Scott Lowe Blog

If you're anything like me, you probably load and play with virtualized evaluation editions of Windows Server all the time and, every so often, you let one of your virtual installations lag a little and you start getting the black screen indicating that you're not using a valid copy of Windows. Different evaluation editions of Windows Server 2008/R2 come with different evaluation periods ranging anywhere from 60 to 120 days. Using a very simple command line tool, you can extend – rearm – your evaluation period multiple times to receive a total of up to 240 days of evaluation after which point it's time to create a new virtual machine if you intend to continue your testing.
The command: slmgr.vbs -rearm
Slmgr is the command line software license management tool built into Windows. The rearm parameter resets Windows' evaluation clock back to zero. This trick isn't limited to just server editions of Windows, either. It also works with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

VMware is a company on a mission to retain their place as the frontrunner in the virtualization marketplace and the release of vSphere 4.1 reaffirms this commitment and moves the company further down the virtualization road. vSphere 4.1 boasts new features, massively improved scalability and, of course, some fixes. Because this is the last release for ESX – it's all ESXi after this – I'll be talking about items in both ESX and ESXi here and in the next part.
Features
Starting with the new features list, here's a look at just some of what to expect from this latest release:
Active Directory integration. Available in both ESX and ESXi, Active Directory integration allows hosts to join an Active Directory domain. Once joined, users that access the host can be authenticated against Active Directory.
Boot from SAN for ESXi. Further decoupling the server resources from the environment, ESXi now supports booting from SAN – iSCSI, Fibre Channel and FCoE are all supported as long as all of the hardware – the SAN and the adapters – is supported by VMware.
Memory compression. The product now includes a new memory compression feature. Designed to complement existing memory management techniques such as memory overcommit, memory compression operates on the assumption that a virtual machine and host will become RAM bound before processing resources become an issue. Compression automatically kicks in when host RAM is overcommitted. The assumption is that it's much, much faster to expend a few processor cycles compressing and accessing existing RAM that it is to swap to disk.
Scala

There are rumors today that a recently enhanced partnership between VMware and Novell –a once high-flying flagship network operating system vendor that, today, is focused on the Linux server (SuSE), infrastructure management (Zen, PlateSpin) and enterprise directory (eDirectory) markets – may be but the first step in a process that will lead to an outright takeover of Novell by the virtualization powerhouse. Novell certainly understands the enterprise space, having once been the system of choice in many enterprises, and the company's acquisition of virtualization-friendly software maker PlateSpin has enhanced its stature in that space as well. In a past life, I was a hardcore NetWare system engineer managing NetWare servers, Zen management systems and GroupWise collaboration servers. I'm firmly convinced that Novell knows what they're doing, but the company made some missteps in the mid- to late- 90's that resulted in their fall from grace in favor of Microsoft Windows NT-based servers and their successor operating systems.
Novell certainly brings a lot to the table, including:
The products obtained as a result of the aforementioned PlateSpin acquisition, including PlateSpibn Migrate, an outstanding P2V tool.
The whole ZENworks line, including an application virtualization tool, network access control tool, configuration management tool and an asset management utility.
SuSE linux.
GroupWise 8, an enterprise messaging and collaboration platform.
eDirectory, an enterprise directory that predates Active Directory.
If VMware's intent is to truly move beyond the data center o

Tonight, I was researching some Hyper-V stuff and I ran across Microsoft's maximums as they relate to virtual machines hosted on Hyper-V R2. It was an interesting read and, although I've looked at vSphere maximums in the past, I decided to put together a down and dirty comparison table outlining the most significant virtual machine maximums – processors, RAM, disks and network adapters. You'll note that, with the exception of the number of drives supported and, to a lesser extent, network adapters, vSphere for surpasses Hyper-V when it comes to raw virtual machine capability. This positions vSphere as the better choice for particularly resource-intensive workloads that need more than 64 GB of RAM and more than 4 processing cores.
ComponentHyper-V R2vSphere 4Virtual processors supported inside a guest48Memory64 GB255 GBVirtual IDE disks4(see note 1)4Virtual SCSI controllers44Virtual SCSI disks25660Virtual hard disk capacity2040 GB2 TB – 512 bytesVirtual network adapters12(see note 2)10Note 1 (Hyper-V): 8 NICs can be of the "network adapter" type, which provides better performance and requires a virtual machine driver that is included in the integration services packages. 4 NICs can be of the "legacy network adapter" type which emulates a specific physical network adapter and supports the Pre-execution Boot Environment (PXE).
Note 2 (Hyper-V): The startup disk must be an IDE device.
Source information:
vSphere: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_config_max.pdf
Hyper-V: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405267(WS.10).aspx

