Updated in Mar 2023: Ignore the May 2022 update, I was right all along. Microsoft actually change the default VMQ in Azure Stack HCI deployments, so that says all I need to know.
**** ALWAYS change base processor to core 2 (or 1 if HT is not enabled) **** Updated in May 2022: For about a year or so now since MS made some tweaks and a growing confidence in the out of the box settings, the optimal position has changed on WS2019.
Quick tip for all potential Azure Stack Cloud Operators
As youâd be aware, essentially the majority of the Azure Stack extended setup requires PowerShell. Not only does managing Azure Stack require PowerShell, it requires specific modules, tools and PowerShell profilesâŚ
Oh, did I mention Azure Stack management requires PowerShell?
This is typically fine, but if youâre anything like me and tend to use your computer (desktop/laptop etc) for many different functions, managing PowerShell profiles and having them all aligned can be a bit of a pain.
So you have a standalone instance of SCVMM and you want to make it highly available.
Firstly, well done for recognizing the important of SCVMM and embarking on this journey There are many guides out there on the step by step so I wonât reinvent the wheel here. What I will do though is give you some things to think about that have caught out some of my clients along the wayâŚ
The question: To enable or disable CSV balancer in S2D?
Before we continue, I want to clarify the Cluster AutoBalancer and CSV Balancer are separate things.
Cluster Autobalancer is relating to cluster roles, or in this case the VMâs. CSV balancer is about the CSV storage.
Info on each can be found here: Cluster Autobalancer aka VM Load balancing:Â Clustering and High-Availability CSV Balancer, i.e. what we are talking about here:Â Automatic SMB Scale-Out Rebalancing (this is related to SOFS and 2012R2 but gets the info across)
From time to time I have the requirement to deploy/update a basic app or run a script on my Hyper-V hosts.
This is relatively simple using remote PS session or if you have SCCM managing your fleet. But sometimes you need to just push something out fast and luckily SCVMM can assist.
My use case is to run an update for the Microsoft Site Recovery Services Agent on my hosts. I would do this periodically.
WORK IN PROGRESS Editors Note: this is still a working document as my priorities have to be on other work right now, but in the interest of sharing I have made this available now⌠If you find any issues or errors let me know - thanks for reading!
There are many S2D build blogs out there and I donât want to just add to the list but given Iâm doing this build with SCVMM and SCOM integration I thought Iâd run through the additional steps.
Error: âVMM cannot use [Logical Switch] to create a virtual switch a there are no uplink port profile sets present on this logical switchâ
Environment: SCVMM 1801.
Symptom, right click on a Hyper-V host and after a couple of seconds the below error. After clicking OK, VMM crashes.
The fix that worked for me.
First check the host group of the problematic hosts.
In this deployment, they live in host group âTenant HCIâ
A few months ago we placed an order for some slick HPE Gen10 hardware to replace our existing storage service. Our trusty Server 2012 R2 Storage Spaces with DL360 Gen8âs and DataON enclosures has served us well, very well, but itâs time to move on to the latest and greatestâŚ
âThe SANKillerâ
At the time of writing this (10 of April 2018), although theyâve very recently added 2 more SFF configs, HPE have not published a WSSD certified solution for Gen10 LFF chassis.
Quick tip: You find yourself with duplicate HA roles for a virtual machine and youâre unable delete the problematic resourceâŚ
Symptoms:
Duplicate cluster roles for a virtual machine.
When attempting to delete, you get the error:
Error code: 0x8007012f The file cannot be opened because it is in the process of being deleted.
Firstly, why does this happen?
This can happen if an admin uses Failover Cluster Manager (even after theyâve been specifically instructed many times not too) to enable HA for a VM, then goes to SCVMM and uses the Migrate Virtual Machine and enable HA.
A wordâŚ
Having worked with many clients over the years, the commonality between many of them an under-utilization of automation. Even the biggest of Microsoft shops fall short when it comes to automation, regularly being confused about the options they have and often fear of introducing a new tool to their organisation.
As a Hyper-V data center operator, I leverage automation as often as I can. This has been a concept we have tried to foster since the days of having scores of scripts triggered from scheduled tasksâŚ
An interesting solution brief of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure from DataOn got my cogs ticking on a topic that has bugged me for a while⌠All-Flash storage.
Firstly, this DataON solution is a seriously slick contender⌠a 3M IOPS 4-node HCI in 8U. The tech geek in me would be quite pleased to have that bad boy driving services on my platform.
But is it necessary?
Ultimately, that is a question that only you can answer based on your requirements, but after deploying several Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) and Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) solutions from various vendors over the last 12 months, I wanted to share my thoughts on this All-Flash phenomenon.
In a recent project, the management were keen to see some dashboards and insights into their organizations shiny new infrastructure.
Whilst SCOM gives some great data and statistics, itâs not overly helpful in demonstrating the high level view to management out of the box.
This is where Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS)Â steps in..
Background: This engagement included a new Hyper-converged platform (Hyper-V and Storage Spaces Direct) managed and monitoring with System Center (SCVMM and SCOM), so we had a great foundation to light up OMS and some chosen solutions.
Hello there!
I often get asked if itâs possible to disable VMM users from âsharingâ ISOâs from the library when attaching to a VM.
You can do this via applying a pre-configured Capability Profile and the Cloud and Virtual Machines.
Note: Capability Profiles can only be assigned to Clouds, not to Host Groups
Create a Capability Profile
Name that means something to you
Tip: In the capabilities we can scope the settings or range of many items within the profile.
Server 2016 brings great new feature called Switch Embedded Teaming (SET).
A great overview of SET can be found in this TechNet article. But to summarize, SET basically allows a Virtual Network Adapter to access the features available by RDMA. I wonât go into too much detail on RDMA, there are essentially three types RoCE, iWarp and Infiniband. RoCE is the most common and requires that Datacenter Bridging (DCB) be enabled on your switches as well as the windows feature with the same name being installed.
I will add to this post over time with anything I can recall that has helped in the tuning of the many environments Iâve worked onâŚ
Edited: 30/11 - Thoughts on Dynamic Optimization
Before I continue, as usual Iâll try not to repeat what you can already find out there, so here are some tips that have been helpful over the years. Be sure to investigate whether each of the tips mentioned are valid for your version of hypervisor as a couple of these posts have aged:
There are many discussion topics around host networking that need to be considered. I will extend this post over time to include what I can, but many of these are dependent on your requirements.
Some of the considerations include:
Teaming options (this post) Converged design QoS policies SDN architecture Security & Edge Networking Switch high availability VMQâs and RSS Teaming options
Typically when discussion teaming options we need to determine our teaming mode and the algorithm used.
Hi all, this has been a long time coming but I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences on virtualization, Hyper-V and blades.
Before we get started, I wanted to put this in context and give some reasoning as to the purpose of this post. Over the last 5 or 6 years, Iâve been closely working with many service providers and enterprises in designing, configuring and supporting Hyper-V and System Center environments, and an interesting and often polarising discussion topic that regularly surfaces is blades vs racks.
How many mirrors?
Over the past few months weâve deployed several Storage Spaces Direct solutions, and one question that seems to pop up is the expected performance difference for a 2-way mirror vs a 3-way mirror. The obvious answer is a 2-way will out-perform a 3-way, but by how much?
I wonât go into the resiliency or design decisions or when either option is preferred, this is purely from a performance based perspective.
Had a fun one for a client recently whereby they were standing up some new DNS servers for a segment of their network.
The forward lookup zones were very easy, import csv and PowerShell them in without much fuss at all..
Next came the Reverse DNS Zones.
Now letâs just say that their documentation wasnât as up-to-date as it could have been, so the fun began when trying to go about importing them without having a reliable source of truth to go by.
Scenario:
SQL01 - SQL 2016 RTM install (At this point in time I still recommend SQL2014 for DPM2016)
DPM01 â Data Protection Manager 2016 RTM install
When âcheck and installâ get the below error. Clicking on OK then closes the installer
How did we get here?
Install SQL 2016 RTM on SQL01. Setup remote access for DPM01. Install DPM Prereqâs on SQL01. attempt to Install DPM 2016 RTM⌠and baboom⌠Error 4387.
Another quick one! :D
For those playing with the Azure Stack TP3 POC deployment that want to make the portal available without having to logon to the console VM.
This extends on from the work Ruud Borst did for TP2.. I suggest you read the full article which can be found here: https://azurestack.blog/2016/12/expose-portal-azurestack-through-nat/
Same rules apply around the certificate etc.
Let me know if I have missed any ports.
Enjoy! Dan
Was cleaning out some old PS scripts recently and found this one in my toolkit.
This one will appease some of those out there who came to Hyper-V from another virtualization technology and are familiar with the term datastoreâŚ
We use SOFS storage so our VM paths are all SMB shares but Iâve included the CSV path split for those still running CSVâs to the nodes.
What this gives you is a quick view into which storage device each VM lives on: