Reality of server virtualization and cost reduction

Is your company ever facing the challenge of effectively managing the servers and infrastructure growth? Is server virtualization been shown to you as the only resolution to overcome the problem along with the Green IT concept? Sadly in Sri Lanka Green IT concept is not widely being adopted even though reducing $$$ really makes sense for us :)

So most of us has been hearing about server virtualization offered by various vendors. (Microsoft, VMware, Citrix….etc) but in order for a company to move to a virtualization road what are the facts need to be considered. Virtualization concept has been expanded from server virtualization to desktop virtualization, application virtualization so a decision maker need to take careful consideration which option is the best for their company to adopt. Let’s look at some of the key facts,

1. Reducing cost – At a glance this seems to be the biggest favor factor. Server consolidation of 3:1,  2:1 and even 10:1 or more. But the missing picture is this true to my company? Can I really archive that kind of consolidation ratio? This is a question need to be ask from your IT department. How can I know which servers are the best candidates to consolidate? Depend on the answers we’re getting out of that, companies need to decide virtualization strategy.

2. Power / Cooling saving – These are some of the direct benefit of the virtualization. Reduce the server for print in your data center will lead for you to spend less money on the power and data center cooling.  

3. Standardization / Compliance – These are some of the indirect benefits companies can achieve. System administrators will be able to better manage server operating systems and applications in the virtualizations systems by using system management products. Bringing the entire data centers into standardized environment will bring better Service Management and also will help companies to compliance with industry regulations.

Looking at a glance we have so many advantages moving to server consolidation and better utilization of existing hardware through server virtualization. So what is the catch the hidden untold story of the server virtualization?

1. Possible candidates -Indentify the server which can be virtualized. Not all the servers in your company can be virtualized immediately. First rule is to identify the servers which can be virtualized. MAPS (Microsoft Assessment and Planning Service Toolkit) is a good tool for this job. MAPS is a tool beyond server virtualization identification. Check for your self on the MS web site :)

2. Availability- When you have separate physical servers to run your company application loosing one server is not a major problem for you. Once you do the server consolidation of 3:1 what if the only physical server holding that 3 server roles goes down? How that will impact the company overall functionality? Not a happy picture right? Server availability is a critical factor to be overseen when it comes to server virtualization. Plan well ahead how you going to protect those servers from failures. This is a part not being added to the $$$ but need to be given careful attention. Additional hardware or backup hardware or software attention must be given,
    Server virtualization not always going to utilize your existing servers. As I have seen in our market most of the companies are still having 5-6 old servers in production. You’ll need to invest on new hardware. Better of all have a god planning on how to recover from one physical server which host several servers.

3. Server sprawling -  Creating virtual servers unnecessary or with less control to mange the overall environment will lead to this. Fortunately this is not a question or as situation our market will lead now :)
Once you have move into the virtualization road you have to have better control of what server how and where you create them. Server virtualization will loosen the bond of operating system with physical servers. If you’re not careful enough you’ll end up creating unnecessary number of virtual servers and resource wastages instead of resource saving. Fortunately VMware center, SCVMM is there for the help but end of the day ultimate control is with humans who are vulnerable for making mistakes :)

4. Cost – Virtualization will itself is not going to bring immediate ROI if you didn’t plan well but another over burden to our IT budget. Additional storage cost, network equipment, servers….etc you name it cost will go if you didn’t identify the above mention goals properly. Know what you need to virtualized and how to protect them as well.

So where we end up on server virtualization? How can SMB, SME or Enterprise enjoy this technology? Number one rule is take time for careful planning. Use the given free tools to better understand your environment and plan the resources well ahead. Virtualization is not only limited to server side so you can be carried out by many factors. Know the company business objective and how to drive them with virtualization. None of the above mention facts are to keep you away from virtualization. My honest opinion is virtualization (may it be server, application…..etc) is really good but little bit of extra planning will make your life easier.

Happy virtualization!

Windows 2008 Failover Clustering setup (101 guide)

Before jumping into the High availability it would be a really good if all of readers can sit on the same seat about the clustering technology as well. Recently enough I went through the history of the clustering to get and idea about it, interestingly enough there are lot more than meets the eye on clustering :) Some history info about clustering can be found over here

What is clustering - In its most elementary definition, a server cluster is at least two independent computers that are logically and sometimes physically joined and presented to a network as a single host. That is to say, although each computer (called a node) in a cluster has its own resources, such as CPUs, RAM, hard drives, network cards, etc., the cluster as such is advertised to the network as a single host name with a single Internet Protocol (IP) address. As far as network users are concerned, the cluster is a single server, not a rack of two, four, eight or however many nodes comprise the cluster resource group.

Why cluster - Availability:  Avoids problems resulting from systems failures.
                    Scalability: Additional systems can be added as needs increase.
                    Lower Cost:  Supercomputer power at commodity prices.

What are the cluster types -

• Distributed Processing Clusters
  • Used to increase the speed of  large computational tasks
  • Tasks are broken down and worked on by many small systems rather than one large
  • system (parallel processing).
  • Often deployed for tasks previously handled only by supercomputers.
  • Used for scientific or financial analysis.

• Failover Clusters
  • Used to increase the availability and serviceability of network services.
  • A given application runs on only one of the nodes, but each node can run one or more applications.
  • Each node or application has a unique identity visible to the “outside world.”
  • When an application or node fails, its services are migrated to another node.
  • The identity of the failed node is also migrated.
  • Works with most applications as long as they are scriptable.
  • Used for database servers, mail servers or file servers.

• High Availability Load Balancing Clusters
  • Used to increase the availability, serviceability and scalability of network services.
  • A given application runs on all of the nodes and a given node can host multiple applications.
  • The “outside world” interacts with the cluster and individual nodes are “hidden.”
  • Large cluster pools are supported.
  • When a node or service fails, it is removed from the cluster.  No failover is necessary.
  • Applications do not need to be specialized, but HA clustering works best with stateless applications that can be run concurrently.
  • Systems do not need to be homogeneous.
  • Used for web servers, mail servers or FTP servers.

Now coming back into the Microsoft clustering clustering goes back to good old NT 4.0 era with the code name “wolf pack” All this time it came all the way step by step growing and shine on Windows 2000 period giving the confidence for customers on the stability of the Microsoft clustering technology. If there are filed engineers who have configured the Windows 2003 clustering will know the painful steps they have to take to configure the clustering Steps are very lengthy. When it comes to Windows 2003 R2 Microsoft offered various tools and wizards to make the clustering process less painful process to for engineers. If you’re planning to configure windows 2003 clustering one place you definitely look into is this site.

Now we’re in the windows 2008 era and clust4ering has been improved dramatically in the configuration side and as well as in the stability wise. New names for the clustering goes as “Windows failover clustering”

As I have been updating the audience in public sessions clustering is no longer going to be a technology focus by Enterprise market. Clustering can be utilized by SMB and SME market as well with a fraction of the cost.  As usual I will be focusing on the HYPER-V  and how combine with clustering can help the users to get the maximum benefits out for virtualization and high availability. HYPER-V  been Microsoft flagship technology for the virtualization. It’s a 100% bare metal hyper visor technology. There are lot of misguided conception on HYPE-V is not a true hypervisor, the main argument point highlighted is you need to have windows 2008 to run the HYPER-V. This is wrong!!! You can setup on the HYPER-V hyper visor software in bare metal server and setup the virtual pc’s. HYPER-V only free version can be download from here. Comparisons on HYPER-V can be found over here.

So now we have somewhat idea about the clustering technology so how can it applied to the HYPER-V environment and have a high available virtual environment? We’ll have a look at a recommended setup for this scenario,

According to the picture we’ll need 2 physical servers. We’ll call them Host1 and Host2. Each host must 64bit and have Vitalization supported processor. Apart from that Microsoft recommended to have certified hardware by MS. so base on my knowledge I would say ideal environment should be as follows,

1. Branded servers with Intel Xeon Quad core processor. (better 2 have 2 sockets M/B for future expansion.)
2. 8 GB memory and minimum 3 nics. always better to have additional nics.
3. 2*76 GB SAS or SATA HDD for the Host operating system.
4. SAN Storage. (Just hold there folks, there are easy way to solve this expensive matter….:)

 

 

 

Now the above system has the full capability to handle decent amount workload. Now the configuration part :) I’ll try to summarize the steps along with additional tips when necessary,

1. Install windows 2008 Enterprise or Datacenter edition to each Host computer. Make sure both of them get the latest updates and both host will have same updates for all the software.

