Month: September 2008

My First Hyper-V Cluster – This Update Is Not Applicable For Your System

I’ve just gotten my first Hyper-V cluster up and running.  It was really easy.  I’m doing a pilot build where the plan is to test like crazy, wipe the build and then put in a clean production system.  I used this plan for a multiple cluster ESX deployment this time last year and it worked out nicely.

My plan was to not activate the OS until as late as possible.  I found that none of the updates, e.g. Hyper-V RTM, Hyper-V cluster update, etc would install … I was being told "This update is not applicable for your system".  I’d built my Server Core host images by slipstreaming the update into install.wim for a WDS deployment to workaround that one.  But I really wanted that cluster fix so I could copy/paste the GUID for the VM LUN’s from the cluster MMC into the Hyper-V MMC to build the VM’s.  The lack of an activation caused that problem … easy to fix but annoying for anyone using OEM licensing with it’s limited activations.

Anyway, the clustering was easy and I’ve always thought Hyper-V was easy.  I’m impressed!

W2008 Clustering and HP EVA

I’m preparing a Windows Server 2008 cluster on HP BL480C G1 blade servers with an EVA SAN.  Windows 2008 clustering is EASY to set up … really easy.  The restricted HCL for clusters is no more; instead you can use pretty much anything on the Windows Server 2008 HCL.  You assemble the hardware, install the OS, install the failover cluster role and provision the network/storage.  You then run the wizard for creating a cluster on a management node, e.g. a Vista SP1 or W2008 machine with the Failover Cluster (feature) tools installed.  A scan checks the health of the config either saying that MS PSS will support the configuration or not.  If you get a "yes" then you’re good to go.

I just did this to create a cluster.  The first run failed with the error "Cluster Disk 0 does not support persistent reservation" in the storage set of checks.  This refers to a change for Windows Server 2008 and how it handles shared storage.  I did some googling and found where someone with an EVA SAN had identified their own fix on a forum thread.  The solution was simple enough.  In the EVA command view, you need to be sure that the nodes running Windows 2008 that are using the SAN are configured as "Microsoft Windows LH" (as in Longhorn, the codename for W2008) and not "Microsoft Windows".  Rerun the test and you’ll find that you will get a pass for that test.

BL460C G1, NC373i, WDS, W2008 and Boot.WIM

I’ve been working with HP’s BL460C G1 blade servers recently.  I’m putting together a network "my way" and part of that is using Windows Deployment Services for OS deployment.  Reasons?
 
  1. It’s free.
  2. It’s good.
  3. It’s quicker for DVD installs than ILO mounted ISO’s.
  4. I can make template images for physical images that I can quickly deploy.
  5. The images are disk space efficient – moreso than Ghost.

The trick to getting WDS to work is to get a boot image working.  It took a while for this model of server because the onboard NIC, the NC373i, is not supported in Vista or Windows Server 2008 out of the box in for the pre-installation environment.  That means it’s driver is not in the boot.wim on the DVD.  Here’s my start to finish guide on getting things working:

  • Get a Vista SP1 machine.  I use a virtual machine (VM) that I can reset quickly.
  • Install WAIK for Vista and Windows Server 2008
  • You’ll find that there is no download for the NC373i driver (not at this time) from HP.  I found a Broadcom driver but only in setup.exe format and not in the required .inf, .cat and .sys format.  Download the latest version of the Network Configuration Utility for your OS architecture. I.E. I’m deploying x64 Windows so I’m using x64 boot.wim.  I downloaded the HP NCU for W2008 x64.
  • Extract that.  Under W2008x64 you’ll find a series of the HP setup/extaction files.  Extract them until you find a series of files called bx*.inf, bx*.cat and bx*.sys.  These are the driver files we’re after.
  • Copy the boot.wim from the sources folder of your W2008 DVD, ensuring that it’s the right architecture, x86 or x64 and it matches your HP NCU.  I copied it to E:Image on my Vista VM.
  • Copy the drivers to the Vista machine, e.g. into E:Drivers.
  • Launch the WAIK command prompt – not the usual Windows one.  We need the WAIK tools in the search path for executables.
  • Create an empty folder called mount, e.g. E:Mount.
  • We’ll now mount the boot.wim into the Mount folder.  WIM files have indexes, e.g. different images.  You should run the command "imagex /info E:Imageboot.wim" to list the indexes and identify the one you need to add the drivers to.  However, the DVD boot.wim index we will need to edit is 2.  The one you can create from WAIK to create a default WinPE image uses index 1.
  • Mount the boot.wim index using "imagex /mountrw E:Imageboot.wim 2 E:Mount".
  • We will now add the drivers.  The first you will add is done by running "peimg /inf=E:Driversbxnd.inf E:Mount".  You add the second by running "peimg /inf=E:Driversbxvbd.inf E:Mount".
  • That’s the driver injection done.  Now you need to save the image by running "imagex /unmount /COMMIT E:Mount".
  • Copy this to a folder on your WDS server and rename it as "Deploy – W2008 – x64.wim" (or " – x86" if it’s a x86 boot image).  Go into the WDS console and add this file as a new boot image.  Give it a name such as "Deploy – W2008 – x64".  This way it’ll be clear what this boot image is for when you see it in the PXE client.
  • Add the install image(s) on your WDS server from sourcesinstall.wim on your W2008 DVD.
  • Enable PXE on your blade server in the BIOS, in the Onboard administrator and in Virtual Connect if you are using ethernet VC’s.
  • Ensure the network is configured for PXE (Cisco portfast may be required – i.e. the request for DHCP address and BOOTP response from the WDS server may be too fast for Cisco spanning tree and the switch port may be still offline).  Ensure your PXE NIC (configure one only!) is on the network where BOOTP is being routed to your DHCP server and WDS server.
  • Boot the blade up and hit <F12>.  When it gets an address you may will to hit <F12> again very quickly.  I find it helps to configure the onboard administrator to do a one time only PXE boot for the server.  Don’t do this on ILO via RDP – it’s sucks because it’s too slow and can suffer from "sticky keys".
  • The PXE client connects to the WDS server and lists your new boot image.  Select it.  Once it loads, press <SHIFT>+<F10>.  The command prompt appears.  Do an IPCONFIG and your address should appear.  If nothing does, run "WpeUtil InitializeNetwork" to try forcing the network to start.  The driver should be working and your NIC should have a valid IPv4 configuration.  Ping the WDS server to be sure.
  • Continue installing Windows from the default install image.
  • Customize the server as required and according to MS best practices for Sysprep and template images.  You’ll want to install the HP PSP and maybe a MPIO driver if using Fibre Channel EVA’s.  Remember to configure the SNMP service with public and private strings, otherwise the HP System Management page won’t work.  Run sysprep to shut the server down.  We’re now going to capture an image of this server which we can redeploy to an BL460C.
  • In WDS, right click on our new boot image.  Choose to create a new capture image.  Save this in the same place as the file we copied over from the Vista machine.  Call it "Capture – W2008 – x64.wim".
  • In the WDS console, create a new boot image and import "Capture – W2008 – x64.wim".
  • Configure the onboard administrator to do a one time boot from PXE for the server.
  • Boot the server up and launch PXE again.
  • This time, choose the capture image and let it load.  You will have to run the WPEUTIL command here if you want to confirm network connectivity.
  • Choose to capture C: and give the image a good name including a version number for your build and a good description.
  • Choose to save the .wim image on C: and name the file after the image name e.g. "BL460CG1-W2008Std-x64-Full-V1.WIM".  Connect to your WDS server so that the image will upload to there.
  • Finish off the wizard and then check WDS to see that the image is correct.  Deploy it to an idential BL406C G1 and ensure everything is OK.

HP Saves The Day

I’m doing a large server/storage project at the moment.  An 3rd party installation engineer made a mistake which cost us several days work.  To make things worse, two national distributors screwed up our support contract details which prevented me from opening a support call.

We contacted HP Ireland and they reacted very quickly, concerned that this installation hadn’t gone perfectly.  They arranged to open a call on our behalf and accelerate the escalation.  It was accelerated so much that an engineer called me to diagnose the problem before that call was even opened.  He identified the issue on the phone (a copy/paste mistake by the engineer) and used HP’s answer to WebEx, EasyAssist, etc, to help explain and fix it.

I’m quick to point out problems so I’ll be quick to say "well done" on this one!

Hyper-V Linux Integration Released

It looks like the Linux integration components for Hyper-V have gone RTM.  Integration services optimise the performance of guest operating systems on Hyper-V.  You can install and run x86 or x64 operating systems without them (especially if they are Xen enabled) but having these components will reduce their impact on the host and improve their performance.

