This is the deck that I used at the January 2012 Hyper-V.nu event in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It focuses on the Build announced details on Windows Server 8 Hyper-V networking.

1. Windows Server 8 Hyper-V
Networking
Aidan Finn, MVP (Virtual Machine)
@joe_elway http://www.aidanfinn.com

2. About Aidan Finn
• MVP (Virtual Machine)
• Technical Sales Lead at MicroWarehouse
• Working in IT since 1996
• Experienced with Windows Server/Desktop,
System Center, virtualisation, and IT
infrastructure.
• Blog: http://www.aidanfinn.com
• Twitter: @joe_elway

3. Writing

4. WARNING!
• All content in this presentation is subject to
change
• We have not even reached beta release
– Currently Developer Preview Release
• A lot of material to cover
– More in this sub-topic than in all of W2008 R2
Hyper-V

5. Agenda
• NIC Teaming
• Storage optimisation
• Workload mobility
• Performance & optimisations
• Extensible Hyper-V Switch
• Security
• Fabric convergence
• Host network architectures

6. Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Plans
• Great Big Hyper-V Survey 2011:
– Conducted by me, Hans Vredevoort, and Damian
Flynn in August 2011 (before Win 8 Dev Prev)
– Who’s deploying it:
• 27.21% interested
• 62.01% planning
• 8.09% undecided
• 2.7% not interested

7. NIC Teaming & Windows 2008 R2
• KB968703: No support from Microsoft
– Use HP/Dell/Broadcom/Intel drivers/software
– Complicates deployment & support
• Great Big Hyper-V Survey of 2011
– 27.94% found NIC teaming to be biggest challenge in
Hyper-V deployment
– 27.21% said networking was their biggest issue
• One of the last objections by VMware enthusiasts

8. NIC Teaming & Windows Server 8
• Built into the OS and supported
– Simplified deployment & support
• Load balancing and failover (LBFO)
• Aggregate bandwidth
• Use different model & vendor NICs!
• Opens up interesting opportunities
• One more VMware wall knocked down

9. NIC Teaming
Hyper-V Extensible Switch
LBFO Admin GUI
Frame distribution/aggregation
Failure detection
WMI Control protocol implementation
LBFO Provider
LBFO Configuration
IOCTL
DLL Port 1 Port 2 Port 3
Virtual miniport 1
IM Mux
Kernel mode
User mode Protocol edge
NIC 1 NIC 2 NIC 3
Network switch

10. Scaling File SharingTraffic
• CPU utilisation is a challenge for high I/O SMB
traffic
• Solution: Remote Direct Memory Access
(RDMA)
– A secure way to enable a DMA engine to transfer
buffers
– Built into Windows Server 8
• Why care about SMB? More to come …

11. SMB 2.2
Used by File Server and Clustered
Shared Volumes
• Scalable, fast and efficient storage
access
• Minimal CPU utilization for I/O
• High throughput with low latency
• Multi-channel
• NIC Teaming
• Much greater I/O speeds
• •Required hardware
• •InfiniBand
• •10G Ethernet w/ RDMA

12. And SMB 2.2 Enables
• Storage of VMs on file shares without
performance compromise
• Affordable scalable & continuously available
storage
– Active/Active file share cluster
– VMs stored on UNC paths
• Live Migration between non-clustered hosts
– VMs on file shares

13. Multi-Tenant Cloud Flexibility &
Security
• Great Big Hyper-V Survey of 2011
– 28.68% considering hybrid cloud deployment
• A public cloud (hosting) or large private cloud
(centralisation) has lots of hosted organisations
– Trust issues
– Compliance & regulations
• Hosting company requires flexibility & mobility of
virtual workloads
– Virtualisation is mobile
– But networking addresses are not

14. Network Virtualisation
Woodgrove VM Contoso VM Woodgrove network Contoso network
Physical
Physical
network
server
Hyper-V Machine Virtualization Hyper-V Network Virtualization
• Run multiple virtual servers on a • Run multiple virtual networks on a physical network
physical server • Each virtual network has illusion it is running as a physical
• Each VM has illusion it is running fabric
as a physical server

15. Network Virtualisation Benefits
• No need to re-address virtual workloads
– For example 192.168.1.0/24 to 10.100.25.0/24
– Retain communications and LOB app SLA
• Enable easy migration of private cloud to multi-
tenant public cloud
• Enable Live Migration mobility of workloads
within the data centre
– Move virtual workloads between network footprints

16. Virtual Machine Queue
• Static (non VMQ) networking can become
overloaded during high I/O loads
• Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ)
– Add in Windows 2008 R2
– Offloads burden from the parent to the network
controller, to accelerate network I/O throughput
• Can overload CPU cores

17. Dynamic Virtual Machine Queue (DVMQ)
Root Partition Root Partition Root Partition
CP CP CP CP CP CP CP CP CP CP CP CP
U U U U U U U U U U U U
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3
Physical NIC Physical NIC Physical NIC
No VMQ Static VMQ Windows Server
8 Dynamic VMQ
Adaptive network processing across CPU to provide optimal
power and performance across changing workloads

18. Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)
Host Host
Root Partition Virtual Root Partition Virtual
Machine Machine
Hyper-V Switch Hyper-V Switch
Virtual
Virtual NIC
Function
Routing Routing
VLAN Filtering VLAN Filtering
Data Copy Data Copy
Physical NIC SR-IOV Physical NIC
Network I/O path without SRIOV Network I/O path with SRIOV

19. Hyper-V Live Migration Policy
• No new features that prevent Live Migration
• For example, SR-IOV enabled VM being live
migrated to host without SR-IOV
– Switches from SR-IOV virtual function to Hyper-V
switch on original host
– Live Migration then takes place
– Zero downtime

