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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 22 2008, 11:12 AM EST (current) | todd_muirhead | |
| Jan 22 2008, 11:11 AM EST | todd_muirhead |
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Key: Additions Deletions
Microsoft has included early preview or beta versions of Hyper-V (code named Viridian) in the Windows Server 2008 Release Candidates. The Microsoft Windows Virtualization Team Blog has an entry covering the announcement.
The server must first be installed with Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 1. Once the OS is installed the Hyper-V role is installed via the Add Roles wizard from Server Manager.
Quick Links
| Microsoft Virtualizaiton Team Blog | W2K8 Dell TechCenter Wiki |
| Release Notes for Hyper-V (WSV) Preview | |
| Download Windows Server 2008 RC0 |
Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 1 and Hyper-V Installation
Windows Server 20008 RC1 includes Hyper-V as a role that can be installed. It requries that either Intel VT or AMD-V hardware virtualization be enabled on the processor by selecting to enable hardware virtualization in the BIOS. The installation also requires a reboot.The server must first be installed with Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 1. Once the OS is installed the Hyper-V role is installed via the Add Roles wizard from Server Manager.
Hyper-V on W2K8 RC1 Performance Testing Results
In order to get a general feel for how far along the Hyper-V beta code in Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 RC1 was, a quick evaluation and test was done in the Dell labs. The objective was to simply put the virtualization engine under load and to measure how well it managed distributing resources across some virtual machines. Because this same test was run against the Release Candidate 0 version, we were able to compare the results to look for any improvement.
A Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2970 server with two dual-core AMD Opteron™ processors and 16GB of RAM was used as the server platform. Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 1 was installed on the server. Following installation, the Add Roles wizard from the included Server Manager tool was used to add the Hyper-V role to the server. A reboot was required to finish the installation of the Hyper-V role.
For storage to support this test, a PowerVault™ MD3000i iSCSI array was used. This was connected to the Windows Server 2008 system using only the embedded NIC and the software iSCSI initiator that comes with Windows Server 2008.
On the MD3000i storage array, a single 5 disk RAID 5 LUN was created and mapped to the PowerEdge 2970 server. Because of the way that Virtualization is built into Windows Server 2008, it is possible to use any storage attached for virtual machines (VMs).
An initial VM was created and installed with Windows Server 2003 x64 and SQL Server™ 2005 x64. The medium-sized (approximately 1GB) Dell™ DVD Store database was loaded onto the VM well. After confirming that the DVD store database was working properly, sysprep was used to ready the VM for cloning. Eight copies were then made, creating 8 VMs ready for testing. All eight VMs had a single virtual processor and 1GB of memory.
The driver program included with the DVD Store was then run from another server on the network to put all 8 VMs under the same amount of load. Twelve threads with a wait time of 0 were run against all eight of the VMs at the same time for a ten-minute test. The results for Orders Per Minute and Average Response Time are shown in the graph below.Performance Testing Results using DVD Store on Release Candidate 1 of Hyper-V.This version of Hyper-V included with Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 1 did a good job of distributing resources among the 8 virtual machines. The results are similar to what was seen with the release candidate 0 testing. When directly comparing the two tests, there was a slight performance improvement with the newer RC1 version of Hyper-V. The chart below shows the average Orders Per Minute (OPM) and average Response Time across all eight of the VMs for the RC0 and RC1 tests. The OPM increases approximately 3% while the response time decreases by about 5%.Comparasion of Performance of Release Candidate 0 and 1 of Hyper-V using DVD Store.
Hyper-V Release Candidate 0 Testing
In order to get a general feel for how far along the Windows Server Virtualization technology preview code was, a quick evaluation and test was done in the lab. The objective was to simply put the virtualization engine under load and to measure how well it managed distributing resources across some virtual machines.
A Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2970 server with two dual-core AMD Opteron™ processors and 16GB of RAM was used as the server platform. Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 was installed on the server. Following installation, the required updates were run to enable the selection of the Windows Server Virtualization role. The system was then rebooted for the WSV role to complete installation.
For storage to support this test, a PowerVault™ MD3000i iSCSI array was used. This was connected to the Windows Server 2008 system using only the embedded NIC and the software iSCSI initiator that comes with Windows Server 2008.
On the MD3000i storage array, a single 5 disk RAID 5 LUN was created and mapped to the PowerEdge 2970 server. Because of the way that Virtualization is built into Windows Server 2008, it is possible to use any storage attached for virtual machines (VMs).
An initial VM was created and installed with Windows Server 2003 x64 and SQL Server™ 2005 x64. The medium-sized (approximately 1GB) Dell™ DVD Store database was loaded onto the VM well. After confirming that the DVD store database was working properly, sysprep was used to ready the VM for cloning. Eight copies were then made, creating 8 VMs ready for testing. All eight VMs had a single virtual processor and 1GB of memory.
The driver program included with the DVD Store was then run from another server on the network to put all 8 VMs under the same amount of load. Twelve threads with a wait time of 0 were run against all eight of the VMs at the same time for a ten-minute test. The results for Orders Per Minute and Average Response Time are shown in the graph below.
This early technology preview of Windows Server Virtualization did a good job of sharing the resources of the server across the 8 VMs during the test. All 8 VMs achieved basically the same OPM and ART.
