http://www.altaro.com/blog/vss-crash-consistent-vs-application-consistent-vss-backups-post-2-of-2/

You can find the first part of this blogpost through the following URL.

http://www.altaro.com/blog/vss-crash-consistent-vs-application-consistent-vss-backups-post-1-of-2/

http://www.altaro.com/blog/vss-crash-consistent-vs-application-consistent-vss-backups-post-1-of-2/

NOTE: This is the first blog post in a 2-series post. Subscribe to Altaro’s Blog to get notified when the second article is posted. You can subscribe at the top-right of this page.

5nine V2V Easy Converter performs fast and non-intrusive conversion and fixup of selected VMware Virtual Machines to Microsoft Hyper-V VMs with highest conversion success ratio. 5nine V2V Easy Converter can be used as a standalone tool on different versions of Microsoft Server, including Free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2/SP1, Server 2008 Core, and does not require any additional software licenses.

5nine V2V Easy Converter can also be used in conjunction with tools such as Vmdk2Vhd or StarWind V2V Converter

• Features and Benefits:
  5nine V2V Easy Converter is a Free standalone tool and doesn’t require any additional software licenses; It runs on a Free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2/SP1, and VMware guest(s) may be migrated on a free Hyper-V server. It also runs on other Microsoft platforms, including Windows7, ‘Full’ and ‘Core’ editions of Server 2008 R2/SP1.
• 5nine V2V Easy Converter does not require ‘removing’ the guest from the source VMware environment prior to conversion. Thus this version does not perform the ‘online’ conversion, but the downtime is much less than in case you need to store the guest in the library in order to migrate.
• 5nine V2V Conversion process is fast, effective and easy to use.
• 5nine V2V Converter supports migration of the guests with different configurations, including large disk(s) and shared disks – these scenarios are specifically prone to the errors that other tools suffer from.
• 5nine V2V Easy Converter allows to modify the target guest configuration parameters, although the source VM configuration is preserved by default.

Current version of 5nine V2V Converter supports conversion of Windows Server 2008 or higher Guest Windows OS. Subsequent releases will support conversion of Windows Server 2003 and later, simultaneous conversions of multiple VMs, as well as ‘reverse’ Hyper-V – to – VMware VMs conversion and fixup.

Download 5nine V2V Easy Converter here

You can follow the steps below to change the legacy NIC interface with a normal NIC interface.

1.) Shutdown the Virtual Machine
2.) Open the Properties of the Virtual Machine
3.) Select the Hardware tab
4.) Select the Network Adapters and click Remove
5.) Click Network Adapter and choose Synthetic network adapter
6.) Apply the changes
7.) Start the Virtual Machine
8.) Open the Network Connections
9.) When you want to rename the NIC interface, you’ll receive the following error:
“Cannot rename this connection. A connection with the name you specified already exists. Specify a different name.”
10.) Open the system properties of your server
11.) Select the Advanced tab and click Environment Variables
12.) Creat a new System Variable
Variable name: Devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
Variable value: 1
13.) Open the Device Manager of your server
14.) Show the hidden devices
15.) As you can see there still is the legacy NIC interface we’ve deleted earlier.
16.) Select that NIC interface and choose Uninstall
17.) Again open the Network Connections and rename it
18.) Don’t forget to give the server a static IP, Subnet, Gateway and DNS

Now your server is using a Synthetic Network Interface (VMbus communication).

Requirements:
- 2GB USB memory stick or more
- Download the Hyper-V server 2008 R2 ISO named GRMHVxFRE1_DVD.iso

Clear the USB stick and create a partition on it by using the following command’s:

1.) Open the command prompt
2.) Diskpart (run diskpart as administrator)
3.) List disk
4.) Select disk USB number
5.) Clean
6.) Create partition primary
7.) Active
8.) Format fs=fat32 quick
9.) Assign
10.) Exit

Mount the ISO  and copy all the content o to the USB device. For mounting the ISO I used Deamon Tools Lite.
Now the bootable USB device with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is ready for use.  Boot your server and select the USB device as the boot medium. You’re now able to install  Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Cool!!

The Failover Cluster Validation check faild with status 87 “Failed to prepare storage for testing on node HYPERV01.hyperv.local”. After same troubleshooting I found the following solution! This error results from bit lock creating a partition in the first 100 MB of your primary drive and then not setting a drive letter. Given the command line interface for Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, I had to assign the drive letter by using the command lines.

