Microsoft Releases System Center Virtual Machine Manager R2 Beta

Mar. 16, 2009 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

From Microsoft:

Today, Microsoft announced the beta availability of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 (SCVMM). The R2 beta release is a comprehensive solution for managing virtualized infrastructure running on Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and VMware ESX through Virtual Center.

Some of the new features & functionality included in this release are:

Support for the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2, including:
1. Live Migration: Enables the movement of running virtual machines from one virtual host to another with no downtime.
2. Hot addition/removal of VHDs: Allows the addition and removal of new virtual hard disks (VHDs) on a running virtual machine.
3. New networking protocols: Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and TCP Chimney.

Streamlined process for managing host upgrades: Permits to apply updates or perform maintenance on a host server by safely evacuating all virtual machines to other hosts on a cluster using Live Migration or putting those workloads into a saved state to be safely reactivated when maintenance or upgrades are complete. Maintenance mode is enabled for all supported hypervisor platforms on Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta.

Support for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): Enables administrators to deploy and manage virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in their data center environment.

Support of disjoint domains: Reduces the complexity of reconciling host servers with differing domain names in Active Directory and DNS. In these situations, VMM 2008 R2 Beta automatically creates a custom service principal name (SPN) configured in both AD and DNS allowing for successful authentication.

Use of defined port groups with VMware Virtual Center: On installation, VMM 2008 R2 Beta will present available port groups for VMM’s use thus allowing administrators to maintain control over which port groups are used.

For a full list of new features, please check out Rakeshm's VM Management Blog. If you are interested in testing R2 Beta code, you can download it from Connect.

Discuss this Article 12

Waethorn

on Mar 16, 2009

Looks interesting. I'm looking more at small business stuff though. I can see a lot of businesses downsizing, so investments in enterprise software don't look to be a big option for many companies. BTW Paul: Where's Morro??? Are we waiting for Stirling's FCS client agent to be near-complete before we see the Morro beta?

Lindy

on Mar 16, 2009

http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/ Its free. It will boot off of a 32meg flash drive. Performance wise it night and day better than Hyper-V.

Lindy

on Mar 16, 2009

Oh and let me add to that....its NOT version 1.0

truffoo0

on Mar 16, 2009

@Lindy "its NOT version 1.0" While the hypervisor is not version 1, the integrated/lightweight/console-less is technically version 1. ESX3i is the first of its type, just using version 3 of the hypervisor itself. That said, I like ESX and have ALL our workloads running on it. Not currently running 3i, but future hosts will be. For most mainstream workloads, you probably wouldn't see too much of a performance difference between VI and Hyper-V, assuming the design is properly thought through and takes advantage of the benefits of each system. Higher-end workloads would likely start to show up the better solution.

anonymous

on Mar 16, 2009

Los futuros HDDs SATA3 parece que emplearán SSDs para alcanzar los 6Gbps : Aunque aun asi necesitaremos

Waethorn

on Mar 16, 2009

ESXi is limited compared to Hyper-V. Hyper-V is included with Server 2008 and includes dual server licensing (1 physical, 1 virtual) on Server 2008 Standard (or more if you buy Enterprise or Datacenter). Hyper-V would be more directly comparable to ESX, but the cost of licensing ESX is what will put it out of range of many companies looking for a more cost-effective solution. SB's looking for ease-of-access options such as local console access for troubleshooting are ill-advised to look at something like ESXi or Hyper-V Server too. I always agree with the statement that it's not a good idea to run a domain controller virtualized, especially if you don't have a local console to troubleshoot hardware issues that could pop up. The reason is this: How do you determine where the problem lies? In the virtualization host? In your IP KVM or remote access software? Or in the virtualized environment itself? What if you use a remote client that requires domain authentication? Then what? Isn't it just easier to diagnose a problem like a desktop PC? ie. "The hard drive is clicking loud, so the RAID mirror failed", or would you rather "I can't tell if the DC is up or down, or if a piece of hardware failed because I'm trying to remote in and it won't let me"? The SMB market shouldn't be faced with options like this. Make it simple to troubleshoot later. You can't expect 100% uptime. It'd be nice, sure, but you can't expect it. Rule of thumb for SMB's: Run a domain controller on real hardware with a physically-attached console. You never know when you'll need it.

