Read Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed Online
Authors: Noel Morimoto
sion functionality.
Even with what Microsoft provides in the Windows Media Services server function and
the Windows Media Encoder download tools, there’s still a need for third-party editing
and cropping tools.
Windows Media Services provides a new way for organizations to conduct employee train-
ing and broadcast live meetings, and integrate audio and video content into PowerPoint
presentations.
The following are best practices from this chapter:
. For faster performance on a Windows Media Services system, place the system and
application files on one hard drive set, and place the data files stored on a separate
hard drive set.
. Use the Windows Media Load Simulator to test the real-time performance capabili-
ties of a Windows Media Services system.
. Use standard DNS characters (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, and the minus sign) for publishing
point names so that when you need to access the published access, you can access it
over the Internet.
Best Practices
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. If you are publishing a broadcast to dozens of users over a network infrastructure
that supports multicast broadcasting, use the Multicast function of Windows Media
Services to minimize system bandwidth demands.
. Use the loop function in the video playback options if the video you are publishing
should run continuously, such as in public kiosks or advertising systems.
. Combine files for publishing by using the playlist function in the Windows Media
Services MMC Publishing Point Configuration option.
. Download Windows Media Encoder to access freely available file capture and
conversion tools.
. Run Windows Media Encoder on a system with as much RAM, processing speed, and
disk space as possible. When a system is underpowered, a video capture or conver-
sion might be forced to drop frames and ultimately lower the quality of the video.
. When capturing content using Windows Media Encoder, ensure that the micro-
phone has been turned on to properly capture audio content because the micro-
phone is normally disabled by default.
. Select a bit rate for capture and conversion that matches the needs of the users.
Although the highest quality might be preferable, the bandwidth demands of mul-
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tiple users accessing the content at high quality might saturate the available net-
work bandwidth.
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IN THIS CHAPTER
Deploying and Using
. Understanding Microsoft’s
Virtualization Strategy
Windows Virtualization
. Integration of Hypervisor
Technology in Windows Server
2008
. Planning Your Implementation
of Hyper-V
. Installation of the Microsoft
Windows Hyper-V virtualization continues to make
Hyper-V Role
inroads in the server virtualization market. Although
Microsoft has had a virtual server technology for several
. Becoming Familiar with the
years, the features and capabilities of Microsoft’s hypervisor
Hyper-V Administrative Console
virtualization poise Microsoft to leap past rival virtual
. Installing a Guest Operating
server technologies like EMC’s VMware. Windows Server
System Session
2008 R2 was written to provide enhanced virtualization
. Modifying Guest Session
technologies through a rewrite of the Windows kernel itself
Configuration Settings
to support virtual server capabilities equal to, if not better
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than, other options on the marketplace. This chapter
. Launching a Hyper-V Guest
focuses on the Windows virtualization on a Windows Server
Session
2008 R2 system.
. Using Snapshots of Guest
Operating System Sessions
. Quick Migration and Live
Migration
Server virtualization is the ability for a single system to host
multiple guest operating system sessions, effectively taking
advantage of the processing capabilities of a very powerful
server. Most servers in data centers run under 5%–10%
processor utilization, meaning that there is excess capacity
on the servers that is unused. By combining the capabilities
of multiple servers, an organization can better utilize the
processing power available in the networking environment.
Some might suggest that an organization should just put
more users on existing server systems to take advantage of
the excess server capacity. From a load-balancing perspec-
tive, however, most organizations prefer to not combine
more users on a single system, but rather have multiple
systems distributing the workload to provide some level of
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Deploying and Using Windows Virtualization
distributed processing. This also minimizes single points of failure for an organization and
provides distribution of processing across multiple systems. Server virtualization can
provide server consolidation while still providing multiple physical host systems to distrib-
ute the processing load.
History of Windows Virtualization
Microsoft’s position in the virtualization marketplace prior to the release of Windows 2008
R2 wasn’t one where Microsoft particularly had a bad product; it was because Microsoft
jumped into the virtualization space just four to five years before the release of Windows
2008 R2 virtualization. Being relatively new to the virtualization space, Microsoft had
some catching up to do.
Acquisition of Virtual PC
Microsoft jumped into the virtualization marketplace through the acquisition of a
company called Connectix in 2003. At the time of the acquisition, Virtual PC provided a
virtual session of Windows on either a Windows system or on a Macintosh computer
system. Virtual PC was used largely by organizations testing server software or performing
demos of Windows systems on desktop and laptop systems—or in the case of Virtual PC for
the Mac, the ability for a Macintosh user to run Windows on their Macintosh computer.
Microsoft later dropped the development of Virtual PC for the Mac; however, it continues
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to develop virtualization for Windows systems with the release of Virtual PC 2007. Virtual
PC 2007 enables users running Windows XP or Windows Vista to install, configure, and
run virtual guest sessions of Windows server or even non-Windows operating systems.
