Haven’t you heard about chimney which work as an exhaust in traditional Kitchens and factories?

Now one of the virtual networking features of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 is using this word as “VM Chimney” - may be MS wants to emphasize that you got an easy path to flow. Anyway, VM Chimney in Hyper-V allows a VM to offload its network processing load onto the NIC of the host computer. This is something similar to TCP offload scenario, Hyper-V simply extends this functionality into the virtual world. This benefits both CPU and overall network throughput performance, and it is fully supported by Live Migration.

VM Chimney is disabled by default in Windows Server 2008 R2, primarily for compatibility reasons. Vendors like Intel, supports the compatibility for VM Chimney and if you are sure that the hardware you purchased support this – TURN IT ON for a better host system performance and a simultaneous boost to VM network throughput.

Support for Jumbo Frames was first introduced in initial release of Windows Server 2008 to support the hardware and now the same has been extended to support VMs. So, just like improving performance on hardware level, Jumbo Frame capability for VMs now can increase the performance of virtual networking and provides 6 times larger payloads per packet, which improves not only overall throughput but also reduces CPU utilization for large file transfers.

Do you know how different virtualization tower maps to their respective products? if not, read on…

No bias intended, but I selected Microsoft because they have clearly aligned their products to different virtualization tower as below:

• Presentation Virtualization – Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services (formerly, Terminal Services)
• Server Virtualization – Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Hyper-V Server, Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1
• Desktop Virtualization – Virtual PC, Virtual Desktop Interface
• User State Virtualization – Document Redirection, Offline Files
• Application Virtualization – Microsoft APP-V (streams the application over the internet or intranet)
• Storage Virtualization – Data Protection Manager, Windows Storage Server

We know there has been a lot of work done or being done to make customers attract and adopt virtualization to make the environment green. To augment that, the upcoming release of Microsoft's Windows 2008 R2 has some nifty "green" features which is really a good step to narrow the gap of green characteristics between software and hardware.

You probably have heard about processors with “multicores” where a single physical processor internally has dual or quad cores presented to the OS as multiple “logical” processors. In a normal scenario once the OS is installed, all the cores are active and  start consuming power which could be a huge waste of resources if the application doesn’t need that much computing power. So, wouldn’t it be nice if we have a way to control this behavior somehow by making the cores “active” or “inactive”. The upcoming release of Windows Server 2008 R2 gives you just that capability and some additional ones. The following OS features improve reduce power consumption:

• Reduced multicore processor power consumption
• Reduced processor power consumption by adjusting processor speed
• Reduced storage power consumption

Reduced multicore processor power consumption

This feature itself is called as “Core Parking” and allows Windows Server 2008 R2 to consolidate processing onto the fewest number of possible processor core and suspend inactive processor cores, as show in the figure below.

If additional processing power is required, the “Core Parking” feature activates inactive processor cores “automatically” to handle the increased processing requirements. Needless to say, a new feature with “automation” to turn ON and OFF the heart of the computer needs to be watched out as it may indirectly affect the application response and performance if not activated on time. So, I’m not so sure what to say here as I haven’t witnessed the feature yet. Only MS can shed some light whether we can close our eyes and trust them that it really “works” :-). Anyway, I would try to get this clarified by MS folks with some good explanation to back the feature. So, watch out this space for more updates.

Reduced processor power consumption by adjusting processor speed

The second one on the list is the feature with an ability to adjust the ACPI “P-states” of processors and architecture. Windows Server 2008 R2 can adjust the “P-states” of individual processors and provide very fine control over power consumption as shown in the figure below:

One may ask, why would I really need to mess-up with the p-states on the processor cores to have them run on two different frequencies? Well, if you are really looking at ways to reduce your power consumption and looking to calculate an ROI out of it, then you got to do it. MS has given you some options to poke around with, and you need to go and figure to make the best use of it for your requirements.

Reduced storage power consumption

Have we ever thought about buying “diskless” servers yet? may be some folks did, but majority of us still buy servers with local storage. Diskless computing reminds me of those Novell days where all the nodes used to boot from a central server and things used to work well. All of sudden industry took a turn and we moved to decentralized computing, killing “centralized” approach completely. Now, after decades, we are talking about it again, sort of having “old wine in a new bottle”. And that is precisely the third option - “Reduced Storage Power Consumption”. Today many medium to large businesses have some kind of SAN storage in place, but they still buy servers with local storage. Why not we stop buying servers with local hard drives in it and make use of SAN instead to boot the OS? Booting the OS from SAN approach would give you a substantial amount of savings on power consumption. So, MS is asking customers to make use of Windows Server 2008 diskless boot from SAN feature to reduce the carbon footprint. 

Now, the million dollar question is, “How do I make use and set options 1 or 2 in my environment?”

