Then Hyper-Vacate your datatacenter — stat!

Thanks to a new feature in VMware vSphere 4.1 to convert and import virtual machines — also known as V2V — from a Hyper-V host, Hyper-Vacating is now easier than ever.  From the What’s New in vSphere 4.1 document:

vCenter Converter Hyper-V Import. vCenter Converter allows users to point to a Hyper-V machine. Converter displays the virtual machines running on the Hyper-V system, and users can select a powered-off virtual machine to import to a VMware destination. See the vCenter Converter Installation and Administration Guide.

It has always been possible to import a Hyper-V VM — even before vSphere 4.1 — by simply treating it as a powered-on physical machine;  this is still a valid approach for those that prefer to do a hot conversion.  The new enhancement in 4.1 allows a cold conversion, which is worth considering to ensure a completely consistent V2V copy.

Downtime?

A cold conversion will require some downtime for the Hyper-V virtual machine.  As a vSphere administrator, you may not be familiar with the nuances of Hyper-V, but the good news is that users serviced by a Hyper-V infrastructure are not unfamiliar with downtime.  That’s because tasks like removing a snapshot require VMs to be powered off.  Therefore, do not be too concerned with this brief outage.

Visual Walk-Through

If you have installed vCenter Server with vCenter Converter and plug-in, a wizard will guide you through the entire process.  Take a look at some of the key steps:

Select Hyper-V as the source type:

Allow a Converter agent to be installed on the Hyper-V host:

Select a powered-off virtual machine from the listed inventory:

Customize the destination vSphere VM as needed.  You can convert to vSphere thin provisioning and make a number of other modifications, such as disabling the Hyper-V components inside the guest.

After the process begins, a summary can be found by right-clicking the task in the vSphere Client:

Hyper-Vacated!

Hopefully, you have already standardized on the best virtualization platform available, but if you find yourself needing to move Hyper-V VMs to vSphere, this new vCenter Converter capability could save the day.

Related posts:

1. PowerShell Prevents Datastore Emergencies
2. Hyper-V Linux Smokescreen
3. VMware vSphere 4.1 – the best virtualization platform yet
4. VMware vCenter CapacityIQ 1.0.1 for vSphere

No matter how you slice it, VMware vSphere is simply the best virtualization platform available.  Let’s take a look at a few points to back up this claim.

Favorable Reviews

VMware vSphere 4.1 launched last month and has been very favorably reviewed by mainstream technical media:

• InfoWorld: VMware vSphere 4.1 keeps the virtualization crown
• eWeek: VMware vSphere 4.1 Features Large Capacity Cluster, VM Density

Gartner Magic Quadrant

Recently, Gartner, Inc. published the Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure and placed VMware in the Leaders Quadrant.  Please see the full report for details.

In-Depth Virtualization Platform Comparisons

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to clearly articulate your requirements for the advanced capabilities of VMware vSphere, have no fear — VMware provides very helpful material to guide users through concise platform comparisons.  From a Windows admin considering Hyper-V to upper management helpfully suggesting the “free” XenServer hypervisor, you should have no trouble explaining why the exclusive features found in vSphere are the only choice for building your private cloud.

All of this great material has been updated for vSphere 4.1:

• vSphere 4.1 Features and Benefits Comparison – Excellent matrix covering vSphere, Hyper-V, XenServer, and RHEV
• vSphere 4.1 Competitive Reviewer’s Guide – Comprehensive coverage of capabilities
• The VMware Advantages website – Perfect overview of the key advantages; links are easy to email around
• Why Choose VMware Whitepaper – Based on the material from the above website; easy to read and share

Another great technical resource to bookmark is the vSphere 4.1 link collection from Eric Siebert, purveyor of quality VMware information.

The Best is the Best

There is only one best and only one virtualization platform that offers all of the advanced capabilities of VMware vSphere.

Related posts:

1. Multiple hypervisors? What about multiple SANs?
2. VMworld 2010 – TA8188: Competitive Platform Shootout
3. Book Review: Maximum vSphere
4. Hyper-Vacating Your Datacenter with vSphere 4.1

I thought it would be interesting to go back to MMS 2009 and take a look at some of the futures Microsoft was selling in the virtualization space.

MMS 2009 Day 1 Keynote Demo

One of the big demos on stage during the day 1 keynote session was the seamless integration of public and private clouds — possible only with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager technology, according to the script.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a vendor demonstrating visionary technology in a setting like this.  But if you actively call out your competitors as being incapable of offering a particular solution, a higher level of scrutiny is certainly warranted.

The Setup

Microsoft has secretly replaced some of the regular icons in SCVMM with cloud icons.  Let’s see if anyone notices…

Whoops, the keynote presenter let the cat out of the bag:

The host with the cloud icons are part of the public cloud hosted by Maximum ASP, while the host with the regular cloud server icon are part of my private cloud.

