Other posts in this series:

Implementing App-V – Part I: Introduction to Application Virtualization

Implementing App-V – Part III: Integrating Clients

Implementing App-V – Part IV: Sequencing Applications

After the first post about App-V and application virtualization technologies we had a nice review about the platform. So, if you feel like this type of technology can add some value to your organization, let’s start playing around.

Before you begin, let’s talk about the available models in App-V that will help you choose the strategy according to your platform. The architecture is prepared to support almost any scenario, including low-bandwidth branches offices or even offline deployments.

App-V Models

Stand-Alone Mode

This is the minimalist mode of App-V with no infrastructure required but the machine that packages the application, “sequencer” from now on, and the App-V Desktop Client.

Sequencing the application adds all the necessary files into one package and generates an MSI file that you can use to deploy manually, by group policy or using SMS/System Center Configuration Manager.

This mode is focused when you have several offline users (do they even exist at this point?), or when you have already SCCM deployed and you don’t want to add a App-V Server.

Streaming Mode

This model it is also focused on platforms that do not want Management Servers. The components present here are the streaming server, sequencer to package applications and the App-V client.

The Streaming Server as the name says it, streams the applications to the clients on demand. The server does not use a SQL database, the permissions are set and maintain based on ACLs (access control lists).

You can use it on low-bandwidth links like branch offices to optimize the application deployment.

Full Infrastructure Model

The full model contains the full set of components in App-V: Management Server, Sequencer, Streaming server and App-V Client. In most cases, the streaming server it is completely optional since the application streaming can be executed from the Management Server, delivering applications on demand to users.

Using a Management Server will add the applications shortcuts publication within the process of deployment. And includes more features for reporting, using a SQL database.

Applications in this model are associated to security groups in Active Directory. And you can also manage centrally the applications licenses.

We are going to focus this set of posts in a Full Infrastructure Model, using a Management Server, Sequencer and a App-V Desktop Client.

Enough with the explanations, let’s get to work.

Installing App-V Management Server

The process it is a little tricky, but we’ll try to set clear all the necessary requirements before running the installation wizard.

Pre-Requisites

This is the list of minimum requirements:

• Windows Server 2003 SP1 or superior
• IIS 6 role installed with ASP.Net
• .Net Framework 2.0
• MMC 3.0
• SQL Server 2005 Express SP2

Before proceeding with the installation take a closer look to what are the SQL and IIS configurations necessary that we are going to review next.

Here’s the environment that I’ll be using:

• Active Directory and DNS platform in place.
• Windows Server 2008 (32-bit)
• IIS 7 role installed with ASP.Net
• SQL Server 2005 Express SP2.

SQL Special Considerations

The SQL Express can be installed with the default options, but, as I mentioned it before, there are a few SQL configurations that needed to be set before the App-V installation process:

1. Open SQL Server Surface Area Configuration Tool from the SQL Server Start Menu folder.

2. Click on Surface Area Configuration for Features.

3. Inside of “CLR Integration”, click the option for “Enable CLR Integration”.

4. Inside of “OLE Automation” click “Enable OLE Automation”.

5. Close “Surface Area Configuration for Features”.

6. Click “Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections”.

7. Inside “Remote Connections” select “Local and Remote Connections” and set “Using both TCP/IP and named pipes”.

8. Restart the SQL Server services to apply all changes.

IIS Considerations

Since I’m using Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7 for the Management Server installation, there are a few considerations about it.

• Install ASP.Net feature with all pre-requisites.
• Windows Authentication feature enabled.
• IIS 7 Management Tools with Management Service and IIS 6 Management Compatibility features installed.

Step-by-Step App-V Management Server Installation

One completed the pre-requisites and considerations, let’s start with the installation.

1. With the App-V installation media, double click the setup executable.

2. Welcome page, click on “Next”.

3. Accept the License Agreement and click on “Next”.

4. Select “Custom” setup type.

5. Here you can modify installation components (not recommended) or change the installation directory. Click on “Next”.

6. Select the SQL Server instance where the database will be stored. In my case, I’m using the same server with one instance. Click on “Next”.

