Robert Smit MVP Blog   Azure and Microsoft Windows Insider Server Cloud Blog

 

The big thing is what would I use if you want to run virtual should I do vmware the biggest player of should I use an other product.

Well there are both up’s and down’s with all the products. So The situation is this Lets say you have a HP c7000 with BL460C + Eva FC storage and you have already vwmare in your network. Each blade has 4 network connections and you want clustering also. And your infrastructure site is mainly Windows 2003 SP2.

Setting up vmware only next next start the kernal etc. configure the network nic 0, 1 for LAN, nic 3 for clustering HB,NLB etc and the last nic we use for future DPM or other tools. We use a 1TB LUN connection and pointed it to the Vmware cluster 8 Vmware servers

In this we use a WIndows 2003 SP2 for a WSUS server and we build a Windows 2003 x64 R2 Cluster For SQL

In the Vmware site we build a VM with 3 nic’s and 3 disks c,d,e this is the baseline that I will use. So after the OS install and configured the OS and I prepare the both Cluster nodes. Give the Nic’s the right IP. I turned off the VM and added the Quorum disk and 2 disk for SQL , logging and Database. here is the first Issue for this disk

you have to do this from the ESX console with the command line tool.

vmkfstools -c <size> -d eagerzeroedthick -a lsilogic /vmfs/volumes/<mydir>/<myDisk>.vmdk

On large disk it can take a long time !

and In windows it is better to do a alignment of your disk with diskpart.exe

create partition primary align=64

So I added the disk to my first cluster node , started my VM and what is this my nic’s !! are gone and there is a total mess It looks like a move. Yes this is normal When You added a cluster disks and Yes you must use scsi and there for you need a virtual PCI slot and this slot is using the nic slot.  The PCI slots are using the rank SCSI, NIC etc. keep this in mind do not configure the node befor you have added the disks.

Now that We have This up and running we can start with the real work, setting up the cluster and SQL ( see my other blogs of how to do this )

Now that My wsus server is up and running with a SQL 2008 Database I try to sync the updates just select all just for the fun. get the line warmed up for the data..

But in a view moments I had an error Database error ? why I have a cluster so max uptime.

My event log on the WSUS server points me to this error :

The WSUS administration console was unable to connect to the WSUS Server Database.

Verify that SQL server is running on the WSUS Server. If the problem persists, try restarting SQL.

My event log on the SQL server points me to this error :

The log for database ‘SUSDB’ is not available. Check the event log for related error messages. Resolve any errors and restart the database.

What is wrong.  My Database is there it must me timing reboot and same error. testing etc vmware forums no solution for this , it is not my SAN I have lots of disk IOPS HOW and WHY. build the same thing with RAW disks and the problem is gone. My conclusion VMWARE has slow virtual disk. now I have to make all RAW disks , lot of work but it worked.

Problem solved but less flexible. vmware 3.5u4

So no easy server rollout, snapshots, cloning to bad for a test site you probely needed that. 

Now how is hyper-v doing.  I mounted my windows 2008 R2 ISO to the blade ILO board and go for the install.  again a next next install.

First I do is get the hyper-v rol up and running configure the NICs prepare the 1 Tb disk and off we go.

I create a new VM and start the VM ready to go but I have an error “Hypervisor not running “ mm I did enable this I checked the bios and first I saw nothing wrong in the bios. I did not read the error on the hyper-v box I jumped right to the bios.

  rebooted the server and try to start the VM same error.

This time I read the Error and saw  “Hypervisor not running “

*Must have Virtualization Technology enabled in the BIOS

*Must have No-Execute enabled in the BIOS

back in the BIOS. I enabled this

Now I was ready to GO. Booted my Blade and had a BSOD ?? mm ok turn the blade off ( power off ) and than on again same BSOD.

Stop 0x0000007E (ffffffffc0000096, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)
SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

It Seemed I hit a BUG in hyper-V/Windows 2008 R2 So I disabled the bios settings and booted my hyper-v server as normal

got the HOTFIX from microsoft You receive a "Stop 0x0000007E" error on the first restart after you enable Hyper-V on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer.

I did a quick view If there are more issues with hyper-v and found that there was a second fix that I maybe needed.

I have a blade with the Xeon CPU

Stop error message on an Intel Xeon 5500 series processor-based computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and that has the Hyper-V role installed: "0x00000101 – CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT"

I downloaded this and applyed this fix also

Enabled the BIOS and started the VM in hyper-V and it started.  On one machine I installed Windows 2008 R2 and 4 others I installed Windows 2003 Sp2.

