October 2014 – Wilson.tech

Hyper-V + VXLAN and more from Tech Ed Europe

If you thought -as I admittedly did- that on-prem Windows Server was being left for dead on the side of the Azure road, then boy were we wrong.

Not sure where to start here, but some incredible announcements from Microsoft in Barcelona, most of which I got from Windows Server MVP reporter Aidan Finn

Among them:

VXLAN, NVGRE & Network Controller, courtesy of Azure: This is something I’ve hoped for in the next version of Windows Server: a more compelling SDN story, something more than Network Function Virtualization & NVGRE encapsulation. If bringing the some of the best -and widely supported- bits of the VMware ecosystem to on-prem Hyper-V & System Center isn’t a virtualization engineer’s wet dream, I don’t know what is.
VMware meet Azure Site Recovery: Coming soon to a datacenter near you, failover your VMware infrastructure via Azure Site Recovery, the same way Hyper-V shops can
Not sure what to do with this yet, but gimme!
In-place/rolling upgrades for Hyper-V Clusters: This feature was announced with the release of Windows Server Technical Preview (of course, I only read about it after I wiped out my lab 2012 R2 cluster) but there’s a lot more detail on it from TechEd via Finn: rebuild physical nodes without evicting them first.You keep the same Cluster Name Object, simply live migrating your VMs off your targeted hosts. Killer.
Single cluster node failure: In the old days, I used to lose sleep over clusres.dll, or clussvc.exe, two important pieces in Microsoft Clustering technology. Sure, your VMs will failover & restart on a new host, but that’s no fun. Ben Armstrong demonstrated how vNext handles node failure by killing the cluster service live during his presentation. Finn says the VMs didn’t failover,but the host was isolated by the other nodes and the cluster simply paused and waited for the node to recovery (up to 4 minutes). Awesome!
Azure Witness: Also for clustering fans who are torn (as I am) between selecting file or disk witness for clusters: you will soon be able to add mighty Azure as a witness to your on-prem cluster. Split brain fears no more!
More enhancements for Storage QoS: Ensure that your tenant doesn’t rob IOPS from everyone else.
The Windows SAN, for real: Yes, we can soon do offsite block-level replication from our on-prem Tiered Storage Spaces servers.
New System Center coming next year: So much to unpack here, but I’ll keep it brief. You may love System Center, you may hate it, but it’s not dead. I’m a fan of the big two: VMM, and ConfigMan. OpsMan I’ve had a love/hate relationship with. Well the news out of TechEd Europe is that System Center is still alive, but more integration with Azure + a substantial new release will debut next summer. So the VMM Technical Preview I’m running in the Daisetta Lab (which installs to C:Program FilesVMM 2012 R2 btw) is not the VMM I was looking for.

Other incredible announcements:

Docker, CoreOS & Azure: Integration of the market-leading container technology with Azure is apparently further along than I believed. A demo was shown that hurts my brain to think about: Azure + Docker + CoreOS, the linux OS that has two OS partitions and is fault-tolerant. Wow
Enhancements to Rights Management Service: Stop users from CTRL-Cing/CTRL-Ving your company’s data to Twitter
Audiocodes announces an on-prem device that appears to bring us one step closer to the dream: Lync for voice, O365 for the PBX, all switched out to the PSTN. I said one step closer!
Azure Operational Insights: I’m a fan of the Splunk model (point your firehose of data/logs/events at a server, and let it make sense of it) and it appears Azure Operational Insights is a product that will jump into that space. Screen cap from Finn

This is really exciting stuff.

Commentary

Looking back on the last few years in Microsoft’s history, one thing stands out: the painful change from the old Server 2008R2 model to the new 2012 model was worth it. All of the things I’ve raved about on this blog in Hyper-V (converged network, storage spaces etc) were just teasers -but also important architectural elements- that made the things we see announced today possible.

The overhaul* of Windows Server is paying huge dividends for Microsoft and for IT pros who can adapt & master it. Exciting times.

