Intermittent ping timeout on Hyper V Cluster running on Dell R710

For those who has work with Dell R710 before, you will realise that it came with Integrated Quad Port Broadcom 5709C NIC. If you have face the similar problem as what i did in my project, please read below workaround.

Scenario:-
1. Perform network adapter teaming using Broadcom Advanced Control Suite (BACS) on Broadcom 5709C NIC card.

Problem:-
Intermittent ping result when running countious ping (ping X.X.X.X -t) to High Availability Virtual Machine which running in Hyper V Cluster.

You will encounter "request timeout" when perform live migration between 2 nodes and sometime the connection is up. Well, this is not good when running in production environment.

Steps taken to troubleshoot
1. Remove existing Virtual Switch and recreate Virtual Switch.
2. Upgrade driver provided by Dell Website and Broadcom
3. Refresh setting using Failover Cluster
4. Upgrade with latest patches for the operating system
5. Disable the following features on NIC card and teaming adapter

• Receive Side Scaling (RSS Offload)
• TCP Offload (IPV4 and IPV6)
• IP Checksum Offload

6. Apply related hotfixes such as KB974909 (for Win2k8 R2) and KB 981836 (for Win2k3 VM)


Still having the same problem until i try the workaround below...

Workaround
Final step, remove the adapter from network adapter teaming and create a virtual switch. Once remove from the teaming, the connection to virtual machine has stable and no intermittent ping timeout.

Repeat the final step on 3 different sites which configure with 2 nodes cluster. Problem solved.

Quite strange but another standalone server Dell 610 is working fine with network adapter teaming.

For those folk who has encounter the same problem on network adapter teaming, Microsoft recommend to remove the teaming feature and perform test. Here is the guideline about Microsoft Support Policy for NIC teaming with Hyper V - Click here

Failed to add device "Microsoft Synthetic Ethernet Port"

I just encountered the error message "Failed to add device Microsoft Synthetic Ethernet Port" or sometimes the VM crashed after installation or changing VM Setting.

















I thought it is the Virtual Switch which is giving the problem. So i decided to unmap Virtual Switch, delete existing Virtual Switch and create a new Virtual Switch. However the problem still exist.

After several investigation, manage to locate the problem.

To workaround:-
Simple. Just exclude the folder where you put your VHD and VM Configuration files. I'm using Forefront, so below is the snapshot of where you can put the exclusion.

If you're using other type of antivirus, i advise that you to put exclusion to avoid any problem on your Hyper V host.

[Update- 13 June 2010]
OfficeVDI folder is the location where i consolidate VM configuration,VM Images and VM Snapshot.

You should exclude Vmms.exe and Vmwp.exe as well which located in C:\Windows\System32.

Link provided by Michael. For more info, please refer to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd283088.aspx

Link provided by Noel. For more info, please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961804/en-us

Thank you for sharing.

Demo: Method to access VDI which created from Microsoft RDS

Here is the video demo on how to access VDI which created from Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.

In this demo i have display RemoteApp and VDI. See how clear the running video running on the Client VM which hosted in data center.

Demo 1: Access VDI from Web Interface


Demo 2: Access VDI from RemoteApp and Desktop Connection


Stay Tuned for Video Demo for Configuring VDI using Remote Desktop Services.

Presentation:- Building VDI environment with Hyper V R2

This is presentation session that i've share to MVUG on May 2010.

Part 1:-


Part 2:-


Part 3:-


Demo video will upload later. Stay Tuned!

To learn more and share to the community, please feel free to join MVUG group. Click here to join.

Support for Physical COM Port in Hyper V

Hyper-V does not allow access to a Physical COM Port. Hyper-V does not provide the functionality to associate the virtual COM port to a physical COM port.

However, There is 3rd party software out there that will redirect com ports over the network. To workaround the issue, you may try the following third party tool:

http://www.kernelpro.com/
http://www.fabulatech.com/

Feel free to share other link if you have tested Virtual COM or Serial Port to the community.

Port to open when adding host in multisite into VMM Server

Just finished adding Hyper V hosts which located in multisite into VMM Server. I thought it should be easy since MS Technet has wrote about the port & protocol that you need to open. Get the article from:- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764268.aspx

Well, not really the case. You will see this error message on the VMM:-
Error (415)

Agent installation failed copying C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2\agents\I386\2.0.4273.0\msiInstaller.exe to \\[FQDN of the server]\ADMIN$\msiInstaller.exe. (The network path was not found)

Recommended Action
1. Ensure [FQDN of the server] is online and not blocked by a firewall.
2. Ensure that file and printer sharing is enabled on [FQDN of the server] and it not blocked by a firewall. 3. Ensure that there is sufficient free space on the system volume.
4. Verify that the ADMIN$ share on [FQDN of the server] exists. If the ADMIN$ share does not exist, reboot [FQDN of the server] and then try the operation again.This is the step that i took:-

Step1:- Open SMB protocol and TCP445 as mention about file sharing. It did not work as well.
Step 2:-Moving on, i install the agent locally so it can put as Windows exception for the port 80 and 443 on windows firewall. You can try to disable windows firewall.
Step 3:- Adding the following account into local administrator group:- Domain Admin, VMM Service Account.
Step 4:- Still fail and when you query netstat -an, it is using random port number.
Step 5:- Enable Remote Server Management which located in Server Manager snap in.
Step 6:- So rather than guessing which port number, i just put "Any" from VMM Server into all Hyper V host which located in multisite.
Step 7:- Add the host using VMM. It work fine when open all ports on the firewall. Repeat step 2 until 5 for the remaining Hyper V hosts.
Step 8:- Once you have finish adding all host, close the port and only open this following port number:-

• TCP/8100
• TCP/80
• TCP/443
• TCP/5900
• TCP/3389
• TCP/2179
• TCP/135
• TCP/445

Make sure the firewall port is open bi-directional between VMM and Hyper V Host which behind the firewall. The host should join to domain. If your host is reside in DMZ zone, you need to create a security file.

I even test without install agent locally, it work as well. Remember to close the firewall port and open certain port as mentioned above. :)