20. More Optimisations
• Receive Side Scaling (RSS)
– Share network I/O across many processors
– Incompatible with VMQ on the NIC
• Receive Side Coalescing (RSC)
– Consolidate network caused interrupts
• IPSec Task Offload (IPsecTO)
– Moves the workload from the host’s CPU to a
dedicated processor on the network adapter

21. Virtual Network -> Virtual Switch
• In 2008/R2:
– A VM has a vNIC
– The vNIC connects to a virtual network (aka virtual
switch)
• Remember that we have something new called Network
Virtualisation to abstract IP addressess
– The virtual network connects to a pNIC in the host
• In Windows Server 8:
– The Extensible Hyper-V Virtual Switch
– Supports unified tracing for network diagnostics

22. Extensible Hyper-V Virtual Switch
Virtual Virtual
Machine Root Partition Machine
VM NIC Host NIC
VM NIC
Hyper-V Switch
Extension Protocol
Capture Extensions
WFP Extensions
Certified
Extensions Filtering Extensions
Forwarding Extension
Extension Miniport
Physical NIC

23. Cloud & Security
• Great Big Hyper-V Survey 2011:
– 42.65% concerned about private cloud security
• You cannot trust tenants in multi-tenant cloud
– Tenant VS hosting company
– Tenant VS Tenant
• We’ve been using physical security:
– Firewall
• Requires centralised skills & slow to configure
• Gets complicated
– VLANs
• Never intended for security
• Restricted number per physical network

24. Windows Server 8 & Security
• Software easier & quicker to configure
– Automate with provisioning
• Port ACLs
– Define allowed communication paths between virtual
machines based on IP range or MAC address.
• PVLAN (Private VLAN)
– VLAN-like domains created in Hyper-V
• DHCP Guard
– Isolate rogue virtual DHCP servers

25. Cloud & Network Performance
• Can aggregate bandwidth with NIC teaming
• Hosting company must control network
bandwidth utilisation:
– “Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself”
– Prioritise important applications
– Limit tenants based on fees paid
– Guarantee SLAs
• Network Quality of Service (QoS)

26. QoS
• Configured using PowerShell
• Minimum bandwidth policy:
– Enforce bandwidth allocation - SLA
– Redistribute unused bandwidth – Efficiency &
consolidation
• Maximum bandwidth policy
– Cross charge for expensive bandwidth
• Possibly combine with network resource
metering

27. A 2008 R2 Clustered Host
• 6 NICs:
– Parent
– VM
– Redirected I/O
– Live Migration
– 2 * iSCSI
• NIC teaming?
• Backup?
• Lot$ of NIC$. Consider costs of 10 GbE

28. Physical Isolation
• Traditional Server
VM 1 VM 2
• Multiple physical NICs
• ACLs for guests
Migration
Cluster /
Manage
Storage
Live
Hyper-V
Extensible
Switch

29. Data Center Bridging (DCB)
PowerShell
WMI
Traffic Windows Windows
Classification Network Stack Storage Stack
DCB LAN Miniport iSCSI Miniport

30. Converged Fabric
• A new possibility
• Consolidate all those NICs to a simpler network
• Take advantage of:
– 10 GbE/Infiniband networking: Bandwidth & VM
density
– NIC Teaming: Aggregation and fault tolerance, e.g. lots
of 1 GbE NICs
– DCB: Converge very different protocols
– QoS: Guarantee performance SLA
• Lots of variations

31. Management and Guest Isolation
• 10 GbE NIC for parent Server
partition
VM 1 VM 2
• ACLs for guests
Migration
Cluster /
Manage
Storage
• DCB to converge
Live
protocols
Hyper-V
• QoS for SLA Extensible
Switch

32. Using Network Offloads for Increased
Scale
• Scalability Offloads take
Server
advantage of all CPU cores
– Receive Side Scaling for native VM 1 VM 2
path
Migration
Cluster /
Manage
Storage
– Virtual Machine Queue for
Live
Hyper-V Switch path
Hyper-V
Extensible
Switch
RSS VMQ

33. Converged Fabrics (1 NIC)
• ACLs for all switch ports Server
VM 1 VM 2
• QoS for Management
OS traffic
Manage
Live Migration
Cluster /
Storage
Hyper-V
Extensible
Switch

34. Converged Fabrics (2 NICs)
• ACLs for all switch ports Server
VM 1 VM 2
• QoS for Management
OS traffic
Manage
Live Migration
Cluster /
Storage
• NIC Teaming for LBFO
Hyper-V
Extensible
Switch
NIC Teaming

35. Sample Documented Configuration
• No network legacy Windows Hyper-V Server
concerns (green File VM 1 VM n
Live Migration
Server
field)
Cluster /
Manage
Manage
Storage
Storage
Cluster
• Hyper-V clustered Hyper-V
• Converged 10GbE
Extensible
Switch
with DCB for QoS QoS
NIC Teaming NIC Teaming QoS
• File Server RSS RSS RSS RSS NIC Teaming
clustered with DCB DCB DCB DCB
10 GbE 10 GbE 10 GbE 10 GbE 1 GbE 1 GbE
HBA
scale-out
10GBE Switch + DCB support
SAN
1GBE Switch

36. For More Information
• The original Build Windows 2011 sessions:
– http://channel9.msdn.com/events/BUILD/BUILD20
11
– SAC-439T
– SAC-437T
– SAC-430T

37. The End
Thanks to Hyper-V.nu
Aidan Finn
• @joe_elway
• http://www.aidanfinn.com