Wow, public and private cloud — two great tastes that taste great together.  And the significance?

Vendors like VMware want you to believe that you have to revolutionize both the data center and the cloud in order to take advantage of scenarios like this. They want you to rearchitect your entire infrastructure. Our existing System Center customers have the foundation today by which to seamlessly move from the private cloud to the public cloud.

This preview of a future release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager shows you the potential of the integration of the private cloud with the public cloud. You can get started today by taking advantage of Maximum ASP’s public cloud hosting capabilities.

Okay, I get it.  Someday SCVMM will be able to talk to a Hyper-V machine at some web host and you won’t have to rearchitect anything — and you can get a taste of it today somehow by signing up with MaximumASP.

What a difference a year (didn’t) make

I recently contacted MaximumASP (i.e., a year later) to see how things are going with their public-private cloud.  This was the response:

The public-private cloud is not a product we are offering at this time. During the demo it was simply a POC that was constructed with Microsoft.

Well, we all knew it was a POC.  But why would Microsoft make such a powerful point that VMware cannot offer this capability?  Is this FUD?

The recap

A year ago, Microsoft attacked the virtualization industry leader for not offering a feature equivalent to a fake concocted demo they highlighted during their keynote.  Surprisingly, a year later, Microsoft and their hosting partner are still not offering the convoluted capability.

Frankly, this is not cloud computing — public or private.  This stunt merely highlighted the fact that you can place a hypervisor host at a remote location and manage it from the same console that you use to manage the other hosts in your datacenter.

Oh, and as for the web server VM they migrated from the “private” to “public” cloud — no details on just how the clients of that service would find it in the new location… but that’s another topic.

Related posts:

1. Wild SCVMM 2008 R2 rumors and speculation
2. SCVMM ignores own plank, emphasizes VirtualCenter’s speck
3. Is SCVMM 2008 R2 really banned from VMworld?
4. SCVMM to VMware: You will be assimilated

Windows deserves applause for reliability improvements in recent years.  Unfortunately, the most reliable Windows design will never be able to counteract the damage that can be inflicted by a misbehaving device driver.  In fact, take a look at this slide from a Mark Russinovich TechEd session where he makes the point that the majority of Windows blue screens (BSODs) are caused by third-party drivers:

Experts agree — Windows reliability is a function of driver reliability.

What about those drivers included with Windows?

You might be under the impression that these third-party drivers are for off-brand NICs purchased from the clearance bin at Fry’s.  That’s not exactly the case — plenty of drivers are included right on the Windows DVD.

Consider this recent situation detailed by Mark Wilson.  He set up a Hyper-V test machine with some Intel PRO/100 NIC cards and when he plugged in an Ethernet cable — instant BSOD!

Mark’s conclusion:

It’s good to know that Hyper-V was not at fault here: sure, it shows that a rogue device driver can bring down a Windows system but that’s hardly breaking news…

Meanwhile, back at the datacenter

Microsoft Hyper-V poster child Crutchfield recently found that the Broadcom NICs embedded in every one of their Dell servers were randomly losing virtual switch bindings after upgrading to Hyper-V R2.  Hello downtime!

The administrator left us with the following thoughts:

Currently, Microsoft doesn’t have a work around for this issue and nor is there an ETA for resolution. After all, it may not be Microsoft, but could very well be Broadcom.

So, what do we do? Well, in my configurations I can’t afford these little gotchas and I will be working only with my trusted Intel NIC’s for my virtual networks.

Uh, you might want to check with Mark Wilson first about Intel drivers and Hyper-V.

The chain breaks when the weakest link fails

Notice the consistent theme in these two scenarios?  The administrators are not blaming Hyper-V, instead focusing on the third-party hardware and drivers.  Folks, it just does not matter — a hypervisor failure is incredibly disruptive.

When selecting the foundation for your private cloud, will you choose a hypervisor based on a general-purpose OS that aims to support hundreds of hardware variations from across the spectrum?  Or will you build on a rock-sold, purpose-built platform that is specifically designed to aggregate and pool resources in your datacenter?

Related posts:

1. Yes, NIC teaming is not unsupported
2. Hyper-V Linux integration components no longer Connected
3. Of Mice and Xen
4. The Million Hypervisor March

“Yo dawg, I heard you like Patch Tuesday, so I put Windows in your hypervisor so you can patch it while you virtualize!”

Inspired by a joke from Kendrick Coleman. With apologies to Xzibit.

Related posts:

1. Let them eat cake!
2. Half the VM reboots on Patch Tuesday
3. A very flashy hypervisor: Hyper-V Server R2
4. Hyper-V Server Hyperbole

One outstanding achievement is the way the Hyper-V architects managed to completely collapse the guest operating system layer directly into the hypervisor.  Take a look at this diagram from a Microsoft Virtualization competitive brochure:

[Yes, it's that same brochure again.]

There are several key differences between Microsoft and VMware hypervisor architectures.  While the hardware and applications layers are pretty straightforward, applications don’t run directly on hardware.  As you are about to see, these two platforms take very different approaches when it comes to virtualizing workloads.

The VMware vSphere solution is to use a thin, high-performance virtualization layer that enables a single physical system to simultaneously host multiple virtual machines.  Each of these virtual machines executes isolated instances of traditional guest operating systems — Windows, Linux, Solaris, Netware, etc.

Due to apparent technological advancements in Hyper-V, it is now possible to run applications of all kinds directly on that integrated Windows OS/hypervisor layer without the need for a guest operating system at all.  This allows Microsoft to omit an entire layer from their virtualization architecture.

I’m sure you have seen various announcements about the exceptional support that Hyper-V has for Linux workloads.  Without a guest operating system layer, one must logically conclude that Linux applications are actually running on the Windows/Hyper-V hypervisor integration directly.  Spectacular!

I thought I’d test this technological breakthrough in the lab myself by running Postfix, a very popular Linux SMTP mail server, on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.  According to the diagram above, Postfix is classified as an application — the third layer.

Now, in order to install Postfix, I have to interact with the second layer in the stack, which is the “Microsoft Operating System w/Virtualization.”  Since I’m an RHCE, I decided to use a Red Hat Enterprise Linux package of Postfix, but we can all agree that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 would work equally well.  However, I would not recommend using Ubuntu packages since that distribution is not supported by Hyper-V.  Another side benefit to this technique is the fact that Windows has great mouse support.

Just as one would do on a legacy Linux system, I opened a trusty command shell and installed the package like so:

This is the first step to getting Postfix installed and running.  I do have to admit that it took a few additional troubleshooting steps in my case — most certainly unique to my environment, so I will spare the details.

In order to complete the Postfix implementation, you’ll need to edit several configuration files.  Do not use Notepad for this, as it does not understand the peculiar format of these text files:

One would think that the virtualization layer could also dynamically accommodate for UNIX line formatting, but that evidently was not part of the design.  Fortunately, this is a very minor issue since WordPad can be used without problem:

Once you have the basic configuration in place, restart the service and validate — telnet to port 25 and send a test email.

There you have it, amazing Hyper-V virtualization — same capabilities as VMware vSphere with 25 percent fewer layers!

Related posts:

1. Choose any two: Hyper-V, HA, Linux
2. Even GPL can’t make Hyper-V Linux VMs well
3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not Enterprise Virtualization
4. Which guest operating systems can be customized by SCVMM?

I just found another point of view on hypervisor footprint size — take a look at this excerpt:

Small footprint: any features not applicable to our specific … scenarios are removed.  This guarantees that we do not have to worry about updating or fixing unnecessary code, meaning less churning or required reboots for the host.  All critical code paths are also highly optimized for our … scenarios.

Any guesses where that came from?  Must be more of that VMware FUD!

Actually, it was one of the Windows Azure design principles.  Which makes sense if you think about it — vSphere, with small-footprint ESXi,  is the perfect foundation for cloud computing.

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2. A very flashy hypervisor: Hyper-V Server R2
3. Cloudy with a chance of vaporware
4. Hyper-V Server Hyperbole

A screenshot of Dynamic Memory configuration in a post-RTM build of Windows Server 2008 R2 has surfaced in an article at Softpedia.

Listen… Do you hear that?

It’s the sound of Microsoft Virtualization curbing their criticism of memory overcommit.

Hat tip to Aidan Finn.

Related posts:

1. The Truth About Hyper-V Memory Overcommit
2. Hyper-V More Stable, Just as Mature as VMware vSphere?
3. InformationWeek: Hyper-V Not For Enterprise
4. SCVMM Damage Control

The author worked extra hard to refute all 9 points — but I do admit being somewhat distracted by the gratuitous use of VMWare throughout.  Evidently, proofreading — unlike immeasurable technology and services discounts — is not one of the benefits extended to guest posters these days, which is a shame.

The Microsoft Virtualization MVP tries to use most of the pages from the playbook, such as memory overcommit FUD:

Relying on a host to overcommit memory to support failover hosts is potentially dangerous and incorrect oversubscription leads to all VMs suffering from performance.

Have you ever had a VM suffer from performance?  I have, and believe me — it’s not pleasant.

But here is a familiar line:

… I would never over commit my VM hosts in production.

Where have we heard that before?   I almost forgot to mention that this guest poster is none other than Chris Steffen — the star of that now-infamous CIO Magazine article who once called VMotion a “gimmick” and said:

I don’t know what kind of environment other than QA or development, or in a staging environment you’d want to do [live migration], but it’s not going to be in any production environment I’m responsible for; it’s not going to be any environment dependent on any kind of SLA or performance requirements. The justification for the inherent risk just isn’t there.

