Off-topic things and some Hyper-V goodies (resources, backup and AzMan scope scripts)
Lately it's been very quiet on my blog. There are a couple of things to that. First and foremost there was recently a lot going on in my private life, and therefore I had little time to focus on anything else then family (well, I still had and HAVE to work;))
The news is I am getting married:) to my long-time fiancee Maja. Actually I still think that its not that big of a change, because we have been living together for a long time. But others seem to point that it still is a more then just a formal change. We'll see;)
As for work, I finished an internal Hyper-V virtualization training. During preparing of this training I learned a lot about Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Unfortunately I had little time to blog about these technologies. Below I share couple of things:
- List of useful blogs and resources on virtualization that I used while preparing the training (listed below - note that some of the links may become outdated as I used them over the last 4 months, and in that time Hyper-V went from BETA through RC0, RC1 to RTM)
- A VMM 2008 simple backup script that saves VMs, copies them to a disk and starts (I used external USB) - attached (bat that fires the powershell can be used in Task Scheduler).
- A VBScript shared by David Shiflet that allows setting and getting AzMan scopes on VMs in Hyper-V. (GetSetScopeScripts contains 2 vbscripts). First create an AzMan scope (give it some name, say SCOPENAME) and then use the scripts in this way:
- Get Scope: cscript //nologo GetScope.vbs VMNAME
- Set Scope: cscript //nologo SetScope.vbs VMName SCOPENAME
Hyper-V and VMM resources:
Blogs regarding virtualization:
https://blogs.technet.com/virtualization
https://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy
https://blogs.technet.com/jhoward
https://blogs.technet.com/rakeshm
https://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/natashamocke
https://blogs.msdn.com/mikekol
Architecture:
Microsoft Virtualization short podcast series https://weblog.infoworld.com/podcasts/2007/10/microsoft/
Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) initiative: https://xml.coverpages.org/ni2007-09-11-a.html
HyperCall API: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=91E2E518-C62C-4FF2-8E50-3A37EA4100F5&displaylang=en
VHD Specification: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/techinfo/vhdspec.mspx
Planning
Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide – Windows Server Virtualization https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897507.aspx, https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=100915
Core IO Team Blog: https://blogs.technet.com/io/default.aspx
Microsoft IO websites: https://www.microsoftio.com/coreio.aspx, https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/infrastructure/default.aspx
Microsoft Virtualization ROI Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/ROItool/default.mspx
Deployment
Implementing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Release Candidate 0 (RC0) on HP ProLiant servers" Integration Note: https://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01286554/c01286554.pdf
Microsoft Assessment and Planning
MAPS Team Blog (Virtualization) https://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/archive/2008/04/23/how-to-series-for-microsoft-assessment-and-planning-part-1-server-virtualization.aspx
Storage
Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Primer https://www.snia.org/education/storage_networking_primer
SNIA Storage Tutorials https://www.snia.org/education/tutorials
Storage options for Hyper-V blog entries: https://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/02/14/storage-options-for-windows-server-2008-s-hyper-v.aspx, https://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/03/06/more-on-storage-options-for-windows-server-2008-s-hyper-v.aspx
Microsoft Storage Technologies: https://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/default.mspx
Deploying iSCSI SANs https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/4/b/94ba64d1-959e-44b8-b221-206297e832bb/Deploying iSCSI SANs.doc
Deployment Automation
How sysprep works: https://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/fd2f79c9-3049-4b8c-bcfd-4e6dc5771ace1033.mspx?mfr=true
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 download: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=112437
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Team Blog: https://blogs.technet.com/msdeployment/
TechNet Web Cast: Windows Server 2008: Server Virtualization Solution Scenario (Level 300) https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032336484&CountryCode=US
Storage IT Toolbox: https://storage.ittoolbox.com/
Introduction to SAN IBM Redbook: https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245470.pdf (352 pages of information on SAN concepts)
Implementing Hyper-V on HP ProLiant Servers https://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01286554/c01286554.pdf
Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide (including VMM 2008 IPD) – still BETA at 17/06/2008: https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=14&DownloadID=7925
Windows Server 2008 Performance Tuning Guide: https://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx
Manage and Automate
WMI resource center: https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa286547.aspx
Hypervisor Design Guide: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb969686.aspx
Blog with many samples on how to use powershell to manage hyper-v VMs: https://blogs.technet.com/jamesone/
VMM 2008 General Overview: https://download.microsoft.com/download/6/f/8/6f8a7125-041a-46f9-a9ec-362b13fe0445/VMM2008_White_Paper_Draft3.6_FINAL.pdf
VMM Video: https://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/flash/SCVMM.html
Interoperability
VHD Compatibilty blog entry: https://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/02/28/are-vhds-compatible-between-hyper-v-and-virtual-server-and-virtual-pc.aspx
Hyper-V vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 hypervisor: https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/f/95f42c38-8095-48ed-ba9a-716387b0719e/Comparing_Hyper_V_to_RHEL_Hypervisor.pdf
Security
Delegate permissions to hyper-V with AzMan: https://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/01/17/allowing-non-administrators-to-control-hyper-v.aspx
How to install Hyper-V on Server Core: https://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/30/how-to-add-the-hyper-v-role-to-a-windows-server-2008-server-core-machine.aspx
Security Configuration Wizard Documentation: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=903FD496-9EB9-4A45-AA00-3F2F20FD6171
Virtual Computing Security Technical Implementation Guide: https://iase.disa.mil/stigs/draft-stigs/Virtual-Computing-STIG-V1R01.doc
Bitlocker Hyper-V recommendation podcast: https://download.microsoft.com/download/5/c/b/5cb1943c-751d-4fd4-a897-38926e90a86f/BrandonBakerHyperVSecurity2Podcast.wma
High Availability
Build a HA cluster for Hyper-V step-by-step instructions: https://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2007/12/17/building-a-host-cluster-with-hyper-v-beta-1.aspx
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Software v2.06: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=12CB3C1A-15D6-4585-B385-BEFD1319F825&displaylang=en
Quick Migration with Hyper-V https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/B/5/3B51A025-7522-4686-AA16-8AE2E536034D/Quick%20Migration%20with%20Hyper-V.doc
How to setup a failover cluster with Server 2008 core:
Hyper-V Clustering step-by-step guide: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CD828712-8D1E-45D1-A290-7EDADF1E4E9C
WS08 Cluster setup: https://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/bb9ab149-6585-423b-9d24-e68fb116d8291033.mspx?mfr=true
Windows Server 2008 High Availability Program information https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71684
Certified for Windows Server Logo Program for Software https://www.innovateonwindowsserver.com/
List of application vendors who meet Certification requirements https://www.windowsservercatalog.com/results.aspx?bCatId=1372&ocID=20
Hyper-V Guest clustering setup https://blogs.technet.com/pfe-ireland/archive/2008/05/16/how-to-create-a-windows-server-2008-cluster-within-hyper-v-using-simulated-iscsi-storage.aspx