https://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=164300985

Summary:

At its annual conference in SanJose, the PCI Special Interest Group detailed updates and extensions to the PCI Express specification that could drive annual silicon updates through 2007. The SIG outlined six new directions for Express, taking the serial technology into areas such as security and virtualization.

The SIG announced plans to extend the Express spec for virtualized I/O. The extension will allow multiple operating systems to access the same physical I/O resources either simultaneously or in serial fashion. The spec will define supersets for accessing I/O in a single or in a multihost environment.

Software virtualization is seen as a key technique for making best use of the multicore, multithreaded processors beginning to proliferate in the PC market. Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are rolling out separate techniques for virtualizing their multicore processors. With the new spec, the SIG will extend those capabilities to Express-based I/O devices. Designers think virtualization ultimately will be applied to all PC systems — even multitasking home computers. But its first target is server blades that are evolving towards stateless collections of compute boards in a single chassis linked on an Express mezzanine bus. The virtual I/O spec will allow those compute cards to share Express, Ethernet and storage I/O resources in and outside their chassis.

The spec is still in an early stage, with the 19-company working group about to put a requirements document out for review. A completed spec is not expected until late in 2006 or early in 2007. It will also require hardware changes for chip makers who want to support its features.

From the download page: "The Branch Office Infrastructure Solution (BOIS) deliverables provide conceptual information to facilitate the definition and deployment of a streamlined branch office infrastructure solution that provides a comprehensive set of core IT infrastructure services based on the Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 operating system. The BOIS deliverables also include prescriptive guidance and best practices for implementing a complete, lab-validated single-server solution for the branch office using automated deployment tools. The automation tools are part of this download and are configurable for individual branch office deployments."

Also from ComputerWorld, "Sidebar: Under the Hood: The Soul of a Virtual Machine" (they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!) - https://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,101243,00.html

From The Register, "Microsoft's Virtual Server to become a 'feature' in 2009" - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/08/ms_hypervisor_2009/ 

PS: I'm back from my vacation (which was grand!).

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Hardware virtualization is an extremely powerful tool. When wielded properly, virtualization can result in benefits such as:

• Higher Server Utilization: Fewer physical servers needed and running with greater efficiency.
• Reduced physical footprint and power consumption: Fewer physical servers requires a smaller footprint and greatly reduced power consumption. 

However, virtualization is not a panacea. Before discussing specific techniques to maximize Virtual Server performance, let’s clarify some misconceptions about virtualization and performance. Virtualization is a technology that runs contrary to performance. Virtualization does not make things run faster. Say it with me.
 
Virtualization is at odds with performance.

Virtualization is the process of dividing a physical server to run more workloads and increase efficiency of the physical hardware. If you decide to consolidate the workloads of 20 physical servers onto a single physical server running virtualization, what are the affects of that process? The result of this consolidation is that 20 physical servers, which used to have their own dedicated I/O for CPU, memory, disk and network, are now running on a single server where these 20 workloads are now sharing I/O for CPU, memory, disk and network. Numerous potential bottlenecks have just been created. The good news is that modern server hardware is very fast and there are many techniques to help mitigate these bottlenecks. But, the key to a successful virtualization experience is to understand and alleviate these bottlenecks.
 
With this in mind, this discussion will discuss techniques to improve performance and mitigate these bottlenecks.

1. Install Virtual Machine Additions.
2. Install as much memory as you can on your physical server.
3. More host processors = more virtual machines.
4. Use a fast disk subsystem.
5. Put virtual hard disks on a different physical disk than the host operating system.
6. Use virtual SCSI disks instead of virtual IDE hard disks.
7. Use fixed-size virtual hard disks instead of dynamically expanding virtual hard disks.
8. Install multiple host NICs.
9. Avoid running other peer apps/services on a Virtual Server.
10. Virtual Server SP1 Beta + Windows x64 Editions + x64 servers = Joy. 

Install Virtual Machine Additions. By far, one of the most overlooked steps in creating virtual machines is installing Virtual Machine Additions after the guest operating system has been installed. Virtual Machine Additions, included with Virtual Server, is a set of features that improve the integration of the host and guest operating systems. It also improves the performance and manageability of the guest operating system. For more information about Virtual Machine Additions, see Installing Virtual Machine Additions in the Virtual Server Administrator’s Guide.

Install as much memory as you can on your physical server. The most limiting factor to how many virtual machines can be run on a Virtual Server is the amount of physical memory in the hardware. The host operating system and each running virtual machine all require adequate memory. To calculate the total memory needed, you must allocate enough memory to each virtual machine to run its operating system (and its applications) in addition to the memory required by the host operating system. Additionally, Virtual Server can require up to an additional 32 MB of RAM per virtual machine. Here’s an example of how to calculate memory needs:

Host Operating System: Window Server 2003, Standard Edition: 512 MB

Virtual Machine 1: Guest OS Win NT 4.0 SP6 Server #1 128 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 2: Guest OS Win NT 4.0 SP6 Server #2 128 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 3: Guest OS Win 2000 SP4 Server #1 256 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 4: Guest OS Win 2000 SP4 Server #2 256 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 5: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #1 512 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 6: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #2 512 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 7: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #3 512 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 8: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #4 512 MB + 32 MB

Total Memory Required: 3584 MB of RAM
 
As on physical hardware, allocating additional memory to a guest operating system results in improved performance.