truffoo0

on Mar 16, 2009

@Waethorn - agreed that Hyper-V licensing appears to be better, but the license also applies to VMWare. A Windows Standard license allows for 1 virtualised workload on VMWare as it does in Hyper-V. It is the management tools and the cost of them that puts VMWare out of reach for many organisations. The Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager appears to be hugely better value than VMWare. Virtualising any workload (including a DC) needs careful consideration, including what you mention above. You wouldn't want your VirtualCenter server to be part of the domain so that you can still login without a DC up (and therefore have software-based console access). What is 'right' for one organisation may not be for another. The key is to do proper analysis of what you want to achieve and utilise specialists in virtulisation to make sure you get what you're aiming for.

Waethorn

on Mar 16, 2009

"agreed that Hyper-V licensing appears to be better, but the license also applies to VMWare. A Windows Standard license allows for 1 virtualised workload on VMWare as it does in Hyper-V." Yes, but when you buy Windows Server 2008 Standard w/ Hyper-V, the license to run the host partition of Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role is included. It doesn't apply to a VMware environment though so it's essentially wasted. When you buy Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, you get the 1 physical install, plus *4* VM licenses. With Datacenter, it's unlimited VM's. You're essentially not paying for that physical install, whereas you would have to pay for VMware ESX Server to get the same capabilities (ESXi doesn't have high-availability or local console support, among many other things that Hyper-V does - at all server levels). "It is the management tools and the cost of them that puts VMWare out of reach for many organisations." Agreed. The management tools make VMware most of their revenues. A lot of the new System Center tools are also offering management capabilities that VMware lacks for their own products, and at a cheaper price. Plus you have multi-platform compatibility. "You wouldn't want your VirtualCenter server to be part of the domain so that you can still login without a DC up" Exactly why Microsoft says NOT to make the host partition part of the domain, and NOT to remote in from a computer that exists in the domain. It's not the greatest option though, since you can't use the same management and maintenance tools on the host partition or the remote management PC that you can on the domain. That's the biggest downside to virtualization IMO. I dunno about you, but I like the idea of having EVERYTHING reside inside the domain "bubble" and be able to manage everything on equal levels. With virtualization in its current form, that's an impossibility. "The key is to do proper analysis of what you want to achieve and utilise specialists in virtulisation to make sure you get what you're aiming for." The "analysis" that you mention isn't as complicated in the SMB space as VMware makes it in the enterprise. It's all the same as if you are running physical machines: load balancing, system requirements, flexibility, availability, but then you have to factor in the limitations that virtualization will impose, such as data resiliency, platform support (hardware and software) of your virtualization environment, and management. Looking at Hyper-V, the documentation is pretty clear on the benefits and limitations. Performance and migration testing is made easier through the deployment help that TechNet provides, most of which is provided through things like MDT. The virtualization docs for SBS 2008 are fairly short too. They only dwell on a few commandline tools, and the rest is about the limitations of virtualizing. They pretty much enforce the idea to buy SBS 2008 Premium so that you get a clean Windows Server 2008 Standard to act as a host (you still get that VM license too), and run the main SBS server as either a VM side-by-side with the second server VM on the same hardware, or run it on separate hardware and just virtualize your multiple OS's on the second server separately. It's cheaper buying SBS Premium than buying SBS Standard and adding a second server later. Virtualization has it's own benefits, but it's still fairly complicated for the SMB market - where they need finely-tuned turn-key solutions.

hamiltonstallings

on Mar 16, 2009

Congrats Lindy for whining for 680 posts. So you love Macs, why are you here again? Seems to me like you have no life at all.

