Before We Begin

• You planning on attending Ignite this year?
• Do your roles responsibilities include storage management in the datacenter (SAN (iSCSI/FC/FCoE SAN and NAS storage in a Linux, Windows Server, VMware, Hyper-V, OpenStack private cloud environment)?
• Want to spend 90 minutes providing feedback to leading industry experts and the creators of Swordfish API?

• Event: SNIA End-user Meetup
• Date/time: September 27 at 7:00PM
• Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/sniaignite16

• Richelle Ahlvers is presenting Swordfish Overview and Deep-dive session Wednesday September 21st.
• Watch the sessions live on SNIA's YouTube channel

Background: Building Blocks for Swordfish

• The Chinook working group developed schema extensions for network switch management
• SNIA's Scalable Storage Management (SSM) technical working group developed Swordfish extensions for storage management.

Swordfish v1.0

Terminology

Example 1: It's a hypermedia API that is simple to navigate

https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1

{
    @odata.context: "/redfish/v1/$metadata#ServiceRoot",
    @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/",
    @Redfish.Copyright: "Copyright 2014-2016 Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF). For the full DMTF copyright policy, see https://www.dmtf.org/about/policies/copyright.",
    @odata.type: "#ServiceRoot.v1_0_2.ServiceRoot",
    Id: "RootService",
    Name: "Root Service",
    RedfishVersion: "1.0.2",
    UUID: "92384634-2938-2342-8820-489239905423",
    Systems: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/Systems"
        },
    StorageSystems: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems"
    },
    StorageServices: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/StorageServices"
    },
    Chassis: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/Chassis"
    },
    Managers: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/Managers"
    },
    Tasks: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/TaskService"
    },
    SessionService: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/SessionService"
    },
    AccountService: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/AccountService"
    },
    EventService: {
        @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/EventService"
    },
    Links: {
        Sessions: {
            @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/SessionService/Sessions"
        }
    },
    Oem: { }
}

@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems

https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageSystems

{
    @Redfish.Copyright: "Copyright 2015-2016 SNIA. All rights reserved.",
    @odata.context: "/redfish/v1/$metadata#StorageSystems",
    @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems",
    @odata.type: "#StorageSystemCollection.StorageSystemCollection",
    Name: "Storage System Collection",
    Members@odata.count: 3,
    Members: [
        {
            @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems/Simple"
        },
        {
            @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems/Complex"
        },
        {
            @odata.id: "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems/FileServer"
        }
    ]
}

Example 2: Quickly gain access to detailed information about a resource

https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageSystems/Simple

{
  "@Redfish.Copyright": "Copyright 2015-2016 SNIA. All rights reserved.",
  "@odata.context": "/redfish/v1/$metadata#ComputerSystem.ComputerSystem",
  "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageSystems/Simple",
  "@odata.type": "#ComputerSystem.1.0.0.ComputerSystem",
  "Id": "Simple",
  "Name": "My storage System",
  "SystemType": "Physical",
  "AssetTag": "free form asset tag",
  "Manufacturer": "Manufacturer Name",
  "Model": "Model Name",
  "SKU": "",
  "SerialNumber": "2M220100SL",
  "PartNumber": "",
  "Description": "Description of server",
  "Identifiers": {
    "UUID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
  },
  "HostName": "srv344",
  "HostingRole": "StorageServer",
  "Status": {
    "State": "Enabled",
    "Health": "OK",
    "HealthRollUp": "OK"
  },
  "PowerState": "On",
  "Boot": {...},
  "BiosVersion": "Xxxx",
  "ProcessorSummary": {...},
  "MemorySummary": {...},
  "Processors": {...},
  "EthernetInterfaces": {...},
  "LogServices": {...},
  "HostedServices": {...},
  "Links": {...},
  "Actions": {...}
  }
}

Example 3: Easily identify hosting and containment relationships

"HostedServices": {
    "StorageServices": [
        {"@odata.id":"/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1"}
    ]
}

https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1

{
  "@Redfish.Copyright": "Copyright 2015-2016 SNIA. All rights reserved.",
  "@odata.context": "/redfish/v1/$metadata#StorageService.StorageService",
  "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1",
  "@odata.type": "#StorageService.1.0.0.StorageService",
  "Id": "Simple1",
  "Name": "My Simple Storage Service",
  "Description": "This simple system does not support service levels when provisioning storage",
  "Status": {
    "State": "Enabled",
    "Health": "OK"
  },
  "StorageGroups": {...},
  "InitiatorEndpointGroups": {...},
  "TargetEndpointGroups": {...},
  "Endpoints": {...},
  "StoragePools": {...},
  "Volumes": {...},
  "Drives": {...},
  "Links": {...},
  "Oem": {}
}

https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageServices

Example 4: Quickly drill down to get specific information about a resource

"StoragePools": {
    "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools"
}

