Hyper-V

The new HP Blade: HP ProLiant BL495c

Hi folks, today I wanted to talk about the new BL495c blade from HP. This is a Blade server that was made just for virtualization. How you ask?

Well to start, it comes with a maximum memory capacity of 128 GB of RAM, along with support for HP’s Virtual Connect Flex-10 network technology. This means you can carve up 10 GBe worth of network traffic and virtualize the heck out of each BL495c you stick in your enclosure.

Couple this with a C7000 enclosure which can fit 16 of these bad boys per enclosure and you’re talking about some serious horsepower. Even with the C3000 enclosure we’re talking about 8 blades per enclosure which is nothing to sneeze at.

Granted the server is running AMD cpus and I’m currently a fan of the Intel procs for virtualization but when we’re talking virtualization, it’s the memory capacity that is really going to help you out here. It would be awesome if they released an Intel version of this blade.

You can read more about it here.

-RP

Hyper-V standalone version announced…Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008

Hi folks, as you may have heard by now, Microsoft has announced the standalone version of Hyper-V! They have decided to call it Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. It should be interesting to see what this announcement yields in the virtual world.

Hyper-V Server 2008 does not have support for Microsoft’s quick migration, has no large memory support, and does not support greater than 4 processors. If you want these features you will have to move to the Windows 2008 Enterprise or higher version of Hyper-V.

The new standalone version supports the VHD format for virutal machines, has Live Backup support to backup your vms and supports up to 32 GB of RAM although 1 GB of ram is reserved for Hyper-V itself. I for one am very glad this product is here as now the competition between Microsoft and VMWare can really heat up!

You can read more about the new version of Hyper-V here.

-RP

The virtualization wars are slowly starting to yield some benefits!

So this just in. Just in case if you were still wondering if there was anything to the virtualization mantra that is being constantly recited through the IT community, Symantec has announced that you no longer need to purchase individual Symantec Backup Exec agents for each guest OS that exists on one physical box. Instead you only need to license once per Hypervisor with Symantec Backup Exec 12.5.

That’s right, you heard me, one agent, multiple virtual servers, one physical box. Can I get a booyah!?!?! I told you this competition would be great for consumers! Microsoft breaking into Hyper-V to compete with VMWare has been great for the market. First VMWare’s ESXi becomes free, then Microsoft relaxes their licensing restrictions in relation to VMWare, and now Symantec makes it cheaper for businesses to use Symantec’s backup software if they virtualize.

Now that’s what I’m talking about! It’s about time companies stopped penalizing people for virtualizing and instead start encouraging it! This is a great move and I commend Symantec for taking this step. Symantec Backup Exec is probably one of the most popular pieces of backup software out there and this announcement will definitely help push business in what I believe is the right direction towards virtualization.

 I hope this war doesn’t end for a long time, because the longer it plays out, the more benefits to the consumer it will bring! You can read more about the announcement here.

 -RP

Paul Chan is leaving VMWare

Hi folks, this just in from the VMWare world. Paul Chan, Vice President of Product Development at VMWare is hitting the road!

This guy has been working for VMWare for 7 years and is now finally leaving the company. Considering the recent shakeup at VMWare with Diane Greene, former CEO, what does this mean? Obviously VMWare is already feeling the weight of the Microsoft giant bearing down on them and these changes could well be effects of that. This is of course speculation on my part but it does make one wonder.

Up until now VMWare has had the luxury of being able to claim that at least they are a level 1 hypervisor over Microsoft’s level 2 hypervisor. But now Microsoft has announced the pending release of their own level 1 hypervisor product with Hyper-V Server 2008. With this announcement VMWare has got to be feeling the crunch.

You can read more about Paul Chan’s departure here and read more about standalone Hyper-V here.

-RP

Hyper-V and NIC teaming and Quick Migration

Apparently Microsoft’s new Hyper-V product is not compatible with NIC teaming. I hope Microsoft quickly resolves this as not being able to team NICS to provide redundancy in 24/7 servers is a big issue.

Also another area where Microsoft seems to be deficient is with Quick Migration. VMWare’s VMotion allows you to quickly migrate a virtual machine to another ESX host so you can perform maintenance on the original host. Microsoft’s Quick Migration should enable the same thing but people have been running into major issues with it as the process has caused some issues causing administrators much grief.

I recently have spoken with many people who are going the Hyper-V route because it’s “free”. I have to argue that now that VMWare’s ESXi is free, people really have no excuse not to go with VMWare based on their proven track record in the industry. These people are quick to point out the recent debacle with Update 2 but then you can’ t tell me that Microsoft hasn’t royally screwed up a patch in the past either. At the end of the day I still say that VMWare is your best bet at this point in time to keep your servers running smoothly.

