Planning and What's New in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for Virtualization

Editor's Notes

• #7: The next demonstration will provide examples of the types of information that the Microsoft Assessment Planning (MAP) Toolkit collects, so just provide a summary of the features in this topic. Stress that the MAP data collection process does not require that an agent be installed on the scanned computer, but that it will require administrator access to the computers, and the client firewalls will need to be configured to enable the remote collection of information. The client firewalls must be configured to enable Remote Administration (TPC port 135), and File and Printer Sharing (TCP ports 139 and 445, and UDP ports 137 and 138).MAP provides secure, agentless, and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises. It collects and organizes system resources and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried, but this tool does not. MAP uses technologies already available in your IT environment to perform inventory and assessments. These technologies include Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, Active Directory Domain Services, and the Computer Browser service. You can use MAP to inventory the following technologies:Windows 7Windows Vista Windows XP Professional Office 2010 and previous versionsWindows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2 Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 ServerVMware ESXVMware ESXiVMware Server Linux variantsLAMP application stack discoverySQL Server 2008The MAP Toolkit’s Software Usage Tracker feature provides Microsoft Volume Licensing customers with consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft server products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. MAP’s software usage tracker provides secure, agentless, and network-wide inventory that collects and organizes software usage information and client access history for the following Microsoft servers:Windows ServerSharePoint ServerExchange ServerSQL ServerSystem Center Configuration ManagerWith the MAP software usage tracker, you can run updated reports whenever you need to accurately assess current software usage and client access history in your environment. This reduces time and administrative costs for managing your server and client access licenses (CALs) and helps you to streamline the management of your software assets
• #13: Now, the two features, as it turns out, are very exciting in the context of you being a VDI user, because really on the cost side one of the challenges you have in VDI is when you have desktops, you have lots of desktops. And if each desktop requires a 2 gigabyte, for example, amount of memory, which is a good amount of memory to run Windows 7, then your server memory capacity is going to be stretched at a relatively short timeframe. So, given that in the desktop environment, not everybody is using their desktops at the same level at the same time, are there optimizations that we can do to fix that, and I think there are. So, the notion here is that while you should always size your systems relative to what your peak capacity is, and this Dynamic Memory doesn't help with peak capacity, you can definitely improve your capacity over time, given that some people are using their desktops, some people are being very intensive on what they're doing on the desktops, some people are being very light on what they're doing on the desktops, and some people frankly have their VDI desktops open but are in meetings and are not using it at all. So, depending on what the workload is on a specific desktop, the memory requirement changes. So, this Dynamic Memory feature really takes advantage of that fact, and dynamically sizes the memory of the virtual machine based on the requirements of that virtual machine.So, you set the little radio box here to dynamic, with some parameters around it, and Hyper-V begins controlling the memory management of Windows. So, when I go to a meeting and I'm not running anything, then that virtual machine will give back its memory back to the pool, and another virtual machine can use that memory. When I'm back and I'm loading multiple instances of Excel and doing lots of complex calculations, then Hyper-V will go ahead and give me back memory from the pool. So, what this feature really does is improve the overall capacity by recognizing that various workloads are sometimes strongly used, sometimes not used at all, and in aggregate the system can do a better job of memory management through the Hyper-V than within each one of the virtual machines. So, Dynamic Memory is an exciting feature coming in Windows Server 2008 R2 service pack 1. A second key feature here is really RemoteFX. Now, RemoteFX is really focused on the fact that the VDI user experience is a lower user experience than the PC user experience. There are some physics challenges, of course, associated with this, wide area networks in particular, and actually our partner Citrix is probably the leader in the market in terms of providing a wide area network experience. However, what we have done is really focused on a technology we call RemoteFX that improves over LAN networks the user experience, and in particular some of the key areas historically with a VDI experience that have been a challenge have included things like 3D graphics. So, if you are thinking about using a CAD/CAM or if you're thinking about using any 3D software in your VDI environment, it's historically been a challenge. And the RemoteFX technology, which comes from the acquisition of Calista that we made in 2008, really addresses that. RemoteFX technology builds on the notion that you install server-side graphics hardware, and by putting a server-side graphics card in, the computing of the graphics experience occurs on the server, and you can have a full fidelity