Year: 2006

Performances are the greatest concerns CIO/CTO usually have approaching virtualization.

You surely would compare a virtual machine performance against a physical server, but you could also be in need of exploring how different virtualization technologies perform.

The first aspect you should test is I/O performances: physical raw partitions, proprietary filesystems, remoted SANs systems, local virtual IDE or SCSI disk subsystem. All of these configurations should be tested and compared with each other and against physical machines I/O performances.

Another second aspect you could test is network performances since virtual network adapters devices can handle traffic in different ways and be more or less efficient.

The best way to stress test a VM is to use standard tool for physical machines stress testing.

And just in case you are new to this practice below I compiled a list of great, ready to go, free tools:

Memory reliability

• Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic

I/O performances

• Intel IOMeter
• Microsoft SQLIO Disk Subsystem Benchmark Tool

Network performances

• DeNamik LoadGen
• JMeter
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Load Simulator
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Load Generator (64bit version)
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Stress and Performance Tool (64bit version)
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 (and SharePoint Services 3.0) Test Data Load Tool
• Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool
• Microsoft Web Capacity Analysis Tool
• OpenSTA
• SLAMD Distributed Load Generation Engine
• Soap-Stone

I found Intel IOMeter and Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool both great for stress tests.

You could also take a look at a new interesting liveCD Linux distribution, StressLinux, providing a complete stressing test suite.

If you are going to test VMware ESX performances you should also absolutely check the VMware ESX Server Performance Troubleshooting lab manual released at VMworld 2006.

Quoting from CRN:

Virtual Iron has joined Sun Microsystems’ Partner Advantage Program and plans to offer its platform on Microsoft Windows next summer.

The Lowell, Mass.-based company, which develops advanced data-center virtualization and management software for Linux, recently announced support for Sun’s new x64-based Galaxy servers based on AMD processors.
…
Currently, the platform runs on Linux only but will be offered on Windows next summer, Virtual Iron executives said.

Read the whole article at source.

Microsoft is preparing to launch its first high-performance computing operating system under the name of Windows Computer Cluster Server (CSS) 2003.

Company customers could evaluate this product a great platform to run virtual machines with Virtual Server 2005 R2 and are looking at it very carefully.
But they will be disappointed: System Requirements page states the product will require an x64 architecture to work. And while Virtual Server 2005 R2 supports x64 host OSes it won’t provide any support for x64 guest OSes.

So, at least until Microsoft introduces some changes with the expected Virtual Server codename vNext, there will be no way to use Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003 as a Microsoft high-performance virtualization platform.

Microsoft experts confirmed this in an official chat today:

Q: Is it possible to use virtualization software (either VMware or MS Virtual Server) to create a Virtual Server lab to develop solutions on one or 2 physical machines prior migrating to a real cluster?

A: Unfortunately the current Virtual Server product only supports 32-bit guest OS and CCS requires x64 Server.

A: The main problem is that we require x86 compatible 64 bit hardware, and 64 bit guest OS support in both VMware and MS Virtual Server is weak or not there. When there is better 64 bit guest OS it should work. But it really is an evaluation scenario – not a deployment scenario.

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, yesteday at Macworld 2006 officially launched the first iMac computer on Intel technology.
It powers a MacOS X 10.4.4, but the iMac hardware could run Windows without restrictions, as Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said.

So we are sure MacOS could run on any x86 hardware, even on a virtual machine. But it actually can’t.
Why? Because Apple provided the operating system a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip control check which prevent installing it on anything but Apple approved hardware.
It also appears that Apple patented the MacOS to not run on dual-boot systems and virtual machines.

During the long beta these issues didn’t stop hackers which found a way to circumvent the security check and spread unauthorized MacOS x86 copies inside virtual machines all around the Net.

Now what can happen?

1. There will be another crack and MacOS X 10.4.4 for Intel will start spreading again, on physical and virtual machines, even if unauthorized.
2. With an unexpected move Apple will permit MacOS virtualization at a later time
   (we already read something in this direction in our exclusive interview to Parallels)

Will Microsoft accept to run MacOS virtual machines on its product as already did with Linux? I think not so fast. Surely not before launching and selling upcoming Vista.

