VHD

We’ve been talking to a lot of people about deploying integration services (integration components) lately.  As it turns out, they’re pretty easy to patch offline with existing Hyper-V tools. First, why would you update integration services on a not-running (offline) VM? Offline VM servicing is valuable for VM templates places that create new VMs frequently since it allows you to keep VM templates up-to-date.  While this post targets exclusively integration service updates, the same update approach applies to many updates... [Lire la suite]

Un outil Starwind V2V Image Converter gratuit permet de convertir des disques VHD (format Microsoft) en disque VMDK (format VMware) et vice-versa. L’utilisation est la suivante :   1/ Lancer l’outil : 2/ cliquer sur ‘Next’ : --> La suite est à lire sur le blog : http://fabricemaison.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/convertir-un-disque-vhd-en-vmdk/

Recently the “Ask the Core Team” blog did a great post about compacting a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk in Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012. You should check out their full post for the details, but the summary is that you now need to manually mount the virtual hard disks in the management operating system prior to trying to compact it. This is something that we used to do automatically for you – but we had reports of problems when we were attaching and removing virtual hard disks when the system administrator was not... [Lire la suite]

 I wanted to try Windows 8 on my new Ultrabook, but I didn’t want to mess up a perfectly good Windows 7 installation with a beta OS. And then it struck me: I can boot Windows 8 from a virtual hard disk. So can you, following these simple steps. For the last six weeks, my portable PC of choice has been an ASUS Zenbook UX31E. It’s a wonderful little machine—light, fast, fun to use, and a great example of what’s right with the whole Ultrabook category. I wanted to try Windows 8 on this machine, but I didn’t want to mess up a... [Lire la suite]

So I’ve been busy the last two week getting ready for TechEd (WAHOO!) where I’m co-presenting two sessions this year.  One of the sessions is all about Linux on Hyper-V.  To get ready, I’ve been working though lots of the common operational tasks including (as you know P2V) migrations. I mentioned to my buddy Alexander Lash (my partner in crime at TechEd 2008 where we presented a great session on Hyper-V Scripting) all the challenges of Linux P2V migrations, and he mentioned an easy way to do it using DD and VHDTool. ... [Lire la suite]

While in Seattle for TR 10 I had an opportunity to meet up with an innovative startup called VMUtil.com (www.vmutil.com). Led by a Microsoft File System / Storage MVP, they have come up with some excellent tools to make Hyper-V more efficient with non-SAN storage solutions and add value when SAN storage is used. This blog will cover one tool VHDCopy which can optimize fixed size VHD file copies and its sister tool, VHDCopy Enterprise Edition aka VHDCopEE. I found these tools of special interest because they resolved an existing issue... [Lire la suite]

Depuis que je travaille dans le domaine de la virtualisation, la question des performances en fonction des VHD est une question récurrente. Voici donc un livre blanc contenant toutes les réponses sur le sujet ! Il explique dans un premier temps, les métriques utilisaient pour les calculs, compare les différents formats de disques virtuels (VHD), c’est-à-dire fixe, dynamique ou différentiel dans plusieurs scénarios d’usage. Les performances entre Windows Server 2008 et Windows Server 2008 R2 sont également comparées et l’évolution... [Lire la suite]

Vous voulez tester Exchange 2010 sans avoir toute la complexité liée à sa mise en œuvre, son installation, sa configuration, les étapes à suivre pour accéder enfin à une boite aux lettres ?! Rien de plus simple, il suffit de télécharger un VHD gratuitement ici : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=53f7382a-3664-4de3-8303-31e514d69f02 Après l'avoir téléchargé, il suffit de monter la machine virtuelle dans Hyper-v et c'est fini vous pourrez jouer avec Outlook Web App, les rôles RBAC, créer... [Lire la suite]

Microsoft has released a pre-configured VHD with Exchange 2010. This download lets you evaluate Exchange 2010 for 60 days. A 64-bit physical machine running Windows 2008 Hyper-V or higher is necessary for running the VHD. Login details for the VHD is as follows. UserName: contoso\Administrator Password: pass@word1 Download the VHD here http://www.howexchangeworks.com/2010/02/exchange-2010-vhd-for-evaluation.html

Today if you want to compact a virtual hard disk – you can use Virtual PC / Virtual Server / Hyper-V or Windows 7.  But not all methods are the same.  Under the covers there are two different approaches that are taken to compacting virtual hard disks: Virtual PC / Virtual Server: Perform a blind “block level” compaction.  Here the virtual hard disk is inspected at a block level, and when a block is found which is full of zeroes, the block is removed from the virtual hard disk. More accurately, zeroed blocks are... [Lire la suite]