Virtualization Team

Signs of an immature market

But is it really necessary for hypervisors to be a proprietary technology? Efforts by Microsoft and VMware to differentiate their hypervisors remind us of the networking situation thirty years ago, when all power suppliers believed in different technologies (Token Ring, Ethernet, ARCNET, etc.). Gradually, however, manufacturers have accepted the idea that taking a common standard (TCP/IP over Ethernet) and concentrating their efforts on innovation in the upper levels of the software stack, stimulates the growth of the market as a whole and, consequently, the value of the manufacturer’s own share of the pie. It seems that in the case of virtualization, suppliers are not yet ready to see the situation from this perspective. Today, speeches still revolve around concepts such as speed and feeds, but probably the market itself will finish by imposing its own rules.

Microsoft has just released Hyper-V, its new hypervisor software that will be the foundation of virtualization on Windows Server 2008. This release will force VMware to finally confront a dangerous opponent in the market of virtualization of Windows servers. Unfortunately, Microsoft has decided to follow in the footsteps of VMware by choosing their own unique way of doing things, and VMware also refuses to cooperate. The result: IT departments are faced with the need to choose between two mutually incompatible virtualization options.

Virtualization is based on a fine code, called hypervisor, which is located on the hardware and abstracted from the Windows virtual servers running on the upper level. The primary purpose of hypervisors is to redirect requests between multiple virtual machines and the original hardware, so that each VM believes that the hardware is its own.

1- Deploying & Discovering Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM (Posted by MSHyper-V at this blog earlier).

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.

2. Deploying Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-v RTM (slipstreamed)

Deploying Windows Server 2008 using “slipstreamed” Hyper-V RTM -Part1
Deploying Windows Server 2008 using “slipstreamed” Hyper-V RTM -Part2

3. Snapshots in Hyper-V

The development team has just announced the availability of the RTM version of Hyper-V much earlier than the scheduled date, which was set to be 180 days after the RTM of Windows Server 2008 (end of August).

It’s now possible for everyone to use in-production Hyper-V RTM and to download bits from here.

As of July 8, Hyper-V RTM will also be available on Windows Update.

More than 250 customers who participated in the early adoption programs have actively contributed to the development of Hyper-V.

Here are just a few of those reported in the press:

Land O’Lakes
HotSchedules
The SCOOTER Store

The next step is Microsoft’s Hyper-V Server: This is a hypervisor-based technology included in the Windows Server 2008. This version, specifically designed to be distributed with the servers directly from the hardware vendor, will be very small in size, have a simple interface and will not be able to create clusters of virtualization hosts.

To date, there is no news of a second version of Hyper-V.

I have put together a short list of what I would like to see in the next version of Hyper-V:

Live Migration: Despite the fact that, in many cases, Quick Migration (VM transfer in Hyper-V) is sufficient to handle the needs of system administrators, I believe that the possibility of migrating “hot” VM is a function that cannot be left out of the next version if you want to capture the high of the virtualization market.

If you already know what tokens, SIDs and DACLs are, skip ahead and go directly to the first image below.

Ever since Windows NT, the basic principle of Windows security, (i.e. Discretionary Access Control) uses SID and ACL (access control list). For a more detailed explanation, I recommend that you read Chapter 8 of the book “Windows Internals” by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon. Another good reference is the chapter on Authorization and Access Control Technologies of the Windows Server 2003 technical library.

As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip. <==
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology.

As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology. <==

As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings. <==
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology.

As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation. <==
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology.

As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings. <==
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology.

As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation <==
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology.

Few days ago, Microsoft announced at the Microsot Management Summit 2008 launch of the beta of SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008), eagerly awaited in the market. This console management aims to make the shade of VMware VirtualCenter. According to Microsoft, the product is not only capable of handling both the VMs of Virtual Server 2005 R2 and hyper-v but also machines based on ESX.

Microsoft hopes to entice users (especially SMBs), especially those who chose VMware for a long time, to use its console to manage their VMs. The later would not need Virtual Center, or VMotion, one last point that still leaves dreamer, if we are to believe the numerous criticisms of QuickMotion, the equivalent VMotion at Microsoft, which is not the leader arrival.

These days, a new version of the popular VMware VMmark is being released. VMmark is a benchmark software of VMware used to see how much phy. Machines can afford! Many manufacturers, such as Sun Microsystems, HP and so on, publish these benchmarks.
In the new version 1.1 64-bit machines will be put to the tests.
We must be curious what the new version and the forthcoming test on the CPU’s Barcelone outcome will be!!!!!

Download here.

Microsoft has spent an important steps in virtualization since it has announced the Release Candidate version of its a long waited Hyper-V. Already present in Windows 2008 Server Beta, this update (RC 0) Install on 2008 can see, a little more prepared for the final version that is evolving over time. Thus, Microsoft intends to take a sector already acquired by VMWare. Microsoft hopes to convince businesses to choose their virtualization solution, by partnering with large companies like Dell, AMD, Siemens, Intel, IBM… to improve the stability of its programs in all types of enviornments.

Microsoft has just announced a list of operating systems described as compatible and tested on Hyper-V which now includes Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.