Mind blowing features coming with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-v

Hey Again,
It seems like next year will keep me busy with visualization projects based on Hyper-V 🙂
Many promising features are coming up with the next Windows Server version and I’m already excited !

Just take a look at tables below for a comparison between 2008 R2 and 2012 RC Hyper-V:

Processor and Memory Support

Processor/Memory Feature Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server  2012 Release Candidate
Logical processors on hardware 64 320
Physical memory 1 TB 4 TB
Virtual processors per host 512 2,048
Virtual processors per virtual machine 4 64
Memory per virtual machine 64 GB 1 TB
Active virtual machines 384 1,024
Maximum Cluster Nodes 16 64
Maximum Cluster Virtual machines 1,000 4,000

Network

Network Feature Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server  2012 Release Candidate
NIC Teaming Yes, through partners Yes, Windows NIC teaming in box
VLAN Tagging Yes Yes
MAC Spoofing Protection Yes, with R2 SP1 Yes
ARP Spoofing Protection Yes, with R2 SP1 Yes
SR-IOV Networking No Yes
Network QoS No Yes
Network Metering No Yes
Network Monitor Modes No Yes
Ipsec Task Offload No Yes
VM Trunk Mode No Yes

Storage

Storage Feature Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server  2012 Release Candidate
Live storage migration No, quick storage migration through System

Center Virtual Machine Manager

Yes, with no limits (as many as the hardware will allow)
Virtual machines on file storage No Yes, Server Message Block 3.0 (SMB3)
Guest Fibre Channel No Yes
Virtual disk format VHD up to 2 TB VHD up to 2 TB VHDX up to 64 TB
Virtual machine guest clustering Yes, through iSCSI Yes, through iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or Fibre

Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)

Native 4 KB disk support No Yes
Live virtual hard disk merge No, offline Yes
Live new parent No Yes
Secure offloaded data transfer No Yes

Manageability

Manageability Feature Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server  2012 Release Candidate
Hyper-V PowerShell No Yes
Network PowerShell No Yes
Storage PowerShell No Yes
REST APIs No Yes
SCONFIG Yes Yes
Enable/Disable shell No, server core at operating system setup Yes
VMConnect support for RemoteFX No Yes

Additional links for your reading:

Hyper-V Comparison Guide

Competitive Advantages of Windows Server 2012 RC Hyper-V

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Server Virtualization

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate

Cluster Creation Wizard fails with 0x80090322 error

Hi again,

Today I’ve got a call from a client regarding a new Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 cluster, the create cluster wizard kept failing during the forming cluster step with a timeout..

Well, troubleshooting..

  1. Running Cluster LOG /gen
  2. Doing some reading…
  3. Locating the step and the error:

    [NODE] Node 1: New join with node2: stage: ‘Authenticate Initial Connection’ status HrError(0x80090322) reason: ‘[SV] Authentication failed’
    DBG [CHANNEL 172.16.1.2:~3343~] Close().
    WARN cxl::ConnectWorker::operator (): HrError(0x80090322)’ because of ‘[SV] Authentication or Authorization Failed’

  4. Looking up 0x80090322 with ERR.EXE means SEC_E_WRONG_PRINCIPAL
  5. Lazy me , doing google for 0x80090322 cluster authentication failed
  6. Read “2 node cluster windows 2008 R2 cluster won’t form”
  7. Delete two users that were created to manage the servers.. node1 and node2 🙂
  8. Run create cluster wizard again – SUCCESS !
  9. Retrospective understand the error… SEC_E_WRONG_PRINCIPAL seems like the wizard can’t tell the difference between the user accounts and the computer accounts. (“By Design”)

Nice ! I was shocked from the solution.. but hey.. it worked instantly.

Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 is now available freely!

This week Microsoft has made the iSCSI Software Target available for free download !

These are obviously great news for all cluster / shared-storage-in-need people like me 🙂 read all about it at Jose Barreto’s Blog post:

Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 for Windows Server 2008 R2 available for public download

More quick links:

Enjoy !!

Hub Transport Role Install Failed with error 2147504141

Wanted to share with an experience I’ve had with installing Exchange 2010 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 R2 in Hyper-V 2008 R2 environment.

When I i tried to install a fresh server for testing Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta, the setup failed when installing the Hub Transport Role:

Error:
The execution of: “$error.Clear(); install-ExsetdataAtom -AtomName SMTP -DomainController $RoleDomainController”, generated the following error: “An error occurred with error code ‘2147504141’ and message ‘The property cannot be found in the cache.’.”.

An error occurred with error code ‘2147504141’ and message ‘The property cannot be found in the cache.’.

This issue is not “new”, as IPV6 is tend to be disabled as default by many customers, and installations of Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 fails with the exact same error if IPV6 is Disabled.

My virtual machine was clean and did not had IPV6 disabled, so I’ve searched this up to the following thread in the Technet Social Forums : Hub Transport Role Install Fail error # 2147504141

A comment from Scott Landry gave a new solution for this, and seems it’s now also been related to Hyper-V, as the suggested KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980050 – Error message when the Exchange Server 2010 setup on a Hyper-V virtual machine fails:“2147504141”

Anyhow, disabling the ” Time synchronization ” from the Integration Services settings on the Virtual Machine solved this !

Just a heads up for all of you that might encounter this.