Hyper-V has now gone through a number of software iterations and you may need to be able to quickly determine exactly which version of the software you're running. There are quite a few methods by which this task can be accomplished. In this post, I'll provide you with two GUI-based and one command line method for accomplishing this task.
GUI method 1
The easiest way to determine your Hyper-V build number is to open the Hyper-V Manager and go to Help > About. This results in a screen like the one below.

Hyper-V Manager About window
GUI method 2
You can quickly determine the exact Hyper-V build you're running from Windows Explorer. Browse to C:\Windows\System32 and right-click the file named vmss.exe. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Once you're on the Properties page, choose the Details tab. In the figure below, you'll see that I'm running Hyper-V build number 6.1.7600.16385, the one that ships with Windows Server 2008 R2.

VMMS.exe properties page
Command line method
Sometimes, you need to be able to grab a file version via a command prompt. The command below will retrieve the file version for the vmms.exe file.
wmic datafile where name="c:\\windows\\system32\\vmms.exe" get version

Command line method screenshot

Recently, Brien Posey published part one of an article series for VirtualizationAdmin.com outlining how Hyper-V handles network configurations. Very recently, I had a need to go a tiny bit out of the box for my own lab-based Hyper-V network at home. I'm working on creating a video-based Windows 7 administration course and needed to be able to demonstrate Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). ICS is a feature built into a number of recent versions of Windows that allows a typical desktop system to act as a router to the Internet, either supplementing or replacing an existing router. Often used in smaller offices, ICS requires that the host computer have two network adapters. Further, in order to provide the most accurate demonstration of how the technology works, I wanted to make sure that I was able to completely isolate my test machines behind the machine I intended to use for ICS so that they didn't have their own connections to the Internet. By doing so, I could then enable ICS on the machine with two network adapters and wow my audience with a working Internet connection even from the machines that didn't have a direct connection. Pretty spiffy.
And, with Hyper-V (or VMware, for that matter), it's a piece of cake to create this kind of demonstration and follows just a few very simple steps:
Create a second virtual network in the Hyper-V management console
This network doesn't need to have any outside access
Add a second virtual network adapter to the machine on which ICS will be enabled
Attach the new network adapter to the virtual network created in step 1
On the m

I'm spending this week at Microsoft's TechEd conference and, to put it lightly, there is a lot happening! With the imminent beta release of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Microsoft is continuing to improve the services provided by the company's Hyper-V virtualization platform and makes progress toward closing the feature/function gap between Hyper-V and VMware's vSphere. Already, Hyper-V is a more than acceptable platform for many organizations but as Microsoft continues to throe resources at this product, it gains more and more momentum in the market share battle with VMware. However, as much as Microsoft continues to add capability to the product, there are some needs that are not currently being met and that will not be met in the upcoming SP1.
Dynamic Memory
Among the most prominent new feature coming in SP1 is support for a feature that Microsoft calls Dynamic Memory. With the use of dynamic memory, you can basically oversubscribe server RAM on the assumption that each individual virtual machine won't necessarily use all of the memory allocated to it. For quite some time, Microsoft has resisted implementing this overcommit feature with the guidance that oversubscribing server RAM can lead to problems down the line, but when used correctly and appropriately, memory overcommit can increase virtual machine density and, thus, lower TCO for an overall virtualization solution.
RemoteFX
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 will also add a feature called RemoteFX, which is a set of enhancements to Remote Desktop Services intended to significantly boost the graphics capabilities of hoste

It's probably safe to say that, for many of us, VMware's Workstation product has long been a staple in our virtual labs.  I know it has been for me.  For years, I've relied on VMware Workstation to provide me with the opportunity to build out complex, complete lab infrastructures that would have otherwise required a half dozen or more heat-producing, sound-polluting physical computers.  With Workstation, I've also massively increased my productivity since I no longer have to rebuild my environment because of a simple error.  Instead, I simply revert to the most recent set of snapshots and continue on my merry way without interruption.

