Virtualization Work?

■ Virtual PC versus Virtual Server 2005

■ Virtual Server 2005 versus Virtual Server

2005 R2

Chapter 1

1

Summary

Solutions Fast Track

Frequently Asked Questions

In recent years the power of servers has grown immensely In production, theservers perform well but the system is only partially utilized.This makes itfairly impossible to buy a server that is not overpowered

On the other side, there is the issue with hardware support on that oldWindows server that you cannot migrate.These scenarios and a lot more arewhere virtualization can be a lot of help.There are several virtualization toolsavailable on the market, all of them with specific support and features We willreview the most important ones, but our focus will be on the Microsoft vir-tualization tool Virtual Server 2005 R2

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005

R2 and Dynamics System Initiative

The Microsoft Dynamics System Initiative (DSI) was created as a ment between Microsoft and its partners to create more easily manageablesystems that automate many everyday tasks.This will, in effect, streamline IToperations and potentially reduce costs at the same time Virtual servers play abig part in this initiative by optimizing the way current data centers are runand making them more efficient Workloads can be optimized by runningmultiple operating systems and applications on a physical server, which

commit-enables it to reach a much higher average utilization Also, as workloads

change over time, virtual machines can be redistributed between other virtualservers to continue to optimize and balance workloads

DSI applies to all aspects of the application lifecycle It begins with thedesign of the application and ends with using applications like SMS andMicrosoft Operations Manager (MOM) to manage and monitor the systems.The use of virtualization is key in this design, because it effectively decouplesthe application workload from its hardware.This enables you to move theworkload from one physical server to another as the resource needs of theworkload change Virtualization allows for the rapid deployment of new sys-tems Without virtualization, as the need develops for new servers, you maynot be able to respond quickly enough because you’ll need to purchase newhardware for each server needed

What Is Virtualization,

and When Should You Use It?

Virtualization is the concept of taking a single operating system and, instead

of installing in on its own dedicated physical hardware, installing it on virtual

hardware that is being presented by Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2

run-ning on a physical server (see Figure 1.1).The key with virtualization is the

isolation of each virtual machine Each virtual machine is unaware of the

other virtual machines that are running on the virtual server If one virtual

machine crashes, it will not crash the other virtual servers With new

pro-cessor improvements from Intel and AMD, namely the new dual-core

proces-sors, you can consolidate more servers onto a single physical server With

dual-core technology you are able to have a dual-processor server with a total

of four processor cores.The jump that both AMD and Intel made from 32-bit

to 64-bit processors has significantly improved the performance of the

phys-ical server running Microsoft Virtual server 2005 R2 Consolidation ratios are

not going to be the same on every server.They depend on the workloads of

the virtual machines that are running on the physical server

A virtual server presents a common set of hardware to every virtualmachine It presents all the key components, such as common NIC, video

card, motherboard, SCSI card, hard drives, CD-ROM, etc.The key is that it

presents the same common hardware regardless what physical server the

vir-tual servers are running on.This enables you to easily move workloads from

one physical server running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 over to another

Virtual Server.The particular devices that are presented to the virtual machine

are detailed later in this chapter

Advantages of Virtualization

There are several scenarios where virtualization has tremendous advantages

We will outline a few scenarios that may be applicable to your environment

Figure 1.1Virtualization Diagram

Production Data Centers

Production servers can greatly benefit from virtualization technology,

although this is most likely the first environment that you will want to targetfor virtualization With any new technology that you are planning on imple-menting in your environment, it is usually best to implement in a

test/pilot/production method to ensure the stability of production systems(see Figure 1.2) One of the key reasons for virtualization of production isthat on average, 90 percent of Windows-based production servers run below