Answer: “Use Active Directory Group Policy Settings”

Update:

New Hyper-V VMs will also consume less power by virtue of the new Core Parking Feature.

Recently, I had a serious hardware issue with my laptop and DELL had to replace the LCD screen and the motherboard. Don't I have a brand new laptop now? Yes, for most part, but my harddisk drive and the cage is still old :-).

Ever since they replaced the hardware I've been having trouble with "BitLocker" - the technology which helps to encrypt the whole hard drive. The moment I try to turn on the bitlocker, it pops with an error message - "Wizard initialization has failed - You must take ownership of the trusted platform module (TPM)"

Initially I thought it was an issue as TPM wasn't turned-on in BIOS on the new motherboard, but even after that the issue still remained. After some significant research on the Internet and TPM documentation, I was able to fix the issue as the ownership on the TPM chip had to be created again as follows:

Set ownership of the TPM:

The TPM must also be owned before it can be used to help secure your computer. By setting ownership of the TPM, you are assigning a password that helps ensure only the authorized TPM owner can access and manage the TPM. The TPM password is also used to turn off the TPM if you no longer want to use it, or to clear the TPM if the computer is to be recycled. The following procedure steps you through the process of setting ownership of the TPM using the TPM Initialization Wizard.

1. At the command prompt type "tpm.msc"
2. 
3. 
4. On the Create the TPM owner password page, click Automatically create the password (recommended).
5. In the Save your TPM owner password dialog box, click Save the password.
6. In the Save As dialog box, select a location to save the password, and then click Save. The password file is saved as <ComputerName>.tpm.

   I highly recommend saving the TPM owner password to removable media.

7. Click Print the password if you want to print a hard copy of your password.

   I highly recommend printing a hard copy of your TPM owner password and storing it in a safe location.

8. Click Initialize. The process of initializing the TPM might take a few minutes to complete.
9. Click Close.
10. 
11. After this, I was able to successfully turn-on bitlocker

Hope this helps someone out there with a similar issue.

KB950050
Description: Hyper-V RTM
Date: June 26, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes
File Name: Windows6.0-KB950050-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: Yes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB956710
Description: Hyper-V update : 24 proc and 192 VM possible
Date: Sept 23, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes, if host has > 16 Logical processors
File Name: Windows6.0-KB956710-v2-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB956589
Description: Resolve potential issues when you manage Hyper-V with SCVMM
Date: Sept 23, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes if SCVMM 2008 is used to manage environment
File Name: Windows6.0-KB956589-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB956774
Description: Resolve the scenario where a BITS client cannot handle files that have paths that contain the volume GUID in Windows Server 2008.
Date: Sept 23, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes if GUIDs are used to access instead of drive letter or mount point
File Name: Windows6.0-KB956774-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: No
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB956697
Description: Resolve an issue in which the Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) does not back up virtual machines properly
Date: Sept 8, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes, any time VSS is utilized for backups
File Name: Windows6.0-KB956697-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: Yes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB951308
Description: Increased functionality and virtual machine control in the Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster Management console for the Hyper-V role
Date: Sept 11, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes, for Failover Clustering
File Name: Windows6.0-KB951308-v2-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: No
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB953828
Description: The NLB host does not converge as expected on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtual machines
Date: June 25, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes if NLB is in use
File Name: Windows6.0-KB953828-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB953585
Description: Error message when you try to start a Hyper-V virtual machine on a Windows Server 2008 computer that uses the NUMA architecture.
Date; Sept 4, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes if NUMA hosts are in use
File Name: Windows6.0-KB953585-x64.msu
On Windows Update?: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB950182
Description: A computer that is running an x86-based version of Windows Server 2008 or an x86-based version of Windows Vista may use fewer processors than expected if the number of cores on a socket is not a power of 2
Date: April 11, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes, if you wish to start a Windows Server 2008 x86-based virtual machine on a computer that uses a 6-core processor.
File Name: Windows6.0-KB950182-x86.msu
On Windows Update?: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KB957967

Description: Stop error message on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that has the Hyper-V role installed: "STOP 0x0000001A"
Date: October 8, 2008
Mandatory?: No
File Name: Varies
On Windows Update?: No
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KB958065

Description: You cannot configure a Hyper-V virtual machine by using Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering when the virtual machine uses a storage device that is managed by a third-party clustered file system or a third-party replication solution
Date: November 3, 2008
Mandatory?: Yes, if you use 3d-party clustered file systems to store few VMs per LUN, running on different hosts.
File Name: Varies
On Windows Update?: No
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KB957967

Description: Stop error message on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that has the Hyper-V role installed: "STOP 0x0000001A"
Date: October 8, 2008
Mandatory?: No, apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

File Name: Vid.sys
On Windows Update?: No