7. Select “Create a new database”. Maintain the suggested database name “APPVIRT”. You can also modify the location for the database files. Recommended for this type of server to store the database on a different hard drive than the operating system.

8. Leave deselected the option for “Use enhanced security”. You can set secure connections with this server, that will require of course for a certificate. Out of the scope in our case.

9. Leave the default value for the RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol): 554.

10. Select the group that will have full access to the App-V Management Server console. In my case, I’m selecting only “Domain Admins” to give access. This option can be modify later.

11. Select the provider group, that by default will have access to the enabled applications. In my case, I will select only “Domain Admins” and later personalize each application for each group.

12. Select the folder where the applications packages will be stored. Leave the default “C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center App Virt Management Server\App Virt Management Server\content\”. Click on “Next”

13. On the “Ready to Install the Program” window click on “Install”.

After a few moments you will have the App-V Management Server fully installed.

14. Recommended: Reboot the server.

IMPORTANT: If any of the pre-requisites and considerations mentioned above are not completed, you will receive a message like this when you start the installation:

“Error 25109. The installation program could not create the configuration data store. Please see the installation log file for more information”

Post-Installation Procedures

There are basically three more tasks to execute after the App-V Management Server installation is completed to guarantee the proper functionality:

1. Once the server is rebooted, you will need to verify the “Application Virtualization Management Server” service. If you are running on a virtualized environment, you will need to manually start the service.

2. Share the “content” folder created for the applications packages (by default C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center App Virt Management Server\App Virt Management Server\content\). Give to “Everyone” the “Read & Execute”, “List folder contents” and “Read” access.

3. If you have the firewall enabled, ensure that you enable the exceptions for inbound connections with the programs sghwdsptr.exe and sghwsvr.exe. Both located in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center App Virt Management Server\App Virt Management Server\bin\”.

Note: If these firewall exceptions are not in place, you will also have problems with App-V clients trying to receive and execute the application packages. We’ll check that later.

And yes, you can now open the “Application Virtualization Management Console” and start working with the platform.

Make sure that you deselect the “Use Secure Connection” if you didn’t install a certificate for App-V.

Other Resources

As an interesting option to evaluate your App-V Management Server environment is the Microsoft Application Virtualization Best Practices Analyzer.

It verifies general configurations in your Management and/or Streaming Server 4.5, and notify about possible anomalies as a diagnostic tool. Requires the presence of Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer to generate the reports.

In this example, the warning generated is about the database been stored in the same place as the Management Server.

I’ll be reviewing in the next posts how to prepare clients and applications to be deployed by App-V. I’ll be using Microsoft Office 2007 as the sequenced application.

Other posts in this series:

Implementing App-V – Part I: Introduction to Application Virtualization

Implementing App-V – Part III: Integrating Clients

Implementing App-V – Part IV: Sequencing Applications

Cheers!

Other posts in this series:

Implementing App-V – Part II: Choosing and Preparing the Environment

Implementing App-V – Part III: Integrating Clients

Implementing App-V – Part IV: Sequencing Applications

Virtualizing applications it is not a very common requirement for most administrators or companies. These solutions doesn’t seem like a “must” in any given environment, but why? One of the main reasons it’s related to the benefit/cost equation it’s not quite clear for most of us.

With these posts I’ll try to give a small introduction to the technology, explain the environment, provide a step-by-step deployment for App-V and the benefits that could apply to your organization.

What is Application Virtualization?

Application virtualization represents the technologies that permits to remove the complexity of deploying and maintaining applications for desktop users by providing:

• Applications centralized management. Facilitates the process of deploying, updating and removing applications. 
• Removing potential conflicts on desktop clients. Each application deployed using this type of technology runs in a isolated environment.
• Capability to capture a set of interconnected applications into a single package to be distributed among clients.

