This document summarizes storage options and best practices for Hyper-V virtualization. It discusses the different types of storage that can be used with Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines, including direct attached storage, storage area networks, and virtual hard disks. It also provides guidance on topics like storage performance, antivirus exclusion lists, encryption, clustering, and multi-path I/O configuration to optimize storage. Best practices are presented for areas like sizing storage, networking configurations, and high availability solutions.

2. Storage & Hyper-V: The Choices you can make and the things you need to know Vijay Tewari Principal Program Manager Windows Server, Hyper-V SVR308

3. Session Objectives And Takeaways Recap Hyper-V Architecture Hyper-V storage (host and VM’s) Storage Enhancements with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Tips/tricks, Best Practices and guidelines

4. Hyper-V Architecture

5. Hyper-V Architecture Provided by: OS ISV / IHV / OEM VM Worker Processes Microsoft Hyper-V Microsoft Child Partitions Management Partition Applications Applications Applications Applications User Mode WMI Provider VM Service Windows Server 2008 Non-Hypervisor Aware OS Windows Kernel Windows Kernel Linux Kernel Windows Server 2003, 2008/R2 Windows Client OS (eg. 7) VSP IHV Drivers Kernel Mode VMBus Linux VSC VSC Emulation VMBus VMBus Windows hypervisor Ring -1 “Designed for Windows” Server Hardware

6. Hyper-V Storage Hyper-V provides flexible storage options DAS: SCSI, SATA, eSATA, USB, Firewire SAN: iSCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS NAS is not supported High Availability/Live Migration Requires block based, shared storage Guest Clustering storage Via iSCSI only

9. Using pass through disk with Hyper-VFixed and dynamic VHD’s demo

10. Hyper-V Storage Parameters VHD max size 2040GB Physical disk size (for pass through disks) not limited by Hyper-V Virtual machines can have Up to 2 IDE controllers with 2 devices per controller (total 4 IDE devices) Up to 4 SCSI controllers with 64 devices per controller (total 256 devices) Optical devices only on IDE Boot disk has to be IDE ISO’s from a network share (Constrained delegation required)

11. ISOs on network Shares Machine account access to share Constrained delegation

12. Configuring constrained delegation for ISO’s on a file share demo

13. Storage enhancements Windows Server 208 R2 Hyper-V

14. Overview of Storage Improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

15. Disk type comparison (Read)

16. Disk type comparison (Write)Dynamic VHD Improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 3.8x 15x Significant performance improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 with Dynamic VHD’s

17. Disk type comparison (Write)Fixed VHD vs. Pass Through disk in Windows Server 2008 R2 ~4% Equal Fixed VHD performance is almost identical to Pass Through disk

18. Disk type comparison (Write)Fixed VHD vs. Dynamic disks in Windows Server 2008 R2 ~6% difference ~15% difference

19. Disk type comparison (Write)Fixed VHD comparison WS08 R2 vs. WS08 1.3x Fixed VHD performance improved in Windows Server 2008 R2

20. Disk layout - results Assuming Integration Services are installed: Do I Use IDE or SCSI? One IDE channel or two? One VHD per SCSI controller? Multiple VHDs on a single SCSI controller? Chose as per your requirements, performance is identical

21. Differencing VHD’s Parent child relation Parent MUST NOT be modified If done, it will render the child VHD unsable Parent VHD does not change All changes are written to a differencing VHD

22. Differencing VHDsPerformance vs. chain length Differencing disk performance in Windows Server 2008 R2 improved as compared with Windows Server 2008

23. CDB Filtering SCSI Command Descriptor Block (CDB) By default CDB’s are filtered Some are partially filtered Some pass through unchanged Custom CDBs are always filtered This means by default SAN Management may not work from VM Hardware features may not work from VM Not recommended, check with SAN vendor if this is required Note that this is only for pass through disks CDB filtering may be required to be turned off for some SAN management applications when running inside the VM

