INSA 312: Basic Networks Systems Administration

www.tvtc.gov.sa

Module 1: Creating and Managing Virtual Hard Disks, Virtual Machines,

and Checkpoints
Lecture 2

Presented by Roaa Aldoweesh

Module 1: Creating and Managing Virtual Hard
Disks, Virtual Machines, and Checkpoints
Lesson 3: Installing and Importing Virtual Machines
Virtual Machine Installation Methods
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Install from a bootable CD/DVD-ROM

• Single virtual machine can only use physical media at one time
• Install from an .iso file
• Multiple virtual machines can use .iso file
• Install from a network-based installation server
• Generation 1 – legacy network adapter required
• Copy virtual hard disk file with operating system installed
• Similar to computer cloning
• Virtual hard disk should first be generalized
• Use differencing virtual hard disks
• Parent virtual hard disk should first be generalized
• Parent virtual hard disk must not change
Importing Virtual Machines
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• You can import a virtual machine without first exporting it

• Only virtual machine data files are needed
• Over 40 different types of issues detected, such as:
• Missing parent virtual hard disk
• Virtual switch not available
• Virtual machine has more processors than available
Virtualizing a Physical Computer
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Converting a physical computer to a virtual machine

• Hyper-V does not include P2V functionality
• Hyper-V can copy content of data disks
• Add virtual hard disk to virtual machine
Module 1: Creating and Managing Virtual Hard
Disks, Virtual Machines, and Checkpoints
Lesson 4: Managing Virtual Machine Checkpoints
 What Are Virtual Machine Checkpoints?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Checkpoint is a point-in-time virtual machine state

• Can be taken if virtual machine is not in Paused state
• Contains virtual machine configuration, memory and disk state
• Does not affect the running state of a virtual machine
• Primarily used for testing and development
• Can cause issues in distributed production environment
• Create differencing disk – decrease performance
• Cannot be created for directly attached disks
• Used by Hyper-V Replica or in VDI deployments
Implementing Hyper-V Checkpoints
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• When created, a checkpoint cannot be modified

• Only viewed, applied, exported, renamed, or deleted

• Checkpoint creation steps:

1. Pause virtual machine
2. Create differencing disk for each disk that virtual machine is using
3. Create a copy of virtual machine configuration
4. Resume virtual machine
5. Copy virtual machine memory to disk
• Checkpoint consists of
• Configuration file (*.xml)
• Saved state file (*.vsv)
• Memory content (*.bin)
• Differencing disks (*.avhd)
Module 1: Creating and Managing Virtual Hard
Disks, Virtual Machines, and Checkpoints
Lesson 5: Monitoring Hyper-V
 Overview of Performance Monitoring
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Monitors operating system and applications using

system resources
• Provides up-to-date information on performance
• Health of the IT infrastructure
• Compare current activity with the baseline
• Planning for future requirements
• Whether current performance is sufficient
• Identifying issues
• Detecting problems
• Proactive (real-time) and reactive (historical data)
• Windows Server 2019 includes several tools
• Operations Manager centralizes monitoring, alerting,
and reporting for the enterprise
 Overview of Performance Monitoring
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Task Manager provides local, real-time performance

data
• Helps to identify and resolve performance-related
issues
 Overview of Performance Monitoring
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Resource Monitor provides in-depth real-

time performance data
• CPU, Memory, Disk, Network
 Overview of Performance Monitoring
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Event Viewer shows events that relate

to server activity
• Collected locally and remotely
• Filtering, custom views, attaching
tasks to the events
 Overview of Performance Monitoring
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reliability Monitor provides an

historical view of server reliability and
associated events
Resource Metering in Hyper-V
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Track resources used by virtual machine or pool

• Processor, disk, memory, network
• Can be used for charge back
• Resource metering data follows a virtual machine
• Configure by using Windows PowerShell
• Enable-VMResourceMetering, Measure-VM
• Average CPU usage
• Average physical memory usage
• Minimum/maximum memory usage
• Maximum amount of disk space allocated to a virtual machine
• Total incoming/outgoing network traffic for a network adapter
• Graphical reporting is not included
• Basic reporting in Windows PowerShell