Common Scenarios

Let me give you a few common scenarios where application virtualization applies:

Scenario A

Problem: You are using a company’s application that requires some special configurations every time that is deployed, and that is also interconnected with other applications (for example: A local database engine, Java Runtime Environment or some other particular requirement). It demands you several hours every week to support end-users for deploying or troubleshooting configurations.

Solution: Providing application virtualization you can guarantee end-users to always have the same configuration deployed, no matter when or where; since you only need to configure it once and then wrap up the entire set of applications into one package.

Scenario B

Problem: You have a dynamic base operating system image that changes constantly, there are several type of base images according to the users, and you not have deployed Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) combined with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to maintain images. You have two options: Manually and locally change the desktop image on every client by installing or removing applications; or providing end-users with local administrator privileges to achieve some kind of auto-management (don’t get me started on that).

Solution: Implement application virtualization with a clean base image will help you to minimize the impact every time there’s a change. With a centralized management of the applications you can make all the necessary changes and implement those instantly. Adding also granularity on the type of images, special applications can only be distributed to selected group of users.

Did you read the scenario problems and feel like “been there, done that”? Then you definitely should continue reading these posts.

Existing Platforms

There are several platforms provided to achieve application virtualization, the most common are:

• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V). Formerly known as SoftGrid.
• VMWare ThinApp.
• Citrix XenApp.
• Symantec Software Virtualization Solutions (SVS).

To name a few differences among them:

• ThinApp is the only one that supports 64 bits OS deployments.
• App-V, SVS and XenApp use a set of kernel mode drivers and supporting services to manage virtualization process. ThinApp includes the entire virtual environment directly into the application package.

This set of posts will be focused on reviewing the components and process within an App-V environment. As well as providing an step by step deployment.

App-V Components

App-V is the solution provided by Microsoft to achieve a secure, scalable and high performing applications deployment. Here’s a quick review about which components are involved.

App-V Management Server

In charge of delivering sequenced applications on-demand to selected clients. Any Management Server needs a SQL data store (multiple Management Servers can access the same data store) where it retrieves information like application assignments, records and permissions within the App-V management environment.

App-V Management System

Composed by the App-V Management Console and the App-V Management Service. It represents the communication channel between the MMC and the SQL data store, controlling any read/write requests to the database. It can be installed together with the Management Server or in a separate computer with IIS.

App-V Sequencer

In charge of producing the application package. It is basically a tool installed on a computer (preferred using the same OS as App-V clients) that captures the installation of the applications to generate the package, that consists in several files: Open Software Description (.osd file that links other files); sequenced application file (.sft file); icon files (.ico); XML manifest and a project file (.sprj). Optionally an MSI file can be included for offline deployments, but we’ll see how to do that later.

App-V Streaming Server

This server will have a the role of streaming applications to the clients where these do not have an acceptable connection to the Management Server, like a branch office. Streaming applications is the only functionality enabled for this server, and it represents, on most cases, as an optional role to be installed.

App-V Client

Installed on the end-user operating system, interacts with the App-V Server. Manages package streaming into cache and publishing refresh. Stores user-specific information related to the virtual applications in each user profile, so every time the client reboots the machine, the virtualized applications conserves last changes made. This client it is also represented with “Terminal Services” version, the only obvious reason is that the applications are published using Terminal Services virtual desktop.

Here’s a graphical description of the entire App-V environment

Resources

Here are some of the recommended resources you can find about the technology

• Application Virtualization 4.5 Documentation
• Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack Home Page
• Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Resource Kit Tools
• App-V Team Blog
• Planning and Deployment Guide for the Application Virtualization System

On the next posts I’ll use more practical examples and show you how to deploy an entire environment for virtualizing application. Stay tuned.

Other posts in this series:

Implementing App-V – Part II: Choosing and Preparing the Environment

Implementing App-V – Part III: Integrating Clients

Implementing App-V – Part IV: Sequencing Applications

Cheers!