The download is on Connect.  They appear RTM (kind like Network Monitor was RTM on Connect); they are version 1.0. 

Right now, the integration services support:

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 x86
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 x64

I’d expect to see RedHat coming fairly soon.  Microsoft is supporting RedHat with the OpsMgr Cross Platform Extensions and it wouldn’t make sense to have differing Linux support policies in the data centre.

However, you can still run RedHat on Hyper-V thanks to those Xen extensions.

MS Hyper-V Server: RTM in 30 Days and FREE!

We knew there was a specific build of Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V (only) in the works.  It’s going to be an answer to the free VMware ESXi … a stripped down solution with no clustering functionality.  We expected there would be a cost to it … $28 plus whatever an OEM would charge.

Some details have been revealed.  A new SKU will RTM in less than 30 days and it will be free to download and use.  This is excellent for anyone wanting to get a cheap entry point into virtualisation on Microsoft’s platform.

Microsoft Reacts to Apparent Vista Failure

As a marketing exercise, Vista has been a failure.  We see lots of sales figures but these are totally distorted by how Microsoft sells Software Assurance and uses SKU’s, e.g. by a copy of Windows Server 2003 today and the EOpen site shows a W2008 purchase.  The same applies with XP and Vista.  If a corporation with SA buys a desktop CAL for an XP deployment, they have bought a Vista license with downgrade rights.  And talk to people on the street … they either hear that Vista is bad or they don’t like it.

It’s one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t things where MS had to "fail" at some point.  Do you keep 100% backwards compatibility or do you just have a cut off and say anything for XWP or W2K no longer works on Vista?  MS chose neither and got caught in a mess.  There’s an argument that we should blame 3rd party software developers for incompatibility issues.  I’d agree with that to a fair amount.  The customer just doesn’t care about that; what they care about is that they can’t use their LOB applications on Vista because the OS changed.  We can discuss application compatibility toolkits but they just add more complications and difficulty to admins.  MS fails to recognise that admins struggle to keep up with most IT challenges.  Not everyone is rocket scientist or has time to decipher poor documentation or incomplete online examples.  Software virtualisation would be cool.  However this is only an option for bigger businesses and, again, is only available to SA customers.

Businesses also wonder why they should adopt Vista.   What is in it for them?  How does it improve on XP?  Collaboration … pfft!  You need Office, SharePoint and Exchange for that.  Security?  Somewhat but the "killer app" was BitLocker which was witheld from most purchasers by only putting it in Ultimate (1 in 1000 machines on a network allowed to run this) or Enterprise (which on SA customers can use).

We were expecting that in just over 1 year we should expect Windows Vista R2 and in 1.5 years we would get Windows Server 2008 R2.  Those who disliked Vista were also saying they’d wait for Windows 7.  Here’s how MS has reacted.  R2 is shelved.  Windows 7 has been accelerated and will be the next OS release from MS.

Don’t expect things like UAC to disappear.  Some changes will not be undone.  MS’s challenge is to give business a reason to want to upgrade.  Personally, I see some reasons to go with Vista and W2008 but those aren’t enough for many customers.  I think MS also has to step out from the basement and listen to customers who aren’t USA Fortune 500 companies.  Not everyone has 1000’s of IT staff and limitless budgets.

Oh – hiring Jerry Seinfeld to talk about shoes with Bill Gates in a very unfunny advert won’t fix Vista’s marketing woes.  Even people fired from the BBC’s Apprentice have learned that mentioning the product helps an advert work.

Will Be Quiet for a While

I’m working on a new Blade/SAN/Hyper-V Cluster deployment at the moment that’s taking up all of my time – I barely read email last week!  As such, I’m missing lots of what is happening, e.g. the RTM of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 and the fact that you can’t download full code (only the eval) at the moment.  I’m also busy with pre-sales and marketing stuff.

I’ve been struggling with getting diskless HP BL460C’s booting from an EVA SAN using Emulex HBA’s.  I’ve got a solution for getting their onboard NC373i NIC’s working with a W2008 boot image (boot.wim) using the drivers found in the download for the HP Network Configuration Utility.  I hope to document the lot pretty soon, as well as getting a Core based Hyper-V cluster up and running.  It could be a few weeks before I get back in the swing of things.