2. Go ahead and install the HYPER-v role.

3. Configure the NIC’s accordingly. taking one host as the example NIC configuration will be as follows,
    a) One NIC will be connected to your production environment. So you can add the IP, DG, SB and DNS
    b) Second NIC will be the heartbeat connection between the 2 host servers. So add IP address and the SB only. Make sure it will be totally     different IP class.
    c) Third NIC will be configured to communicate with the SAN storage. I'm assuming we’ll be using iSCSI over IP.

4. Now for the SAN storage you can go ahead and buy the expensive SAN storage for HP, DELL or EMC (no offence with me guys :) ) but their are customers who can’t afford that price tag. For them the good new is you can convert your existing servers into a SAN storage. We’re talking about converting you're existing x86 systems into Software based SAN storage which use iSCSI protocol. There are third party companies which provide software for this. Personally I prefer StarWind iSCSI software.
So all you have to do is add enough HDD space to your server and then using the third party iSCSI software convert your system to SAN storage. This will be the central storage for the two HYPER-V  enabled host computers.

4. Go ahead and create the necessary storage at the SAN server. How to create the cluster quorum disk and other disk storage will be available from the relevant storage vendor documentation. When it comes to quorum disk try to make it 512MB if possible but most SAN storage won’t allow you to create a LUN below 1024 MB so in that case act accordingly. (Anyway here goes few steps how to create relevant disks under StarWind)

5. Go to one host computer and then add the Clustering feature.

6. Go to the iSCSI initiator in the Host1 and then connect to the SAN storage.  As seen on the picture click add portal and enter the IP address of SAN storage.  One connected it’ll show the relevant disk mappings. (That easy in Windows 2008 R2 now)

7. Once that complete go to Disk management and unitize the disk and format them and assign drive letters accordingly. (Eg: Drive letter Q for Quorum disk…etc)

8. Go to Host2 open iSCSI imitator and add the SAN storage. Go to Disk management and add the same drive letters to the disks as configured on Host1.
   

9. Go to cluster configuration and start setting up the cluster. One cool thing about Windows 2008 cluster setup is cluster validation wizard. It will do a serious of configuration checkup to make sure if you have configured the cluster setup steps correctly. This wizard is a must and you need to keep this report safely in case if you need to get Microsoft support or a technical personas support. One the cluster validation completed we can go ahead add the cluster role. In this case we’ll be selecting File Server as our cluster role.

10.  Once the cluster validation is completed, go ahead and create a cluster service. In this demonstration I’ll use clustered file server feature.

Go ahead and give a cluster administration name for the cluster, and after that select a disk for the shared storage. for this we’ll use a disk created in the SAN storage,

11. Once that step is completed you’ll be back in the cluster management console. Now you’ll be able to see the cluster server name you’re created. So we have created cluster but still we didn’t share any storage. Now we’ll go ahead and create shared folder an assign few files so users can see them,

 Now once we login from a client PC we can type the UNC path and access the shared data in the clustered file server :)

Phew…!! that was a long article I' have every written :) Ok I guess by now you’ll have the idea Windows 2008 clustering is not very complicated if you have the right tools and the resources. Now that is the out layer internally to secure the environment we’ll need to consider about either CHAP authentications, IPSec…etc. Since this is 101 article i kept everything is simple manner.

Let me know your comments (good or bad)about the article so I’ll be able to provide better information which will be helpful for you all.

Upgrading your Domain controllers to Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2

So you have been running on Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 AD environment for quite some time and prefer a change. Windows 2008 has been out there for almost 16 months now, including the release of Windows 2008 R2. In this article we’ll discuss some of the key facts you need to consider before you jump into upgrade process and some of the pit falls you need to avoid.

What are the upgrade options available for me?