As you probably know, Live Migration (check this link for more info and documentation) is a new feature that is included within Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (both of them are in Beta right now), that gives you a lot of help making your infrastructure more agile and dynamic by letting you to move a running virtual machines between different Hyper-V hosts without any downtime. With SCVMM 2008 R2 you will be able to execute those migrations directly from the VMM console. You will also be able to hot addition for VHDs; support for new hardware scenarios, etc etc.

For more information about new features of SCVMM 2008 R2 check MVUG Blog, and this post:

What’s New in VMM 2008 R2 Beta

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) is a comprehensive management solution for managing virtualized infrastructure running on Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and VMware ESX through Virtual Center.  Recently, Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta was released which included significant feature improvements to Hyper-V—the underlying hypervisor platform.  A corresponding beta version of VMM R2 – the next version of VMM – is due for release shortly.  VMM R2 Beta  leverages the new platform enhancements and extends the feature set of VMM 2008. This overview highlights the most important new and significantly enhanced features in the VMM 2008 R2 Beta:

Support for new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta

• Live Migration: – Seen through the VMM console, this enables administrators to move virtual machines from one machine in a virtual host cluster to another with no downtime. This allows administrators greater flexibility in responding to planned or unplanned downtime, provides higher machine availability and more robust fault tolerance within virtualized infrastructure. The basic requirements for Live Migration are that all hosts must be part of a cluster and host processors must be from the same manufacturer.  Additionally all hosts in the cluster must have access to shared storage.  No changes are required to existing virtual machines, network, or storage devices in moving from Quick Migration to Live Migration other than upgrading to beta versions of Windows Server 2008 R2 and VMM 2008 R2.
• Hot addition/removal of VHDs:  Allows the addition and removal of new virtual hard disks (VHDs) on a running virtual machine.  This enables storage growth in virtual machines without downtime.  Additionally, ‘live” VHD management allows administrators to take advantage of additional backup scenarios and readily use mission critical and storage-intense applications (eg: SQL Server and Exchange).
• New optimized networking technologies: VMM 2008 R2 Beta supports two new networking technologies – Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and TCP Chimney – providing increased network performance while demanding less CPU burden.  NICS that support VMQ, create a unique virtual network queue for each virtual machine on a host that can pass network packets directly from the hypervisor to virtual machine. This speeds throughput as it bypasses much of the processing normally required by the virtualization stack. With TCP Chimney, TCP/IP traffic can be offloaded to a physical NIC on the host computer reducing CPU load and improving network performance.

Enhanced storage and cluster support
• Clustered Shared Volumes (CSV): Provides a single, consistent storage space that allows virtual hosts in a cluster to concurrently access virtual machine files on a single shared logical unit number (LUN). CSV eliminates the previous one LUN per virtual machine restriction and coordinates the use of storage with much greater efficiency and higher performance. CSV enables the Live Migration of virtual machines in and out of the shared LUN without impacting other virtual machines. Enabling CSV on failover clusters is straightforward and easy to monitor through the VMM administrator’s console; many storage configuration complexities prior to CSV have been eliminated.
• SAN migration into and out of clustered hosts: This allows virtual machines to migrate into and out of clustered hosts using a SAN transfer, which automatically configures the cluster nodes to recognize and support the new workload.
• Expanded Support for iSCSI SANs:  Previously, only one LUN could be bound to a single iSCSI target whereas now — with VMM 2008 R2 Beta — multiple LUNS can be mapped to a single iSCSI target.    This provides broader industry support for iSCSI SANs allowing customers more flexibility in choosing storage providers and iSCSI SAN options.

Streamlined process for managing host upgrades
• Maintenance Mode:  Allows administrators to apply updates or perform maintenance on a host server by safely evacuating all virtual machines to other hosts on a cluster using Live Migration or putting those workloads into a saved state to be safely reactivated when maintenance or upgrades are complete. Maintenance mode is enabled for all supported hypervisor platforms on Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta.