So VMware could be the first do this, and for free thanks to VMware Player, gaining even more market on the desktop virtualization segment.
Customers are already asking for MacOS guest support which, by the way, would greatly simplify transition to Apple operating system.

Meanwhile the good PearPC project could receive a major stop.

PowerRecon 2.0 is PlateSpin’s next generation resource inventory, analysis and consolidation modeling solution.
It born to help identify which servers to convert to virtual infrastructure but become much more useful than that.
The product is currently in beta and is planned for launch in Q1 2006.

New features are:

• Increased Scalability
  PowerRecon 2.0 provides the scalable viewing and measuring of heterogeneous data center inventory, optimized for use in large scaled utilization inventory and analysis projects.
• Improved Drag and Drop Interface
  Highly interactive IDE-style user interface enables better consolidation decisions to be made by providing the right level of detail and advanced data visualization.
• Advanced Server Consolidation Planner
  Powerful consolidation designer for modeling and comparing server consolidation scenarios including what-if consolidation scenario modeling. Advanced algorithms make consolidation optimization quicker and easier than ever before.
• PowerConvert Integration
  Integration with PowerConvert provides the seamless execution of server consolidations planned with PowerRecon. Design the best fit for your data center and click the PowerConvert button to make it happen.

If you are interested complete the enrollment form here.

Quoting from the PlateSpin official announcement:

PlateSpin Ltd. today announced the availability of PlateSpin PowerConvert 5.2, with enhanced support for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Symantec LiveState 6.0. PlateSpin PowerConvert’s unique OS Portability technology provides anywhere-to-anywhere migration of data, applications, and operating systems in physical, virtual, blade, or mixed environments. PlateSpin technology is being used by more than 700 customers worldwide to solve today’s most pressing data center challenges such as server consolidation, disaster recovery, hardware migrations, data center relocations and continuous data center optimization.

New features of PlateSpin PowerConvert 5.2 include:

• Support for the following: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Symantec LiveState 6.0
• Enhanced network support including multi-subnet and full duplex networks, allowing increased accessibility and speed for server migrations
• Enhanced server discovery to quickly gather and refresh server inventory
• Improved error reporting and troubleshooting capabilities and direct integration with PlateSpin’s online knowledge base

VMware is highly expected to release its mainstream product new release: ESX Server 3.0.

The company announced it on middle October 2005 detailing new features, anticipating a public beta for end year and saying the product will be released in the Q1 2006.
But at today no public beta started and some customers from different countries are reporting virtualization.info ESX 3.0 release could shift on July 2006 or even later.

An unexpected major problem or new unplanned features included on the last minute? What happened? The standard answer would be: it’s ready when it’s ready…

Today virtualization is expensive for licensing. Microsoft asks people to license every OS installed on virtual machines, even if powered off.
But something is changing.

Since the release of Windows Server 2003 R2 Microsoft started approaching a per-use licensing model instead of a per-installation model.
So that now Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition owners can run up to 4 virtual machines with same OS at no additional costs.

This trend is going be stronger in the near future: the next Microsoft operating system for servers, codename Longhorn, actually in beta, will permit to use infinite virtual machines with same OS onboard at no additional costs, buying the Datacenter edition.
So if you have a performing hardware able to run 100 VMs, you’ll still have to pay just 1 Longhorn Datacenter Server license.

This is what Scott Bekker reported on a Redmondmag December 2005 article.

This move could slighty reduce customers feeling open source competing products (Xen) are a better investment.

By the way Scott example isn’t so unrealistic: hardware (RAM in particular) is becoming cheaper every day and 2007 (planned Longhorn Server release date) is just around the corner. Are you ready?

Quoting from IT Week:

Intel is promoting its next generation of business desktop technologies, which will come to market next summer in chips codenamed Avril. The key components amount to dual-core processors, Virtualization Technology (VT) hardware support, and Active Management Technology, or AMT.
…
VMware says that VT would enable it to remove less than one percent of its source code from its products. Of course, VMware probably won’t do that for a few years because to do so would spoil the performance of its tools when running on kit that doesn’t have VT. So it seems to me that VT simply makes it easier for Microsoft and open-source competitor Xen to catch up with VMware…

Read the whole article at source.

Rodney Buike wrote an interesting article on how to create a selfsigned SSL certificate and use it to protect Virtual Server 2005 web administration and virtual machines access.

Read it at source.