Best Practices For Using Virtualization In Development Environments

Best Practices for Using Virtualization in Development Environments
Liz Hatch and Chris McNulty

Our Focus
We are presenting:
Practical use and issues
Business experiences
Development scenarios
Sample configurations
Available resources

We’re not presenting:
In-depth vendor comparisons
Production environment virtualization
Future roadmap
Licensing
2

What’s happening in your development environment now?
Is virtualizing the development environment old news to you?
How many currently working in virtualized environment?
Server-centric or decentralized on clients?
Are you using it for:
Software Development (Test scenarios)
Quality Assurance
Software support where it’s important to be able to quickly and easily reproduce a relatively large number of environments.
Demo centers / demo scenarios
3

Development Scenarios
Best case scenario
Flexible development and testing configurations
Development staffs can create and test a wide variety of scenarios in a safe, self-contained environment that accurately approximates the operation of physical servers and clients.
Development team can test the latest version of an application on multiple platforms with a variety of virtual hardware capabilities
Customer data is data protected
Explicit separation of development and production environments
Current scenario on developer machines
Multiple versions of development tools
Multiple versions of enterprise applications such as SQL Server
Customer data on developer machines
Intermingling of development and production environments
4

What Is Virtualization?
“…A technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources.
This includes making a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device) appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization)
Types of virtualization
Platform (often called “Server”)
Resource
5

History of Virtualization
The first hypervisor providing full virtualization was IBM's CP-40, a one-off research system that began production use in January 1967, and which became the first version of IBM's CP/CMS operating system. With CP-40, the hardware's supervisor state was virtualized as well, allowing multiple operating systems to run simultaneously.
CP/CMS was part of IBM's attempt to build robust time-sharing systems for its mainframe computers. By running multiple operating systems simultaneously, the hypervisor increased system robustness and stability.
IBM's System/370 series was announced in 1970 without any virtualization features, but these were added to the series in 1972, and have appeared in all successor systems.
The major UNIX vendors, including Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM, and SGI, have been selling virtualized hardware since before 2000.
Multiple host operating systems have been modified to run as guest OSes on Sun's Logical Domains Hypervisor. As of late 2006, Solaris, Linux (Ubuntu and Gentoo), and FreeBSD have been ported to run on top of Hypervisor (and can all run simultaneously on the same processor, as fully-virtualized independent guest OSes).
One of the early PC hypervisors was the commercial VMware, introduced in 1998. Parallels, Inc. introduced Parallels Workstation, which is primarily used on PCs, in 2005 and Parallels Desktop for Mac, which runs on Mac OS X, in 2006.
In June 2008, Microsoft delivered a new Type 1 hypervisor called Hyper-V (codenamed "Viridian" and previously referred to as Windows Server virtualization); the design features OS integration at the lowest level.[3] New versions of the Windows operating system beginning with Windows Vista include extensions to boost performance when running on top of the Viridian hypervisor.
6

Virtualization Approaches
A hosted approach provides partitioning services on top of a standard operating system and supports the broadest range of hardware configurations.
Installs and runs as an application
Relies on host OS for device support and physical resource management
A hypervisor architecture is the first layer of software installed on a clean x86-based system. Since it has direct access to the hardware resources, a hypervisor is more efficient than hosted architectures, enabling greater scalability, robustness and performance.
Lean virtualization-centric kernel
Service Console for agents and helper applications
Para-virtualization
An enhancement where a guest operating system or application is ‘aware’ that it is running within a virtualized environment, and has been modified to exploit this.
7

Benefits
Managing data centers / server rooms
Space
Savings in hardware and energy costs
Security and Continuity
Backups of entire image
Quick re-deployment
Easier to limit access to resources outside scope of project
Managing hardware resources more efficient
Quick movement of virtual clients and servers among physical hosts
Faster deployment
More flexible infrastructure
8

Cons / Risks
Internal resistance of staff
Time to reorganize and consolidate developments clients and servers
Mistaken deletion of VPCs images in development environment as well as libraries and archives
Performance: bottle-necks, resource allocation, memory, disk I/O, network
Support: increased impact of server failures, maintenance affects all virtualized systems at same time
New skill set needed to deploy, maintain and support
9

KMA Case Study

Our Company
Microsoft Gold Partner founded in 1995
Clients range from local mid-market firms to New England Fortune 1000 companies
Our business
Product – Mekko Graphics
PowerPoint plug-in for financial charting
Customization of product
Consulting
SharePoint
.NET Custom development
Systems integration
11

Virtualization of Development at KMA
Led by infrastructure team
Driven by interest of staff
Team came up with solution
Architecture / Hardware / Solution
Continued commitment: reason, focus, risks, scope
Supported by ownership and management
Incremental growth acknowledged
12

Deployment at KMA in 2006
13

Deployment at KMA in 2009
14

Architecture of Environment
Development Domain
Added development domain untrusted by production
One domain controller on physical box for development domain which includes development Exchange server
Multiple physical host servers
Virtual Server with 3
Virtual Server with 5
Virtual Server with 3, Hyper-V with 3
Two NAS devices for storage of archived staff and project VPCs with RAID 5
SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008 on physical boxes – reused old boxes
Originally planned to swap host servers for re-use in organization but have realized not practical
Production Domain
Connect to machines using remote desktop with reference to machine name
All projects stored in production VSS which is backed up
All other project materials stored in production environment
15

Results
Virtualized:
All development on the consulting side of
Builds for product side of business
No need for high-powered developer machines since development is on VPCs
All development servers in locked server room, need to have domain access to get to machines
Needed to have commitment by internal staff to support and business to invest – we had both
16

