Virtual Machine Backup and Recovery: Five Critical Decisions

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Thomas Maurer

Together with Symantec, Mahmoud Magdy (Microsoft MVP for Exchange Server) and Mikko Nykyri (VMware vExpert) we produced a whitepaper called “Virtual Machine Backup and Recovery: Five Critical Decisions”. This whitepaper covers an overview about virtualization and the challenges which come with the new workloads in terms of backup and recovery.

Because of the outstanding economy, flexibility, and service levels it offers, virtualization is transforming data centers at breakneck speed: by 2016, an estimated 80 percent of the world’s x86 servers will be virtual machines (VMs).1 But the speed of this transformation, along with the high resource utilization, ease of cloning, moving workloads, and other ways virtualization works its magic, raise challenges for “traditional” IT services and the teams that deliver them. Nowhere is the complexity that virtualization creates for traditional IT services more apparent than in backup and recovery, which participants in a recent Symantec survey ranked among their least-successful IT initiatives. This paper addresses five critical decisions organizations must make when building a backup and recovery plan to:

Maintain protection, visibility, and control of applications and data.

Maximize utilization of established infrastructure, processes, staff, and budget.

Use virtualization to improve backup and recovery processes.

Create an efficient, scalable, future-prepared backup and recovery environment.

Each issue is presented first in general terms that apply across IT environments, and then add comments for specific platforms, applications, or industries based on our individual experience as VMware® vExperts and Microsoft® MVPs.

You can download the whitepaper here: Symantec Virtual Machine Backup and Recovery: Five Critical Decisions

Make also sure you checkout the Google Hangout event on Fri, May 10, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM.

Join a panel of virtualization experts including Microsoft MVPs Mahmoud Magdy & Thomas Mauer and VMware vExpert Mikko Nykyri as they discuss the white paper they co-authored and offer their thoughts on the most important things to consider for a virtualized server environment.

System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager support for VMware vSphere ESX Hosts

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Thomas Maurer

System Center Logo

As System Center 2012 SP1 was released, it officially supported VMware vSphere 4.1 and 5.1, there was no support for vSphere 5.0 in SCVMM 2012 SP1. Now since a lot of customer have requested this feature, Microsoft added VMware vSphere 5.0 to the supported list of vSphere versions. For those who didn’t know that, to manage VMware ESX Hosts you need a version of vCenter. Some months ago I made a blog post about how you can add your VMware infrastructure to Virtual Machine Manager.

Virtual Machine Manager now supports the following versions of VMware vSphere:

vCenter Server:

For System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager:

VMware vCenter Server 4.1

For VMM in System Center 2012 SP1:

VMware vCenter Server 4.1
VMware vCenter Server 5.0
VMware vCenter Server 5.1

Virtual machine hosts and host clusters that run any of the following versions of VMware:

For System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager:

ESXi 4.1
ESX 4.1
ESXi 3.5
ESX 3.5

For VMM in System Center 2012 SP1:

ESXi 5.0
ESXi 5.1
ESXi 4.1
ESX 4.1

Get more information here: System Requirements: VMware ESX Hosts and here: System Requirements for System Center 2012 SP1.

Speaking at the E2EVC in Copenhagen

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Thomas Maurer

E2EVC

Last year I was for the first time the Experts 2 Experts Virtualization Conference (E2EVC) in Hamburg where we teach a Microsoft MVP Master Class and also did a video interview (4 Virtual Machine MVPs talking about Hyper-V at the E2EVC).

The next E2EVC conference will take place in Copenhagen on the 30th May to 2th July. I have the chance to present a session with the title “SCVMM-Mania (should or should you not manage all your hypervisor platforms using SCVMM 2012 SP1)” together with Michael Rüefli. The session will include content about System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and how you can manage different hypervisors like Hyper-V, VMware ESXi and Cirtix XenServer.

And there a lot of top session form:

Aidan Finn
Jeff Wouters
Alex Juschin

and a lot more…

SCVMM 2012 SP1 – Configure the Library Server

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Thomas Maurer

System Center Logo

With System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 you are able to deploy SCVMM Services in VMs which are not connected to the Library server via network or which have no access to the Library server because they are running in a untrusted domain. Virtual Machine Manager creates a ISO file with the specific resources and attaches this ISO file to the Virtual Machine. First this is a great new feature because a lot of times you do not have access to the library sever especially in a hosting environment.

But there are two problems with this scenario, first deployment needs more time because a ISO file has to be created and copied to the Hyper-V server and secondly this works only for Hyper-V and not for other hypervisors managed by Virtual Machine Manager like VMware vSphere Hypervisor hosts (ESXi) or Citrix Xen Server.

And you could run in the following error:

Application deployment to disconnected networks cannot be performed on the host

So make sure you configure your Library Server in your Virtual Machine Manager by connecting the VM Networks.

I work on this with Michel Lüscher (Consultant Microsoft Switzerland)

E2EVC 2012 in Hamburg

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

This weekend I was visiting the Experts 2 Experts Virtualization Conference (E2EVC) in Hamburg to finally meet the other great Virtual Machine MVPs like Aidan Finn, Carsten Rachfahl, Didier van Hoye and Hans Vredevoort and to checkout some great sessions.

They were all presenting in a Master Class about Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. Unfortunately Hans Vredevoort couldn’t make it and I had the chance to step in and providing a session for the Master Class where I talked about Hyper-V Host design and deployment with Hyper-V Converged Fabric and how you can migrate from VMware to Hyper-V.

I want to thank Carsten, Didier, Aidan for opportunity to speak with them in the Master Class and Alex Juschin for hosting this excellent event.

Convert VMware vSphere Virtual Machines to Microsoft Hyper-V

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

On October 1st Microsoft released their Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator which includes Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator and the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Plug-in for VMware vSphere Client. This solution accelerator kit enables to covert Virtual Machines from VMware vSphere to Microsoft Hyper-V. I also tested the release candidate of Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator in July.

Some more information about the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter features:

Converts and deploys virtual machines from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts including Hyper-V on Windows Server 2012. As part of the machine conversion MVMC converts the virtual disks attached to the source virtual machine. It also migrates configuration such as memory, virtual processor and so on from the source virtual machine to the converted virtual machine deployed on Hyper-V. It adds virtual network interface cards (NICs) to the converted virtual machine on Hyper-V.
Converts VMware virtual disks to Hyper-V based virtual hard disks (VHDs).
Supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 hosts to Hyper-V.
- Note MVMC also supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 4.0 if the host is managed by vCenter 4.1 or vCenter 5.0. You have to connect to vCenter 4.1 or 5.0 through MVMC to convert virtual machines on vSphere 4.0.
Offers fully scriptable command-line interfaces for performing virtual machine and disk conversions that integrates well with data center automation workflows and Windows PowerShell scripts.
Has a wizard-driven GUI, making it simple to perform virtual machine conversion.
Uninstalls VMware tools prior to conversion to provide a clean way to migrate VMware-based virtual machines to Hyper-V.
Supports Windows Server guest operating system conversion, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 SP2.
Enables conversion of Windows client versions including Windows 7.
Installs integration services on the converted virtual machine if the guest operating system is Windows Server 2003 SP2.

First you have to install the vSphere Client, the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator and optional the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Plug-in for VMware vSphere Client. The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Plug-in for VMware vSphere Client allows you to convert a Virtual Machine directly from the VMware vSphere Client.

Here you can download the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator.

To convert a Virtual Machine you have two options. First you can open the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter. You can connect to your stand-alone ESX host or your vSphere vCenter server.

After you have connected to your vSphere environment, the Virtual Machine Converter will scan for Virtual Machines which can be converted, and you can select the VM you want to convert to Hyper-V.

The second way is by using the Virtual Machine Converter Plug-in from VMware vSphere Client. You can right click on the Virtual Machine you want to convert and select Convert to Hyper-V virtual machine and this will launch the Virtual Machine Converter.

In both cases you have to connect now to the guest in the virtual machine.

Select a Workspace where the virtual machine disk will be converted.

Configure the destination Hyper-V host.

After that you will get a summary and you can start the conversion.

The Virtual Machine Converter does also offers fully scriptable command-line interfaces for performing virtual machine and disk conversions that integrates well with data center automation workflows and Windows PowerShell scripts.

for example:

MVMC.exe /SourceHost:esx01 /SourceHostUser:MVMCAdmin /SourceHostPwd:Passw0rd /GuestVM:test03.cloud.win /TargetHost:hyperv02.cloud.win /TargetVHDPath:\\hyperv02\D$\Test03

Quick: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere 5.1

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

Windows Server 2012 Logo

Some months ago I wrote a lot of post about Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere. At this time I compared Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Release Candidate with VMware vSphere 5.0. Since then a lot has changed Microsoft released the final version of Windows Server 2012 and VMware showed vSphere 5.1. I don’t have time to update every post I made but this should cover an overview about the numbers in both versions. This is mostly only about scale and a lot of customers will not hit any limit in both products, but still I think it is interesting to see how they compare.

There are a lot of other important arguments to use one or the other product, but I won’t cover this in this blog post. The data is from the Microsoft paper: Competitive_Advantages_of_Windows_Server_2012_Hyper-V_over_VMware_vSphere_5.1.pdf. In this PDF you can find more information about the advantages of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

Scale

System	Resource	Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V	VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.1	VMware vSphere 5.1 Enterprise Plus
Host	Logical Processors	320	160	160
	Physical Memory	4 TB	32 GB	2 TB
	Virtual CPUs per Host	2048	2048	2048
VM	Virtual CPUs per VM	64	8	64
	Memory per VM	1 TB	32 GB	1 TB
	Maximum Virtual Disk	64 TB	2 TB	2 TB
	Active VMs per Host	1024	512	512
Cluster	Maximum Nodes	64	N/A	32
	Maximum VMs	8000	N/A	3000

Storage

Capability	Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V	VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.1	VMware vSphere 5.1 Enterprise Plus
Virtual Fiber Channel	Yes	Yes	Yes
3^rd Party Multipathing (MPIO)	Yes	No	Yes (VAMP)
Native 4-KB Disk Support	Yes	No	No
Maximum Virtual Disk Size	64TB VHDX	2TB VMDK	2TB VMDK
Maximum Pass Through Disk Size	265TB+	64TB	64TB
Offloaded Data Transfer	Yes	No	Yes (VAAI)
Storage Encryption	Yes	No	No

Networking

Capability	Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V	VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.1	VMware vSphere 5.1 Enterprise Plus
Extensible Switch	Yes	No	Replaceable
Available Partner Extensions	4	No	2
PVLAN Support	Yes	No	Yes
ARP/ND Spoofing Protection	Yes	No	vCNS/Partner
DHCP Snooping Protection	Yes	No	vCNS/Partner
Virtual Port ACLs	Yes	No	vCNS/Partner
Trunk Mode to Virtual Machines	Yes	No	No
Port Monitoring	Yes	Per Port Group	Yes
Port Mirroring	Yes	Per Port Group	Yes
Dynamic Virtual Machine Queue	Yes	NetQueue	NetQueue
IPsec Task Offload	Yes	No	No
SR-IOV	Yes	Yes (No Live Migration support)	Yes (No Live Migration support)
Network Virtualization	Yes	No	VXLAN
Quality of Service	Yes	No	Yes
Data Center Bridging (DCB)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Virtual Machine Live Migration	Yes	No	Yes
1GigE Simultaneous Live Migrations	Unlimited	N/A	4
10GigE Simultaneous Live Migrations	Unlimited	N/A	8
Live Storage Migration	Yes	No	Yes
Shared-Nothing Live Migration	Yes	No	Yes

High Availability & Resiliency

	Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V	VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.1	VMware vSphere 5.1 Enterprise Plus
Nodes per Cluster	64	N/A	32
VMs per Cluster	8000	N/A	3000
Max Size Guest Cluster (iSCSI)	64 Nodes	0	16
Max Size Guest Cluster (Fiber)	64 Nodes	5	5
Max Size Guest Cluster (File Based)	64 Nodes	0	0
Guest Clustering with Live Migration Support	Yes	N/A	No
Guest Clustering with Dynamic Memory Support	Yes	No	No
Incremental Backups	Yes	No	Yes
VM Replication	Yes	No	Yes
NIC Teaming	Yes	Yes	Yes
Integrated High Availability	Yes	No	Yes
Guest OS Application Monitoring	Yes	N/A	No
Cluster-Aware Updating	Yes	N/A	Yes
Failover Prioritization	Yes	N/A	Yes
Affinity & Anti-Affinity Rules	Yes	N/A	Yes
Free?	Yes	Yes	No