Hyper-V

This is the final installment in our series of articles about Hype-V security. Thus far, we have looked at how to configure Hyper-V security using Authorization Manager and how to use Hyper-V and Authorization Manager together for maximum security. This article will explain in greater detail how to secure Hyper-V Server and virtual machines using Authorization Manager and best practices. It will focus on Hyper-V security best practices and provide an example of Hyper-V security using Authorization Manager.

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Ben Armstrong a.k.a. "Virtual PC Guy" explains which files make up a virtual machine and where virtual machine files are stored.

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Similar to RemoteApp, the RemoteApp for Hyper-V feature allows users to access a specific hosted application remotely, as opposed to the entire desktop. When using RemoteApp, the application runs in the context of a server session; however, RemoteApp for Hyper-V enables remote access to an application running on a Hyper-V virtual machine (VM). That is, this feature allows you to launch applications that are hosted on VMs as remote applications.

This blog outlines setup steps and common troubleshooting tricks for deploying RemoteApp for Hyper-V.

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Brien M. Posey: In my previous article, I explained that Hyper-V’s export function could be used as a mechanism for cloning virtual machines if you do not have System Center Virtual Machine Manager. In this article, I want to conclude the series by showing you how the export process works.

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John Kelbley: I mentioned in my last post the diskshadow command line tool that was introduced in Windows Server 2008.  Jose Barreto did a nice job over viewing the command in his blog, so I won't cover the same ground.  I’m going to walk you through how I use diskshadow to create a consistent, restorable, consolidated backup of Hyper-V and running VMs.

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Paul Wilson: If you have read some of my recent blogs, you know that I have been spending time testing XenDesktop 4 and Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V. I thought I would take a moment and highlight the top seven things I have learned during this testing. Some of these items I briefly mentioned in my previous blog Optimizing Windows 7 for FlexCast Delivery posted a few weeks ago.

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Installing Hyper-V on a server establishes the server as a virtualization server. Each virtual machine you install on the server must be assigned resources to use and then be configured. The number of virtual machines you can run on any individual server depends on the server’s hardware configuration and workload.

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Aidan Finn: Patrick Lownds, a fellow virtualisation MVP over in the UK, has provided a couple of useful links if you are running Hyper-V on HP equipment.  The first is a post on best practice guidance if you are running Hyper-V on a HP EVA SAN.  There is a whitepaper that goes through HP’s recommendations on this.  It was interesting to see they saw a fixed VHD’s get 7% more IOPS at 7% less latency than dynamic VHD’s.

The ProTips for HP are also available.  They’re not easy to find but Patrick provided me with a link.  The idea here is that HP SIM agents (which you should be installing, even if you don’t use the HP or other management software) detect hardware issues.  OpsMgr then picks up the alert and notifies VMM using the HP Pro Tips.  VMM can then take action, e.g. migrating VM’s from one host to another in the cluster.

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Kurt Roggen: This is a free ebook for IT professionals who want to learn more about the latest Microsoft virtualization technologies, including Hyper-V and Remote Desktop  Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure,  Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and Microsoft’s private and public cloud computing platforms including Windows Azure.

Chapters covered:

• Why Virtualization?
• Server Virtualization
• Local Desktop Virtualization
• Remote Desktop Virtualization
• Virtualization Management
• Cloud Computing

Download here

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A Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is a file that encapsulates a hard disk image. VHDs can be used in new and interesting ways. VHDs first were created to be the storage media for Virtual Machines (VMs).  Today, VHDs are used to ship trial versions of software, used in backup solutions, used for bug triage (e.g. customers can convert a physical disk to virtual and share it), and even used to store multiple boot environments.  VHDs are a very flexible storage container and are not tied to any single file system format.  Since June 2005, Microsoft has made the VHD Image Format Specification available to third parties under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise (OSP).

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Project Server 2010 Beta ensures organizations select and deliver the right projects, while gaining greater visibility and control of resources leading to improved productivity and better business performance.

Participate in the Microsoft Project Server 2010 Beta and be the first to see how the innovative new capabilities can help organizations to:

    * Capture all types of work in a centralized demand management repository
    * Select the right project portfolios and maximize resource utilization
    * Build and conveniently update project schedules online
    * Create powerful dashboards and project reports


By adding Microsoft Project Professional 2010 Beta, enjoy powerful, visually enhanced ways to successfully manage and deliver a wide range of projects. Easier and more intuitive, Project Professional 2010 provides flexible choices to simplify planning, collaboration and resource management.

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Anyone who has participated in a disaster recovery exercise is familiar with the pains of rebuilding an infrastructure from scratch. The little nuances of reinstalling and restoring application servers, bringing supporting services live and the possibility of bad or missing data can all cause an exercise to fail.

Virtualization removes the guesswork from standing up new production systems since you can use the systems you already have – the ones running in production and in good working order.

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This guide describes how to configure your network to use the live migration feature of Hyper-V™. It provides a detailed list of the networking configuration requirements for optimal performance and reliability, as well as recommendations for scenarios that do not meet these requirements.

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Ben Armstrong: We have just released an updated version of the Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities that now adds support for Hyper-V, plus we have updated the Hyper-V Migration Guide.  You can grab the bits from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5c1ec14a-e9d7-46ea-9c6e-73d6bc4219b4

And read the guide here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee849855(WS.10).aspx

But what is this exactly?

Simply put – this is a set of command line tools (PowerShell to be precise) and associated documentation that allow you to take a Hyper-V installation on a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 computer, and move all the Hyper-V bits (virtual machines and all) to a new computer running Windows Server 2008 R2.

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The full release version of the Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities is now available. The update allows you to use the Windows Server Migration Tools-a set of Windows PowerShell cmdlets that shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2- to migrate Hyper-V and RRAS. And the detailed guides that take you through Hyper-V and RRAS migration, one step at a time, are now complete and live as well.

Full release versions of other guides (for migrations that do not require the Tools) have also gone live. Check out the Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 Migration Guide, and guides for the other role services of Network Policy and Access Services (NPAS), Health Registration Authority and Network Policy Server.

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Want to test XenDesktop 4 on Hyper-V, but you cannot find the time to build a test environment? Well look no further, Citrix and Microsoft have teamed up to bring you the Hands on Lab. What is Hands on Lab, you ask? The Hands on Lab is a pre-built environment / training session that is interactive and totally usable for testing and seeing the combined power of XenDesktop 4 and Microsoft Hyper-V.

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Download this fully configured virtual machine of the latest release of Exchange Server 2010. Evaluate the new capabilities of Exchange Server 2010, which helps you achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that help to simplify your administration, protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for greater business mobility.

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Download this fully configured virtual machine of the latest release of Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 RC. Evaluate the new capabilities of Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 which enables teams to accelerate setup/tear down and restoration of complex virtual environments to a known state for test execution and build automation. It extends build automation by automating virtual machine provisioning, build deployment and build verification in an integrated manner. It also allows testers to file rich bugs with links to environment checkpoints that developers can use to recreate complex environments, effectively reducing wasted time and resources in your development and test lifecycle. The detailed walkthrough steps can be found here.

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Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 (DPM) provides continuous data protection for virtual machines hosted on servers running Microsoft’s Hyper-V. This protection includes online backup of supported guest virtual machines hosted on clustered or standalone systems; protection of virtual machines during the live migration process; and, item level recovery from host-level backup. DPM 2010 offers disk-to-disk, disk-to-tape, and disk-to-disk-to-tape technologies; all of which maintain the business value of a virtualized infrastructure by ensuring that it is better protected and always available.

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 Reliability is one of the great payoffs to virtualisation, and failover clustering has now got a whole lot better with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V. Now, you get failover without any downtime for the virtual machine. Jaap Wesselius tells you how to implement it.

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This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. The vulnerability could allow denial of service if a malformed sequence of machine instructions is run by an authenticated user in one of the guest virtual machines hosted by the Hyper-V server. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally into a guest virtual machine to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users.

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While the validation of SAP applications on Windows Server 2008 R2 currently still goes on, SAP has made last week an important announcment regarding the use of Windows Server 2008 R2 for Hyper-V Server purposes. It's now officially supported by SAP to use the new Hyper-V implementation in Windows Server 2008 R2 for SAP installations in Virtual Machines (at the current time however, the VM's have to be on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003). The support statemenst of SAP can be found on SDN (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/windows-virtualization) or in SAP note 1409608. The advantage to use Windows Server 2008 R2 as Hyper-V Server especially for SAP applications is as followes:

  - Live Migration is available

  - Processor Compatibility enables migrations between older and newer server (different chipsets)

  - Support for logical processors on the parent, 64 processors vs. 32 in Windows Server 2008

  - Support for Second Level Address Translation

  - Support in the Network configurations of VM's like Jumbo-Frames, TCP-Offload for iSCSCI

  - Dynamic Add/Remove of storage in a VM

  - Performance improvements in network, storage and memory management of VM's

  - Support of Core Parking in the parent improves the energy efficiency

The capabilities of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 makes it very attractive for SAP installations at an excellent price point.

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Matt McSpirit: This is a combination of technology that I’m starting to see on a pretty regular basis.  People looking at virtualisation, are typically weighing up new hardware, and from a server perspective, it makes sense to go for the latest and greatest CPUs (from both Intel and AMD) because of their virtualisation optimisations.  When it comes to storage however, more and more customers are learning to appreciate the performance that iSCSI can bring, yet at a great price point when compared with Fibre implementations.  This isn’t obviously correct for all scenarios, but, typically the rule holds.  Stephen’s got a great example of this here.  Stephen’s also got a link to a test performed back in March last year where Microsoft and Intel, combining the technologies above, pushed over 1 million IOPS.

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Microsoft released version 2.0 of the Linux Integration Components for Hyper-V on the 29th of January.  They include support for installing on not only SUSE Enterprise Linux (10 SP1 and 10 SP2) but also RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.

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Ben Armstrong: The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters project have just put up the sample code for a Hyper-V ActiveX RDP control, available here:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ddc/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=3833

What this allows you to do is to create a Remote Desktop connection directly to the virtual machine (not to the guest operating system) in exactly the same manner as when you are using the Virtual Machine Connection window in the Hyper-V Management Console.

As this is an ActiveX control you can even use it in a web page if you wish to.

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