But what does Mr. Steffen say now that Hyper-V has Live Migration?  About what you’d expect — and more:

Also keep in mind that using the System Center suite, the Microsoft solution can Live Migrate VMs to other hosts due to situations that VMware servers cannot even monitor, such as CPU Power, Power Supply Failures, and Fibre Channel congestion.

There are a number of other gems in this convincing piece.  Did you know:

• Hyper-V is more stable than and at least as secure as VMWare [sic]
• vSphere is just as new as Hyper-V

Yep, there is a full-day supply of Kool-Aid in that guest post.

Nice work, Microsoft Virtualization team.  I’m not so sure this sort of thing helps your cause — please keep it up.

Related posts:

1. The Truth About Hyper-V Memory Overcommit
2. On Quick Storage Migration in R2
3. Hello Dynamic Memory?
4. How to see if Quick Migration is right for your workload

The Cost Per Application Calculator makes it clear that investing in VMware vSphere 4 significantly reduces your datacenter hardware footprint and associated costs.  Scott Drummonds, the VMware performance expert, recently explained how memory overcommit is the only way to effectively use all of the physical RAM in a hypervisor.

Each time this topic comes up, Microsoft revs up their marketing machine and responds like this:

• Hyper-V is free, use your money to buy RAM upgrades instead of VMware vSphere licenses
• Memory overcommit is risky, VMware tells customers to turn it off anyway

The truth is that Hyper-V will have memory overcommit the moment Microsoft figures it out.  If that day ever does come, watch the messaging quickly change to the familiar, “our customers asked us to implement this…” line.

Why is it fair to make such a bold claim?  Two words:

Dynamic Memory

It’s a little known fact that some of the early releases of Hyper-V R2 actually had a feature that allowed administrators to assign more RAM to virtual machines than was physically present on the host — “Dynamic Memory” a.k.a. memory overcommit.

We can look back and see what bloggers like Mark Wilson had to say:

Microsoft also spoke to me about a dynamic memory capability (just like the balloon model that competitors offer). I asked why the company had been so vocal in downplaying competitive implementations of this technology yet was now implementing something similar and Ward Ralston explained to me that this is not the right solution for everyone but may help to handle memory usage spikes in a VDI environment. Since then, I’ve been advised that dynamic memory will not be in the beta release of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft is evaluating options for inclusion (or otherwise) at release candidate stage.

And this blog provided more detail on the implementation:

In Hyper-V 1.0, physical memory was hard allocated to the VMs, but in 2.0 the pool of memory is dynamically allocated and removed based VM usage with no service interruption. Dynamically allocating memory to VMs can drastically improve host consolidation rates.

Hyper-V 2.0 VMs are configured with an initial RAM setting (how much the machine boots with) as well as minimum and maximum RAM values. Hyper-V then adds RAM using the Hot-Add function, and removes it using a balloon driver (for supported OSes).

For the visual learners in the crowd, take a look at this VM configuration dialog:

Note that this is nothing like Transparent Page Sharing in VMware ESX — Hyper-V VMs would actually be reconfigured using hot-add memory, so the guest operating systems must cooperate.

In an interview with Steven Bink, even Bob Muglia acknowledged the need for overcommit:

We talked about Vmware ESX and its features like shared memory between VMs, “we definitely need to put that in our product” later [Muglia] said it will be in the next release. Like hot add memory, disk and nic’s will be and Live migration of course, which didn’t make it in this release.

By the way, hot-add memory didn’t make it into Hyper-V R2, either — VMware ESX 4 has it today.

Quick Memory Overcommit?

Evidently, dynamic memory was not even up to the rigorous “Quick” standard and was dropped from the release train.  Perhaps in some future edition of Hyper-V, Quick Memory Overcommit will be offered — with just a few seconds of VM downtime as RAM allocation is dynamically adjusted.  But that’s  just speculation.

Sour Grapes

Instead of finding a way to implement memory overcommit in Hyper-V R2, Microsoft has taken the alternate approach of attacking VMware and declaring the feature unnecessary, unsafe, or too expensive.

The fact is that memory overcommit is an extremely valuable capability and VMware ESX has had it all along.  Some of the Linux-based hypervisors are starting to figure it out.  Until Hyper-V finally adds the feature we’ll continue to hear how easy it is to simply buy more RAM.

How long can you afford to wait?

Related posts:

1. Hello Dynamic Memory?
2. The Truth About Storage Hot Add and Remove
3. Exclusive: Hyper-V 2013 Product Roadmap
4. Hyper-V More Stable, Just as Mature as VMware vSphere?