microsoft india - windows server focus solution profile whitepaper

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Focus Solution Profile: Microsoft Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager

2008 Focus Consulting www.focusonsystems.com

Abstract

Over the past few years, Microsoft has been delivering against an end-to-end virtualization strategy to bring greater operational efficiencies and reduce costs in deploying and managing corporate-wide IT infrastructure. Microsoft’s strategy spans application, presentation, desktop, network, storage, and server virtualization. Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) are foundation components of Microsoft’s virtualization solutions.

This Focus profile describes Microsoft Hyper-V and VMM. It discusses Microsoft’s server virtualization history, the origins of the Microsoft virtual server technologies and solutions, and the architecture of those solutions. It describes technical features and differentiators as well as solution strengths and limitations, and concludes with a Focus analysis of Microsoft Hyper-V and VMM.

Vendor and Solution Overview

In 2003, Microsoft acquired Connectix for its virtual machine technology. Connectix developed Virtual PC, which is now available for free. Connectix, at the time of the acquisition, had an unreleased version of what is now Virtual Sever. In 2005, Microsoft entered the server virtualization market with the Virtual Server solution.

This year, Microsoft will release its first hypervisor solution, Hyper-V (currently in beta). A natural follow-on solution from Microsoft Virtual Server, Hyper-V is a leaner, higher-performing server virtualization platform that is used as the foundation both for server virtualization and for delivering a virtual desktop architecture (VDA). Hyper-V is a key

part of Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 technology.

Microsoft’s VMM, a part of the System Center family of products, brings added-value centralized planning and management of the entire virtual machine environment. VMM provides rapid provisioning of new virtual servers and aids consolidation of underutilized physical servers with a consolidation candidate’s report, wizard-based tools to convert servers from physical to virtual (P2V), and conversion of VMware virtual machines to Microsoft VHD format virtual machines.

VMM integrates with the other Microsoft System Center family products, which allows IT administrators to leverage their current skills and knowledge for managing both the physical and virtual infrastructure.

VMM is available as part of the Microsoft System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise. Hyper-V is packaged as part of Windows 2008 Standard, Enterprise, and DataCenter Editions, or is available as a stand-alone option.

Architecture

Hyper-V

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V provides the underlying virtualization capabilities within a server using a bare-metal hypervisor architecture, as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Hyper-V architecture

All areas in Figure 1 with gold/yellow shading are pieces of Windows Server 2008 specific to Hyper-V. With the new architecture of Windows Server 2008, it is possible to install the Windows Server Core with a specific personality, loading only code related to that personality/function. This avoids installing extra code not directly applicable to that personality, making the Server Core smaller and higher-performing. Installing Server Core configured with the virtualization personality will load the Hyper-V components, while minimizing the overall code loaded, increasing both performance and security (by minimizing the attach surface).

The Hyper-V architecture is based on a parent partition and child partitions. The parent partition has all the services needed to launch and manage virtual machines within the child partitions. The reason for choosing this architecture is to reduce the functionality in the Windows Hypervisor, at the lowest level, to scheduling and memory management, minimizing the code and the attack surface of the parent partition. This has many advantages, including increased security, increased performance, and the ability to use standard Windows device drivers.

The parent partition spans both kernel space (privileged Ring 0) and user space (Ring 3). The parent partition user space contains the Windows management interface (WMI), manages and stores the state of the virtual machines, and contains virtualized I/O drivers. The kernel space contains connectors to the child partition virtual machines, through the VMbus used for VM control and the guest operating system’s access to I/O.

At the hardware level, new Intel VT and AMD-V chipsets offer virtualization assist capabilities. This assist, among other things, provides a second privileged execution area, Ring -1, for the hypervisor. The addition of Ring -1 solves the problem that the x86 operating system expects to run in Ring 0. If the hypervisor also runs in Ring 0, it will not have the authority to manage the resources being utilized in Ring 0.

Getting around the Ring 0 issue before the advantage of hardware assists required much more code. Hyper-V utilizes virtual assist and therefore has a very small footprint. (This does mean that Hyper-V can only run on Intel VT or AMD-V chip sets). For older x86 processors, Microsoft Virtual Server can be used (and also be managed by VMM).

VMM

VMM is a product in Microsoft’s System Center family of management solutions. It allows IT to manage the virtual infrastructure the same way it would the physical infrastructure, leveraging all current skills and knowledge of the Microsoft environment.

VMM’s integration into System Center Configuration Manager and System Center Operations Manager allow all server and desktop assets, both physical and virtual, to be managed the same way throughout the IT infrastructure. Microsoft Hyper-V integrates

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into VMM to deliver and manage server virtualization for one or more physical servers, as shown at a high level in Figure 2. This out-of-band management architecture ensures scalability and flexibility of the virtual environment.

Figure 2: VMM with Hyper-V

VMM currently provides management capabilities for Virtual Server 2005 R2. The next release of VMM, due out in the second half of 2008 (shown with the oval in Figure 2), will provide management support for Virtual Server, Hyper-V, and VMware ESX, with support for managing Citrix XenServer VMs in a following release.