-RP

Microsoft relaxes licensing around virtual mobility for 41 server applications

Hi folks, before when you had to move virtual machines from one server to another using technologies like vmotion you had to ensure you had a license for the server applications on both host physical servers. The only way you could move this was if you did it once every 90 days.

Microsoft has now announced that they have removed the 90 day restriction and are allowing moving of virtual machines between host physical servers for 41 server applications. They call it “Application Server License Mobility”.

This is great news for the virtual world and Microsoft has obviously done this only now due to Hyper-V. Like I said before, this competition can only be good for the consumer. When licensing expensive server application products this can save a significant amount of money in your IT budget!

You can read about this further at these links:

Microsoft Press Release regarding the relaxing of it’s license policy

Microsoft: Application Server License Mobility (word doc)

-Raj

VMWare Update 2 Bug Fixed

As you may have now heard, VMWare has fixed the bug with update 2. They pulled the update and were finally able to release a fix. What does this tell us?

Even the largest of companies can have issues with their Q&A processes. No matter how perfect we endeavour to be there is always the human error factor. Does this mean you should abandon all your VMWare projects and head to greener pastures with Hyper-V and XenServer? I’m sure with the FUD machine in full swing, quite a few people from opposing camps will advise you to do this.

The fact of the matter is that will serve you no good as all of these companies will be sure to run into their own problems at some point in time. Like I’ve said before, if you adopt a proper patch management strategy you can avoid 99% of these problems.

Here is the link to the knowledge base article that outlines the issue and the fix with VMWare.

http://kb2.vmware.com/kb/1006716.html

-RP

Citrix XenServer also Available for Free

Amongst all the hype about Hyper-V and VMWare’s ESXi 3.5, I think a lot of people tend to forget about the other offerings out there. Hyper-V is essentially free, available for a very low cost if you buy the Windows 2008 version with it on it. Frankly, I don’t know why you would buy the version without it. I certainly can’t think of a good reason. Also VMWare ESXi 3.5 is free now due to the recent announcement from VMWare. Based on this, it’s quick to get caught up in the virtualization fun since you can acquire either product quite readily.

 However, there is another alternative. You can try out Citrix XenServer Express Edition from Citrix. This is due to the latest acquisition by Citrix. The Express Edition version allows you to run 4 virtual machines for free. You can get it at this link here.

 -RP

Bare Metal Hypervisors

With Hyper-V out now, the virtualization marketing machine from all the different virtualization companies is in full swing. The battle is on and it looks like it’s going to be an ugly one. With virtualization pros on either side spouting the virtues of their product and claiming why one is better than the other.

Within the past few days I have read about a ton of cost comparisons between all the different offerings out there between Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMWare. I think at the end of the day, you need to delve a little deeper and look at the differences between the technologies that make up these products and what they mean to you and your business.

 One of the core differences that is important to me (and might not be important to you, depending on your needs) is the level/classification of hypervisor that is employed by the various companies. VMWare and Citrix both offer what are called level 1 or type 1 classification hypervisors. These are hypervisors that install on bare metal without an underlying OS. Whereas Microsoft offers Hyper-V only installed as a role on Windows 2008. This is what is called a level 2 hypervisor or type 2 classification hypervisor.

This is important because anytime you have a virtual product using a level 2 hypervisor, the hosting OS gives a larger footprint to attack and can compromise the security or stability of the box more than a level 1 hypervisor would. Now for non mission critical servers this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for mission critical virtual machines this could be the difference between choosing which virtualization product is right for you.

However, it is said that Microsoft will be developing a level 1 hypervisor. We will have to wait and see how this progresses, because once this comes out, the lines will be even further blurred between the different competitors.

-RP

VMWare’s ESXi vs Hyper-V, the details on what free really means

I was speaking to a co-worker today and he pointed me towards Mike’s blog at http://mikedatl.typepad.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/07/esx-35i-for-fre.html. After reading through it, it was obvious he had made some really great points.

 Microsoft has offered Hyper-V for free essentially with Windows 2008 but it doesn’t include the cost of Windows 2008 itself. ESXi on the other hand is a bare metal Hyper-visor which requires no OS for it’s installation and requires no purchase of Hyper-V.

 Also, in my humble opinion, once you grow out of the SMB market and start moving up, the features of VMWare trounce what Microsoft has to offer with Hyper-V. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Microsoft will continue to develop their offering and play catch up, but VMWare is there right now at what I find a very reasonable price.

 -RP