Other VMM 2008 R2 Beta enhancements
• Support of disjoint domains:  Reduces the complexity of reconciling host servers with differing domain names in Active Directory and DNS.  In these situations, VMM 2008 R2 Beta automatically creates a custom service principal name (SPN) configured in both AD and DNS allowing for successful authentication. 
• Use of defined port groups with VMware Virtual Center:  On installation, VMM 2008 R2 Beta will present available port groups for VMM’s use with VMware Virtual Center thus allowing administrators to maintain control over which port groups are used.

Patrick Lownds

So, after taking a look to all those features, I wanted to give it a try.

SCVMM 2008 R2 Installation

The installation won’t differ on practically anything what you’ve seen on SCVMM 2008. Here’s a quick step-by-step:

As a reminder, do not forget that SCVMM 2008 installs only on Windows Server 2008 64bits edition. You can check all requirements using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Configuration Analyzer Update 1.

This tool evaluates a candidate host for installing any role of SCVMM 2008 and notifies about any anomaly.

You can start the installation using the autorun and selecting “VMM Server”

You don’t have the chance to choose if you want to participate or not in the Customer Experience Improvement Program. You have to.

I’m selecting in this case to install a SQL Server 2005 Express to store the database locally instead of connecting to a remote instance. The version included is SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2.

I’m creating a new VM Library Share.

Leaving the default communication settings.

The installation process will also install WAIK 1.1.

Installing the SCVMM Console

The VMM Console installation process will also add Powershell feature to the operating system.

You can now start using the VMM Console.

Adding an Hyper-V Host

So the next obvious step on a installation of SCVMM it’s to start adding virtualization host, but here I found a minor issue that sounds good to share the solution with the community.

Selecting the “Add Host” option from the Action menu, the wizard appears:

Entered the credentials that will be used to connect and add the remote host.

But when I selected “Hyper-V” for the query, 0 servers appeared. It makes no sense, the Hyper-V Server where I installed the SCVMM virtual machine belongs to the same domain.

I removed the “Hyper-V” option and this appeared

The Hyper-V (AA-W2K8-01) host is listed as “Unknown” Virtualization Software.

Again, didn’t make any sense to me, the Hyper-V server is running the right version to be listed as a valid virtualization server, so I started to look around and the answer appear thanks to (more or less) System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Configuration Analyzer Update 1.

Ok, those warnings are not completely true, most of the needed updates are already installed. But the ones that are not installed were actually the problem.

I installed the following updates:

- Hyper-V Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition

- BITS update for Windows Server 2008 x64

And the Hyper-V Host appears as it should by SCVMM.

SCVMM 2008 R2 Beta console with Hyper-V guest

Recommended Links

- Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

- Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 – Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture

- Step-by-Step Guide to Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2

- Hyper-V Step-by-Step Guide: Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

Hope you find it useful!

Cheers

Here are the two links for the new articles:

Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 – Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture

Step-by-Step Guide to Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2

Here’s an example graphic of how Live Migration setup handles Configuration Files of the virtual machines:

It is important for you to notice that Live Migration requires Failover Clustering to be configured on all hosts, access to a shared storage (like in NAS or SAN environments) and a special network configured between them to be used only for Live Migration feature.

For more information about Hyper-V Failover Clustering check this guide:Hyper-V Step-by-Step Guide: Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

Complete list of requirements for Live Migration:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition
• Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Datacenter Edition
• Live migration is also supported on Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2.
• Microsoft Failover Clustering must be configured on all physical hosts that will use live migration
• Failover Clustering supports up to 16 nodes per cluster
• The cluster should be configured with a dedicated network for the live migration traffic
• Physical host servers must use a processor or processors from the same manufacturer
• Physical hosts must be configured on the same TCP/IP subnet
• Physical hosts must have access to shared storage

Other interesting links about Hyper-V, Hyper-V Server and Failover Cluster:

- Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide
- Failover Cluster Deployment Guide
- Failover Cluster Step-by-Step Guide: Validating Hardware for a Failover Cluster
- The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters
- Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta Available for Download
- Hyper-V Server: Installing, configuring and troubleshooting

Cheers!

Don’t get confused, this is not a version of Windows Server 2008, it’s just the hyper-visor released as a "bare-metal" operating system, based significantly on remote administration (nothing much to do locally), but the great feature is that is completely free.

Now they’ve also released the R2 version of this operating system, and you can download it from here (~1.2gb).

The main improvements from the previous versions:

• Hyper-V clustering supported!
• Live Migration.
• Processor and memory upgrades (up to 32 cores and 1TB of RAM).
• Includes an Hyper-V configuration utility.

I had the chance to work with the first version and it’s been a great experience. Since it’s just an hyper-visor with a really small footprint, has an awesome performance on their virtual machines, including a small attack surface design.

One of the significant drawbacks that I found on the first version is that Hyper-V clustering/failover was not supported, but this new release sounded like a great news when I saw that is going to support this feature. Making this free operating system with a great performance, high-available and scalable design.

Give this one a chance to test it, you won’t regret it.

Check a previous guide I’ve made regarding Hyper-V Server 2008 (applies as well for the R2 version):

“Hyper-V Server: Installing, Configuring and Troubleshooting”

Cheers!

Well this is for sure a must reading book for you. And the best thing, it’s here for free! You can get the PDF (~14mb) at this link (link updated):

“Virtualization Solutions from the Desktop to the Datacenter”

Chapter 1: Microsoft’s Virtualization Solution
Introduction to the virtualization world, benefits and how to implement it.

Chapter 2: Server Virtualization – Hyper-V
Start to know about the hyper visor released by Microsoft from Windows Server 2008 platform. How it works, benefits and different scenarios.

Chapter 3: Managing Virtualization – VMM 2008
The latest centralized platform from System Center, Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Where you can manage different type of servers: Virtual Server, VMWare and Hyper-V.

Chapter 4: Application Virtualization – App-V
How App-V works (former known as SoftGrid) and how it can be delivered to users.

Chapter 5: Presentation Virtualization – Terminal Services
How Terminal Services complements the different virtualization solutions and their benefits.

Chapter 6: Desktop Virtualization – MED-V and VDI
Explaining Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

Chapter 7: User State Virtualization
Complementing Romaing Profiles, Folder Redirection, Offline Files, Group Policies with virtualization and how to implement it on an organization.

Chapter 8: Building a Virtualization Infrastructure
Getting to know Microsoft Virtualtion Solutions Accelerators, Microsoft System Center and Virtualization Licensing.

Enjoy it!

Cheers

The latest relase was made in late December, Intelligent Application Gateway 2007 SP2 with Applications Optimizer. You can download it from here.

IAG 2007 SP2 Overview

Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) is a remote access gateway that boosts productivity by giving mobile and remote workers, partners and customers easy, flexible and secure access to virtually any application from a broad range of devices and locations.
IAG enables IT administrators to truly enforce compliance and address virtually any remote access scenario by providing easy to configure, built-in, policies that address common applications and user environments.
IAG SP2 delivers a range of new, important enhancements for customers:
1. Runs as a virtual machine on Hyper-V for low TCO, flexible/secure deployment and simple disaster recovery.
2. Interoperability for non-Windows environments with support for Firefox, Linux and Mac.
3. New application support for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and OCS Web client.

Looking around and reading some blogs, I found also a very useful post related to this Microsoft Site: The links of every VHD available to this date, including several other interesting tools and links.

http://blog.windowsvirtualization.com/downloads

Also I highly recommend you to visit the main blog where I found those links, it has always the latest news on the Virtualization World.

http://blog.windowsvirtualization.com/

Cheers!

I was very curious about it: A free operating system released by Microsoft working only as an HyperVisor it makes wonder about a lot of things. Also recently I’ve been working with VMWare ESX Server 3i, that is also the hypervisor working directly on the machine, and I had a good experience (I really loved the monitoring and reporting features that you can use).

From the moment I started using Hyper-V Server few troubleshooting tasks needed to be done.

Installing Hyper-V Server

If you ever installed any operating system, ever, you should not have any problem with this. You’ll of course see that the process is identical from Vista and Windows 2008.