This week, VMware released the latest edition of this popular tool. Version 7.1 of VMware Workstations adds a number of features and includes significant enhancement and continues to make strides in closing the gap between virtual and physical performance and capabilities.  With the addition of seven new supported guest operating systems and four new host operating systems, Workstation expands its platform support.  Specifically, Workstation 7.1 adds guest support for:

Ubuntu 8.04.4
Ubunti 10.04
OpenSUSE 11.2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5
Fedora 12
Debian 5.0.4
Mandriva 2009.1

From a feature standpoint, Workstation 7.1 is vastly superior to older editions of the product, adding:

Eight-way SMP support.  VMs can now individually use up to eight processing cores.  If this isn't the basis for what could be a fantastic bare-metal hypervisor product, I don't know what is!
Support for 2TB virtual disks.  Older editions of Workstation capp

I work at a college and we're in the midst of building out our new Exchange 2010 environment under vSphere.  As opposed to our current single-server, single-point-of-failure Exchange 2007 setup, we're moving to a highly available configuration under Exchange 2010.  Even though Exchange 2010 supports hosting mailbox, hub & CAS roles on a single server, doing so negates the ability to use both database availability groups (mailbox role) and network load balancing (CAS role) simultaneously due to conflicts between Windows NLB and clustering components.  As I'm not that interested in building out a four server Exchange 2010 environment – we don't need it – based on advice from Henrick Walther, we're purchasing a Kemp load balancer – the virtual appliance variety.  We've already imported the new virtual appliance into our vSphere environment but do not yet have the unit configured.  When we're done, I'll report back on progress and operational success.  Our eventual intent is to use the Kemp appliance for Exchange 2010 initially, but we'll also use it to provide some necessary redundancy for our campus web portal.

My goal at Westminster College is to virtualize everything that can be virtualized.  With it's reduced I/O demands and virtualization-friendly nature, Exchange 2010 is the first tier 1 application that we're virtualizing, but it's not the last.  Later this year, we'll be evaluating a move from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 and making a decision as to whether or not to maintain SharePoint as a physical infrastructure or move it, too, to virtual systems.

For all of you Mac users out there, you already know that VMware Fusion is a fantastic tool that lets you have your cake and eat it too.  Personally, I love VMware Fusion.  I'm not a huge OS X guy, but love my shiny MacBook Pro.  But, without Fusion, I wouldn't be doing much with the machine.

Fusion 3.0 was certainly a step in the right direction and added a variety of new features, including support for Windows Aero, great support for Windows 7 guests and a variety of performance improvements.  Recently, VMware made available a release candidate of VMware Fusion 3.1, which takes the product one step further by continuing to improve performance.  I will admit that, although I'm a huge Fusion fan, there is a noticeable performance difference between Windows 7 on my Mac (with Fusion 3.0) and Windows 7 elsewhere.  Of course, the virtualization layer means that the system will take at least some performance hit, but it seems extreme at times.

Here's a list of major improvements right from VMware:

More Responsive: Much better responsiveness of resumed virtual machines and faster disk performance overall
Graphics Get Faster: Improved performance and better compatibility for both DirectX 9 and OpenGL 3D apps
Unity Better Than Ever: Support for overlapping Unity windows in Expose and Dock Exposé
OVFTool 2: Import and export OVF packaged virtual machines and upload to vSphere with bundled OVFTool 

In the forums, VMware Fusion 3.1 is receiving very good feedback from a performance perspective, with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 users reporting noticeable speed gains wi