10 percent average utilization.This is a prime reason that virtualization is soprevalent today.You are able to save a great deal of money just by reducingthe number of servers purchased Imagine having a 10-to-1 or greater consol-idation ration.You are able to take a data center with 100 servers and consoli-date it to 10 servers that can fit in a single server rack Many clients that wespoke to also look to virtualization of their production systems for other rea-sons besides consolidation Some are looking to save on the utility cost fromthe servers and the cooling for the room Some have maxed out their powercapabilities and are facing an expensive electrical upgrade to continue

growing

Another huge advantage is recoverability Each virtual server’s hard drive isrepresented by a single file.You are able to take a snapshot of this file for

backup Virtual Server 2005 R1 and later versions support vss for snapshots A

prime example of leveraging this technology is in the event of data loss or

corruption For instance, say you are applying the latest service pack to your

virtual server and after the automatic reboot the machine comes up with a

blue screen If you took a snapshot of the hard disk that your OS was on, you

can within seconds restore that snapshot and go back to before the service

pack was applied.This saves you from needing to potentially rebuild the entire

virtual server

Figure 1.2Phases from Test to Production

Test and Development Data Centers

One of the main advantages of using virtualization in the test and

develop-ment areas is the ability to rapidly deploy new virtual serves.You can create a

basic Windows Server virtual server and then clone that server any time that a

new virtual server is needed.This saves a great deal of time compared to the

standard method of loading each OS.You can also create specialty machines,

such as specific application servers, Web servers, SQL servers, and so on By

utilizing this, you can prevent diverting needed resources from productionservers to spend a great deal of time building test servers.

You can also use the snapshot technology for the test and developmentsystem Because of the nature of the systems, they are constantly having appli-cations installed and uninstalled and having major application changes Byusing snapshots you can keep several versions of these systems to help avoid atotal rebuild

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery is becoming a critical issue for most companies today One

of the issues with disaster recovery is the potential cost Without using alization as part of the disaster recovery solution, you are faced with repli-cating the hardware in your production site to the disaster recovery site Byusing Microsoft Virtual Server at the disaster recovery location, you are able

virtu-to significantly reduce the hardware costs Recoverability and time may bemore important to your company By using Virtual Server you can meet allthree objectives above with one solution.There are many ways to implementMicrosoft Virtual Server 2005 for use in a disaster recovery site Figure 1.3outlines one of the commonly implemented solutions to meet clients’ disasterrecovery needs.This solution enables clients to reduce their disaster recoverycosts considerably More importantly, they are able to take their server

recovery times down from days or weeks to hours and even minutes.The keypiece in this solution is the utilization of a Storage Area Network (SAN) atboth locations All the virtual server disk and configuration files reside on theSAN; it is the job of the SAN to replicate the data from the primary site over

to the disaster recovery site Because all the virtual servers’ data is being cated in the event of a disaster, you simply need to power on the virtualservers and their guest operating systems at the disaster recovery site

repli-Figure 1.3 Disaster Recovery Diagram

What Virtualization Tools Are Available?

Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit is a free tool available from Microsoft

that enables you to migrate a physical machine to a virtual machine.This is

commonly known as the P2V (physical-to-virtual) process.This may be used

to make a clone of an existing physical machine for test and development

purposes.You may use this as a tool to help move servers off their existing

legacy hardware that may be close to failing.This can also be used for creating

images of physical machines for disaster recovery purposes as well.This is a list

of operating systems that the Migration Toolkit supports:

■ Windows Server 2003 (Standard and Enterprise)

■ Windows 2000 (Standard and Advanced) SP4 or later required

■ Windows NT 4.0 Server (Standard and Enterprise) SP6a required

Third-Party Virtualization Tools

Virtualization technology utilization has exploded in the past few years As

with any product that is seeing this kind of growth, many companies jump on

the bandwagon by developing tools to complement or enhance the product.There are still a limited number of third-party tools designed for VirtualServer 2005 R2 today, but as the product grows, many more may becomeavailable One of the companies that specialize in such tools is PlateSpin.Theyhave two main products that help to make the transition from a physical to avirtual environment much easier.The two products described below arePlateSpin PowerRecon and PlateSpin PowerConvert.