The windows 2008 I installed from ISO but the Windows 2003 based OS I used the Altiris Job that I have.

there are a few Items that You must know If you want to use PXE You have to use a legacy network adapter to boot from.

This is a shame it is only a 100 mbit nic and as you can see IDE boot only VMware can boot scsi. IDE is limited to 4 Disks.

  Now I have to redesign my virtual concept here. let go of the VMware config.

the steps are now build vm with IDE disk and legacy adapter and add later a hyper-v nic and disable the PXE nic.

but my disks…….. ok I create one IDE disk to boot from and build 2 or more SCSI disk if I need them.

for my C , D, E config.

But what about naming in vmware every new created VM comes in it own folder in the datastore with the given name and the disk are auto given this name to with a _1 or _2 option.

But in hyper-V I have to give every disk a name by hand and make sure it comes in the right folder or else it comes in the default harddisk folder. What I do not want. I like to see all info per server.

Now that This is configured I can start the Install, I must say once it started it went fast and without any troubles.

Now that I had a Server with Windows 2003 I want to logon to this server.

But after a mouse Click there was a message box : display a message that the Mouse is not captured in the Remote Desktop session.

Ah I forget to install the Hyper-V tools.

But after a reboot still no mouse.  Why is this because it is windows 2003 and not 2008 ? there is something wrong with the tools.

I logged on to this VM and do a manual setup as a gui based MVP person I had to do this with no mouse. keyboard only. It was like working with … well I don’t know I use windows only..

What I did was logon to this machine and started taskmgr <> new task <> C:\ now I get a explorer and I can browse to the Tools CD.

as you can see there is a amd64 and a x86 folder. Now there is a little confusion on what to use my VM is x64. what should i use

Wrong you must use the x86 because Microsoft is using ADM64 for AMD based machines and x86 For Intel based Machines.

And the x86 Is for x64 bit OSes. but if you run the setup twice at the same time don’t know who does this but then you have this error

reinstalling integration disk error 61957 I binged for this error and there was a hit ;-( do not run twice the setup at the same time.

  

After a reboot my mouse is working.  And WSUS is also Working as it should.

Conclusion :

It is abit strange to compare the both products not totaly the same Vmware 3.5u4 and hyper-v r2

But I think the most of us are using the VM products just to make the server application virtual. Often I hear NO No clustering is needed We have VMware and this is a cluster. Ok that is partly true. If the hardware fails No problem here, but what if the software fails after updates or installing new Applications. If it fails the VM is gone. Sure backup it the thing but be honest WHO backup’s there VMWARE VM’s ? I have not seen this, –( no we have a redundant SAN that replicates ( it also Replicates the errros ) VMware cost a lot and you have to pay for the Windows OS. And I thing the VM disks are not the fastest method.

Hyper-V : Well if you use Windows 2008 R2 servers Enterprise then you can run 4 VM’s for free no OS license is needed only for the server that runs the Hyper-V role . For Data Server then You need only the license for the server that Runs the hyper-v role and you can run unlimited VM’s on this machine NO OS license is needed.

This saves a lot of money.

But technicaly is it comparable to VMware ? yes but is works different than VMware. And there are a few bugs this can be fixed  and is not a show stopper, in the Windows 2008 R2 you can use CSV in a hyper-v cluster so that your VM keeps running if a hyper-v server goes down.  Building vm clusters is a bit diffrent  than in vmware you need iscsi or use passthru disk, But ISCSI is easy to use and is the most flexible in a test site or production. there are products like rocketdivision or use a windows 2008 r2 storage server that has build in iscsi services.

I hear you oh I must use ISCSI no thanks I keep with my vm 3.5u4 lets see if you can built a windows 2008 R2 cluster with out ISCSI disk and using only the vmdisks. Clustering in Windows 2008 R2 is way different than 2003 !

As in all products prepare your servers and avoid oeps i forget this like I showed above. Think about what will I do with the Products, futures that I can use and bought as addon. Or is you focus on Costs.

IMHO if you have servers that needs uptime USE CLUSTERING or NLB this way you have an insurance that the software is also redundant.

Keep in mind most of the comparison is Vmware with vcenter and hyper-V stand alone but If you use SCVMM ( System Center Virtual Machine Manager. You have much more futures than vcenter.

 

Lessons :

• Set you BIOS setting Right before the OS install
• Be sure that you have a step by step install to avoid the oeps thing ( saves time ) and looks better to your manager
• Prepare your disks ( RAW,ISCSI,VMdisk,pass-true, etc )
• Think about need I application uptime or hardware uptime
• Do you have a limited budget and don’t want to purchase any additional OS licenses