Ben Armstrong’s Virtualization Blog

Hyper-V Program Manager

Gathering Recent Events for a Specific VM

Imagine this scenario: you login to one of your Hyper-V servers and find that something has gone...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 05/20/2014

Quickly Recovering Replication on Hyper-V

Two weeks ago, I had to recover from a sizable power outage. When this happened, my first priority...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 05/19/2014

Hyper-V Replica to the Rescue!

Power outages are not infrequent where I live (something I find quite confounding – to be...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 05/01/2014

Listing all the IP Addresses used by VMs

Here is a neat little snippet of PowerShell: Get-VM | ?{$_.State -eq "Running"} | ...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 04/18/2014

Exporting a Virtual Machine Checkpoint

Something neat that you can do in Windows Server 2012 / Windows 8 or later is to export a virtual...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 04/17/2014

Hyper-V Networking–NIC Teaming

If you look at the advanced features of a network adapter in Hyper-V, you may have noticed the NIC...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 04/16/2014

Understanding Maximum Dynamic Memory from inside a VM

Dynamic memory is a great feature that allows Hyper-V administrators to get better utilization of...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 04/15/2014

Importing a VM with VHDs in Different Paths

I was recently given an interesting challenge.  I was asked to show how you could use...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 04/14/2014

Hyper-V Networking–Router Guard

Router guard is another advanced networking feature that was added in Windows Server 2012: When you...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/25/2014

Hyper-V Networking–DHCP Guard

If you start digging into the advanced settings section of a virtual network adapter – there is a...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/24/2014

My Daily Hyper-V Status Email–Part 5 of 5

After displaying event logs, virtual machine health and storage health – the last thing that is...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/21/2014

My Daily Hyper-V Status Email–Part 4 of 5

Now that I have talked about displaying event log information and virtual machine health...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/20/2014

My Daily Hyper-V Status Email–Part 3 of 5

Continuing on with my daily status email series; after displaying event log information, my email...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/19/2014

My Daily Hyper-V Status Email–Part 2 of 5

Yesterday, I introduced my daily status email.  Today I am going to talk about the first chunk...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/18/2014

My Daily Hyper-V Status Email–Part 1 of 5

Update 7/20/2015: This script is now available on GitHub at...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/17/2014

Protected Networks in Windows Server 2012 R2

One of the new features in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2 is the concept of a protected network:...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 03/11/2014

Updated Hypervisor Top Level Functional Specification

We have recently published a new version of the Hypervisor Top Level Functional Specification for...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/17/2014

Using Compare-VM on Compare-VM

I have been spending a lot of time this week looking at all the functionality that is available in...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/13/2014

Using PowerShell to Live Migrate to a Computer with a Different Virtual Switch

So far this week I have shown you how to register and how to import virtual machines with...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/12/2014

Importing an Incompatible VM with PowerShell

Yesterday I stepped through the process of registering an incompatible virtual machine with...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/11/2014

Registering an Incompatible VM with PowerShell

If you have ever tried to register a virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager, and the virtual machine was...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/10/2014

Why is the wrong time displayed on my virtual machine?

Here is the scenario: You have a bunch of server virtual machines that are merrily running somewhere...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/07/2014

Cloning running virtual machines in SCVMM 2012 R2

Yesterday I posted about how Windows 8.1 / Windows Server 2012 R2 allow you to export a running...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/04/2014

Exporting a running virtual machine

One of the small features that we added in Windows 8.1 / Windows Server 2012 R2 is the ability to...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/03/2014

Resizing the boot drive of a virtual machine

You can only resize the virtual hard disk of a running virtual machine if: It is a .VHDX file It is...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/31/2014

Shrinking a VHDX on a Running Virtual Machine

This week I have been talking about how to resize a VHDX on a virtual machine that is currently...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/30/2014

Online VHDX Resize with SCVMM 2012 R2

Yesterday I discussed how to expand the size of a virtual hard disk on a running virtual...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/29/2014

Online VHDX Resize in Windows Server 2012 R2 / Windows 8.1

One of the new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 is the ability to resize a virtual...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/28/2014

New Poster: Windows Server 2012 R2 Private Cloud Storage and Virtualization

Another fantastic poster is out.  This one is focused on the storage technology in Windows...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/27/2014

Managing Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V from Windows 8.1

In the past we have always required that you use Hyper-V Manager on the same version of Windows as...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/24/2014

Reading Hyper-V Event logs with PowerShell

Here is a handy tip – it is quite easy to gather any information that Hyper-V puts in the event log...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/23/2014

Using PowerShell to Update Integration Components with SCVMM

Given that the process for updating integration components in System Center Virtual Machine Manager...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/22/2014

Updating Integration Services with SCVMM

As a Hyper-V program manager, I am very familiar with the process for upgrading virtual machines...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/21/2014

Checking Integration Services Versions with SCVMM

I have done a number of posts about checking your integration services versions in the past (here...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/15/2014

SCVMM, Hyper-V Replica, UI and PowerShell

Before I get started on this – I do want to be upfront about the context for this post.  In my...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/14/2014

Targeting Group Policy at Hyper-V VMs

I make heavy use of group policy in my home environment.  It makes it very easy to push out...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/13/2014

Virtual Machine Stop Action in a Cluster

One of the interesting philosophical debates on the Hyper-V team is “What is the right thing to do...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/10/2014

Disabling VM heartbeat monitoring for a clustered VM

A Microsoft support engineer recently contacted me with an interesting problem.  They were...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/09/2014

Virtual Machines not shutting down on host shutdown in Windows Server 2012 R2

Just wanted to let everyone know of a fix for Hyper-V that was included in the November 2013 update...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/08/2014

Automatic Virtual Machine Activation in Windows Server 2012 R2

Automatic virtual machine activation is an easy to miss, but really handy feature in Windows Server...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/07/2014

Local VM Management on Hyper-V Server with FreeRDP

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the Veeam RDP virtual appliance for Remote Management of...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/06/2014

SCVMM 2012 R2 – Error 2912 NO_PARAM when using Hyper-V Replica

Another early issue that I hit when using System Center Virtual Machine Manager in my home...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/03/2014

SCVMM 2012 R2 and Alternate Credentials

A little while ago I updated my home installation to run Windows Server 2012 R2.  This provided...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/02/2014

Faster Live Migration–Which Option Should You Choose?

Okay, now that I have talked about faster live migration with compression and faster live migration...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 12/31/2013

Faster Live Migration with RDMA in Windows Server 2012 R2

Today I want to go deep on faster live migration using RDMA.  In the past I have talked about...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 12/30/2013

Veeam RDP virtual appliance for remote management of Hyper-V

Hyper-V has a number of options available for remote management.  System Center Virtual Machine...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 12/18/2013

MAP Toolkit 9.0 now available

One of the more common questions that I get asked is this: “How can I figure out what I need...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 12/16/2013

Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions for WS 2012 and WS 2012 R2

The Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions – a free extension to the Hyper-V SCOM management pack...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 12/08/2013

Faster Live Migration with Compression in Windows Server 2012 R2

Last week I talked about the fact that we had introduced two new technologies for making live...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/29/2013

Configuring Faster Live Migration in Windows Server 2012 R2

On Monday I gave a quick introduction to the faster live migration technologies in Windows Server...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/25/2013

<Previous Next>