In-Place upgrade – In this method you can upgrade your existing server to Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2. But the key thing is you can't in-place upgrade your windows 2000. You need to upgrade that to Windows 2003. (Do you really need to install windows 2008 on that old hardware :) There are few caveats you need to take into consideration before going this path,

• The Windows Server 2003 patch level should be at least Service Pack 1
• You can't upgrade across architectures (x86, x64 & Itanium)
• Standard Edition can be upgraded to both Standard and Enterprise Edition
• Enterprise Edition van be upgraded to Enterprise Edition only
• Datacenter Edition van be upgraded to Datacenter Edition only

Apart from that consider your Domain and Forest functional level as well. In windows 2008 R2 you’ll have some cool roles and features but to get that you need to upgrade the functional levels to R2. Consider the following facts.

Transitioning - Migrating this method means you’ll be adding Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers to your existing Active Directory environment. After that migrate the FSMO roles to the new server and safely demote the existing windows 2003 domain controllers. You’ll have to purchase new hardware for this. In case if you’re planning to use your existing hardware then temporary you’ll have to bring a new server with windows 2008 to get the roles transferred. Few things to remember at that time is,

• Global Catalog availability
• Enable your new 2008 DCs as DNS servers (if using Microsoft DNS)
• PDC Emulator sync with external time source
• Ensure the demotion of your existing DCs is fully replicated to all your other DCs before promoting the replacement (if re-using the same name and IP address).
• Changes to your backup and recovery procedures
• Anti-virus software compatibility with 2008
  Monitoring software compability with 2008
• Any other services/applications running on your existing DCs (e.g. CA, WINS, DHCP, File and Print).
• Applications and systems that may be impacted during the outage of your DCs during the demotion/promotion (i.e. those that may be hard-coded to the name or IP address).

Transitioning is possible for Active Directory environments which domain functional level is at least Windows 2000 Native. In a way this is my favorite method considering the risky method of in-place upgrade.

Restructuring – In this method you’re going to create a total different domain and transfer the existing domain details (Eg: user accounts, passwords, profiles…etc) to the new domain. One good example is when a company having two or three domains and they wanted to merge to a one domain name. Microsoft ADMT is one of the useful tool in this scenario(Active Directory Migration Tool) Apart from that there are third party tools available to this kind of transition.

when it comes to upgrade your domain environment careful planning is vital in the beginning to avoid unnecessary problems which can be lead to un-reversible. So take good time to read the documentation and do the lab environment tests. Here is a one good article which can give you some useful information.

PM me if you need any assistance on migrating your company domain environment to windows 2008

Better together with Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7

Few weeks back I had the privilege to conduct a session on Windows 2008 R2 and it’s new features. This session has been combined with Windows 7 and it’s new features. Windows 7 session has been conducted by Sabeshan. He is one of the Microsoft Certified Trainer in NetAssist.

We have conducted this session to audience who comes from filed engineer to IT manger level. So instead being too techie of the product features we highlighted the technology and how they can implement and get quick ROI from their network. When it comes to new technology some companies are slow adaptors and especially with few Enterprise companies. With Business perspective side there are few reasons for that. We wanted to break that barrier and demonstrate how effectively they can use the technology and get their expectations with less complex setup. Though we didn’t went on deep technical level on that day our future sessions will be deep dive into each product feature with live demonstrations.

We kept on demonstrating Windows 7 bit locker features, VHD boot up, Windows 2008 Active Directory Administrative Center, Recycle bin, PowerShell, Group Policy new feature usage….etc. Direct access could have been preferred one but with limited time frame I had to keep that away for a later time.

Well there will be no fun without some introduction on Microsoft licensing :) So we introduce one of Sri Lanka’s distributor as well to do some introduction. So keep in touch guys for more updates on future sessions. Some of the contents has been uploaded to the NetAssist training institute web site which can be reached from following links,

http://netassist.com.lk/windows7.html

Windows 2008 Storage server setup

I have been keeping the Windows 2008 Storage server downloaded iso in my machine for few weeks time and didn't get much time to test it out. Well if you're guessing how I get it I have download it from TechNet subscription, Yes it is available over there :)

Finally I wanted to test the Windows 2008 R2 new cluster features. When it comes to shared storage 2 products are in my mind, one is Windows 2008 Storage server and the other one is StarWind iSCSI software. Since I have already got the MS product I wanted to give it a try.