The next release of VMM has the architecture shown in Figure 3. It incorporates user interfaces at the top level and System Center integration at the next level, which then connect into the different server virtualization solutions via vendor APIs.

The VMM architecture tightly integrates both System Center VMM and Operations Manager to simplify and automate management tasks across all virtual machine solutions.

Figure 3: VMM architecture

Technical Features

Technical features of Hyper-V and the Virtual Machine Manager are summarized below.

Hyper-V

Hyper-V’s features include, but are not limited to, the following:

64-bit Hypervisor – The 64-bit Hypervisor has simultaneous support for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems and applications.

Broad guest OS support – Guest OS support includes Windows 2003, 2008, XP, and Vista, with support for RHEL and SLES in a future release.

Virtual Hard Disk image format – Hyper-V uses the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) image format, which is used by Microsoft and Xen-based virtualization solutions. VHD encapsulates everything pertaining to a VM within a single file that is stored on NAS or SAN storage (FC or iSCSI) residing on the host’s native file system. Using VHD makes moving VMs almost as simple as copying a file from one host to another.

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Small footprint – Windows Hypervisor is very small (only 650 KB) and very fast.

Standard hardware drivers – With this architecture, standard hardware and drivers are used for easy implementation and simple plug-in of devices.

VMM

VMM is used for consolidation planning, implementation, and ongoing management of the entire virtual server infrastructure. Its features include:

Server consolidation planning – VMM provides IT with consolidation reports that look at the CPU, memory, disk, and network utilization of the physical servers to determine the best-fit servers for consolidation.

Server transition – VMM supplies P2V tools for moving physical server infrastructure into virtual infrastructure and V2V tools for translating virtual machines from other virtualization environments (e.g., VMware VMDK) into Hyper-V virtual machines (VHD).

Management enhancements – VMM provides the following features to make management easier:

- Integration into System Center Configuration Manager (formerly SMS) and System Center Operations Manager (formerly MOM) to provide consistent management across the entire infrastructure, both physical and virtual

- Intelligent placement of the virtual workloads on the best possible server

- Windows PowerShell scripting for customizing administrative tasks

- Administrator console with views of all virtual servers in the environment that tie into System Center consoles

- Fast wizard-based provisioning of new virtual machines with support for templates

- Self-service provisioning that allows authorized users to rapidly provision new virtual machines

- Ability to manage a virtual infrastructure, which may include Hyper-V, Virtual Server, and VMware ESX (and, later, Citrix XenServer)

Differentiators

Microsoft’s end-to-end integrated management allows administrators to manage physical servers and virtual servers using the same tools. This integration extends to include management of the Windows operating systems as well as management of all applications, both virtual and physical.

Another area of differentiation is that VMM will manage virtual machines that are running on Hyper-V and Virtual Server, as well as VMware and, eventually, Citrix XenServer. This will allow customers to choose which virtualization platform(s) they wish to use as the foundation of their virtual infrastructure while gaining the broad integration and management tools available through System Center.

Strengths/Limitations

Microsoft’s tight integration of Hyper-V within Windows Server 2008 , along with its disruptive pricing (less than $30 for Hyper-V) will make Hyper-V nearly ubiquitous in the Windows server world, giving Microsoft a clear advantage over its competition. Microsoft’s core

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competencies of OS, desktop, and application management, plus the integration potential that it brings across its entire solution set, form its greatest strength.

Although Microsoft has had a server virtualization solution since 2005 with Virtual Server, it is a latecomer to the hypervisor market, with its solution, Hyper-V, currently in beta testing. Some highly valued functionality offered by its competitors, such as live migration of virtual machines, will not be delivered with the first release of Hyper-V or the Hyper-V release of VMM. Microsoft’s ability to deliver this and additional functionality quickly will be key to its overall success in this market.

Focus Analysis

Given Microsoft’s dominance in the server, desktop, and application markets, the industry has been waiting for Microsoft’s integrated hypervisor solution. Although Microsoft comes late to the hypervisor game, the tight integration of Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008, System Center management, and other Microsoft solutions, as well as its partner solutions, positions Hyper-V to take off as a preferred hypervisor solution.

VMM is also primed to become a preferred virtualization management solution across a range of virtual environments.

About Focus

Focus delivers research, analysis, and consulting, focused on systems, software, and storage. Focus areas include server, desktop, and application virtualization/streaming; systems, storage, and enterprise management (physical and virtual); high availability, disaster recovery, and business continuity; blade

systems (server, workstation, and PC); storage, network, and I/O virtualization; and storage and storage networking (NAS, SAN, Fibre Channel, iSCSI).

Focus Research Series: Desktop Delivery Alternatives

This profile is part of the Focus Research Series on Desktop Delivery Alternatives, offering insights into drivers, use cases, decision criteria, and considerations for desktop alternatives, including PC/workstation blades, virtual clients, server-based computing/terminal services, application virtualization, and streaming. For information, go to www.focusonsystems.com.

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