24. How to disable CDB filtering? $HyperVGuest = "Server 2008 - SAN Manager" $VMManagementService = Get-WmiObject ` -class "Msvm_VirtualSystemManagementService" ` -namespace "rootirtualization" $Vm = Get-WmiObject -Namespace "rootirtualization" ` -Query "Select * From Msvm_ComputerSystem Where ` ElementName='$HyperVGuest'" $SettingData = Get-WmiObject -Namespace rootirtualization ` -Query "Associators of {$Vm} Where ` ResultClass=Msvm_VirtualSystemGlobalSettingData ` AssocClass=Msvm_ElementSettingData" $SettingData.AllowFullSCSICommandSet = $true $VMManagementService.ModifyVirtualSystem($Vm, ` $SettingData.PSBase.GetText(1))

25. Hot Add/Remove of Storage demo

26. Storage Model with Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering implemented a “shared nothing” storage model for the last decade Each Disk is owned by a single node at any one time, and only that node can perform I/O to it Only one node accesses a LUN at a time SAN Shared Storage

27. Migration & Storage with Windows Server 2008 R2 NEW Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) CSV provides a single consistent file name space; All Windows Server 2008 R2 servers see the same storage Guest VMs can be moved without requiring any drive ownership changes No dismounting and remounting of volumes is required Enabling multiple nodes to concurrently access a single ‘truly’ shared volume From hundreds of LUN’s to a handful… Validate times from all night long, to minutes… Real browse-able paths, no more GUID’s…

28. Cluster Shared Volume Overview Concurrent access to a single file system SAN Disk5 Single Volume VHD VHD VHD

29. Tips/Tricks, Best Practices and guidelines

30. Storage Performance/Sizing Important to scale performance to the total workload requirements of each VM Spindles are still key Don’t migrate 20 physical servers with 40 spindles each to a Hyper-V host with 10 spindles Don’t use left over servers as a production SAN

31. Antivirus and Hyper-V Exclude VHDs & AVHDs (or directories) VM configuration directory VMMS.exe and VMWP.exe CSV directory (%systemdrive%lusterstorage) Run Antivirus in virtual machines as you would normally for a physical machine

32. Encryption and Compression Bitlocker on parent partition supported Bitlocker when operating in a cluster is not supported Encrypted File System (EFS) Not supported on parent partition Supported in Virtual Machines NTFS Compression (Parent partition) Allowed in Windows Server 2008 Blocked in Windows Server 2008 R2

33. Storage Hardware that is qualified with Windows Server is qualified for Hyper-V Applies to running devices from Hyper-V parent Storage devices qualified for Server 2008 R2 are qualified with Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V No additional storage device qualification for Hyper-V Storage Hardware & Hyper-V R2 =

34. SAN Boot and Hyper-V Booting Hyper-V Host from SAN is supported Fibre Channel or iSCSI from parent Booting child VM from SAN supported using iSCSI boot with PXE solution (ex: emBoot/Doubletake) Must use legacy NIC Native VHD boot (independent of Hyper-V) Boot physical system from local VHD is new feature in Server 2008 R2 Booting a VHD located on SAN (iSCSI or FC) not currently supported (considering for future)

35. iSCSI Direct Microsoft iSCSI Software initiator runs transparently from within the VM VM operates with full control of LUN LUN not visible to parent iSCSI initiator communicates to storage array over TCP stack Best for application transparency LUNs can be hot added & hot removed without requiring reboot of VM (2003, 2008 and 2008 R2) VSS hardware providers run transparently within the VM Backup/Recovery runs in the context of VM Enables guest clustering scenario

36. iSCSI Perf Best Practices with Hyper-V Standard Networking & iSCSI best practices apply Use Jumbo Frames (Jumbo frames supported with Hyper-V Switch and virtual NIC in Windows Server 2008 R2) Use Dedicated NIC ports for iSCSI traffic (Server to SAN) Multiple to scale Client  Server (LAN) Multiple to scale Cluster heartbeat (if using cluster) Hyper-V Management Unbind unneeded services from NIC’s carrying iSCSI traffic File Sharing, DNS

37. Hyper-V Network Configurations with iSCSI Example: Server has 4 physical network adapters NIC 1: Assigned to parent partition for management NIC 2: Assigned to parent partition for iSCSI NICs 3/4: Assigned to virtual switches for virtual machine networking

38. Live Migration/HA Best Practices Best Practices: Cluster Nodes: Hardware with Windows Logo + Failover Cluster Configuration Program (FCCP) Storage: Cluster Shared Volumes Storage with Windows Logo + FCCP Multi-Path IO (MPIO) is your friend… Networking: Standardize the names of your virtual switches Multiple Interfaces CSV uses separate network Use ISOs not physical CD/DVDs You can’t Live Migrate a VM that has a physical DVD attached!