Lindy

on Mar 16, 2009

The licensing is the same really. If I buy a Enterprise copy of Windows and its the host for Hyper-V, if your smart that copy is going to be doing nothing but being a Hyper-V host, hosting your 4 free copies or more depending upon your system resources. Virtual Infrastructure client is free and its works with ESXi, ESX or to connect to Vcenter. VI with ESXi is a totally free solution. In a small business that only has room for one server in a small closet, but the need for say SBS plus a separate terminal server ESXi on supported Dell and HP servers with ESXi on a flash drive (internal USB connector) is a better use of server resources. ESX handles memory way better than Hyper-V, it de-dupes memory in effect. They call it transparent page sharing. Basically if you have 4 VM's running Windows 2008 there is only one copy of every .dll in memory that is the same. The more of the same guest OS VM's running the greater the effect. Hyper-V does not do this, and so you need more hardware to support more VM's. In a small environment, 1-3 servers, that uses VM's I have seen the whole thing virtual, on one box. In larger environments I have seen it, and I agree with at least one physical box, and that box usually is a Windows DC, with DNS. In the event of some kind of major power outage/network outage that box comes on first. The VCenter box can be part of the domain all day long. Following Vcenter install guide you should use a admin account on that box not a domain account. Besides you can log in probably with cached credentials in most environments. Further more Vcenter can be on a VM. If its in a cluster you pin it to one host using DRS rules, that way if a total power outage occurred you know where it is (which host in a cluster), its fully supported by VMware. The more you can put on a VM the more you can replicate with SAN technology to your DR site. Exchange and SQL are on VM's more and more these days. I have seen two large boxes, dual quads with 64gigs of RAM in a VMware cluster used for 4 good size SQL servers all because it can be replicated using SAN software/hardware (SRDF/Snap Mirror) to a DR site. A 100X faster recovering SQL VM vs building out a physical SQL server, with a different name, then attaching DB's to it, then pointing whatever uses it to the new server. ESXi is free, so is hyper V. ESXi is more efficient, just look at the install foot print 32meg vs 6gig? VI client is every bit as good as the free Hyper V manager and runs on XP or Vista. VMware management tools and features when moving beyond ESXi are way ahead of Hyper V. This last weekend I updated a 8 way ESX cluster with VMware update manager. All 8 ESX servers had to be rebooted, but there was zero down time on 160+ VM's because of vmotion. Hyper V cant do that right now. The tools do cost more, but not much more. SCVM or whatever its called is not cheap. Hyper V is not a bad solution and knowing Microsoft they will catch up or at least to the point where the little Extra that VMware will have over them will not be enough for a lot of MS only shops. That said VMware is not going to stand still either. They are run by an X MS guy now who knows MS and their moves pretty well. One thing is for sure, there is no going back to Physical machines with one OS as the norm. VDI from many vendors is quickly changing the corporate desktop landscape faster than anything else. Thin hardware is cheaper and lasts twice as long as a desktop PC.

