Citrix XenDesktop on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Reference Architecture

The above white paper describes a HP developed Converged Infrastructure enterprise reference architecture for client virtualization featuring Citrix XenDesktop on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

Featuring HP ProLiant BL460c server blades, HP StorageWorks P4800 SAN storage, utilizing Flex-10 coupled with HP Virtual Connect, and managed end-to-end by HP Insight Control, this reference architecture delivers an enterprise class virtual desktop solution capable of supporting approximately 800 Microsoft Office 2007 users on Microsoft Windows XP.

You can download the above whitepaper from http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-7731ENW.pdf

 

Patrick Lownds

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Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 Release Candidate

The Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 (VMMSSP) is a fully supported, partner extensible solution that can be used by customers to pool, allocate, and manage their compute, network and storage resources to deliver the foundation for a private cloud platform in their datacenter.
 
Built on top of Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, and System Center VMM. You can use it to pool, allocate, and manage resources to offer infrastructure as a service and to deliver the foundation for a private cloud platform inside your datacenter. VMMSSP includes a pre-built web-based user interface that has sections for both the datacenter managers and the business unit IT consumers, with role-based access control.
 
VMMSSP also includes a dynamic provisioning engine. VMMSSP reduces the time needed to provision infrastructures and their components by offering business unit “on-boarding,” infrastructure request and change management. The VMMSSP package also includes detailed guidance on how to implement VMMSSP inside your environment.

To download a release candidate build go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fef38539-ae5a-462b-b1c9-9a02238bb8a7&displaylang=en

 

Patrick Lownds


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Dynamic Memory Technical Overview Whitepaper.

Microsoft has published a technical whitepaper on Dynamic Memory and this paper can be downloaded from http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/0/5/E05DF049-8220-4AEE-818B-786ADD9B434E/Implementing_and_Configuring_Dynamic_Memory.docx

 

Patrick Lownds

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Public Beta Now Available for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

On July 12, 2010, at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington, D.C., Microsoft announced the public availability of the beta for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1). In addition to SP1 beta availability, Microsoft is also provided important updates regarding estimated SP1 timing, end user downgrade rights and general Windows product lifecycle policy. You can download the beta of SP1 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/evalcenter/ff183870.aspx?ITPID=wtcfeed

 

Patrick Lownds

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Insight Control for Microsoft System Center 6.1 now available

New Features
• Support for new ProLiant G7 servers and iLO 3
• Support for ProLiant Support Pack 8.40
• Support for user configurable non-local accounts for Server Discovery and Server Monitoring
• Additional HP Inventory Tool attributes
• New Setup and Installation Guide for HP Catalog for ProLiant Server Updates


Software Download location:
The location in Software Depot is
www.hp.com/go/HPICE (HP Passport ID required)

Instructions:

To download the ISO image, click the Receive for Free button.  Download the ISO image “Insight Control for System Center 6.1 CD ISO - Jul 2010 (594131-002.iso)” 

 

Patrick Lownds

New Windows Azure Training Kit Now Available

Microsoft have released the Windows Azure Platform training kit whcih is now available and ready for download at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2010/06/11/new-windows-azure-training-kit-now-available.aspx. This training kit has everything you need to get started and then dig deep into the Windows Azure platform.

 

Patrick Lownds

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How Microsoft does IT - Part 3 How microsoft.com Moved to a Virtualized Infrastructure

Microsoft virtualization technologies and SAN-based clustered storage solved numerous ongoing challenges. Implementing a dynamic compute infrastructure enabled Microsoft.com Operations to increase architectural flexibility and optimize use of resources. To read the technical case study and watch the video go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728013.aspx 

 

Patrick Lownds

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How Microsoft does IT - Part 2 Reducing Costs and Improving Systems Management with Hyper-V and System Center Operations Manager

Microsoft E&D IT leverages System Center Operations Manager and Hyper-V to Manage over 170 different applications and a 600+ Server Environment to streamline application and server Infrastructure management. To read the technical case study and watch the video go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff772001.aspx

 

Patrick Lownds

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How Microsoft does IT - Part 1 Project Carnation

Project Carnation (a major storage consolidation project) involved migrating 211 storage frames at the end of their lifespan to 11 high-density SAN devices resulting in improving both redundancy and scalability of the storage platform while dramatically lowering power consumption and operating costs. To read the entire case study go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795580.aspx

 

Patrick Lownds

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Performance characterization report for Microsoft Hyper-V R2 on HP StorageWorks P4500 SAN storage

HP StorageWorks P4500 21.6TB SAS Multi-site SAN Solutions deliver enterprise functionality that enhances virtual environments, simplifies management, and reduces costs. Easy to deploy, scale and maintain, the HP P4500 SANs ensure that crucial business data remains available. Its innovative approach to storage provides unique double fault protection across the entire SAN, reducing vulnerability without driving up costs the way traditional SANs did.

The HP P4500 SAN Solutions are optimized for database and e-mail applications, as well as virtualized servers. For high availability and disaster recovery, the HP P4500 SAN eliminates single points of failure across the SAN with an innovative approach to data availability. Built on a storage clustering architecture, the HP P4500 SAN allows you to scale capacity and performance linearly without incurring downtime or performance bottlenecks, or forcing expensive upgrades.

The following paper describes the testing methodology, test execution, test tools used, hardware/software configuration details, test results and recommendations. It provides detailed information on how HP hardware was configured for the testing, how Microsoft Hyper-V R2 and the virtual machines were configured, and how the testing tool was configured to test the performance capabilities of Hyper-V R2 VMs with the HP P4500 SAN in various test scenarios.

To download this paper go to http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-9557ENW.pdf

 

Patrick Lownds

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Building a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V failover cluster with HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric

This white paper provides an illustration of how to build a two node Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Failover Cluster with HP ProLiant server blades and HP Virtual Connect (VC) FlexFabric.

The focus of the paper is on the steps necessary to configure the VC FlexFabric modules based on an example environment. This includes more complex details such as setting up NIC teaming and VLAN configurations correctly for the Hyper-V configuration. The purpose of this example scenario is to test and validate that live migration support for a test virtual machine (VM) is functioning correctly in this configuration. Using the steps detailed in this paper, a VM was created and both planned (live migration) and unplanned failover tests were successfully completed.

To download this paper go to http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-9257ENW.pdf

 

Patrick Lownds

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Scalability of bare-metal and virtualized HP ProLiant servers in x64 and x86 HP Server Based Computing environments

This updated white paper contains a historical summary of performance characterizations for HP ProLiant servers recommended for the HP Server Based Computing (HP SBC) environment, and includes the results for the recently announced ProLiant G7 Servers. The information in this document is ideally suited to IT professionals planning HP SBC deployments, and the performance metrics provided can help estimate the number of HP ProLiant servers required for Citrix XenApp in both “bare metal” and XenServer environments.

By using the test results and recommendations in this document, you can develop a plan to migrate your existing x86 servers to the ProLiant G7’s, and realize the benefits of the major advances in energy efficiency, virtualization, and best-in-class management. Compared to older x86 servers, HP ProLiant G7 servers enable significant consolidation ratios and corresponding reductions of power and cooling expenses, as well as reduced software licenses, which can make an investment in ProLiant G7 technology pay for itself in a matter of months.

To download this technical paper go to http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA0-2414ENW.pdf

 

Patrick

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Performance of HP ProLiant BL465c G7 with AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors in 32- and 64-bit HP SBC environments

Performance of HP ProLiant BL465c G7 with AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors in 32- and 64-bit HP SBC environments
This document characterizes the HP ProLiant BL465c G7 server blade featuring a range of AMD Opteron Model 6100 processors, and determines the optimal number of supported users for each of the following processors:

• Model 6174 (2.2 GHz, 2 Processors/24 Cores)
• Model 6164 HE (1.7 GHz, 2 Processors/24 Cores, Low-Power)
• Model 6136 (2.4 GHz, 2 Processors/16 Cores)
• Model 6128 HE (2.0 GHz, 2 Processors/16 Cores, Low-Power)

Also included are a set of test-proven recommendations for optimizing overall performance.
By using the test results and recommendations in this document, you can confidently select the ProLiant G7 server blade configuration that is best suited to your Citrix XenApp environment, and quickly begin to realize both improved performance and reduced power consumption.

To download this technical paper go to http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-7363ENW.pdf

 

Patrick

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Performance of HP ProLiant BL465c G7 with AMD Opteron processor Model 6174 (2.2 GHz) in a 32-bit virtualized HP SBC environment

The above document characterizes the scalability of the HP ProLiant BL465c G7 in a virtualized 32-bit HP SBC environment configured with the AMD Opteron processor Model 6174 (2.2 GHz). Also included are guidelines for expected consolidation factors, techniques for memory allocation, and a set of test-proven recommendations for optimizing overall performance.

By using the test results and recommendations in this document, you can quickly and confidently migrate and consolidate your Citrix XenApp 32-bit workloads utilizing Citrix XenServer on the new ProLiant G7 server blades, and realize the benefits of supporting even the most demanding virtualization environments, while reducing the costs associated with data center footprint, complexity and power consumption.

To download the technical paper go to http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-0763ENW.pdf

 

Patrick Lownds

 

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Carmine error was: InstallFailed (205); WindowsAPI

I have never really had any issues with installing SCVMM. Done it many times before and it just works! Well I am running a Microsoft Virtualization Workshop and when trying to install the VMM Server component, I get the following error - Carmine error was: InstallFailed (205); WindowsAPI....

I checked the problems listed about this error on the TechNet Forum but these are either not applicable or don’t solve my instance of this problem.

I am installing SCVMM 2008 R2 into a virtual machine, which is running an instance of Windows 2008 R2, nothing exciting there, but the virtual machine itself was not built from scratch. It was a pre-build (newly pre-built) generalized virtual machine.

Anyway seems something must have gone awry when I ran SYSPREP on the original virtual machine. After building a new virtual machine from scratch and joining it to the domain setup worked like a charm.

 

Patrick Lownds

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