40. Windows Server 2008 Performance Tuning Guide http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx

41. Many of the enterprise array vendors include sizing tools for storage on their websites

42. Some Hyper-V SAN ecosystem partners:

43. EMC HP CompellentNetApp Dell/EquallogicHitachi

45. MCS & MPIO with Hyper-V Provides High Availability to storage arrays Especially important in virtualized environments to reduce single points of failure Load balancing & fail over using redundant HBAs, NICs, switches and fabric infrastructure Aggregates bandwidth to maximum performance MPIO supported with Fibre Channel , iSCSI, Shared SAS 2 Options for multi-pathing with iSCSI Multiple Connections per Session Microsoft MPIO (Multipathing Input/Output) Protects against loss of data path during firmware upgrades on storage controller

46. Configuring MPIO with Hyper-V MPIO Connect from parent Applies to: Creating vhds for each VM Passthrough disks Additional connections can be added through MCS with iSCSI using iSCSI direct

47. Conclusions Significant performance gains between Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2 for enterprise storage workloads Performance improvements in Hyper-V, MPIO, iSCSI, Core storage stack & Networking stack For general workloads with multiple VMs, performance delta is minimal between Pass Through & VHD iSCSI Performance especially with iSCSI direct scenarios is vastly improved

48. Related Content Required Slide Speakers, please list the Breakout Sessions, TLC Interactive Theaters and Labs that are related to your session. MGT220 Virtualisation 360: Microsoft Virtualisation Strategy, Products, and Solutions for the New Economy SVR205 Introduction to Hyper-V and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager SVR208 Gaining Higher Availability with Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering SVR303 Planning for Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization and Server Consolidation with Windows Server Solution Accelerators SVR307 Security Best Practices for Hyper-V and Server Virtualisation SVR308 Storage and Hyper-V: The Choices You Can Make and the Things You Need to Know SVR318 How to Protect Your VirtualisedEnvironment SVR319 Multi-Site Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2 SVR09-IS Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Deployment Considerations

49. Additional Resources Microsoft MPIO: http://www.microsoft.com/mpio MPIO DDK MPIO DSM sample, interfaces and libraries will be included in Windows 7 DDK/SDK Microsoft iSCSI: http://www.microsoft.com/iSCSI SCSI@microsoft.com iSCSI WMI Interfaces: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms807120.aspx Storport Website: http://www.microsoft.com/Storport Storport Documentation Windows Driver Kit MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb870491.aspx Microsoft Virtualization: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx Hyper-V Planning & Deployment Guide http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794762.aspx Microsoft Virtualization Website www.microsoft.com/virtualization http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/partners.mspx http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/default.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/taylorb/

50. Partner References Intel: http://www.intel.com Emulex: http://www.emulex.com Alacritech: http://www.alacritech.com NetApp: http://www.netapp.com 3Par: http://3par.com iStor: http://istor.com Lefthand Networks http://www.lefthandnetworks.com Doubletake: http://www.doubletake.com Compellent: http://www.compellent.com Dell/Equallogic: http://www.dell.com Falconstor: http://www.falconstor.com

51. question & answer

52. Required Slide Speakers, TechEd 2009 is not producing a DVD. Please announce that attendees can access session recordings at TechEd Online. www.microsoft.com/teched Sessions On-Demand & Community www.microsoft.com/learning Microsoft Certification & Training Resources http://microsoft.com/technet Resources for IT Professionals http://microsoft.com/msdn Resources for Developers www.microsoft.com/learning Microsoft Certification and Training Resources Resources

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