More host processors = more virtual machines. Virtual Server is heavily threaded to allow it to scale on larger server hardware. At present, each virtual machine operates as a uni-processor; one host thread is created to act as the virtual processor. Multiple virtual machines will create multiple virtual processor threads, and those will be scheduled across the host processors.

Use a fast disk subsystem on the physical server. Like any application that is disk intensive, Virtual Server will take advantage of a fast disk subsystem on a physical server. Serial ATA (SATA) disks are faster than traditional IDE (Parallel ATA) and SCSI is typically faster than both of these. Of course, using a striped RAID configuration (more spindles = better performance) will result in even better performance as well as provide redundancy. If you’re in a SAN environment and are going to place virtual machines on a SAN, consider investing in multiple fibre channel host bus adapters. With enough virtual machines and disk activity, it is possible to saturate fibre channel. The way to determine if the fibre channel is saturated is to monitor the performance of the fibre channel card on the host Virtual Server and see if its performance is maxed.

Put virtual hard disks on a different physical disk than the host operating system.

In particular, you want to put virtual hard disks on a different physical disk than the host page file.

Use virtual SCSI disks instead of virtual IDE hard disks. Using virtual SCSI disks can provide up to ~20% performance improvement on disk activity. Remember, IDE (specifically, parallel ATA) is limited to one transaction on the bus, whereas, SCSI can handle multiple concurrent transactions. This is true on hardware as well. Use SCSI virtual hard disks when you can.

Use fixed-size virtual hard disks instead of dynamically expanding virtual hard disks. The two most common virtual hard disks are the fixed-size virtual hard disk and the dynamically expanding virtual hard disk.

When a fixed-size virtual hard disk is created, the entire space required by the virtual hard disk is reserved. So, if you create a 100 GB virtual hard disk, it will take up 100 GB of space on the physical disk. The space on a fixed-size disk is more likely to be contiguous than on a dynamically expanding disk, so fixed-size disks generally provide better performance. Also, the file size of a fixed-size virtual hard disk does not need to be expanded before data is written to the file, which also helps provide better performance.
A dynamically expanding virtual hard disk is one in which the size of the .vhd file grows as data is written to the virtual hard disk. This is the default type of virtual hard disk created by Virtual Server. When you create a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk, you specify a maximum file size. This size restricts how large the disk can become. For example, if you create a 100 GB, dynamically expanding virtual hard disk, the initial size of the .vhd file will be about 3 MB. As a virtual machine uses the virtual hard disk, the size of the .vhd file grows to accommodate the new data. Because dynamically expanding virtual hard disks grow as needed, it is less likely to be contiguous on the physical disk resulting in possibly reduced performance depending on the amount of fragmentation.
 
Install multiple host NICS. This is probably one of the easiest and most inexpensive techniques you can use to improve performance. Instead of having all of your virtual machines using a single NIC in a physical server, install multiple host NICs and assign groups of virtual machines to virtual networks with their own NICs. Now, instead of twenty virtual machines sharing a single NIC, you can have two groups of ten, or four groups of five…

Avoid running other peer applications on a Virtual Server. As a best practice and to insure best possible performance, don’t run other applications as peers to Virtual Server. If a peer application/service is running and competing with Virtual Server for resources, it’s possible that Virtual Server could be starved for resources affecting all running virtual machines. This is definitely not a good situation. While it’s understandable that there may be circumstances where it’s necessary to run peer host applications (e.g. an application that has specific hardware needs that can’t be met by running in a virtual machine), it’s best to avoid this scenario.

Virtual Server x64 SP1 Beta + Windows x64 Editions + x64 servers = Joy. If you’re purchasing a server today for Virtual Server, purchase an x64 server and run Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition. With the availability of hardware from vendors such as Intel, AMD and with the debut of Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, customers are able to reap the benefits of 64-bit computing, such as greater performance and scalability, without having to pay a premium for it. Virtual Server SP1 Beta provides native x64 host support allowing Virtual Server to run on Windows x64 Editions. Running VS SP1 Beta on Window x64 Editions allow it to be executed in 64-bit mode, which processes more data per clock cycle and allows greater access to memory.

As mentioned previously, the most limiting factor to running virtual machines is often the amount of memory present in the physical server. One of the key benefits to Windows x64 Editions lies in the 64-bit version’s ability to use much more system memory. On 32-bit Windows the limitations of 2 GB of User Mode Address Space and 2 GB of Kernel Mode Address Space With 64-bit Windows those limitations are removed allowing Virtual Server to take full advantage of large amounts of physical memory.
 
Virtual Server SP1 includes significant performance improvements. While developing Virtual Server 2005, the VM team profiled server applications and their performance characteristics. One common theme observed was how server applications tend to be modular and rely on inter-process communication. By optimizing Virtual Server for this type of workload, we have measured substantial performance improvements. In fact, some of our early adopters have reported as much as a 50% decrease in host CPU usage running the same number of virtual machines and workloads with Virtual Server SP1. Virtual Server SP1 will RTM in Q4/CY’05.