* unlike the Windows mobile > Windows Phone transition, which was not worth it

More than good hygiene : applying a proper cert to my Nimble array

So one of my main complaints about implementing a cost-effective Nimble Storage array at my last job was this:

Who is Jetty Mortbay and why does he want inside my root CA store?

I remarked back in April about this unfortunate problem in a post about an otherwise-flawless & easy Nimble implementation:

The SSL cert situation is embarrassing and I’m glad my former boss hasn’t seen it. Namely that situation is this: you can’t replace the stock cert, which, frankly looks like something I would do while tooling around with OpenSSL in the lab.

I understand this is fixed in the new 2.x OS version but holy shit what a fail.

Well, fail-file no more, because my new Nimble array at my current job has been measured and validated by the CA Gods:

verified — Green padlocks. I want green padlocks everywhere

Oh yeah baby. Validated in Chrome, Firefox and IE. And it only cost me market rates for a SAN certificate from a respected CA, a few hours back ‘n forth with Nimble, and only a few IT McGuyver-style tricks to get this outcome.

Now look. I know some of my readers are probably seeing this and thinking…”But that proves nothing. A false sense of security you have.”

Maybe you’re right, but consider.

I take a sort of Broken Windows Theory approach to IT. The Broken Windows Theory, if you’re not familiar with it, states that:

Under the broken windows theory, an ordered and clean environment – one which is maintained – sends the signal that the area is monitored and that criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Conversely, a disordered environment – one which is not maintained (broken windows, graffiti, excessive litter) – sends the signal that the area is not monitored and that one can engage in criminal behavior with little risk of detection.

Now I’m not saying that adding a proper certificate to my behind-the-firewall Nimble array so that Chrome shows me Green Padlocks rather than scary warnings is akin to reducing violent crime in urban areas. But I am saying that little details, such as these, ought to be considered and fixed in your environment.

Why? Well, somehow fixing even little things like this amount to something more than just good hygiene, something more than just ‘best practice.’

Ultimately, we infrastructurists are what we build, are we not? Even little ‘security theater’ elements like the one above are a reflection on our attention to detail, a validation of our ability to not only design a resilient infrastructure on paper at the macro level, but to execute on that design to perfection at the micro level.

It shows we’re not lazy as well, that we care to repair the ‘broken windows’ in our environment.

And besides: Google (and Microsoft & Mozilla & Apple) are right to call out untrusted certificates in increasingly disruptive & work-impairing ways.

*If you’re reading this and saying: Why don’t you just access the array via IP address, well, GoFQDNorGoHomeSon.com

Containers! For Windows! Courtesy of Docker

Big news yesterday for fans of agnostic cloud/on-prem computing.

Docker -the application virtualization stack that’s caught on like wildfire among the *nix set- is coming to Windows.

Yeah baby.

Mary Jo with the details:

Under the terms of the agreement announced today, the Docker Engine open source runtime for building, running and orchestrating containers will work with the next version of Windows Server. The Docker Engine for Windows Server will be developed as a Docker open source project, with Microsoft participating as an active community member. Docker Engine images for Windows Server will be available in the Docker Hub. The Docker Hub will also be integrated directly into Azure so that it is accessible through the Azure Management Portal and Azure Gallery. Microsoft also will be contributing to Docker’s open orchestration application programming interfaces (APIs).

When I first heard the news, emotion was mixed.

On the one hand, I love it. Virtualization of all flavors -OS, storage, network, and application- is where I want to be, as a blogger, at home in my lab, and professionally.

Yet, as a Windows guy (I dabble, of course), Docker was just a bit out of reach for me, even with my lab, which is 100% Windows.

On the other hand, I also remembered how dreadful it used to be to run Linux applications on Windows. Installing GTK+ Libraries on Windows isn’t fun, and the end-result often isn’t very attractive. In my world, keeping the two separate on the application & OS side/uniting them via Kerberos and/or https/rest has always been my preference.

But that’s old world thinking, ladies and gentlemen.

Because you see, this announcement from Microsoft & Docker Inc sounds deep, rich, functional. Microsoft’s going to contribute some of its Server code to the Docker folks, and the Docker crew will help build Container tech into Windows Server and Azure. I’m hopeful Docker will just be another Role in Server, and that Jeffrey Snover’s powershell cmdlets will hook deep into the Docker stuff.

