Are you new to Virtualization? Do you want to learn the best ways to manipulate Virtual Server using the Virtual Server API? Do you want to learn about future Microsoft Virtualization technologies such as Carmine and VT support in Longorn? Well, today is your lucky day.
In its continuing effort to provide customers with the latest technology, Microsoft has launched the Virtualization Events lab series. During 3 days, you will learn everything you need to know in order to code your way through Virtual Server. Please bear in mind that the lab is not targetted for the IT Pro, but instead for programmers who want to learn the latest tips and tricks without having to read through thousands of pages of documentation.
Virtualization is a very hot topic, and I would not be surprised if the events filled up very quickly, so act fast if you want a seat reserved!
On November 6th, Microsoft had a big announcement to make. This announcement is only the beginning of something that will, without a doubt, become a huge success: the VHD Test Drive program.
The program’s idea is that a user can download a pre-configured VHD that has and operating system already installed. The idea is evolved a bit more in the sense that the VHD not only has an OS, but also has some kind of pre-configured environment in order to test out a particular product without the hassle to go through difficult setups.
For instance, if you want to test drive Exchange Server 2007 quickly and effortlessly, just download this VHD and you are good to go. Want to install something on Windows Server R2 without having to install the OS? This VHD right here will help you accomplish your task.
There are 4 VHDs available for download, the entire list is summarised below:
For the official press release, click here.
The race between Microsoft and VMWare for the virtualization space can only offer benefits to the end user. The close competition will push the limits of both Microsoft and VMWare in offering the best of each other. Point in case is the (beta) release VMWare's Converter.
The VMWare converter makes the process of moving a physical machine to a virtual a painless process. So far in our tests, we've managed to hack our way with some
unconventional methods, but these take a lot of time. The VMWare tools offers a new level of Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion by having a manager that can queue operations for this process. It is fully scriptable as well, which can only simply and make the whole process more efficient for system administrators.
Microsoft is not falling behind in this area. The Virtual Machine Manager has plans for not only fully automating P2V conversions but guiding you on the best Virtual Server where the new physical machine can be. Unfortunately, this is not currently supported at the beta stage that the product is right now, but from demos I have seen I am sure it will be a sure contender to VMWare's offerings.
For more info on VMWare's Converter visit
this page and for Microsoft's Virtual Machine Manager info, check
this site out.
When working with these labs, people who have heard about the hypervisor integration
usually ask what is going to be different between the hypervisor and the current offerings or Virtual Server 2005 R2 Beta. In this link, you an find extensive information about the difference between them, but of special interest is the table below:
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Windows Server Virtualization
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Yes, up to 8 processor VMs
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Hot add memory/processors?
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Hot add storage/networking?
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Can be managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager?
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More than 64. As many as hardware will allow.
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This table only goes to show that Microsoft’s Virtualization strategy in the future will offer a lot more than Virtual Server. Keep in mind that these features will be available about 180 days after Windows Longhorn Server ships, so until then, we will just have to sit back and watch these long awaited features with a lot of patience.
It is a well known fact that dynamic VHDs that reach their limit cannot be made any bigger when running in Virtual Server. I recently stumbled onto this problem when creating a differentiating disk from a base install of a dynamic disk of Win2K3 with 2 GB tops space. I had two choices at this point:
- Create a new VHD and install everything I had done
- Try to find a way to expand the VHD with whatever hack came to my mind.
Being the stubborn person that I am, I decided to follow the latter.
The good news is that i t can be done - the bad news is that it may be a bit of an overkill! Anyhow, here is what you need:
- A BartPE ISO that has some kind of imaging utility (ours has Ghost and TrueImage - amazing programs!)
- A fixed empty VHD that will fit the image of the disk you are trying to expand
- Lots of patience
Step 1: Image the Image- Add the BartPE.iso as an additional CD-ROM Drive
- Add the empty VHD (let's call it images.vhd) as an additional VHD
- Boot your PC, it should boot from the CD and Bart-PE should start
- Format images.vhd into an NTFS drive using whatever you want
- Create an image of your source disk (the one you are trying to expand) and place it on the images drive
Step 2: Restore the Image- Create a new VM configuration with a new VHD that will hold the new size (format it as NTFS with any utility you like)
- Add the BartPE.iso as an additional CD-ROM Drive
- Add the images VHD as an additional VHD
- Boot your PC, it should boot from the CD and Bart-PE should start
- Use Ghost or whatever you want to restore from the Image from the Images.vhd
Reboot. Enjoy!
Without a doubt, Virtualization is
the tech buzz word for this year. Every newsletter I receive has a link to at least 3 VT sites. Recently I stumbled on
this entry which is a podcast by
Dean Wells, who does a great job explaining what IT should consider nowadays when making computer purchases.
I think many IT departments are blindly making purchases of hardware that do not support VT technology. What they don't know is that the moment they purchase this new equipment, they are pretty much buying outdated equipment. Mr. Wells does an amazing job explaining what IT departments should strive for when making these types of decisions, it is definitely worth a listen.
I have to admit I was a bit shocked when I tried to copy and paste text between VMs using Virtual Server. The clipboard was not copied at all and there was no easy way to transfer text back and forth. I tried installing the Virtual PC Additions and still no luck. I could not believe they left out a feature like this one out - I don't know if enabling this is trivial using some super secret setting, but until then, here is a workaround.
It is actually quite simple, and it was
Stephen who hinted me on this while I was ranting. On the host machine, enable Remote Desktop Connections and connect using a RDC client. You will be connecting to the VM just like any other mahine, and RDC supports copying and pasting of text back and forth.
Not the best solution, I know, but it gets the job done. It is also worth noting that the same problem happens with VMWare's VM player.
Usually when you install a beta OS with a beta productivity app, things can go wrong, or at least that's what you expect. That was exactly what I thought when I tried to install the latest beta of Virtual Server on Longhorn Beta. I got an error telling me that I did not have IIS installed and could therefore could not install Virtual Server. After reading the an old
blog entry from the
Virtual PC Guy's weblog (this guy gets paid to test old games ;), the soulution is simply to install ALL the IIS 6 Management Compatibility components and you are good to go:
...welll...as far as installing goes. I am now having problems with other things for which I hope to post the solution pretty soon...ah the beauty of beta software!!
After reading Jose's blog
entry, I immediately had some questions about virtualization on the new
dual-core Itanium architecture. First and foremost, which software vendor
out there has a Virtualization solution that supports the Itanium? As far
as I know, the roadmap for Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 does not include support
for the Itanium. Longhorn's roadmap does not include any foreseen support
for the hypervisor on the Itanium either, so no luck in there as well.
Secondly, if some company indeed supported VT on the Itanium and allowed you to
say, run Windows XP 32-bit on a virtual machine, would that be faster
than running the a 32-bit application directly on Windows Server for the
Itanium? Also, how would the WoW64’s performance (which IMHO is the
Itanium's Achilles’ heel) be affected by the fact that there is VT support?
These are many, many questions for which I have no answer
for and hopefully will be addressed soon enough.