1. On a computer with Virtual Server installed, open Microsoft Powerpoint.
2. On a PowerPoint slide, click "Insert," and then click "Object."
3. Select "Create new" (the default), in the list click "Microsoft Virtual Server VMRC Control," and then click "OK."
4. Double-click the object on the slide. This opens Microsoft Visual Basic.
5. On the left side of the screen, configure properties, so your target virtual machine displays. A list of what you have to configure is below.
6. When finished configuring properties, save the changes in Visual Basic and go back to the PowerPoint slide.
7. Click the slideshow icon and click "Yes" until the virtual machine displays. If the display shows "No connection," click "Remote Control," click "Connect To Server," and then specify the virtual machine.

Properties to configure in Visual Basic:

Height: Height of the virtual machine display space. I started with 400, and it looks OK on my screen.

Left: Space between the virtual machine display and the left side of the slide. I set it at 50.

ServerAddress: Name of the computer running Virtual Server. I tried connecting to a remote instance of Virtual Server and wasn't able to get it to work. If you can figure this out, please post a comment, so we'll all know.

ServerDisplayName: Name of the virtual machine.

ServerPort: VMRC port, 5900 by default.

Top: Distance from the top of the slide for the virtual machine display. I set it at 50.

UserDomain: Domain, if you're in one.

UserName: Your user name.

Width: Width of the virtual machine display. I set mine at 600.

Note: I'm doing this on a machine that has every possible Microsoft product on it. I assume this will also work for you. If it doesn't please let me know and I'll figure out what's up.

Abstract: Microsoft® Virtual PC 2004 is a virtual machine solution for desktop operating systems. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, on the other hand, is a solution for server operating systems. Although Virtual PC and Virtual Server share many features in common, they are designed for different purposes. As a result, some of their features are also quite different. This white paper explains the differences between Virtual PC and Virtual Server and discusses the scenarios in which it is appropriate to use one or the other.

A: Here's a response from Ed Reed, a developer on the Virtual Machine team, and our resident VM security expert:

For the Administration Website, there are no special requirements for an SSL certificate. As long as the certificate supports Server Authentication, it really doesn't matter where the certificate comes from. The choice of certificate, however, determines the level of security that SSL encryption can provide. Here are some links to relevant information:

• Designing a Public Key Infrastructure:
  https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/DepKit/b1ee9920-d7ef-4ce5-b63c-3661c72e0f0b.mspx
• Best Practices for Implementing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Public Key Infrastructure: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/security/ws3pkibp.mspx
• Windows Server 2003 PKI Operations Guide: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/security/ws03pkog.mspx
• How to implement SSL with a stand-alone certificate server in Virtual Server 2005: https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;887490

The requirements are different, however, for VMRC. Because Virtual Server runs as NetworkService, you need to create the VMRC SSL certificate using the IVMVirtualServer::VMRCCreateEncryptionCertificateRequest COM interface. You can also create this certificate from the Administration Website on the Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) Server Properties page. This request makes a temporary certificate that can be used to perform SSL encryption, however, it doesn't have the full security of a certificate signed by a third-party CA. If you use MAKECERT or some other tool, the private key is stored such that it is inaccessible to NetworkService. Such a certificate will not work for VMRC.

1. Copy the following files from your installation of Windows Server 2003 SP1 to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft VSMT\Patches\Source\5.2.3790\sp1\.

a. From %SystemDrive%\WINNT\system32\drivers, copy the following files:

atapi.sys
intelide.sys
pciide.sys
pciidex.sys

b. From %SystemDrive%\WINNT\Driver Cache\i386\driver.cab, copy the following file:

aic78xx.sys

c. From %SystemDrive%\WINNT\Driver Cache\i386\sp1.cab, copy the following files:

hal.dll
halacpi.dll
ntkrnlpa.exe
ntoskrnl.exe

2. Copy the following XML files from %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft VSMT\Patches\Source\5.2.3790\ to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft VSMT\Patches\Source\5.2.3790\sp1\:

finish.xml
hal.xml
hal_nacpi.xml
start.xml
storage.xml
storageSCSI.xml
UNIPROC.xml

For more information how VSMT swaps out system files and the reasons why it's important, see the "Step 6: Load system files" topic in the VSMT User's Guide (%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft VSMT\Help\vsmt.chm). To download VSMT, go to https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/vsmt.mspx.

Important notes:

• You should either run Windows Server 2003 SP1 under Virtual Server 2005 SP1 (now in beta), or at least install the Virtual Machine Additions that ship with Virtual Server 2005 SP1. Otherwise, you may be unhappy with your virtual machine's performance. For more information about the beta, see https://blogs.technet.com/megand/archive/2005/04/20/403950.aspx.
• ADS 1.0 doesn't work with Windows Server 2003 SP1. If you installed ADS 1.0 and pointed it to Server2003-SP1 SlipStream binaries, you'll get an error (Error Code: 81070303). To fix the problem, you'll need to uninstall ADS, then reinstall it. During setup when it asks for location of windows files, point it to Server2003 RTM binaries.