This probably marks the death of App-V, which I wrote about in comparison to Docker just last month, but that’s fine with me.

Docker on Windows marks a giant step forward for Agnostic Computing…do we dare imagine a future in which our application stacks are portable? Today I’m running an application in a Docker Container on Azure, and tomorrow I move it to AWS?

Microsoft says that’s exactly the vision:

Docker is an open source engine that automates the deployment of any application as a portable, self-sufficient container that can run almost anywhere. This partnership will enable the Docker client to manage multi-container applications using both Linux and Windows containers, regardless of the hosting environment or cloud provider. This level of interoperability is what we at MS Open Tech strive to deliver through contributions to open source projects such as Docker.

Full announcement.

Microsoft releases new V2V and P2V tool

Do you smell what I smell?

Inhale it boys and girls because what you smell is the sweet aroma of VMware VMs being removed from the vSphere collective and placed into System Center & Hyper-V’s warm embrace.

Microsoft has released version three of its V2V and P2V assimilator tool:

Today we are releasing the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) 3.0, a supported, freely available solution for converting VMware-based virtual machines and virtual disks to Hyper-V-based virtual machines and virtual hard disks (VHDs).

With the latest release, MVMC 3.0 adds the ability to convert a physical computer running Windows Server 2008 or above, or Windows Vista or above to a virtual machine running on a Hyper-V host (P2V).

This new functionality adds to existing features available including:

• Native Windows PowerShell capability that enables scripting and integration into IT automation workflows.
• Conversion and provisioning of Linux-based guest operating systems from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts.
• Conversion of offline virtual machines.
• Conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 5.5, VMware vSphere 5.1, and VMware vSphere 4.1 hosts to Hyper-V virtual machines.

Download available here.

This couldn’t have come at a better time for me. At work -which is keeping me so busy I’ve been neglecting these august pages- my new Hyper-V cluster went Production in mid-September and has been running very well indeed.

But building a durable & performance-oriented virtualization platform for a small to medium enterprise is only 1/10th of the battle.

If I were a consultant, I’d have finished my job weeks ago, saying to the customer:

Right. Here you go lads: your cluster is built, your VMM & SCCM are happy, and the various automation bits ‘n bobs that make life in Modern IT Departments not only bearable, but fun, are complete

But I’m an employee, so much more remains to be done. So among many other things, I now transition from building the base of the stack to moving important workloads to it, namely:

Migrating and/or replacing important physical servers to the new stack
Shepherding dozens of important production VMs out of some legacy ESXi 5 & 4 hosts and into Hyper-V & System Center and thence onto greatness

So it’s really great to see Microsoft release a new version of its tool.

Going full Windows 10 Server in the Lab, part 1

So many new goodies in Windows Server 10.

So little time to enjoy them.

Highlights so far:

Command line transparency is awesome. Want the same in my Powershell windows
Digging the flat look of my Windows when they are piled atop one another. THere’s a subtle 3d effect (really muted shadows I think) that helps to highlight Window positions and focus. Nice work UI team
Server 10 without Desktop mode looks just about 100% like Server 2012 R2. So yeah, if you’re using your PC as a server, definitely install the Desktop mode

On the agenda for today:

Build what has to be one of the few Windows Server 10 Hyper-V clusters
Install the new VMM & System Center
Testing out the new Network Controller role on a 1U AMD-powered server I’ve had powered-off but ready for just this moment (never got around to building a Server 2012 R2 Network Virtualization Gateway server)
Maybe, just maybe, upgrading the two Domain Controllers and raising forest/domain functional level to “Technical Preview”, if it’s even possible.

What won’t be upgraded in the short term:

San.daisettalabs.net, the Tiered Storage box that hosts my SMB 3 shares as well as several iSCSI .vhdx drives
The VM hosting SQL 2012 SP2, IPAM, and other roles
The TV computer, which is running Windows 8.1 Professional with Media Center Edition. Yes, it’s a lab, but even in a lab environment, television access is considered mission critical

More later.