PowerRecon is designed to evaluate your current physical environmentand to assist you with your server consolidation planning It is designed togive a complete inventory of your hardware and software and also show theutilization of your servers.This is done by installing a data collector in yourenvironment and then choosing which servers you want to evaluate One keypoint is that it does this without the need to install an agent on the serverthat it is collecting data from.This assessment should be run for a period of atleast 30 days to collect the performance characteristics of your environment.The assessment consists of three phases: assess, design, and implement.Thisassessment is critical to consolidation planning because before you start theconsolidation server you need to know how many host machines you needand how large the host server must be to handle the workload

PowerConvert is used to convert your physical machines into virtualmachines Without a tool to convert your servers from physical to virtual, youwould need to build new virtual machines and then transition the applica-tions from the physical server to the virtual server, which would take a greatdeal of effort and time PowerConvert accomplishes this by taking an image

of the physical server, transferring that image to a virtual machine, and thenmaking the necessary changes so that the machine can boot up as a virtualmachine.The other advantage to this is that is does this by not destroying thedata on the physical server So if you need to revert from the virtual machine

to the physical machine, it is as simple as turning the physical server back on.PlateSpin PowerConvert also supports V2P (virtual-to-physical) conversions,

so if your virtual machine outgrows the resources in the virtual environment,you can convert it to run on its own physical server It also supports taking animage of either a physical or virtual server and storing it in an image reposi-tory for backup or automated deployment purposes

Designing & Planning…

Evaluate Your Environment

Using tools such as PlateSpin PowerRecon significantly reduces the amount of manual labor needed to evaluate your current server environ- ment Analyzing the environment before consolidating can be critical to a successful consolidation by accurately sizing the host servers and number

of hosts needed.

How Does Virtualization Work?

The basic idea of virtualization is taking a single physical machine and

run-ning multiple virtual machines on top of that hardware.This is sometimes

related to the concept of partitioning a hard disk into multiple logical drives

Virtualization works by taking the physical components of a machine and

presenting virtual hardware instead Instead of a machine having its own

phys-ical hard drive, its hard drive is simply a file residing on the host machine’s file

system It also has a virtual NIC, video card, peripheral ports, CPU, and

memory.These resources are managed by the Microsoft Virtual Server

appli-cation that is running on the host machine.The virtualized hardware that is

presented to the guest OS is outlined in this section

■ Presents single CPU

■ Intel 440BX motherboard

■ AMI BIOS

■ Up to 3.6 GB RAM

■ Up to four virtual IDE devices (CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives)

■ Up to four SCSI controllers

■ Emulates Adaptec 7870 SCSI controller

■ Emulates S3 Trio64

■ Support for up to two virtual floppy disk drives.These can bemapped to a physical floppy disk drive or a virtual floppy disk driveusing a floppy image flp file

■ Up to two serial ports

■ One parallel port LPT

■ No USB support

■ Standard 101-key keyboard

■ Microsoft Intellimouse with PS2 interface

■ Emulates DEC 21140 Ethernet card

Virtual PC versus Virtual Server 2005

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 and Virtual Server 2005 are both designed toenable a physical machine to host multiple virtual machines Both productshave a similar architecture and share many of the same features, but they alsodiffer in many ways Many of the features and the user interface of the Virtual

PC were designed with the desktop user in mind Virtual Server was designedwith the system administrator in mind and is useful for hosting EnterpriseServer products It has many advanced features that make its user interfacemore complex In the next few sections,we will take a closer look at some ofthe differences and outline some usage scenarios

Features That Are Found in

Both Virtual PC and Virtual Server 2005 R2

Both products have many of the same core features.They both use the samefile architecture; they use vmc files for their virtual machine configurationfile; and their hard disks are vhd files.They both provide networking for thevirtual machines, but Virtual Server adds a number of features that we willlook at in the following section Both products also provide the capability touse advanced disk features such as undoable disk modes

Differences between Virtual

PC and Virtual Server 2005 R2

Along with the many similarities, there are also many differences.The main

differences come from the design of the two products Virtual PC is designed

for hosting desktop operating systems and applications and Virtual Server is

designed for server operating systems and applications See Table 1.1 for the

OS support matrix

Table 1.1OS Support Matrix

Virtual PC Virtual Server 2005 R2

Windows 2000 Professional Windows Small Business

Server Standard and Premium Windows 2003 Server Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

Supported Features in Virtual PC

Virtual PC offers the following features:

■ Sound card support within virtual machines

■ Copy/paste functionality from host-to-guest machine

■ Folder sharing between the host and guest operating systems

■ Shared networking via network address translation

Supported Features in Virtual Server 2005 R2

Virtual Server 2005 R2 supports several host hardware and virtual hardwarefeatures It also supports other features that will be discussed in this section

Host Hardware Support

Virtual Server 2005 R2 supports up to 32 physical processors Virtual ServerR2 is a multithreaded application designed to take advantage of all the phys-ical processors

Security

Virtual Server 2005 R2 provides SSL security for Administrative managementWeb site and the VMRC It can be configured to specify what user account

on each virtual machine runs under

Support for Scripting

Virtual Server and the virtual machines running on the Virtual Server can bemanaged by using COM and API scripting

Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enables clustering between two virtual machines for

high-availability application

Configuring & Implementing…

Running the OS on Host Servers

Use the OS on the host server just for running Microsoft Virtual Server

2005 R2 and the virtual machines Using it to run another application will reduce the amount of resources available to the virtual machines.

Scenarios for the Use of Virtual PC

Both products are very useful, but the key is using each product in the right

area In this section we will discuss some areas where Virtual PC may be the

right product to use

Help Desk

In today’s corporate environment, many help desk workers are tasked with

supporting a wide variety of operating systems and applications Without

using a Virtual PC, a help desk technician may need to have multiple

machines on their desk with all the different operating systems and

applica-tions loaded Or they may need to load dual boot or load multiple

oper-ating systems or their PC This can be very time consuming because you

have to wait to reboot the machine to switch between operating systems

By using Virtual PC, you can run multiple operating systems at the same

time and switch between them very quickly to assist with troubleshooting

issues

Training

For application training purposes, you only need to have a single workstation

per student, and then you can run multiple virtual machines on top of that

workstation.You can create a full Microsoft infrastructure consisting of

domain controllers, Web servers, application server, or whatever else is neededfor the training, without the need of multiple machines.You can also keepimages of these machines so you can refresh the environment without theneed to reload every machine after each class.This can also be done by settingthe virtual machine to not save changes made during the class

Testing

When you need to test a new application, test it in a virtual machine ratherthan risk creating problems with your workstation by loading an applicationthat may cause conflicts

Legacy Applications

If you need to run an application that will not work or is not supportedunder Windows XP, you can run the application within legacy operating systems

Virtual Server 2005

versus Virtual Server 2005 R2

The core application is much the same between Virtual Server 2005 and R2.R2 is basically a product update to the Virtual Server 2005 release In thissection we outline the following new additions found in the R2 product:

■ x64 support This adds support for 64-bit versions of Windows to

be used for the host operating system

■ Host clustering This enables clustering between Virtual Serverhosts, which provides for the failover of guest machines

■ Linux guest OS support

■ iSCSI support

■ Improved support for hyper-threading

■ PXE booting The PXE booting support has been enhanced byadding it into the virtual machine network adapter.This will allowfor the deployment of virtual machines by using the same methods ofnetwork installation used by physical servers

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is a very versatile application It has

mul-tiple practical applications in today’s IT environments As you have read,

Virtual Server can meet your needs whether you need to implement a test,

production, disaster recovery site, or all of the above.The main reason for

implementing Virtual Server 2005 R2 may be to reduce physical servers and

reduce cost.The other advantages, such as OS portability and recoverability,

are making it an increasingly popular choice for today’s infrastructure needs

Solutions Fast Track

Microsoft Virtual Server

2005 R2 and Dynamics System Initiative

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and the Dynamic SystemsInitiative streamline data center operations

Virtual Server 2005 R2 increases server efficiency

Virtual Server 2005 R2 improves operating system and applicationflexibility

What Is Virtualization, and When Should You Use It?

Virtualization is used to rapidly deploy test systems

Virtualization is used to consolidate underutilized physical servers

Virtualization is used to take snapshots to create recovery points

Virtualization is used to increase disaster recovery potential

What Virtualization Tools Are Available?

PowerRecon automates the process of consolidation feasibility andplanning

Consolidation planning is a useful tool in showing the value ofvirtualization to management