To get started with Hyper-V Server there’s available the Hyper-V Server 2008 Configuration Guide.

If you want to avoid almost any command line to be executed from now on, Hyper-V Server has a simple tool where you’ll load a menu to access most of the configurations you will need. You can access it using this cmd:

C:windowssystem32hvconfig.cmd

But I’ll execute the next steps using the command line features, so this procedure will apply as well for Windows 2008 Server Core.

Managing Remotely

To start using Hyper-V Server you will need Hyper-V Console on your Vista SP1 (remember: there’s no other option for an Hyper-V Server to be managed remotely), it is the same console to manage remotely any other Windows 2008 with Hyper-V. If you don’t have it yet, you can download it from here:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Management Tools update for the release version of Hyper-V

But, from this moment I started to have a few problems.

1. Solving “Access denied. Unable to establish communication between: <Hyper-V Server> and <Vista client>”

For all of those who were using the early versions of this remote console probably had the same error.

The solution is the same, so I want to reference this post from John Howard’s blog; where it explain almost everything you must know about configuring Hyper-V role on a Windows 2008 Core Server. Hyper-V Server works the same way as this Core version of Windows 2008, so every step of configuration will apply.

Here’s a quick summary of the steps involved, I’m only applying the steps I considered necessary for my environment.

1. Since I’m using a domain environment, I joined this machine to the domain using NETDOM utility:

netdom join <ComputerName> /domain:<DomainName> /userd:<UserName> /passwordd:*

/passwordd: * Requires user password to be entered.

Reboot the machine to apply the changes:
shutdown /t 0 /r

2. Adding necessary rules on the Firewall to allow remote connections.

a. Remote Management:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”Remote Administration” new enable=yes

Note: You can also use netsh to change server’s IP, using the following syntax:
netsh interface ip set address “<Adapter Name>” static ipaddr subnetmask gateway metric.

b. Enable Remote Desktop

cscript windowssystem32scregedit.wsf /ar 0
cscript windowssystem32scregedit.wsf /cs 0

c. Reboot the machine to apply the changes:
shutdown /t 0 /r

3. Solving the “Access denied” error from the client:

Now that the server is properly configured for remote management, you have to run a simple procedure to fix this common error:

a. On “Run” insert “DCOMCNFG“. Click OK
b. Expand “Component Services“, expand “Computers“. Right click on “My Computer” and click on “Properties” (imagen)
c. Now click on “COM Security”
d. In “Access Permission” click “Edit Limits”
e. Select “ANONYMOUS LOGON” in “Group or User Name“. In the column “Allow“, set the “Permissions for User” with “Remote Access“.

Now you should be able to connect remotely using the Hyper-V console.

Since I finally completed the Hyper-V Server configurations for remote management, so the obvious next step is creating a new virtual machine.

I started with a dummy virtual machine, just for testing. But in the last step of the virtual machine creation wizard I got “The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running.” Ouch!

2. Solving “The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running”

You should not worry if you see this error. There’s a good chance that your hardware is not the problem and that the hypervisor feature on your processor it is running.

Even though that the hardware on your server supports Hyper-V and that the service is correctly installed, what happens is that the hypervisor was not added on the boot environment and the service was not started.

To solve this, you only need to run this command line:

BCDEdit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto

Ok, NOW you can start using Hyper-V Server.

Adding Features to Hyper-V Server

Don’t get all excited, as we mentioned before, this is just an HyperVisor and you should not expect that much functionality available.

Most of the features (not roles) that you can install are there to increase security and to achieve interoperability with other platforms like System Center Virtual Machine Manager or Data Protection Manager, supporting Live Backup (backing up virtual machine without downtime) as well. 

To access all features available, as in Server Core, from cmd:

oclist

To install one of the features use: start /w ocsetup <NameofService> (for instance, I installed on this Hyper-V Server the TelnetClient)

You’ll find as well that Hyper-V Server includes a WMI interface for remote management extensibility. Here you can find more information:

Virtualization WMI Provider.

Hope you find it useful.

Cheers!