Microsoft Virtual Server
Virtual PC, however, is targeted at operating under an operating system that is typically opti-
mized for personal or individual applications, so Virtual PC does not scale for a data center
wanting to run four, eight, or more sessions on a single system. At the time of the acquisi-
tion of Connectix, Connectix was in development of a virtual server solution that allows for
the operation of virtualization technologies on a Windows 2003 host server system.
Because a Windows Server 2003 system provides more RAM availability, supports multiple
processors, and generally has more capacity and capabilities than a desktop client system,
Microsoft Virtual Server provided organizations with more capabilities for server-based
virtualization in a production environment.
Virtual Server 2005
Although the initial Virtual Server acquired through the Connectix acquisition provided
basic server virtualization capabilities, it wasn’t until Virtual Server 2005 that Microsoft
had its first internally developed product. Virtual Server 2005 provided better support and
integration into a Windows 2003 environment, better support for multiprocessor systems
and systems with more RAM, and better integration and support with other Microsoft
server products.
In just two years, Microsoft went from having no virtual server technologies to a second-
generation virtual server product; however, even with Virtual Server 2005, Microsoft was
still very far behind its competitors.
Integration of Hypervisor Technology in Windows Server 2008
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Virtual Server 2005 R2
Over the subsequent two years, Microsoft released two major updates to Virtual Server
2005 with the release of an R2 edition of the Virtual Server 2005 product and a service
pack for the R2 edition. Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 provided the following
capabilities:
.
Virtual Server host clustering—
This technology allows an organization to cluster
host systems to one another, thus allowing guest sessions to have higher redundancy
and reliability.
.
x64 host support—
x64 host support means that organizations had the capability to
use the 64-bit version of Windows 2003 as the host operating system, thus providing
better support for more memory and system capacity found in x64-bit systems.
Guest operating systems, however, are still limited to x86 platforms.
.
Hardware-assisted virtualization—
New to processors released from Intel (Intel
VT) and AMD (AMD-V) are processors that provide better distribution of processor
resources to virtual guest sessions.
.
iSCSI support—
This technology allows virtual guest sessions to connect to iSCSI
storage systems, thus providing better storage management and storage access for
the guest sessions running on a virtual server host.
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.
Support for more than 16GB virtual disk sizes—
Virtual disk sizes can reach 2TB
in size, thus allowing organizations the ability to have guest sessions with extremely
large storage capacity.
These capabilities—among other capabilities of the latest Virtual Server 2005 product—
brought Microsoft closer to its competition in the area of server virtualization.
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Integration of Hypervisor Technology in Windows
To leap beyond its competition in the area of server virtualization, Microsoft had to make
some significant changes to the operating system that hosted its next-generation virtual
server technology. With the original Windows 2008 in development, Microsoft took the
opportunity to add in a core technology to Windows 2008 (and extended it in Windows
2008 R2) that provided the basis of Microsoft’s future dominance in server virtualization.
The core technology is called hypervisor, which effectively is a layer within the host oper-
ating system that provides better support for guest operating systems. Microsoft calls their
hypervisor-based technology Hyper-V.
Prior to the inclusion of Hyper-V in Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2, the Virtual
Server application sat on top of the host operating system and effectively required all
guest operating systems to share system resources, such as network communications,
video-processing capabilities, memory allocation, and system resources. In the event that
the host operating system has a system failure of something like the host network adapter
driver, all guest sessions fail to communicate on the network. This monolithic approach is
similar to how most server virtualization technologies operate.
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Deploying and Using Windows Virtualization
Technologies like VMware ESX as well as Hyper-V leverage a hypervisor-based technology
that allows the guest operating systems to effectively bypass the host operating system
and communicate directly with system resources. In some instances, the hypervisor will
manage shared guest session resources, and in other cases will pass guest session requests
directly to the hardware layer of the system. By providing better independence of systems
communications, the hypervisor-supported environment provides organizations better
scalability, better performance, and, ultimately, better reliability of the core virtual host
environment.
Hyper-V is available in Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
Editions. Each of these SKUs are available with and without Hyper-V.
NOTE
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 is only supported on x64-bit systems that have
hardware-assisted virtualization support. CPUs must support Intel VT or AMD-V option
and Data Execution Protection (DEP). Also, these features must be enabled in the com-
puter BIOS. Fortunately, almost all new servers purchased since late 2006 include
these capabilities.
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What’s New in Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V
There are many long-awaited features and technologies built in to Hyper-V that provide
Microsoft the ability to compete with other server virtualization products on the market.
Some of the key additions to Hyper-V include the following:
.
Live Migration—
Live Migration is the number-one most-requested feature by
customers. Live Migration enables administrators to migrate highly available Hyper-
V guests between clustered hosts with nearly zero downtime.
.
Support for up to eight physical processors—
Windows 2008 Server R2 virtualiza-
tion provides the capability to have up to eight physical processors—twice the
number of physical processors supported by Hyper-V V1 in Windows Server 2008.
Note that this refers to physical sockets, not cores.