Day-to-Day Usage and Issues

Day to Day Concerns
Typical problems and approaches:
Security
Compliance
Management
Reliability and stability are essential: for development, the “dev region” IS production
18

Remember 2003?
19

Remember 2003?
Big developer PCs
All server, development and client software consolidated
Incompatible configurations led to multiple PCs
Servers outside datacenter not maintained
Extra servers kept for legacy development/troubleshooting/version management
20

The Developer Desktop(source: equiknox.com)
21

Design considerations
Project vs. staff VPCs
Multi-instance apps like MOSS can reduce number of servers
Client vs. server placement - consistency
All virtual machines joined to the development domain so share resources
What should be virtualized
Naming conventions
E.g. CFMMOSSDEV04-V
Indicate project/owner
Standard server naming (purpose, location, region)
Portability make virtual host references obsolete
May Distinguish V from P
Snapshots in Hyper-V, Undo disks in Virtual Server
Developers competing for resources – have to set standards
RAM consumption
Always on vs. on demand
Hypervisors vs. full OS – ease of administration
22

Usage Considerations
Microsoft has made it easier to update product keys for Windows and other applications to ensure license compliance
Use for demos (VPN remote access preferred)
KMA “gold” images for development – we call our “base” images [preconfigured]
23

Issues
How much memory required by host
Anti-virus licenses
TrendMicro & XML files: registry key
24

Tips and Tricks
Host Server
Turn on hardware-assisted virtualization in BIOS
Virtual Servers
Turn on PING for ICMP on all virtual machines
Install Integration Services on each VPC
Migrations must remove old virtual server extensions from guest before installing Hyper-V support
25

Enterprise application concerns
Exchange 2007
SQL Server 2008
Virtualizable with “best practices”
Hardware assisted virtualization
Spindle isolation
26

Supported Guest OS’s with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V RC:
Windows Server 2000 Server and Advanced Server with SP4 (uniprocessor)
Windows XP SP3 32 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows Vista SP1 32 & 64 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows 7 client 32 & 64 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows 7 client 32 & 64 bit (multiprocessor, two virtual processors)
Windows Server 2003 SP2 32 & 64 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows Server 2003 SP2 32 & 64 bit (multiprocessor, two virtual processors)
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 32 & 64 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 32 & 64 bit (multiprocessor, two virtual processors)
Windows Server 2008 32 & 64 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows Server 2008 32 & 64 bit (multiprocessor, four virtual processors)
Windows Server 2008 R2 32 & 64 bit (uniprocessor)
Windows Server 2008 R2 32 & 64 bit (multiprocessor, four virtual processors)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (x86/x64) (uniprocessor, no integration components)
27

Development Scenario Demos

Virtual Network and Domain
Project
1 Server
Domain controller
Exchange server 2003
COM+ event sinks using exoledb
Windows service for remoting to singleton object for caching
2 Clients
Outlook 2003 and VS 2005
Outlook 2007
29

Virtual Server with MOSS
Win 2003 x32 / x64 or Win 2008 x64
Joined to development domain and can be accessed from any other machines at KMA
SQL on same box or different box
VS 2005 or 2008
Integration with Development Domain
Group, user and service accounts configured in AD
Exchange server
30

Microsoft Trial VHDs
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD (10/17/2008)
Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition
Active Directory
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition with SP1
Microsoft Office Professional 2007
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0

Parameters
30-day expiration, downloaded size 4G, will require about 10G hard drive space and 1024MB memory, runs on Virtual Server 2005 R2 which is available as free download
Login Credentials:
Username: Administrator
Password: pass@word1
31

Technical Information

Virtual Disk Formats
Two predominant formats
Microsoft – VHD (also used by XenSource)
VMware – VMDK
New management utilities can work with both VMWare and Microsoft VPCs
33

Hardware Concerns
Hardware concerns (CPU, RAM, hard drive specs, requirement supports hardware virtualization)
RAM
Lab server overhead = 6% to 20 %
Competing VPC use
Hard Drive – Redundancy, Speed
Use RAID 1/0
Avoid Raid 5 due to parity
SATA (Serial ATA)
CPU – At least dual
Preferably dual power (most likely to fail) and dual NICs
Do NOT use old hardware
34

Vendors
EMC: ESX Server or VMWare server (hosted on Windows)
Microsoft: Hyper-V Server or hosted with Windows 2008 / Windows 7
Citrix’s XenServer, partnering with Microsoft on management solutions
35

Virtualization Options with Microsoft
Servers
Hyper-V Server 2008
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
Terminal Server
Windows 7
Virtual PC (RC)
Windows XP Mode (RC)
Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7
Native VHD Support – Virtual and Physical
36

Native VHD Support
Servers and Clients
Windows Server 2008
Windows 7
Functionality
Create
Manage
Provides for development and testing on physical or virtual machine
Can be used to configure clients and servers with multiple boot options
37

Microsoft Hyper-V Options
38

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
39
Screenshots from eWeek

Remote Server Hyper-V Administration Tool
Runs on:
Windows 2008
Windows 7
40

Windows 7
Utilities include:
Remote Hyper-V Administration Tool
Virtual PC (RC)
VHD Management using DISKPART and Disk Management Utility
41

Resources
Microsoft Virtualization – Training Portal - http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/virtualization.aspx
Virtualization "How Do I?" Videos - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/dd353206.aspx
Virtualization Resources – White papers, solution accelerators, learning
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/resources/default.mspx
Virtualization Licensing for OS and enterprise apps
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/virtualization.aspx
Microsoft Trial VHDs
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738372.aspx
42

Thank you!

Best Practices For Using Virtualization In Development Environments

by Knowledge Management Associates, LLC on Sep 17, 2009

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Best Practices For Using Virtualization In Development Environments — Presentation Transcript