I carried out the Storage server setup in my HYPER-V rig. Well nothing much talk about the setup since it is similar to the Windows 2008 setup :) Once the setup completed I ran into a problem of guessing a password to log into the system. Can you believe it Microsoft Storage team wanted to have some fun with us!!!

Thanks to some search around I managed to find the password. It is "wSS2008!" So surprise I didn't find that information in the Storage server team's blog
anyway I do hope this article will help someone who is pulling their hair to find out the Storage server default password.

Random updates on HYPER-V faq

While we are helping the customers to upgrade or consider for moving to HYPER-V  there are questions fire up in various ways. One thing I notice is most of them have already heard about the virtualization but laying back due to the lack of information been passed to them about the Virtualization products or maybe they have questions not been answered yet. With this blog article I’m expecting to share some of the questions I have been face and also come common ones I have seen in the forums. I’ll give priority to HYPER-V on this article :) Now as a general understanding I didn’t add the questions like what are the advantages on moving to virtualization since it’ll be well covered by particular vendors :) apart from that do a search at Bing or Google.

1. Is my existing servers capable of running HYPER-V? For this questions we need to check the processor compatibility. To check each respective processor manufactures processor compatibility they have their own tools,
AMD , Intel, Other software

2. What is the most effective way to run HYPER-V? Running HYPER-V on top of server core is the recommended method. In this way you make sure maximum hardware resources are available for the Virtual PC’s. Step by step info available here

3. How can I backup HYPER-V VPC’s using the native windows backup? You can integrate the Windows backup program to backup the virtual PC’s.To do so you need to register the Hyper-V VSS Writer with Windows Server Backup. Click here 

4. How can I move my production servers to virtual environment without reconfiguring or loosing data? You can use Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine (SCVMM) to convert existing physical systems to virtual environment. This conversion can be carried out in two methods, Live conversion and offline conversion. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages plus when to use which option. More about P2V using SCVMM can be found over here.

Those are the questions I can think top of my mind apart from deep level technical questions which I didn’t insert over here. Feel free to drop a note and request more information.

Windows 2008 R2 upgrade paths

In my public session on “Windows 2008 R2” I have been raised with questions about the upgrade path options and how to do the upgrade. Some of the questions related to the upgrade from Windows 2003 domains rest are from Windows 2008 to 2008 R2.

Microsoft has been always trying to focus and listen to customer / partner comments and requests for their product improvement. With R2 they have included a feature called as “Windows server migration tools” This will allow you to carry our the process of transferring services (AD, DNS, DHCP..etc) from your previous Windows operating system to the new Server environment.

So how to do those task using the given tools will be a total separate topic and a separate blog article :)

What operating systems are supported and unsupported in the migration path has been updated on the TechNet.

Windows 2008 Server Core Configurator 2.0

If you’re managing Windows 2008 CORE operating system you know the pain of typing long commands in the console :) (Well we can use RSAY of course but not for everything) I’ve been using Core configuration tool to make life easier since most of the common commands can be managed UI within the core itself. Recently Core configurator version 2.0 has been released. Core configurator 2.0 only works with R2! so if you want to manage the previous versions of Windows 2008 core edition better keep the old version in handy as well.

Core configurator version 2.0 under open source so you have the complete rights to modify it as well :)

Some of the tasks you can do with core configurator are,,

Product Licensing

Networking Features

DCPromo Tool

ISCSI Settings

Server Roles and Features

User and Group Permissions

Share Creation and Deletion

Dynamic Firewall settings

Display | Screensaver Settings

Add & Remove Drivers

Proxy settings

Windows Updates (Including WSUS)

Multipath I/O

Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails

JoinDomain and Computer rename

Add/remove programs

Services

WinRM

Complete logging of all commands executed

You can download it from here.

