the Private Cloud TechNet Blog http://blogs.technet.com/b/privatecloud

This probably won't be beaking any hearts as I've not posted here in over a year, but trust me, that's no indication of what's to come over on the new blog, particulalry becuase it's multi-author. Trust me, you'll want to subscribe.

Cheers and thanks for reading - adam

To review, there are 3 places to set a VLAN ID: on the physical NIC, on the Virtual Switch (Host), on the Virtual Machine (Guest). Each Virtual Switch and Virtual Machine may only have one VLAN ID assigned, and physical NICs may have multiple.

Use cases

So, first of all, why do we care about this? Why exactly would we want to make life even more complicated by adding more VLANs at the Host level?

1) Storage Network Segregation. A good example of this is using iSCSI via on-board or add-in NICs. Windows Server iSCSI requirements state: “A physically separate, dedicated storage network” (yes, that means switches dedicated only to iSCSI traffic). However, many datacenters have very expensive, large, beefy core switches with plenty of available capacity they want to take advantage of. VLANs provide a way to isolate that storage traffic without a physically separate storage network.

2) Security. Another use may be that you have traffic on one or more NICs that you want to isolate from the rest of the network for security reasons. In other words, you want to ensure that certain traffic never ends up on an unintended end-point.

3) Performance. In a tradition sense, a VLAN is a logical broadcast domain. Therefore, you can create isolated network broadcast domains without the need for additional routers or devices with VLANs.

4) Other. Just FYI, the original main benefits of VLANs are things like spanning a LAN segment across multiple physical locations, etc.

Anyway, back to our Hyper-V Host… a typical Hyper-V Host using iSCSI storage in a Failover Cluster will need 5 or more gigE NICs:

• 1 NIC for Host management
• 1 NIC for Cluster Communications on a private network
• 1 NIC or more for Virtual Networks (Virtual Machine traffic)
• 2 NICs or more for iSCSI w/ MPIO

However, in our example we’re using Blades which are constrained to 4 NICs only. In this case we can combine the Host Management & Cluster Communications networks onto one NIC, use the Virtual Machine NIC as a backup for Cluster Communications, and dedicate 2 NICs to iSCSI. In the below pic, NIC#2 needs to be connected to a switch port configured for Trunk Mode in order to allow Virtual Machines to also use VLAN IDs.

We’re also using HP’s Network Configuration Utility to assign VLANs and other advanced functions.

A very good plan is to include the VLAN ID in your NIC naming scheme so you can correctly identify it in different utilities, such as the Hyper-V Virtual Network Manager:

Q & A

Q: Woah there buddy, you’re allowing Cluster Communications on the Virtual Machine Network (NIC#2). Isn’t that against best-practice?

A: Not really, it’s making the best out of the situation. In Failover Cluster manager we are configuring NIC#1 for “Allow Cluster Communications and Client Connections”. In NIC#2 we’re allowing only Cluster Communications. This provides redundant paths for Cluster Communications while keeping NIC#2’s bandwidth nearly solely dedicated to VM traffic.

Q: What if I want to Team the iSCSI NICs?

A: Don’t do that! It’s not supported. Instead use MPIO which will have the same net-affect.

Q: What if I want to have multiple Virtual Networks and Team them for greater performance and availability of my Virtual Machines?

A: Go for it using a vendor-supported Network Teaming Solution. HP, Intel & Broadcom all have Teaming solutions which work with Hyper-V. Make sure to obtain the very latest NIC drivers and Teaming software and make sure to check with those vendors for specific configuration requirements, such as Using HP ProLiant Network Teaming Software with Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 Hyper-V which is the first paper I’ve seen which doesn’t tell you how to install and use the software, but rather how to uninstall it! This is because Hyper-V & HP Teaming must be installed in a specific order.

Q: What if I want multiple VLAN IDs on a NIC?

A: Please do! Again, use the vendor-provided software do to so and make sure your switch port is configured for Trunk Mode.

Special thanks to Anthony Ramirez at Fresno Unified School District.

Assessment / Downloads / Tools
Microsoft Virtualization ROI Tool (calculate the total return on investment)
Microsoft Hyper-Green Tool (estimate power, cooling, and CO2 savings)
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Trials
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Eval
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator
Linux Integration Components for Hyper-V
VMC to Hyper-V Import Tool Available
Necessary Updates / Hotfixes
Comprehensive List of Hyper-V Updates
Recommended hotfixes for Windows Server 2008-based server clusters
Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
Updates / Hotfixes for Specific Issues
Why can't I start my VM when there is plenty of free memory?
Availability of a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) update rollup package for Windows Server 2003 to resolve some VSS snapshot issues
Prerequisites and Known Issues with Hyper-V Protection (DPM SP1)
Troubleshooting Hyper-V
Learn	Do
Web Sites	Installation
Virtualization TechCenter on Microsoft TechNet	Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with Hyper-V
Microsoft.com/Virtualization - Resources	Install the Hyper-V Role on a Server Core Installation of Windows Server 2008
Microsoft.com/WindowsServer2008 - Virtualization and Server Consolidation	Server Core Installation Option of Windows Server 2008 Step-By-Step Guide
TechNet Library - Hyper-V	Command-Line Syntax Key
TechNet Library - Windows Server 2008	Netsh Commands for Wired Local Area Network (LAN)
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008	Server Core Configurator
TechNet - System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008	Server Core Blog
Failover Clustering Resource Center	Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator User's Guide 2.x
Posts / Articles / Whitepapers	Clustering & HA
Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide	Step-by-Step Guide for Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering
Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide	Checklist: Failover Cluster in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008	Configuring a Two-Node File Server Failover Cluster
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Reviewer’s Guide	Failover Cluster Requirements
MSDN and TechNet Powered by Hyper-V	How are virtual machines (VMs) failed over between nodes in a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster?
MS IT Showcase: Identifying Server Candidates for Virtualization	Failover behavior on clusters or three or more nodes
Virtualization Strategy Provides Tools, Processes, and Compliance Capabilities to Enhance Business Support and Drive Adoption	iSCSI Cluster Support: Frequently Asked Questions
TechNet Magazine October 2008: Virtualization	HYPER-V QUICK MIGRATION & VMWARE LIVE MIGRATION PART 1...
	SNW Demo: Windows Server 2008 Core, Hyper-V and Failover Clustering - with screenshots
Blogs	Storage & Virtual Disks
Virtualization Team Blog	Storage options for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
Windows Server Team Blog	More on Storage Options for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
Virtualization Feed	Hyper-V Storage Analysis
HyperVoria	Boot from SCSI in Virtual Server vs. Boot from IDE in Windows Server virtualization
Cheng - SCVMM Program Manager	NetApp and Microsoft Virtualization Storage Best Practices
Ben Armstrong - virtual_pc_guy	MPIO - NetApp DSM vs. Microsoft's generic
Jose Barreto - Storage Architect	Storage devices that are certified for Windows Server 2008
Rakeshm - SCVMM program manager	Backups
Robert Larson - MCS Architect	Backup and Disaster Recovery for Server Virtualization
Mike Sterling - Hyper-V PM	How to back up Hyper-V virtual machines from the parent partition on a Windows Server 2008-based computer by using Windows Server Backup
Communities	Invoking diskshadow to back up a Virtual Machine from a Hyper-V Host
TechNet Forums - Virtualization / Hyper-V	DPM SP1 prerequisites and Known Issues with Hyper-V Protection
TechNet Forums - Virtual Machine Manager	SCDPM Product Documentation
Events	DPM 2007 Planning Guide
getVIRTUALnow - Register for a Microsoft Virtualization Launch event	DPM 2007 Operations Guide
Virtualization Congress 2008	VM Snapshots
Microsoft TechEd	Virtual Machine Snapshotting under Hyper-V
Microsoft Management Summit	Virtual Machine Snapshots with Hyper-V
Webcasts/Podcasts	Getting Undo Functionality with Hyper-V Snapshots
TechNet Edge - Virtualization	Hyper-V and Snapshots Part 1 and Part 2
Transitioning to Windows Virtualization	Dev
TechNet Webcast: High Availability with Hyper-V (Level 300)	PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V
TechNet Webcast: A 360 View Inside the Virtual World (Level 200)	Creating an awesome developer sandbox using Hyper-V (Part 1)
TechNet Webcast: Windows Server Virtualization Under the Hood (Level 200)	Workloads & Applications
TechNet Webcast: Assess Your Server IT Infrastructure for Windows Server 2008 Migration and Virtualization (Level 300)	Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments
TechNet Webcast: Virtualization of Production Workloads Including Active Directory, SQL Server, and Others (Level 200)	Support policy for Microsoft SQL Server products that are running in a hardware virtualization environment
TechNet Webcast: Using Virtual Machine Manager and Windows PowerShell to Deploy HP Windows Server 2008 Academy Labs (Level 300)	Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2	Running Domain Controllers in Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 R2 Overview Feature Overview	Active Directory in Hyper-V environments Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3
Hyper-V: Step-by-Step Guide to Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2	Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments
Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 - Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture	Exchange 2007: To Hyper-V or not to Hyper-V?
	Running SQL Server 2008 in Hyper-V Environment
	Oracle Database 10g Performance on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Virtual Machine
	Virtualizing PeopleSoft with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
	System Center Integration
	Configuring Operations Manager Integration with VMM 2008
	Enabling PRO in VMM 2008
	Configuring SCVMM 2008's PRO Feature with Ops Manager
	Operations Manager 2007 Accounts

If you are interested in this feature, it’s assumed you are familiar with the basic concept of a VLAN. Therefore I’ll focus just on using VLAN IDs with Hyper-V here. A VLAN ID is the integer which uniquely identifies a node as belonging to a particular VLAN. As per the 802.1Q specification, the VLAN ID itself is encapsulated within the Ethernet frame, which is how multiple VMs using the same physical NIC can communication on different VLANs simultaneously.

Firstly, you need physical NICs which support VLAN tagging and you need to enable the feature. However, you should generally not set the VLAN ID at the physical NIC, it should be set on either the Virtual Switch or the individual Virtual Machine’s configuration. The VLAN ID on the Virtual Switch is what the Host or Parent Partition uses. The VLAN ID setting on the individual Virtual Machine’s settings is what each VM will use.

VLAN ID setting at the Host’s Virtual Switch

VLAN ID setting at the Virtual Machine

When creating an External network in Hyper-V, a virtual network switch is created and bound to the selected physical adapter. A new virtual network adapter is created in the parent partition and connected to the virtual network switch. Child partitions can be bound to the virtual network switch by using virtual network adapters. The diagram below illustrates the architecture.

In addition to the above scenarios, Hyper-V also supports the use of VLANs and VLAN IDs with the virtual network switch and virtual network adapters. Hyper-V leverages 802.1q VLAN trunking to achieve this objective. To utilize this functionality, a virtual network switch must be created on the host and bound to a physical network adapter that supports 802.1q VLAN tagging. VLAN IDs are configured in two places:

·         The virtual network switch itself which sets the VLAN ID the parent partition’s virtual network adapter will use

·         The virtual network adapter of each guest which will sets the VLAN ID the guest will use

The diagram below illustrates an example of using a single physical NIC in the host which is connected to an 802.1q trunk on the physical network carrying three VLANs (5, 10, 20). The design objective in this example are:

·         An 802.1q trunk carrying 3 VLANs (5, 10, 20) is connected to a physical adapter in the host

·         A single virtual switch is created and bound to the physical adapter

·         The VLAN ID of the virtual switch is configured to 5 which would allow the virtual NIC in the parent to communicate on VLAN 5

·         The VLAN ID of the virtual NIC in Child Partition #1 is set to 10 allowing it to communicate on VLAN 10

·         The VLAN ID of the virtual NIC in Child Partition #2 is set to 20 allowing it to communicate on VLAN 20

The expected behavior is that there is a single virtual switch, the parent and two children can only talk on their respective VLANs, and they can’t talk to eachother. 

The December 2008 issue of TechNet
Magazine is now available online. And
it's filled with information about interop.

Find out how to integrate Linux clients
with Active Directory, Manage Macs in
a Windows environment, and more.

Virtualization: An Introduction to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008

Virtualization: Manage Your Virtual Environments with VMM 2008

Virtualization: Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization

Virtualization: Achieving High Availability for Hyper-V

Virtualization: Backup and Disaster Recovery for Server Virtualization

Virtualization: Essential Tools for Planning Your Virtual Infrastructure

The Virtualization RDP (Microsoft Rapid Deployment Program) has over 100 customers running Hyper-V & SCVMM 2008 in production. Some of these are very large enterprises. The evidence produced from these deployments will be available at the Virtualization Launch event. https://www.getvirtualnow.com/main.aspx

A couple early public case studies

•       Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
•       Kentucky Department of Education
•       HP Finland

One question that bubbles up around any product’s v.1 RTM is “is it (Hyper-V) ready for the enterprise”? In addition to the case studies produced by RDP program, here are just a couple examples if you’re ever faced with this question, or if you’re just curious about how far Hyper-V can be pushed.

·         Collectively, the TechNet and MSDN websites handle over 4 million hits per month and have been running 100% on Hyper-V since April 2008. Read about the implementation at Microsoft.com Operations Virtualizes MSDN and TechNet on Hyper-V.

·         Microsoft.com is one of the heaviest traffic websites on the internet, at 15,000 requests per second, 1.2 billion page views per month, and 280M worldwide unique users per month as well as supporting ~5000 content contributors from within the company. On June 5th the Operations Team turned up a full sixteen VM cluster hosting www.microsoft.com on Hyper-V. Read more at Microsoft.com Powered by Hyper-V

• Reads user aliases from a text file in the local directory (MoveMbx1.txt)
• Moves the mailboxes to a specified Server & Mailbox Store using 10 threads and suppressing the annoying "are you sure?" prompt
• Puts today date in a variable in format YYYYMMDD
• Get Exchange Migration Logs that have the above date in their name
• Emails the logs in plain text

Yes, we could certainly do more sophisticated things, such as find the smallest Mailbox Store and move users there, or format the XML logs better, but hey, I ran out of time. :-)  Just copy the below to a .ps1 file.

#############################
#                           #
#  Exchange 2007 Migration  #
#  Move-mailbox script      #
#  Date & Author            #
#                           #
#############################

# NOTE: to run PowerShell scripts, you need to set the PS execution poloicy "set-executionpolicy unrestricted"

# load the list of users - this must be 1 user alias per line
# the user list file must be in the same directory as this script

$users = get-content MoveMbx1.txt

# move em to a specific target database using 10 threads

$users | move-mailbox -TargetDatabase "MailboxServer\StorageGroup01\MailboxStore01" -MaxThreads 10 -confirm:$false

# put today's date in a variable

$date=get-date -uformat "%Y%m%d"

# read today's migration log and store it as $EMailBody

$EmailBody = get-content "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Logging\MigrationLogs\*$date*.xml"

# when done, send us an email with the log text

$SmtpClient = new-object system.net.mail.smtpClient
$MailMessage = New-Object system.net.mail.mailmessage
$SmtpClient.Host = "smtpserver.domain.com"
$mailmessage.from = ("<emailaddress>@domain.com")
$mailmessage.To.add("<emailaddress>@domain.com")
$mailmessage.Subject = “MoveMbx1.ps1 script has completed”
$mailmessage.Body = $EmailBody
$smtpclient.Send($mailmessage)

Basically, the process is you have to call powershell.exe, then load the Exchange extensions, then pass it the command that calls the script. You're supposed to be able to use -noexit so you can watch it run, and call exshell.psc1 directly via the run line -psconsolefile "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Bin\exshell.psc1", but I could not get it work using either of these. SO, we run the task starting in the Exchange bin directory as below.

Run: powershell -psconsolefile exshell.psc1 -command "& {c:\yourscript.ps1}"

Start in: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Bin"

Run as: <account with rights to do whatever is in your script>

All items are listed in the order in which I usually reference/perform them. This is general guidance based on my 8 years working with Exchange, not prescriptive Microsoft Guidance.

As always, for the fastest, most methodical approach to fixing a problem and finding the cause, call Premier Support! Those guys do nothing but troubleshoot all day & night, we’ll never be as good as them!

Exchange troubleshooting

·         Always consider the most basic things first - networking, name-resolution, AD, services running, databases mounted, etc.

·         Turn on Diagnostic logging for the suspect component

·         Look in the Event Log (Exchange uses the Application Log) (lookup events in the KB or eventide.net, search the Exchange Newsgroups or your favorite forum)

·         Setup a Perfmon to capture historical & real-time performance data (see Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server Performance doc)

·         Cmd-line: netstat -na  to view all active connections to/from the server

·         Look at mail-flow using Message Tracking Center in ESM - for example look at the last hour of message flow, is it extremely higher than usual?

·         Look at active POP/IMAP/MAPI sessions via Virtual Servers in ESM & EXMON

·         Most client performance problems are Exchange being Disk I/O bound or Memory bound. CPU & Network are very very rarely the cause.

·         Use ProcessExplorer by sysinternals to see a particular process and/or thread’s CPU, disk I/O, network sessions, etc.

Documentation  (there are dozens more, but these I use most often)

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Technical Reference Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3768246d-c9ed-45d8-bece-a666143cba4e&DisplayLang=en

Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server Performance

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8679F6BD-7FF0-41F5-BDD0-C09019409FC0&displaylang=en

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Transport and Routing Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C092B7A7-9034-4401-949C-B29D47131622&displaylang=en

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 High Availability Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FE6A573C-11FF-4CB6-BE2E-9B6F2164C54A&displaylang=en

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Performance and Scalability Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=62fb1297-4c6b-4d84-84cc-060989f2f305&DisplayLang=en

Tools

Tools for Exchange Server 2003

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/2003/bb288491.aspx

(The ones in the above URL I use most often)

NetDiag & DCDiag (already on all your servers) - run from cmd prompt - helps identify the most common problems - DNS, WINS, networking, & AD

User Monitor (EXMON)  when users are experiencing RPC disconnects

SMTPDiag   -Determine whether SMTP and DNS are configured to reliably deliver mail to an external e-mail address

Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant (EXTRA)

Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (EXBPA)

ExchDump - export configuration information

Process Explorer - very deep process & memory analyzer

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx

IIS 6 Resource Kit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499&displaylang=en

Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit Version - analyze crash-dumps, etc,

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx

Monitoring - From the MOM Management Pack for Exchange doc

Table 4.2   Minimum messaging functions to monitor