Waethorn

on Mar 16, 2009

"If I buy a Enterprise copy of Windows and its the host for Hyper-V, if your smart that copy is going to be doing nothing but being a Hyper-V host, hosting your 4 free copies or more depending upon your system resources." I didn't suggest any other way of doing it. Microsoft's suggestions are the same. The parent partition is only to run one role - Hyper-V. That's it. No file sharing role or print services or anything else. Certainly not AD DC either. "In a small business that only has room for one server in a small closet, but the need for say SBS plus a separate terminal server ESXi on supported Dell and HP servers with ESXi on a flash drive (internal USB connector) is a better use of server resources." SBS is only supported on Hyper-V (Server 08 GUI or Core, or Hyper-V Server), and only in particular configurations. They make it clear that it isn't supported any other way, especially not with third-party virtualization. "ESXi is more efficient, just look at the install foot print 32meg vs 6gig?" You must be used to [mis]quoting VMware's specs there. Even they don't go that overboard though. They claim a Server 08 Core install with Hyper-V is 2.6GB. Hyper-V Server 08 is well less than 1GB. It also has snapshot (VSS) and full backup support via Live Backup as well as full drive encryption via Bitlocker (Hyper-V role does now, Hyper-V Server will include all but Bitlocker in R2). ESXi doesn't. It's also a very manageable OS since it's based on Windows. VMware claims it has no host OS which is a crock - it has a Linux kernel that's open to the same security problems and patching requirements that any other OS requires. It's not difficult to see the Linux boot process in action on ESXi. Transparent page sharing looks somewhat interesting, but I would bet that ASLR would probably negate most of that anyway. They certainly don't mention Windows Server 2008 in their examples of it anyway. "In larger environments I have seen it, and I agree with at least one physical box, and that box usually is a Windows DC, with DNS." Something else you can do with a Hyper-V server is to join the host to a second "management domain" with a separate, physical DC. That way, you get security and manageability that only a domain can provide. The production domain could exist virtually "inside" the other domain, but logically on the same level. To do that on ESX, you'd have to use additional agents and you'd still need patch management software. It's just not as easy as an integrated solution, like what Hyper-V is. If you're using a separate domain for the virtualization hosts, you could easily push out patches with existing technologies like WSUS and SCCM/SCE. I'm interested to see what comes up with Hyper-V in Server 08 R2. From what I've been reading, the stuff that's missing in Hyper-V Server 08 vs. Server 08 Hyper-V role has been added back in, and Live Migration is also included. I've been looking at getting a piece of software set up as a RemoteApp in TS and I've been looking at virtualization as an option since my shop only has a single box running SBS 08. I'm also due for a good reformat soon. I may look at Hyper-V Server 08 since R2 isn't very far behind. I've been using Server 08 GUI with Hyper-V, but it's not as fast as I'd like. It's running SBS 08 on an 8GB box with a Xeon 3300 series quad-core. I have to decide whether or not it's worth it to run a separate server for TS. I could just install the software on the SBS box and be done with it. It houses a very light MySQL database that wouldn't affect the performance of the DC services, and I also use it to push out OPK deployments using WDS. I've always run WDS directly off the SBS box. It's never been detrimental to the overall performance. I need to have local console access if possible, that's why I went with the Server 08 GUI. I thought about trying remote management, but it's just not warranted in my shop. Right now, the SBS VM is running in a 4GB envelope on the parent, with 2GB devoted to the parent, and 2GB to a secondary server which I don't use. I may just go back to running everything on the hardware. I don't need SQL Server running, and the MySQL database takes all of about 30MB when running. It's also not disk-heavy - WDS does laps around it. The RemoteApp stuff is just more work that I can't afford the time to right now. The next big server upgrade will probably be to a rackmount. Let's see....$1000 for a decent piece of server kit, or an extra $1000 just for a rack?.... ....maybe it'll just be a second tower.

Lindy

on Mar 17, 2009

Windows 2008 AND Hyper V takes how much disk space? ESX sits on top of a modified version of RHL, I think 3.6 or something like that. The Linux piece is the Service Console, it actually another VM once the Hypervisior boots. It was around to provide a management interface for ESX. ESXi rips that piece out and replaces it with a much slimmer management layer. It may have Linux roots, but the fact that it now only uses 32meg of disk space and the "Service Console" switch port group is now gone says they ripped out the vast majority of it. You cant even SSH to it any more with Putty. Its a GUI only tool now. It has a CLI interface for scripting, that supports more than a few scripting languages to include Powershell. The CLI is not a shell though. Patching ESX is reduced by 60% with the Linux layer removed according to VMware. Security of course is much tighter with a proprietary management layer. ESX and ESXi have AD integration all day long and that is how most shops run it. There is also a root user per ESX/ESXi server and you can create more local users as well. Its a nice back door if AD is not working for whatever reason. VMware worked with Shavlik which IMHO is a great tool for patching the Windows world if you got the $$$ its ability to PUSH right NOW vs WSUS or SMS is night and day. Anyhow VMware has what they call VMware Update Manager or VUM. VUM is Shavlik for ESX hosts and Windows Guests. It updates from the web on whatever schedule you set. You can update a single windows VM, a single Host, a single Host and its Windows guests, or a can click on the Cluster level and it will automatically go through and update all hosts and the Windows VM's. If reboots are required at the host level, it will VMotions the running guests to other hosts so as not to create an outage. It does this automatically with a few clicks of a mouse. Again MS will do what it does best. Come late to the VM world because they realize its now a game changer. Buy up someone (they tired to get VMware but had to settle for Connectrix) throw gobs of money at it, give it away free at some level to gain market share and then 3rd party support will follow. Continue you this while you play catchup, maybe not all the way but close enough that it does not matter for 70% or more of your customers. Think IE.

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Microsoft Releases System Center Virtual Machine Manager R2 Beta

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