Sharing knowledge with bright minds

I’ve been very happy when I have been invited to do a session about Microsoft products for students at a University. This is one memorable occasion which I got the chance to work closely with few Sri Lankan MVP’s as well. This University is located in Kandy, too bad we forgot get some pictures of the surroundings.

So what is interesting is the eager students had to learn about the new technologies and especially about the Microsoft side. They have been well armed with Open source technology but had certain knowledge about the Microsoft products and how those products can be used effectively. In this event we had the chance to demonstrate several products and how to use them effectively on their lifestyle.

I also got to know University students has been selected to receive several Microsoft products free!! (Can’t name the products now until the announcement comes from the Microsoft itself :) ) But that indication has been given to the students at that time. Look forward for more events like this and to share the knowledge.

 

Booting HYPER-V Guest from an an iSCSI LUN

This is a another cool feature in virtualization I wanted to try out and see some significant advantages in production environment. In this scenario instead of assigning a virtual hard disk file a to a guest operating system we’re allowing it to access the raw disk in a SAN directly or it can be a raw disk internally in the system. (Sometimes this is referred as LUN passthrough) To do this first in the iSCSI storage you need to create a LUN and assign some disk space. Then in the HYPER-V host computer under the disk management you will be able to see the disk. But the important thing is not to let host PC to initialize the disk and keeping it offline. If the host machine take over the control of the disk then we won’t be able to allow guest PC to directly take control and write into that disk thus guest PC will be fail to start. Once LUN setup properly it’ll be looks like the way it shows in the picture,

After that you can go to HYPER-V management console and start creating a new disk. When it comes to assigning a VHD skip the process and create the Virtual machine configuration file. After that got to the settings on configuration file go to disk controller and select add disk. Instead of creating or adding existing VHD files select the Physical hard disk and select the correct disk number. In my demonstration scenario it will be Disk 2. Below picture demonstrate how we can mount the pass though disk.

So after that you’ll be able to start the VPC and carry on the preferred Operating System installation. One main advantage is disk will give you improved disk I/O performance since VPC directly accessing the raw disk in the SAN environment. If you’re planning to host disk I/O intensive application in virtualized environment (Eg: SQL database, Exchange, SAP…etc) this would be a good option to consider.

Well another advantage that strikes to my mind is this will prevent the waste of usable disk capacity. Take a scenario like this, when you create a 100 GB disk portion in a raw disk and format it with NTFS you will get around 95GB or less due to the file system. Inside that when you try to create a fix hard disk it will also consume some disk space. But allowing the guest OS to take the direct control over the raw disk that disk space wastage will be minimize. So why I’m concern about this to put over here is I actually experience this barrier in hard way and lean the lesson :)

Some disadvantages are you won’t be able to take snapshotting, won’t be able to create dynamic expanding disks of the guest operating system. The main reason being is host VSS won’t be able to capture the raw disk. You’ll have to consider using DPM or third party backup solution  backup and recover the VPC. Of course that would be a another topic to discuss which will come very soon :)

How to extend trial period of Windows 2008, Windows Vista and Windows 7 products

 

Most of the time I use Windows 2008 products for video recordings and customer site demonstrations. During this period I use TechNet subscription materials for this purpose. Once issue I have been facing is when I want to do another demo after few weeks time the VPC cannot be used do the trial period of the product has been expired! Registering the demonstration purpose operating systems frequently is not an easy option either (Even though I create a set of VPC like that once)

With Windows 2008 you’re getting trial period of 30 days. But if you’re smart enough now there is  way to extend that period for 180 or more. This is really valuable because that means we can keep the vpc’s running properly under trail period for nearly 6 months! (For me that is more than enough!) Good news is this trial extend work around is working for Vista and Windows 7 as well. ok so let’s get start how to extend the trial period.

What we have to do is run a script in the windows\system32 folder called slmgr.vbs. 

1. Bring up a Command Prompt.
2. Type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and press ENTER.
3. Restart the computer.

You computer has now extended the evaluation period 60 days!  You can run the same command in the same system for 3 times up giving you an activation-free trial period of a total of 240 days!

To find out how many days remain in the trial period you can use the following command.

1. Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and the current status of the evaluation period is displayed.

Be curious and check out additional commands available in the slmgr.vbs