graphics rich desktop piped to any type of device: thin client, PC, the whole lot. So, what you can see here on this small screenshot is full Aero glass. You get things like peek and thumbnails and the whole lot. And, in addition to that, your OpenGL, your direct 3D applications just work. So, the fidelity of the desktop experience is significantly higher for LAN environments using RemoteFX. And RemoteFX, in fact, is a very open protocol, and we have recently announced that our partner, Citrix, will be building support for RemoteFX into their HDX technologies. So, it's a very open environment, and we encourage that. So, once again, I just want to go back and really reinforce that Windows 7 service pack 1, as opposed to Windows Server 2008 R2 service pack 1, does not have any new features in it, okay? So, we are not adding features to Windows 7 service pack 1. It's all about updates. There's really no need to wait for it. It's not a big deal here, given that in this day and age updates are available to you through WSUS or through Windows Update, should you choose to use it, for the issues that are most important. So, Windows 7 service pack 1 is really not a big deal in terms of features; there aren't any. Windows Server 2008 R2 service pack 1, if you're not doing VDI, is also not a big deal in terms of features. If you are doing VDI, there's the great new features of RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory that really support my statements earlier, that Microsoft is absolutely embracing VDI, and we certainly want to be the technology with Citrix in many cases to enable that. So, to that exact point, certainly when you're comparing VMware versus Microsoft in the VDI space, then I would recommend you look at the combination of XenDesktop on top of Hyper-V. Remote FX: With Microsoft RemoteFX, users will be able to work remotely in a Windows Aero desktop environment, watch full-motion video, enjoy Silverlight animations, and run 3D applications within a Hyper-V VM – all with the fidelity of a local-like performance.
• #18: Things to know: You should read the Deployment Guide on TechNetFor more technical detail read the Dynamic Memory Technical Overview whitepaperFor an installation walk through read the Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Evaluation GuideRead Ben Armstrong's blog post to learn how to manage dynamic memory from Windows 7Windows Server Standard and Web Editions are not supported by Dynamic Memory in the SP1 BetaYou cannot use RSAT tools for Windows 7 to manage DM nor Remote FX in the SP 1 Beta. The RSAT tools have not been updated yet (duing the Beta).Once you enable a VM with DM (using SP1 Beta) that VM will not work on Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. VMs without DM enabled will work onboth R2 and SP1 Beta.Migration of VMs Dynamic Memory enabled to a node that does not have Dynamic Memory support will fail (for example, fo Windows Server Standard or Web Editions for the Beta).Migration of virtual machines that have RemoteFX enabled to a node that does not have RemoteFX enabled will fail. To live-migrate virtual machines that have RemoteFX enabled, all nodes must be capable of supporting RemoteFX, all nodes must use identical graphics processing units, and all nodes must have RemoteFX enabled. For details of the CPU requirements for RemoteFX, see see “Hardware Considerations for RemoteFX” at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=191918
• #21: This “ideal target memory value” is constantly changing as the virtual machine is running.  Open a new program, the virtual machine needs more memory.  Close a program and it needs less.  However, it would not be a good idea to actually try and keep the virtual machine exactly at the ideal target memory value for a couple of reasons:This is where the memory buffer comes into play.  The memory buffer allows you to specify how much “extra” memory a virtual machine should be given when we are moving memory around between virtual machines.  By default this value is set to 20% – but you can make easily make it lower or higher.
• #22: The first thing to know is that this setting does not have any real effect if there is enough memory available on the physical computer.  With enough memory available in the physical computer – all virtual machines can get the amount of memory that they want.  However, when there is not enough memory available in the physical computer, Hyper-V needs to decide who gets the memory and who does not.  And this is where the memory priority comes in to play.Specifically there are three effects:Higher priority virtual machines get given more memory.  When memory is being given to virtual machines it is given to high priority virtual machines first.Memory is taken from lower priority virtual machines first.  Similarly to the first point – when more memory is needed, it is taken from low priority virtual machines before it is taken from high priority virtual machines.The amount of memory removed from already running virtual machines when trying to start a new virtual machine depends on the memory priority of the new virtual machine.There is some extra information to know about this third point.The first is that – yes – Hyper-V will take memory away from already running virtual machines in order to let a new virtual machine start.  That is unless the new virtual machine has a very low memory priority.  The second is that this “startup effect” of memory priority also applies to virtual machines that do not have dynamic memory enabled.  This is to say that if you have a mixture of virtual machines with and without dynamic memory enabled – the memory priority setting on the virtual machines without dynamic memory enabled will affect how much memory is removed from the dynamic memory enabled virtual machines when you try to start the virtual machines without dynamic memory enabled.