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Monitoring Hyper-V performance and utilizing System Center VMM

By J. Peter Bruzzese, Ronald Barrett and Wayne Dipchan

Scenario/Problem: In any IT infrastructure, performance of the servers is expected to meet specific thresholds. The same is true for virtual machines. How can you monitor the performance of your virtual infrastructure and use the information you obtain to help troubleshoot any issues you may be facing?

Solution: After you have installed the Hyper-V role, the Windows Performance and Reliability Monitor contains 24 specific counters for your Hyper-V environment. You can find detailed information on what counters to look at for specific resource issues at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768535.aspx. However, keep in mind that performance monitoring of a virtual machine is different from monitoring of a physical machine. Just one example is CPU monitoring. CPU utilization needs to be monitored in three different places:

About the book

This chapter excerpt on how to Implement and Utilize Hyper-V (download PDF) is taken from the book Windows Server 2008 How-To. This book offers information on every essential element to Windows Server 2008, including the necessary steps and procedures for planning, deployment, configuration, security and day-to-day administration. There are sections that focus on the Hyper-V R2 release and all major enhancements built into Windows Server 2008, including Hyper-V virtualization, Server Core, major Terminal Services improvements and more.

NOTE: For information on the Reliability and Performance Monitor see Chapter 12, "Monitor Performance and Troubleshoot."

Utilize System Center VMM

Scenario/Problem: Your virtual infrastructure is growing at a very fast pace. You find that within a few months, you are going to have more than 200 virtual machines in your environment, and the count will continue to grow. You need a tool that will help you to stay in control of the virtual infrastructure.

Solution: The System Center VMM, a part of the System Center family of products used to manage IT infrastructure, enables you to take control and oversee the virtual infrastructure. It enables you to manage all your virtual machines and physical hosts. If you are familiar with VMware, this tool will compare with V-Center. An overview of some the benefits System Center Virtual Machine Manager are:

NOTE: The following are some of the other members of the System Center family:

These tools and System Center VMM all require the purchase of a license. You can find pricing and licensing information for the VMM at www.microsoft.com/ systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/pricing-licensing.aspx.

Let's take a look at the different components of System Center VMM:

The following are some useful functions found in the VMM, besides the ability to create new and clone virtual machines:

  1. Copy the .vmx file and all the .vmdk files to the Virtual Machine Manager Library.
  2. Run the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard to identify the disk formats and virtual machine specifics and then convert the .vmdk files to .vhd files.

The VMM now prepares the virtual hard disks for the new virtual machine creation.

As you can see, the Service Center VMM can ease your job of managing the virtual infrastructure as it grows. You can even drill down your management to individual virtual machines by performing the following tasks on them:

If you have System Center Operations Manager and reporting turned on, you can generate reports via the Operations Manager to get a view of how your virtual infrastructure is doing and what you can do to improve the space. The following are some of the reports that can be generated:

Prepare for New Features to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2

Scenario/Problem: Microsoft has definitely made great improvements to its virtual technology with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. However, it still has a way to go when it comes to supporting virtual machines as well as VMware on ESX hosts. You want to stick with Microsoft products in your environment and need to know if its virtual technology is slated for improvements.

Solution: Windows Server 2008 R2 will provide many needed improvements to Hyper-V. The features we can look forward to include the following:

With the addition of these features in R2, Microsoft will definitely be putting itself on the same playing field as VMware running on ESX. There will still be some room for improvement, especially on the Linux support side.

In this chapter, we have just touched on all that is offered with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. To get more information, take a look at www.microsoft.com/ windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx.

Implement and Utilize Hyper-V
  Installing and managing Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 Server Core
  Using Hyper-V Manager to create virtual machines and hard drives
  Monitoring Hyper-V performance and utilizing System Center VMM

Printed with permission from Sams Publishing. Copyright 2009. Windows Server 2008 How-To by J. Peter Bruzzese, Ronald Barrett and Wayne Dipchan. For more information about this title and other similar books, please visit Sams Publishing.

About the authors

J. Peter Bruzzese is a network specialist with eight years of experience in the information technology sector. Bruzzese helped form Clip Training LLC, which offers a variety of mini clips on topics from Windows operating systems to server applications.

Ronald Barrett is an independent consultant, trainer, author and tech speaker whose previous clients include Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, New Horizons and ONLC.com. Barrett has co-authored several books, including Administrator's Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers and contributes regularly to Redmond magazine.

Wayne Dipchan is the author of McSe Windows 2000 Directory Services Design and is a certified SQL database administrator. Dipchan is also a server expert for New Horizons, Bear Stearns and General Electric Company.

11 Nov 2009

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