Microsoft Private Cloud Test 01-windows Server 2016 virtualization new features overview

Hello, everyone, long time no see, hello, 51Cto blog; hello, Superdream, haven't written a blog for a while, but do not know how to write the beginning, the distance from the previous blog has passed 1.5 of the time, and sometimes I think, I do what these 1.5 jobs, "The value of the technology that I admire is to share" the practice to where, in the final analysis, can only use a word to explain, is "lazy". Since 2011, it has been a career for almost 7 years, not sure how long it will be on the technology side, but the technology is endless and evolving, and in the back of the technical career, plan to publish some technical articles that will be useful to other technicians. I hope my article will help the brothers and sisters who are exploring on the technical road.

Gossip, back to the point, Windows Server 2016 from 2015 preview to October 13, 2016 released to date has been over 3 years, Windows Server 2016 continues to uphold the Microsoft "mobile first Cloud first" strategy, Brings us a lot of new features and some enhancements to some of the other features.

These include:

Virtualization Level:

1) support for connected standby :

In the old version, Hyper-V support for PCs into standby, hibernation is not very good, a typical problem, as shown in the following link https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2973536/ connected-standby-is-not-available-when-the-hyper-v-role-is-enabled, in Windows Server 2016, supports a battery-based notebook or desktop into hibernation.

2) Independent device Assignment :

VMware and Citrix supported the use of PCI-E-based devices directly through to virtual machines early on, and Hyper-V 2016 finally supported the feature, which enabled us to use native PCI-E interface-based graphics directly in virtual machines, NVME SSD High-speed disks enable virtual machines to meet new graphics applications (including support for publishing virtual applications in virtual machines via RemoteApp), AI-based data calculations, or some applications with higher disk IO.

For details, please refer to the following links:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/virtualization/2015/11/19/discrete-device-assignment-description-and-background/

3) Virtualization Security :

disk encryption for the first generation of virtual machines: Windows Server 2016 promotes virtualization security, which currently supports the use of Bitlock technology in the first generation of virtual machine operating systems to encrypt disks, and this new feature uses a small, dedicated virtual drive to store the Bitlock key of the system disk. Hyper-V Second generation virtual machines support the use of the virtual TPM feature to encrypt the disk, unlike the second-generation virtual machine approach, to decrypt the disk and start the virtual machine, the Hyper-V host must be enabled with the protected virtual machine feature, and has been authorized or has a private key of one of the protected virtual machines. The key store requires that the configuration version of the virtual machine be version 8.

4) Host resource protection:

This feature helps prevent virtual machines from using more of their shared system resources by looking for excessive activity levels. This helps prevent excessive activity on the virtual machine from reducing the performance of the host or other virtual machines. When monitoring detects virtual machines with excessive activity, it provides fewer resources for the virtual machine. By default, this monitoring and enforcement is turned off.

5) Hot Add and delete of virtual machine nic, Memory

Support for hot Add, delete virtual machine memory, network card resources in the second generation virtual machine boot state. Support for Windows and Linux. When reducing memory resources, be sure to lower the target value than the memory resources that are already in use by the current virtual machine.

6) Hyper-V Manager Improvements

Alternate credential support: In the old If you want to connect to another Hyper-V server from this computer in Hyper-V Manager, you can only use the credentials that are used by the current host, and you cannot manually specify the credentials when you connect. Currently in Win10 and Win2016, it is supported to manually enter the specified credentials when Hyper-V Manager connects to another host, and you can save the credentials to log in again, which can be convenient for administrators. Allows administrators to use personal WIN10 computers to connect to Hyper-V hosts for management without switching accounts.

Manage earlier versions: using Hyper-V Manager in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10, you can manage the Windows Server 2012,windows 8,windows server R2 and Windows 8.1 on a computer that is running Hyper-V.

Updated Management protocol: Hyper-V Manager now communicates with the remote Hyper-V host using the Ws-man protocol, which allows Credssp,kerberos or NTLM authentication. When you use CREDSSP to connect to a remote Hyper-V host, you can perform a live migration without enabling constrained delegation in Active Directory. The Ws-man-based infrastructure also makes it easier to enable hosts for remote management. Ws-man is connected via port 80 and port 80 is turned on by default.

7) update of Integration Services provided through Windows update

In an older version of Windows Server 2012, R2, or Windows Server 2008, R2, after you deploy the virtual machine, you need to manually mount the Integration Services component from the Hyper-V host Vmguest.iso for the virtual machine, and in win 2016, The Hyper-V host will no longer provide the Vmguest.iso file, which is forwarded by Windows Update to provide integration services, and automatically gets the Integration Services component when the virtual machine is installed after the operating system is updated with Windows Update.

8) Linux secure boot

Linux operating systems running on a 2nd generation virtual machine can now be started with the secure boot option enabled. Enable Ubuntu 14.04 and later on hosts running Windows Server 2016, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and later, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later, and CEN TOS 7.0 and later for secure boot. Before you start the virtual machine for the first time, you must configure the virtual machine to use a Microsoft UEFI certification authority. You can do this from Hyper-V Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, or an elevated Windows PowerShell session. For Windows PowerShell, run the following command:

Set-vmfirmware testvm-secureboottemplate microsoftueficertificateauthority

9) Greater Scalability

Windows Server 2016 provides more powerful performance, supporting up to TB of memory in two-generation virtual machines (Windows Server 1TB), 240-Core CPUs (Windows Server R2 64).

For detailed information, refer to the following links:

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2016/09/28/ windows-server-2016-hyper-v-large-scale-vm-performance-for-in-memory-transaction-processing/

Https://docs.microsoft.com/zh-cn/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/plan/plan-hyper-v-scalability-in-windows-server

Nested virtualization

In the past, when we tested virtualization and had insufficient hardware resources, we often wanted to adopt a virtual machine model that only VMware VSphere and VMware Workstation supported for nested virtualization. Currently, Windows Server 2016 also supports nested virtualization, allowing Hyper-V Hypervisor to be deployed in virtual machines and enabling virtual machines to be run on Hyper-V on virtual machines, which is a great convenience for our daily development and testing.

In fact, Microsoft is advocating nested virtualization estimates are more to implement their own in the VM to run the container application is considered.

Unlike VMware, however, Microsoft's old routines, nested virtualization, only support Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10.

For more information, refer to:

Https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-guide/nested-virtualization

One ) network Functions

The new network features include:

· Remote Direct Memory access ( RDMA ) and the Switch embedded combination ( SET ): currently supports RDMA on the virtual machine's NIC to meet most data latency-sensitive application requirements. And in the traditional network binding mode, the set of embedded network card combination mode, this mode with the traditional NIC binding similar functions, but more than the traditional NIC binding provides more advanced features, such as QoS, detailed reference as follows:

Https://technet.microsoft.com/library/mt403349.aspx

· Virtual machine multi-queue ( VMMQ : increase VMQ throughput by assigning multiple hardware queues to each virtual machine. The default queue becomes a set of queues for a virtual machine, and traffic propagates between queues.

· Software-defined network quality of service ( QoS ): Manages the default traffic category through the virtual switch within the default class bandwidth.

Production checkpoint (snapshot)

At the original time, we did not recommend that the snapshot be kept in production for a long time because the snapshot was not stable. In Windows Server 2016, Microsoft introduced the production Checkpoint feature, which produces checkpoints based on the backup technology within the guest virtual machine rather than the state of the saved virtual machine disk state through Hyper-V storage. For Windows virtual machines, use Volume Snapshot service (VSS). For Linux virtual machines, flush the file system buffers to create checkpoints that are consistent with the file system. If you prefer to use checkpoints based on a saved state, select a standard checkpoint. In Windows Server 2016, the production checkpoint is defaulted as the default checkpoint, but users can switch back to normal checkpoint mode if they want to.

rolling cluster upgrade

Support for adding Windows Server 2016 to a cluster running Windows Server R2 can enable users to upgrade the cluster without downtime, and in mixed mode, the cluster level is run by default at the Windows Server R2 level. The cluster level is only updated for Windows Server 2016 after all hosts in the cluster are upgraded to Windows Server 2016.

shared virtual disks

Microsoft supports shared Virtual disk technology in Windows Server, Hyper-V, allowing multiple virtual machines to mount the same virtual disk to implement technologies such as deploying clusters in virtual machines. In Windows Server 2016, updates are made for shared virtual disks:

Support to adjust the size of the shared virtual disk (increase or decrease) in the boot state;

You can use Hyper-V replication technology to back up shared virtual disks;

block virtual machine shielded VMS

Shielded VMs are also referred to as virtual machine protection, which masks virtual machines using a variety of features, making it more difficult for Hyper-V administrators and malicious software on the host to inspect, tamper with, or steal data on shielded VMs. The data and status of the virtual machine are encrypted, and the Hyper-V administrator cannot view the video output and disk of the shielded VM, and the virtual machine can be restricted to run only on known, healthy, host Guardian service-enabled hosts. and currently shielded virtual machines are compatible with Hyper-V replication, to replicate shielded virtual machines, you must grant permission to run this shielded virtual machine on the replication destination host.

( ) cluster virtual machine boot order

This feature gives you more control over the cluster virtual machines that start or restart first, which is similar to the DRS feature of Vmwrae, which allows you to pre-start the virtual machine that provides the service by setting the boot order of the virtual machine, and then the boot part depends on the virtual machine that provides the service. You can set up collections (similar to VMware's DRS rules) through PowerShell commands, place virtual machines in collections, and set dependencies.

) Storage quality of service (QoS)

Storage quality of Service QoS is first available in Windows Server 2012, and in Windows Server 2016, support for creating storage QoS policies on Sofs (scale-out file servers) and assigning them to one or more virtual disks on a Hyper-V virtual machine , storage performance is automatically re-adjusted according to the policy to meet the policy when the storage load fluctuates.

Virtual machine configuration file format

The virtual machine configuration file uses the new format to make reading and writing configuration data more efficient. This format also reduces the likelihood of data corruption if a storage failure occurs. The virtual machine configuration data file uses the. vmcx file name extension, and the run-time state data file uses the. vmrs file name extension.

The. vmcx file is a binary file and does not support editing. vmcx or. vmrs files.

Virtualization Baseline security for second generation virtual machines

The Virtual machine baseline security feature supports features such as device Guard and credential Guard (credential Guard) to enhance the protection of the operating system from the total amount of malicious software. The virtual machine security limit policy has been supported in the second generation of virtual machines starting in version 8.

) Windows container

In Windows Server 2016, Microsoft implemented native container support for the first time, and supported native Docker commands, plus the recent acquisition of GitHub, a frequent investment in the Linux kernel, is enough to meet Microsoft's ambition in the open source field.

Windows containers allow many standalone applications to run on a single computer system. They build fast, scalable, and highly portable. There are two types of container runtimes available, each of which has varying degrees of application isolation. Windows Server containers uses namespaces and process isolation. Hyper-V containers use lightweight virtual machines for each container.

Key features include:

Using HTTPS to support websites and applications

The newly developed Nano server can host Windows Server and Hyper-V containers

Ability to manage data through container shared folders

Ability to restrict container resources

) Windows PowerShell Direct

In Windows Server 2016, support for physical machines is directly connected to the virtual machine via PowerShell and can be used directly without an IP address in an instant virtual machine. Windows PowerShell Direct runs between the host and the virtual machine, which means that it does not require network or firewall requirements and that it works regardless of your remote administration configuration.

Windows PowerShell Direct is an alternative to the existing tools that Hyper-V administrators use to connect to virtual machines on a Hyper-V host:

· Remote administration tools, such as PowerShell or Remote Desktop

· Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection (VMConnect)

Storage - storage space Device Passthrough

Currently on Windows Server 2016, Microsoft has upgraded storage spaces, supports direct server local disk calls from each server, and can build a disk rollup of all servers into a storage pool within the cluster, enabling distributed storage capabilities similar to VMware Vsan.

Storage Spaces Direct allows you to build high-availability and scalable storage by using servers that have local storage. This feature simplifies the deployment and management of software-defined storage systems and allows new disk devices, such as SATA SSDs and NVMe disk devices, to be used without the use of shared disks in the previously clustered storage space.

Remote Virtual Desktops:

Microsoft launched its desktop Virtualization feature from Windows Server R2, with the earliest Med-V, App-V, and USMT to enrich Microsoft's virtualized desktop strategy, but Microsoft's subtle approach to virtual desktops, while working with Citrix, Highly respected Citrix Virtual desktop, on the one hand to promote their products, two-pronged strategy.

1) GPU acceleration

RemoteFX technology is Microsoft's early acquisition of a company product, mainly for the virtual Machine display acceleration (similar to the Nvidia company's VGPU, but the principle is different) for Microsoft in recent years, the improvement of REMOTEFX technology.

Prior to Windows Server 2016, Microsoft RemoteFX has not supported OpenGL, OPENCL protocol, only support its own DirectX, so that AutoCAD, 3DMax and other applications in the virtual desktop can not play a high performance; in Windows In Server 2016, Microsoft finally supported the OpenGL4.4 and OpenCL 1.1, so that RemoteFX currently supports the mainstream display protocol, can run a variety of graphics software, memory size from win 2012 330M to 1GB, support 4K resolution display , support for Windows Server virtual machines (which makes it possible to publish graphical applications in RemoteApp).

In addition to RemoteFX, Microsoft also supports DDA (device passthrough distribution), which can map graphics installed on physical machines directly to virtual machines, and virtual machines can use all the features and performance of the entire graphics card as a physical machine, enabling some applications with high graphics performance requirements to be supported.

2) RDP V10

Microsoft introduced the RDP V10 in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10, in RDP 10, Microsoft introduces full-screen AVC 444 mode to boost avc/h.264 support in a few in one step, according to some comparisons, the current RDPV The DDA performance is already comparable to VMware's graphics virtualization.

The relevant information is as follows:

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2016/01/11/ remote-desktop-protocol-rdp-10-avch-264-improvements-in-windows-10-and-windows-server-2016-technical-preview/

https://www.rdsgurus.com/rdp10-versus-pcoip-on-hyper-v-with-dda/

Well, the virtualization improvements for Windows Server 2016 are described here, and the next we start deploying a test environment.

Microsoft Private Cloud Test 01-windows Server 2016 virtualization new features overview