Windows Server blog by Kurt Roggen [BE]

I have always been a big fan of one of the most central and crucial features in Windows Server 2008: Server Manager.
It changes the way you install, configure and manage your Windows Servers through the GUI or even through CLI using ServerManagerCmd.exe.

With Windows Server 2008 R2, you will also be capable of managing remote servers using Server Manager through PowerShell remoting.  Server Roles/Features will be manageable using local and remote PowerShell 2.0 scripts. You will find over 240 new cmdlets inside the R2 box with more coming from other Microsoft platform products.

Also new to Server Manager will be the BPA (Best Practices Analyzer), similar to the BPA for Exchange, ISA, SQL, GPO, etc…
The purpose of the BPA is quite straightforward: avoid or detect some of the top known PSS issues/misconfigurations and optimising your Windows Server configurations through the Microsoft best practices. The Best Practices Analyzer creates a checklist within Server Manager for the role, which you can use to help perform all the configuration tasks.

Related reading:

• Kurt Roggen [BE]: Server Manager in Windows Server 2008

Missing Hyper-V and/or BITS update causes Hyper-V hosts to go into a “Needs Attention” state

If your Hyper-V hosts do not have the two updates (listed below) installed, SCVMM 2008 server will report your hosts as "Needs Attention" (and the substatus for Virtualization Service Version will show as "Upgrade available").

Update #1:  Hyper-V Update (KB956589)

Install this update to resolve potential issues when you manage Hyper-V with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).
After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Update #2: BITS Update (KB956774)

Install this update to resolve the scenario where a Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) client cannot handle files that have paths that contain the volume GUID in Windows Server 2008. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

VMM 2008 requires an important update from Hyper-V and a critical update from Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).
Without these updates, VMM hosts display in the state of “Needs Attention” and the virtualization service version will show as “Upgrade available”.

Download and install the following updates on all of your Hyper-V hosts:

• Hyper-V Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB 956589) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113199
• Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) update (KB 956774) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=128540

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 provides a comprehensive, cross-platform management solution for the virtualized data center that helps enable centralized management of virtual infrastructure, increased server utilization, and dynamic resource optimization of virtual IT infrastructure.

Virtual Machine Manager 2008 brings these new features:

• Designed for virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server
• Support for Microsoft Virtual Server and VMware ESX
• Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO)
• Maximize data center resources through consolidation
• Machine conversions are a snap!
• Quick provisioning of new machines
• Intelligent Placement minimizes virtual machine guesswork in deployment
• Delegated virtual machine management for Development and Test
• The library helps keep virtual machine components organized
• Windows PowerShell provides rich management and scripting environment

Available for download on Technet, MSDN (Subscribers) and on Microsoft Download Center here.

Related reading:

• VMM 2008 Homepage
• VMM 2008 Features
• VMM 2008 Online Demo
• VMM 2008 Overview Whitepaper (17 pages)
• VMM 2008 What’s New Whitepaper
• VMM 2008 Evaluation Download - Release Notes

Driven by challenges of reducing cost and complexity of branch offices, results in organizations consolidating and centralizing servers and their applications.
However, centralizing increases the dependency on the availability and quality of the WAN link. A direct result of centralization is the increased utilization of the WAN link and the degradation of application performance. 

Windows Server 2008 R2 introduces a feature called BranchCache.

BranchCache

The BranchCache feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Client helps increase network responsiveness of applications and reduces the network utilization on WAN links that connect branch offices, improving end user experience at branch locations, by locally caching frequently used content on the branch office network.

When accessing content stored on Windows Server 2008 R2, users in a branch office don't need to wait as long to download files from headquarters. When BranchCache is enabled (on a share basis), a copy of the data accessed from an intranet web site (via http/https) or a file server (via SMB) is cached locally within the branch office.  When another user on the same network requests the same file, the user gets access to the content almost immediately as it is downloaded from the local cache rather than over a limited bandwidth connection back to headquarters.

BranchCache caches both HTTP and SMB content and ensures access to only authorized users as the authorization process is carried out at the servers located in the data center.  BranchCache only serves content to users who have the right permissions and always checks to make sure it is delivering the latest version of the file. BranchCache works alongside SSL or IPSEC encrypted content and accelerates delivery of such content as well.

So what does this mean in the end??  What applications are BranchCache candidates?  Everything running content over SMB or HTTP(s), like File Servers, SharePoint sites, Web Applications, WSUS servers, …

BranchCache can operate in two modes:

1. Hosted Cache mode: a server in the branch running Windows Server 2008 R2 hosting the cached files.

2. Distributed (Cooperative) Cache: a branch server is not required, as copies of files are directly cached on Windows 7 clients/peers in the branch and sent to other Windows 7 clients/peers as needed.  The data cached in cache pool of Windows 7 clients.

Hosted Cache mode	Distributed Cache (P2P Cache)

BranchCache is a passive cache, it decreases bandwidth utilization between headquarters and the branch when the user requests files.
BranchCache only caches read requests, so it will never interfere with a user saving a file.

Requirements

@Datacenter

• File server: requires Windows Server 2008 R2 with BranchCache Feature installed (use ServerManager).
• Web server: requires Windows Server 2008 R2 with BranchCache Feature installed

@BranchOffice

• BranchOffice Server (optional - in case of hosted cache): requires Windows Server 2008 R2 with BranchOffice Feature installed
• BranchOffice Client: requires Windows 7 clients
  

Deployment & Configuration

Deployment start and ends with the installation of the BranchOffice feature (using Server Manager – in R2 you can now connect remotely) on both Windows Server 2008 R2 File and/or Webserver(s) and optionally on your Windows Server 2008 R2 Branch office server (in case of the hosted cache).

Most client configuration is done through Group Policies, which makes it easy to deploy.  However, BranchCaching at the FileServer needs to be activated on a per share basis (use Share & Storage Management). No configuration is required for the BranchCache at the WebServer.

Related reading:

• Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 & BranchCache
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (Beta) Reviewers Guide
• Windows Server 2008 R2 website
• Announcing Windows Server 2008 R2
• Want a pre-beta build of Windows Server 2008 R2? Needed to attend PDC or WinHEC

Virtual Device (VDev)

With Hyper-V, a virtual device is a software module that provides an I/O path for a partition and are configurable via Hyper-V Manager console.  A VDev allows a single physical device attached to the primary partion to be shared across multiple child partitions. Each partition believes it has exclusive access to the device. Virtual devices are very often packaged as a COM device and managed using a WMI interface.
There are two different kinds of Virtual Devices in general:

• Emulated devices also sometimes called Core devices
• Synthetic devices also called Enlightened devices
  

Synthetic versus Emulated devices

Emulated (legacy) devices emulate a physical network adapter in software. Although this process provides networking services to a virtual machine, it requires
additional host processing resources.

Each child partition has a Virtual Machine Worker Process (vmwp.exe) and device emulation occurs within this process. The emulated devices work by utilizing the native physical device driver inside the child partition. Emulated devices have a high overhead in terms of processing required to handle I/O to/from the device, however emulated devices also provide a high degree of compatibility with existing software and operating systems.

Emulated devices have been implemented by Microsoft for a variety of different devices:

• S3 Trio Video Card
• Intel/DEC 21140 network card
• Intel 440 BX controller

Emulated devices

Synthetic devices can be thought of as “proxy devices” that present themselves as network devices, but only serve to pass data along the VMBus to other networking resources. This process does not require software emulation, and therefore offers higher performance for virtual machines and lower host system overhead.

VMBus synthetic devices

Related reading:

• Hyper-V Parent partition, VSP, VSC and VMBus
• Hyper-V Integration Services & Virtual Services Consumers (VSC)

Below a list of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V sessions lined up for this years WinHEC 2008.
It covers some exciting new stuff…

Microsoft Hyper-V - ENT-T587

This session provides an overview of the recently launched Microsoft Hyper-V product, its architecture, and how it combines with modern processors, chipsets, and I/O devices to enable unprecedented flexibility by the Windows Server platforms. You'll also receive an update on the progress of the Microsoft virtualization development efforts and highlights of selected features in the next release of Hyper-V.

Windows Virtualization and Cluster Shared Volumes - ENT-T588

Windows Server 2008 R2 will introduce a new feature for Failover Clustering called Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). CSV is an enhancement that allows multiple virtual hard disk (VHD) images to be mounted on a single logical volume. It allows the migration of virtual machines from one physical host server to another with minimal downtime. This session discusses the architecture and implementation details of CSV and illustrates its utility in Windows virtualization deployments.

Improving Networking Performance for Hyper-V Virtual Machines - ENT-T589

Windows Server 2008 R2 will deliver new networking features and enhanced support of stateless and state-full offload technologies to Hyper-V virtual machines. This session discusses the architecture and implementation details of these Windows networking features. Also included is a description for how network interface card (NIC) adapters implement this support for virtualized environments.

Directions for Virtualized I/O in Windows - ENT-T590

Now that Hyper-V is released, it's time to consider virtualized I/O directions that go beyond "make it work with existing drivers." This session discusses areas of technologies that are being investigated for future Microsoft virtualization offerings. These include PCI Single-Root I/O Virtualization, those technologies that enable it, and their implications to the Windows Driver Model. Improving storage area network (SAN) support and other I/O-related virtualization capabilities are also discussed.

Windows Boot from Virtual Hard Disk - ENT-T606

Virtual hard disk (VHD) is the image format for virtual machine operating system images. This session discusses native support of VHD in Windows Server 2008 R2. This support allows users, administrators, and vendors of storage and management tools to operate on VHDs as they would other storage devices. This creates opportunities for lowering operational costs by enabling customers to use a single image creation, deployment, and maintenance process and toolset across virtual and physical environments.