A daily update from Microsoft tech•ed Europe 2009, Berlin, 8-13 November 2009
Not the best day for me in terms of TechEd objectives (i.e. attending learning sessions, etc.) with the first post of the day saying ‘decisions decisions… for sessions just 09:00-10:15’ as struggled to choose between:
DAT302 Top 10 Best Practices for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services
or
MGT11-IS Get Virtualized with Microsoft System Center Essentials!
or
OFS322 Overview of Social Computing in SharePoint 2010
or
SVR207 Windows Server 2008 R2 File Classification Infrastructure: Managing your file data more effectively.
or
SVR319 Multi-Site Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2
Ended up doing none of the above, but did have a productive breakfast meeting with Stuart Leddy, UK Windows Server Product Marketing Manager. Stuart has been heading up the Windows Server 2008 R2 UK EAP activities that we have been involved in with Ascom Network Testing (http://blog.thefullcircle.com/2009/11/05/the-full-circle-secures-ascom-network-testing-for-windows-server-2008-r2-early-adopter-program/)
The day turned into going from one full session to the next, and walking back and forth for what seemed like miles in between!
my TechEd tip for the day – for popular sessions get there 10 minutes before they start!
Eventually did get into a 1st choice session I wanted at 12:20…
MGT03-DEMO Introduction to Microsoft System Center Essentials 2010
SVR307 Security Best Practices for Hyper-V and Server Virtualisation
Jeff Woolsey, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Virtualization
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/
Virtualisation is one of the hottest topics in IT today and security is a top priory for IT staff. In this session we cover security best practices for Hyper-V and introduce the Hyper-V Security Guide. This guide is Microsoft’s reference for hardening servers running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V enabled.
– Use of BitLocker
– AV scanning of offline VHD images… stale/dormant VMs that get reintroduced to the corporate network then can wreak havoc to new vulnerability exploits. first product to do this is McAfee VirusScan Enterprise for Offline Virtual Images (rolls off the toungue!)
– AV configuration… added benefit of passthrough disks – host AV will scan these disks. install AV on the guests!
– VHD performance, 2nd most popular VM workload in Microsoft is SQL! fixed disk performance is now on par with raw/real disk! but remember spindles still count!
– Dynamic VHDs are now up to 15x faster with R2 – still a 10-15% performance hit over fixed, and the risk of disk over commit
– Multipath I/O (MPIO) in R2 & Win7 is soo much easier with iSCSI Quick Connect
– Advanced Storage Capabilities… storage dedupe and replication, if it is block based it will work
Hyper-V Networking – don’t forget the parent is a VM too! the Hypervisor slides in beneath the O/S once enabled. More NICs the better, min 2, min 3 with iSCSI
Jumbo Frames… Significant performance increases, but the infrastructure must support it. also needs to be end-to-end. confirm test with ping host -l 4000 -f – if you get a response you have jumbo frames
Virtual Machine Queues – Hyper-V R2 supports processing offloading to newer network adaptors (Intel, Broadcom, etc.), most benefit with 10Gb/E
– more tips… turn off screen savers in guests, in Windows Server 2003 create using 2-way to ensure MP HAL
more of a best practise and walkthrough of some basic tasks like not forgetting to install Intergration Component, good session and great blogger (not me – Jeff! ;-))