Windows Server 2012 Virtualization:Notes from the FieldDidier Van Hoye, Architecthttp://workinghardinit.wordpress.com

Kurt Roggen, Technical Consultanthttp://trycatch.be/blogs/roggenk

Agenda

• WS 2012 Hyper-V & Failover Clustering• VM Priorities• Maintenance Mode• Failover & Failback• Anti Affinity• Live Migration• Cluster Aware Updating (CAU)

• SC 2012 SP1 Virtual Machine Manager• Cluster Management - Availability Sets• Fabric Patching• Maintenance Mode• Service Templates

Hyper-V & Failover Clustering

MICROSOFT CONF IDENTIAL – INTERNAL ONLY

WS 2012 Failover ClusteringOptimize & automate placement logic

Virtual Machine Priority

Starting the most important VMs first

Ensure the most important VMs are running Preemption to shut down low

priority VMs to free up resources for higher priority VMs to start

Ideal for infrastructure servers (DCs) or tiered architecture (back-end, middle-tier, customer-facing)

Enhanced Failover Placement

Each VM placed based on node with best available memory resources

Memory requirements evaluated on a per VM basis Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)

aware

HighMedium

Low

Priorities for Roles or Virtual MachineValues: High, Medium, Low

Default Priority: Medium Lowest Priority: No Auto Start

Starting Roles in Priority order Per Node

Placing Roles/VMs in Priority order Cold start Handling node crash

Moving Roles/VMs in Priority order Queuing Node Drain

High

Medium

Low

No Auto Start

Virtual Machine Priorities

Default Priority: Medium Default “Move Behavior”: Quick migration for Low &

below Defined by cluster parameter

“MoveTypeThreshold” which defaults to 2000 (Medium or Higher Priority)

Didier Van Hoye

VM Priorities & Live Migration Set all VMs to Live Migrate (instead of Quick

Migrate) Not only VM with Medium/High Priorities

VM Priority Values 3000 = High 2000 = Medium 1000 = Low 0 = Do not start automatically

Using PowerShell Get-ClusterResourceType "Virtual Machine" |

Set-ClusterParameter MoveTypeThreshold 1000

DEMO

Enhanced Failover Placement

• Enhanced memory aware placement of VMs• Check for most available Memory

• Failover is determined by Preferred Owners & Possible Owners

• Failback of VM now uses Live Migration instead of Quick Migration• Live Migration respects Preferred Owners & Possible Owners• Default Failback action: No Failback

Anti Affinity ClassNames• Property of ClusterResourceGroup• Identify ClusterGroups that should not be hosted on the

same node (where possible)• Impacts VM Placement and Live Migrations

• Configurable using PowerShell only• Configurable using SC2012 SP1 VMM using “Availibility

Sets”• Serves as basis for “Availibility Sets” in SC2012 SP1 VMM

More information:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa369651(v=vs.85).aspx

Cluster Node Maintenance Mode

Drain all VMs off a nodeSupports all cluster roles Role-specific features Live migration or quick migration for VMs Uses VM Priority Moves other roles

Cluster Node Maintenance Mode Workflow – In Depth

Cluster Node Maintenance Mode - Automated Node Drain

Workload sorted based on Priority

VMs queued for live migration (using MaxLiveMigrations)

Enhanced memory aware placement of VMs

VMs’ live migrated concurrently along with built-in retry logic

Node is PAUSED

Automated Node Drain completed

Cluster Placement Policies (Preferred & Possible Owners, AntiAffinity)

Cluster Aware Updating(CAU)

Cluster Aware Updating (CAU)

Update orchestration across all nodes in a cluster CAU ships in box with Windows Server 2012 Not reinventing Windows Updates & patching Previews, applies and reports on updates for a cluster

Two modes: Self-updating & Remote-updating Self-updating: Workload reduction through increased automation, Updating itself is resilient Remote-updating scenarios where closer administrator attention is preferred or warranted

Extensible Integrate with your patching tools with plug-ins (API) Two inbox plug-ins: Windows Update & hotfix plug-in Per-node pre-update and post-update scripts

Didier Van Hoye

Where Does CAU Fit In?

Windows Update Services

Didier Van Hoye

Plug-ins & Supported Update TypesCAU ships with two plug-ins

1.Windows Update

1. Installs GDRs* => From Windows Update Or WSUS

2.Hotfix Plug-in

1. Installs QFEs** from a SMB 3.0 file share

2.3rd party updates such as BIOS & Firmware Updates from a SMB 3.0 File Share

*GDR = General Distribution Release**QFE = Quick Fix Engineering (nickname for hotfix)

Didier Van Hoye

Cluster Aware Updating Process

1. Scans, downloads and installs applicable updates on each node Windows Update or Hotfix plugin or both

2. Restarts node as necessary

3. One node at a time

4. Repeats for all cluster nodes

5. Customize pre- & post-update behaviorwith PS scripts

6. Easy manual or scheduled launch Via GUI

PowerShell

Works for both physical or virtualized clusters

Jenny Starts Updating Run

Node 64

Resume Node & Failback VMs

.

.

.

Node 1

Windows Server failover cluster

. . .

Windows Update, WSUS, QFE, …

Pause Node & Drain VMs

CAU

Apply updates on this cluster

Didier Van Hoye

Remote-Updating Mode

CAU Update Coordinator process remotely connects to the cluster

User-initiated Updating Run, allowing real time monitoring

Rich progress updates

Minimal Server Core (no .Net or PS dependency) on nodes

CAU Update Coordinator Failover Cluster

Node 1 Node 2

Node 3 Node 4

Didier Van Hoye

Node 1

Failover Cluster

Self-Updating Mode

Leverages a CAU cluster role that is resilient to planned and unplanned failures

Requires no real-time user

attention

Installs updates on a custom

schedule CAU Update Coordinator process

runs on a clustered node

Update Coordinator

Node 2 Node

3

Node 4

Didier Van Hoye

Strict ACL Checking (Optional)Kerberos Mutual Authentication (Required)

Data integrity checking (Required) SMB Signing or SMB Encryption

Privacy with SMB Encryption (Optional) SMB Encryption is new in Windows Server

2012

Hotfixes FolderStructure & Security

CAU Hotfix Root Folder

CAUHotfix_All

<Node Name 1>

Extension Rules<MSU><MSI><MSP>

Folder Rules<MySwUpdateType>

Hotfix Config File

MySwUpdateTypeSpecial software updates

.

.

.

Hotfixes applicable to all nodes

Hotfixes applicable just to <Node Name 1>

Hotfixes applicable just to <Node Name N>

<Node Name N>

MySwUpdateTypeSpecial software updates

MySwUpdateTypeSpecial software updates

Didier Van Hoye

Didier Van Hoye

“Hotfix” Support Internals

Rich/extensible Hotfix installation Microsoft QFEs, or third-party driver updates,

or even Firmware/BIOS updates…

Select hotfix behavior at start.Two key inputs:1. Root Folder: on an SMB File Share2. Configuration xml file: defines the Rules \

System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\ClusterAwareUpdating\DefaultHotfixConfig.xml

Configuration Rules are the key to flexibility Easy to specify new Rules

hotfix installer name, install options, reboot behavior, return values etc.

Didier Van Hoye

NTFS permissions CAU File Share

First you’ll need to do your home work as described in the TechNet article

But that doesn’t quite cover it

Adjust NTFS Permissions on the CAU Share Give cluster node computer accounts (or

an AD group containing them, which makes for easier administration) Read/Execute permission to the location

If Not =>they can’t run the DUPs.

NTFS permissions Log File

DUPs allows logging with /L switch

Locally (per node) or to central share

Must use another share than the CAU

Share: Need to give the computer accounts (or

an AD group containing them, which makes for easier administration) write permission to the location

You’re not allowed to do that for other then specific accounts as described on TechNet

The log can grow quite large if used a

lot Keep an eye on it For clarities sake use different log per

cluster or folder type

CAU Hotfix plug-in in action

Cluster ManagementUsing SCVMM 2012 SP1

VMM 2012 SP1: Cluster Management• Supports “Possible/Preferred Owner”• Supports of “Availability Sets” (Anti-Affinity)• Supports VM Priority• Supports CSV2• Supports 64 cluster nodes, 4000 VM’s/cluster, 1024

VMs/node

Possible Owners & Preferred Owners

VM Priority

VMM 2012 SP1 support for Anti-Affinity = VMM ‘Availability Sets’Availability Set = configurable anti-

affinity rules for VMsEnsures VMs are placed on different hosts for better availability

VMM Placement algorithm offers suggestions based on availability sets

Works across: Standalone (non-clustered) Hyper-V

hosts* Hyper-V clusters* Xen Server hosts VMware hosts

Availability Set: “DCs”

* Windows Server 2008 R2 & Windows Server 2012 based hosts

Availability Sets

Availability Sets & VMM Services

VMM Services can leverage ‘Availability Sets’ Availability sets – configured at the machine tier level Ensures that VM instances of a machine tier are placed on different

hosts.

SSUs can request availability sets for their VMs Simple checkbox experience Available from the VMM Service Template Designer

Fabric PatchingUsing SCVMM 2012 SP1

Update Management

Feature of VMM 2012Keeps Windows Fabric Servers up-to-date• Limited to VMM managed infrastructure servers (HV, LIB,

WSUS, WDS)

Enable Featur

e

Manage

Baselines

Scan Servers

Remediate

Servers

Manage

Exemptions

Remediating Hyper-V Cluster

Orchestrated workflow Put a node in maintenance mode

Evacuates the node using Live Migration User can override this to save state the VMs on the node

Install missing updates based on baselines assigned Take the node out of maintenance mode Go to next node and repeat

Supports WS2008, WS2008 R2, WS2012 Hyper-V clustersAutomatable using PowerShell

VMM Services & Service Templates

Scale out & health policy

Scale out & health policy

Scale out & health policy

Service template (Multi-tier applications)

IIS

HW profile OS profile App profile

Application server

HW profile OS profile App profile

SQL

HW profile OS profile App profile

Web tier Application tier Data tier

Standardize Application Deployment using Service Templates

Compute Storage Network

Web (IIS)Web Deploy

App (Server App-V) Data (SQL)DAC Packs

Custom Scripts

Create Service Template with Service Designer

Use the ribbon for contextual actions within the Service Template Designer.

Use the designer canvas to build your service template from Virtual Machine Templates, Logical Networks and Load Balancers.

Set service-related properties such as cost center, description, release version.

Preview pane shows view of your service deployment.

Settings allow you to set deployment specific variables.

Ribbon bar for deploy activity or to check deployment ratings.

Deploy Service Through Deployment Preview

Why Use Services?

Standardized deployments (in dynamic way – multiple environments)

Manage multi-tier applications across multiple servers as a single unit

Scale out based on demand

Composibility of OS and Applications, allows users to manage fewer OS images

Automation using # GCEs (Generic Command Execution ~ scripts)

Generic Command Execution (GCE)

Execute custom scripts within Service instance VMs Can specify run as account,

script restart behavior, logging properties

Script parameters can leverage configurable service settings

Multiple entry points available Application level

Pre/post install, pre/post uninstall, pre/post service, save/restore state

Application Profile level Pre/post install, Pre/post

uninstall Pre/post install supports multiple,

ordered scripts (SP1)

SC 2012 SP1 VMM: ServicesService Deployment Support for Service deployment to untrusted domains and

workgroups Support for Service deployment to disconnected VMs

Application Host “Web Application Host” for deploying MS Web Deploy packages to

existing web servers (virtual, physical, farm, clustered)

SQL Server 2012 Complete installation of prepared SQL 2012 instances

Linux Guest support Supporting Linux Operating Systems for unattended deployment

In-VM/Guest Agent SP1 Changes

Requires .NET 4.0 Agent installation will take care of this (can sysprep as well) For Server Core, requires Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or above

Deployed via ISO All service instance VMs have a guest agent installed

Decoupled from VMM server Supports Service deployment to untrusted domains and

workgroups Supports Service deployment to disconnected VMs

Service Template Explorer

An add-in for your VMM Console, that allows you to discover, download and import pre-configured service templates directly to your VMM infrastructure

Service Templates available (soon) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 / Windows Server 2012

ADDS Domain Controller DNS, DHCP Web Server (IIS) File Server

* THIS IS BETA AT THE MOMENT AND MIGHT CHANGE TILL RTM

Service Template Explorer Experience