GET https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools

{
  "@Redfish.Copyright": "Copyright 2015-2016 SNIA. All rights reserved.",
  "@odata.context": "/redfish/v1/$metadata#StoragePoolsCollection.StoragePoolsCollection",
  "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools",
  "@odata.type": "#StoragePoolsCollection_1_0_0.StoragePoolsCollection",
  "Name": "StoragePools",
  "Members@odata.count": 1,
  "Members": [
    {
      "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools/BasePool"
    }
  ]
}

GET https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools

{
  "@Redfish.Copyright": "Copyright 2015-2016 SNIA. All rights reserved.",
  "@odata.context": "/redfish/v1/$metadata#StoragePool.StoragePool",
  "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools/BasePool",
  "@odata.type": "#StoragePool_1_0_0.StoragePool",
  "Id": "BasePool",
  "Name": "BasePool",
  "Description": "Base storage pool",
  "BlockSizeBytes": 512,
  "Capacity": {
    "Data": {
      "AllocatedBytes": 10995116277760,
      "ConsumedBytes": 3760197652418
    }
  },
  "Status": {
    "State": "Enabled",
    "Health": "OK",
    "HealthRollUp": "Degraded"
  },
  "Links": {
    "AllocatedPools": [],
    "AllocatedVolumes": [
      {
        "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/Volumes/1"
      }
    ],
    "SourceDevices": [],
    "SourcePools": [],
    "SourceVolumes": [],
    "SupportedClassesOfService": []
  }
}

$ConsumedGB = @()
foreach ($i in 1..60)
{
    $basepool = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://swordfish.mockable.io/redfish/v1/StorageServices/Simple1/StoragePools/BasePool" 
    $capacity = New-Object System.Object
    $capacity | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -name Time -value $i
    $capacity | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -name ConsumedGB -value ($basepool.Capacity.Data.ConsumedBytes/1000000000)
    $ConsumedGB += $capacity
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 60
}
$ConsumedGB | Select Time, ConsumedGB | Export-Csv -Path $env:temp\consumedgb.csv -Encoding ascii -NoTypeInformation

Example 5: You can use PowerShell objects to navigate Swordfish resources

Resources

Fast Paced Environment Focused on Productivity

I am privileged to travel about 20% of the year attending interoperability plugfests, conferences and meeting with customers and partners face to face. My friends and family think I travel "all the time" so they assume I work "all the time." Thankfully Microsoft is very flexible with work hours, offers great tele-commuting options, and provides me with all the tools to be productive wherever I am. Achieving ideal work-life balance is possible but it requires owning my calendar:

• Book meetings with a solid agenda, else give folks back that time (duh)
• Stay active throughout the day and meet folks in person (especially if 5 minutes face to face helps avoid a meeting)
  • Remember Redmond campus is pretty large so "in person" might require taking a shuttle
• Schedule "dead time": time to think where you can minimize interruptions

• • I block out time on Mondays in the afternoon after I meet with all my feature crews
  • In addition, I have a set time every morning to work on my to-do list for the day

• Set aside time for exercising

• • Helps if you are consistent with that commitment (confession: I sometimes fail to do this)

• Proactively book known travel dates in your calendar

These are common sense tips that help optimize my time and enable me to focus on the really exciting work we do day in and day out. This is important as we accelerate time to value for our customers by embracing an incredible foundation from which to grow:

"At our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more." - Satya Nadella

Broad Impact Within Microsoft and Across the Industry

In the storage management space, we work across multiple teams throughout Microsoft including:

• Operating System Group 
• Windows Server
• Azure
• MSIT
• Product Support
• PACE
• and other teams

Externally we meet with customers multiple times throughout the year on the phone and in person. In addition we work with several storage partners:

…to name a few of our partners

Interoperability testing is very important to Microsoft. We dedicate about 6 weeks out of the year to various plugfests to ensure Microsoft products and solutions work well with the large ecosystem of storage devices. Plugfests run by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) are the most important for my team. Microsoft's investment in standards based management for storage is based on the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S). SMI is the consortium of companies that works on SMI-S and SMILab hosts plugfests. Plugfest has grown in popularity with over 70 attendees from 19 companies this past May. The latest report is available on here: https://snia.org/sites/default/files/May2014SMI-LabPlugfestReport.pdf

Work on Solutions for a Cloud-First World

In System Center, storage management investments span deployment, configuration, monitoring, and remediation scenarios primarily focused on virtualized environments running Hyper-V and enhanced by services in Azure:

• Hyper-V Storage Capacity Management
• Virtual Machine Rapid Provisioning
• Intent based VM Deployment using Storage
• Application deployment with FC Storage
• Integration with Azure Site Recovery for Disaster Recovery

As the team's scope expands, we need to grow our development team. If you're looking for a career at Microsoft, the opportunity to learn about building software for enterprises and services for the public cloud, prototype exciting new innovations, contribute to standards bodies, present to internal teams at conferences and customers publically, then we want you to join our team. We have a developer position open in Silicon Valley. Check out this great opportunity: https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jlang=EN&pp=SS&jid=140395

Final Note

"Across Microsoft, we will obsess over reinventing productivity and platforms. We will relentlessly focus on and build great digital work and life experiences with specific focus on dual use. Our cloud OS infrastructure, device OS and first-party hardware will all build around this core focus and enable broad ecosystems. Microsoft will light up digital work and life experiences in the most personal, intelligent, open and empowering ways." - Satya Nadella

While updating some info about my session (MDC-B344 on storage management), I noticed many of my colleagues are presenting as well. Here is the list of sessions I recommend you consider attending while at TechEd. Here is the list for TechEd Europe.

Save travels and see you at one or both TechEds!

By Sue Hartford, Microsoft Global Alliance Manager at Brocade

Simplicity was a key message in Brad Anderson’s keynote at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas this month.   And he’s right on target.  Because let’s face it … if the cost and complexity of deploying private cloud are too high, they erase many of the cost benefits of cloud computing.

System Center 2012 delivers on that goal with many improvements to simplify IT’s efforts in building a private cloud, from its simplified licensing (now only two SKU’s which both feature all System Center modules) to simplified deployment of all the technology required to build a private cloud.  One example of this is the new System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) load balancer provider that allows IT admins to more easily deploy and provision network and load balancing services from within VMM. 

Brocade presents the new ADX load balancer provider to provide integration between the ServerIron ADX series of application delivery switches and VMM. With this integrated solution, IT admins can use VMM to provision both application and network resources from within the VMM console.  For example, IT can efficiently manage application resources, automatically provision service requests, and offer the highest application performance and service levels for users in a cost-efficient manner.  The result is an agile, elastic application delivery solution for cloud-optimized environments.

Read more about it in the article by Jason Bovberg in Windows IT Pro: https://www.windowsitpro.com/article/system-center/mms-2012-brocades-adx-load-balancer-provider-offers-toptier-performance-142877 or visit www.brocade.com/systemcenter.

For all of those attending MMS 2012, hope you are having a great week!

As promised here is the PowerShell session (FI-B322), script used during the session.

#set script variables
$vmNamePrefix = "COMBINEDDEMO"
#set random number
$global:Rand = (new-object random)
$random = $rand.Next(100,999)
#Get Template by name
($t = Get-SCVMtemplate | where {$_.Name -eq "W2K8R2SP1_Template"}) | fl Name, OperatingSystem, VirtualizationPlatform
#create a copy of the template that you will modify
($template = New-SCVMtemplate -VMTemplate $t -Name ("Temporary" + $vmNamePrefix + "Template")) | fl Name, OperatingSystem, VirtualizationPlatform
##########
#set the OU
(Set-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate $template -DomainJoinOrganizationalUnit "OU=Test1,DC=contoso,DC=lab") | fl Name, DomainJoinOrganizationalUnit
##########
#get runasaccount which will serve as auto logon credential
($raa = Get-SCRunAsAccount -Name "MMS Build Account") | fl Name, Username, Domain
#set auto logon credential and autologoncount (must be set together)
(Set-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate $template -AutoLogonCredential $raa -AutoLogonCount 10) | fl Name, AutoLogonCredential, AutoLogonCount
#######
#get unattend settings object
($unattend = $template.UnattendSettings) | Out-Null
#add key/value pairs to unattend settings
#Configuration Pass ID mapping
#  windowsPE = 0
#  offlineServicing = 1
#  generalize = 2
#  specialize = 3
#  auditsystem =4
#  audituser = 5
#  oobesystem = 6
#The relevant passes for VM deployment are oobesystem (6) and specialize (3)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/InputLocale”, “0411:e0010411”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/SystemLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguage”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguageFallback”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UserLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/InputLocale”, “0411:e0010411”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/SystemLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguage”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguageFallback”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UserLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup/AutoLogon/Domain”, “contoso”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-OutOfBoxExperience/DoNotOpenInitialConfigurationTasksAtLogon”, “true”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-ServerManager-SvrMgrNc/DoNotOpenServerManagerAtLogon”, “true”)

$unattend | fl Key, Value
#commit unattend to template
(Set-SCVMtemplate -VMtemplate $template -UnattendSettings $unattend) | Out-Null
####### 
#Create new VM config from template
($vmconfig = New-SCVMConfiguration -VMTemplate $template -Name ($vmNamePrefix + "_Config")) | fl Name
#Get VMhost object
($vmhost = Get-SCVMHost -ComputerName "VMMLab1823N2.contoso.lab") | fl Name, VirtualizationPlatform
#Set destination to specific host
(Set-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration $vmconfig -VMHost $vmhost -VMLocation ("C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\VMs\" + $vmNamePrefix) -ComputerName ($vmNamePrefix + $random)) | fl Name, ComputerName, VMLocation, VMHost
#update VM config object with placement recommendations
Update-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration $vmconfig | Out-Null
#create the differencing disk
$VHDService = get-wmiobject -class "Msvm_ImageManagementService" -namespace "root\virtualization" -computername $vmhost.Name
($VHDService.CreateDifferencingVirtualHardDisk(("C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\VMs\" + $vmNamePrefix + "\" + $vmNamePrefix + ".VHD"),"C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\BASEVHDs\W2K8R2SP1.VHD")) | fl ReturnValue
#Update VHD information
(Set-SCVirtualHardDiskConfiguration -VHDConfiguration $vmconfig.VirtualHardDiskConfigurations[0] -DestinationLocation ("C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\VMs\" + $vmNamePrefix) -FileName ($vmNamePrefix + ".VHD") -DeploymentOption "UseExistingVirtualDisk") | fl DeploymentOption, FileName, DestinationLocation
#create VM
($vm = New-SCVirtualMachine -VMConfiguration $vmconfig -Name $vmNamePrefix -StartVM) | fl Name, VirtualizationPlatform, HostGroupPath

#####
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState1" -Value "1. ON")
#####
#Suspend VM and write KVPs
Suspend-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState2" -Value "2. Pause")
#####
#Save state VM
Resume-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
Stop-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm -SaveState | Out-Null
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState3" -Value "3. Save")
#####
#shutdown VM and write KVPs
Start-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
Stop-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm -Shutdown | Out-Null
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState4" -Value "4. OFF")
#####
#start VM and check
Start-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
#use KVP to pass in new IP information
#get basic information
(Read-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key FullyQualifiedDomainName | select KVPMAP).KVPMAP
#get multiple values
$info = @{"FullyQualifiedDomainName"="";"NetworkAddressIPv4"="";"NetworkAddressIPv6"=""}
(Read-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -KVPMap $info | Select KVPMAP).KVPMAP
#Pass new IP settings
#get mac address of NIC
Read-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
($nic1mac = $vm.VirtualNetworkAdapters[0].MacAddress)
#build kvp map with new IP information
$NICIP = @{("["+$nic1mac+"]"+"IPAddress")="10.1.1.34";("["+$nic1mac+"]"+"Mask")="255.255.255.0";("["+$nic1mac+"]"+"Gateway")="10.1.1.1"}
#send ip info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -KVPMAP $NICIP | Select KVPMAP).KVPMAP
#cleanup
Stop-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm -Force | Out-Null
Remove-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
Remove-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration $vmconfig | Out-Null
Remove-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate $template | Out-Null

 This is a registry partial I stored in he Library. This gets called by the guest OS as part of first logon (in script abov)

 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit\Favorites]
"OU"="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Group Policy\\State\\Machine"
"GUESTINFO"="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Virtual Machine\\External"
"AUTOLOGON"="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon"

This is the unattend.xml partial stored in Library and used in the template.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="https://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <UserAccounts>
                <DomainAccounts>
                    <DomainAccountList wcm:action="add">
                      <Domain>dcmanager.lab</Domain>
                        <DomainAccount wcm:action="add">
                          <Group>Administrators</Group>
                          <Name>mmsbuildaccount</Name>
                        </DomainAccount>
                    </DomainAccountList>
                </DomainAccounts>
            </UserAccounts>
          <FirstLogonCommands>
     <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
              <CommandLine>regedit.exe /s \\vmmteched\demo\MMSDEMOREGFAV.reg</CommandLine>
              <Description>Add favorites to registry</Description>
              <Order>1</Order>
            </SynchronousCommand>           
          </FirstLogonCommands>
     <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
              <CommandLine>regedit.exe</CommandLine>
              <Description>Launch registry editor</Description>
              <Order>2</Order>
            </SynchronousCommand>           
          </FirstLogonCommands>
        </component>
    </settings>
</unattend>

Introduction

Performance problems, especially as they may relate to the storage subsystem, can be quite difficult to troubleshoot.  Enterprise storage technology has come a long way since the SCSI controller with an array of disks.  Fortunately, there are some great tools available to help narrow down where to look more closely for storage performance problems.  This blog post covers the Windows Performance Analysis Toolkit (WPT), as used for analyzing performance in the storage subsystem.

The facility that enables the analysis I am about to cover is called "Event Tracing for Windows" (ETW).  The Performance Analyzer is built on top of the ETW infrastructure. ETW enables Windows and applications to efficiently generate events, which can be enabled and disabled at any time without requiring system or process restarts. ETW collects requested kernel events and saves them to one or more files referred to as "trace files" or "traces." These kernel events provide extensive details about the operation of the system. Some of the most important and useful kernel events available for capture and analysis are context switches, interrupts, deferred procedure calls, process and thread creation and destruction, disk I/Os, hard faults, processor P-State transitions, and registry operations, though there are many others.

One of the great features of ETW, supported in WPT, is the support of symbol decoding, sample profiling, and capture of call stacks on kernel events. These features provide very rich and detailed views into the system operation. WPT also supports automated performance analysis. Specifically, xperf is designed for scripting from the command line and can be employed in automated performance gating infrastructures (it is the core of Windows PerfGates). xperf can also dump the trace data to an ANSI text file, which allows you to write your own trace processing tools that can look for performance problems and regressions from previous tests.

The following information will be mostly about the WPT tool called "Xperf.exe".  Xperf.exe is the command line tool used to start, stop, and manage traces.  The usage of Xperf.exe is documented thoroughly in the help file included with the WPT titled "WindowsPerformanceToolkit.chm".

 Read the full post here: https://blogs.technet.com/b/robertsmith/archive/2012/02/07/analyzing-storage-performance-using-the-windows-performance-toolkit.aspx

Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Storage Automation With the IBM XIV Storage System Gen3

This technical white paper reviews key concepts and provides step-by-step implementation examples for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 new storage automation features. Microsoft SCVMM 2012 now provides all administrators, including virtualization, database, systems, storage, etc., the ability to perform a full spectrum of core storage management tasks within a true central administrative interface. Within SCVMM’s graphical user interface (GUI), administrators can discover, classify, allocate, provision, map, assign and decommission storage associated with clustered and standalone virtualization hosts. A close examination of popular IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 enterprise-class storage solutions reveals extensibility and performance improvements which align with the Microsoft SCVMM 2012 new features.

 https://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102071 

So there are three levels of tracing that you need to keep in mind: 

TraceView.zip

Windows Server 8 is a cloud optimized OS.  You’ve probably heard that phrase or similar comments a lot recently since we introduced Windows Server 8 last month (see Bill Laing’s blog post.)  Let’s drill in a bit to explain what that really means and why it matters to you. In the past, Windows Server was a great OS for a server and its devices.  Windows Server 8 is a great OS for lots of servers and all the devices connecting them whether they are physical or virtual, on-premise or off-premise.

At the BUILD conference, we showcased for the first time all the new capabilities that deliver on this vision including scalability, availability, Hyper-V, networking, manageability and storage.

Whether we are talking classic architectures or private/public/hybrid cloud architectures, one thing is absolutely clear – there is a large and growing appetite for data.  Customers’success is predicated on the efficient and effective management of storage.  Windows Server 8 is there to help meet that challenge whether the storage is directly attached to a server or is an external storage array.  Working with our storage partners, we are delivering a new set of capabilities, APIs and PowerShell Cmdlets.

Windows Server 8 introduces a new WMI-based API called the Storage Management API (SMAPI) and corresponding set of PowerShell Cmdlets.  These provide storage management primitives to manage direct attach storage on the OS as well as external storage arrays.  The PowerShell Cmdlets replace tools like diskpart and diskraid.  The API is comprised of a WMI object model along with the corresponding set of methods and properties.   Storage partners plug into the new API either by:

1. Implementing the SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) industry standard for storage management called SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative –Specification) 
2. Implementing a new provider model called the Storage Management Provider (SMP)

Read the rest here: https://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2011/10/14/windows-server-8-standards-based-storage-management.aspx

Here are a few screen shots:

50 VMs on 3 hosts

List VMs on one of the hosts

Logical units (writeable snapshots)

50 create VM jobs

This test was run using VMM 2012 RC