1.) Open the command prompt CMD.exe
2.) Type diskpart
3.) Type list volume
4.) Type select volume 4 (or 1, 2, 3…)
5.) Type assign

Repeat this step for all the nodes in the cluster. Now your Failover Cluster Validation check will run succesfully!

I’ve configured a second virtual hard disk for the Hyper-V Server, so lets make it available for storing my new virtual machines.

1) Open Management Console on the Management Server. (Start, Run, MMC)
2 ) Add/Remove snap-in, Disk Management
3) The following computer: 172.16.1.200
4) Create a new partition
5) Check if the new disk is succesfully created

Before you’re going to manage the Hyper-V Server, you must install a feature.

1) Open the Server Manager
2 ) Features, Add features
3) Remote Server Administration Tools
4) Role Administration Tools
5) Hyper-V Tools

Now we are going to connect to the Hyper-V Server.1) Open the Hyper-V Manager
2) Right-click on Microsoft Hyper-V Servers
3) Connect to Server
4) Another Computer, 172.16.1.200

After connecting to the Hyper-V Server, I’ve get the following error:
“The Msvm_VirtualSystemManagementService object was not found”The solution for this error is installing the following update:
Hyper-V Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB950050)

For a list of all the available updates for Hyper-V Server, you can browse the following link.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753637.aspx

The next step is to configure the Hyper-V Server Settings.

1) Right-click on your Hyper-V Server
2) Hyper-V Settings
3) Choose a location for Virtual Hard Disks, in my environment the new partition we’ve made E:\VM\VHD
4) Choose a location for Virtual Machines, in my environment the new partition we’ve made E:\VM\VMI’ve copied a Microsoft Windows XP Professional ISO to E:\ISO on the Hyper-V Server. Let’s install a new Virtual Machine

1) Right-click on your Hyper-V Server
2) New, Virtual Machine
3) Give the name for the new VM and the location (default E:\VM\VM)
4) Configure the Memory for the new VM
5) Configure the network connection (you can choose between, External, Internal or Private)
6) Give the name for the VHD file and the size of it.
7) Give the installation source. In my case it’s the ISO file I’ve copied to E:\ISO
Finisch the wizard and start the new VM

The new machine is created now. The next post I’ll go further with installing and tuning the new VM.

Download Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 here

There are a copple of prerequisites for using Hyper-V Server 2008:

- Hyper-V Server 2008 is a 64-bit only technology and requires a 64-bit capable hardware with Intel VT or AMD-V technology enabled.

- Processor : Intel Pentium 4, Xeon, Core 2 DUO processor; AMD Opteron, Athlon 64, Athlon X2, . Hardware Data Execution Protection (DEP) must be available and be enabled. Specifically, you must enable Intel XD bit (execute disable bit) or AMD NX bit (no execute bit).

- Minimum CPU speed : 1 GHz; Recommended: 2 GHz or faster

- RAM : Minimum: 1 GB RAM; Recommended: 2+ GB RAM; Maximum 32 GB

- Required Available disk space: 2GB of available hard disk space (additional disk space needed for each guest operating system)

The installation contains seven steps, then your new Hyper-V Server 2008 is running……almost

After you changed the password for the Administrator account, the Hyper-V Configuration Tool (hvconfig.cmd) automatically launches. You can use it for:

Change the computer name (requires a reboot)
Change workgroup settings or domain membership settings (requires a reboot)
Change network settings
Add local Administrator accounts
Change Windows Update settings
Download and install Windows updates.
Change Remote Desktop settings
Change Regional and Language settings (through inet.cpl)
Change Date and Time settings (through timedate.cpl)
Log off, restart and shutdown

As you can see, the installation is done within a few steps. Configuration can easally be done with the Hyper-V Configurator.

- Test and Development
- Basic Server Consolidation
- Branch Office Consolidation
- Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

Customers who require richer and more robust virtualization features, such as Quick Migration, multi-site clustering, large memory support (greater than 32 GB of RAM), and more than four processors on the host server, should use Windows Server 2008.

Windows Server 2008 provides business continuity, disaster recovery, greater scalability for consolidating large workloads, and flexible and cost-effective virtualization rights (one free virtual instance for Standard Edition, four free virtual instances for Enterprise Editions, and unlimited virtual instances for Datacenter Edition with the purchase of a license of Windows Server 2008).

The following table outlines which Hyper-V–enabled product would suit your needs: