Hyper-V 2016

  • 3 October 2016
  • 43 replies
  • 5164 views

Badge +7
When will Hyper-V 2016 be compatible?

This topic has been closed for comments

43 replies

Userlevel 6
Badge +29
Our general hypervisor support policy is here:

http://www.nutanix.com/support/support-faqs/#hypervisor-support

TLDR - ~90 days from GA
Badge +9
Hi John,

Do you have any information on the upgrade process? Are we looking at a rather simple One-Click? Also, will we be able to use Nano-server, and if so is the process the same as an normal One-Click upgrade?

Kind Regards
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
TBD. We've been experimenting with the tech preview with different iterations of how this will look, and we'll see what actually is released by MS once the product goes GA.
Badge +1
Hi All,
Hello Jon,

Any update about Cluster install with Windows server 2016 RTM ?
We have a NX-3000 and we want reinstall a cluster with the last windows server operating system.

Can we have some documentation about fresh install ?
After a crash we have previously need full reinstall cvm with a nutanix support operator and it's not a OneClick process 🙂 .

Thanks you so much for your precious help.

Hava a nice day.

Regards.
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
Windows 2016 is not yet supported, we're still working on the details.

Once we're done with what we need to do on our side, we'd support doing this through Foundation, so the process would be aligned with the field installation guide for Foundation.

Jon
Badge +1
Hi Jon,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Sounds Bad for my team.

When i read compatibility guide i can see :

  • Microsoft major/minor releases (like 2012 R2) are Supported immediately and QA qualified within 90 days of the software GA release date

Windows server 2016 RTM has released oct12 , it's oct 12 + 3 month ?
You think it will be good in January 2017 ?

If you have any information about timeline i got it :)

Thanks you so much Jon

Have a nice day.
Regards.
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
Keep in mind, Windows 2016 in general is a BIG update with quite a lot of changes architecturally (such as nano, etc).

The general thinking is we're going to try to get a Tech Preview out in the first 90 days, so people can start using it in non-production settings. Full support may take a little longer than that, simply because we want to get it right for production setups, rather than rush it in.

This line of thought lines up with what most customers we talk to want to do as well, they aren't in a rush because of all of the rest of their ecosystem (like backup vendors, anti virus, monitoring agents, and other related agents) needs to catch up first.
Badge +7
Do we have any timeframe when Asterix 5.0 will be available?
does it has any fixes for Hyper-V

If we were to deploy 2012R2 now on a 3 nodes cluster, will we be able to upgrade to 2016 by pulling a node from the cluster, re-imaging to 2016 and joining back the cluster again?
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
RE Hyper V upgrade
TBD, I'll ask engineering on their initial 2 cents about this

RE Asterix Release Date
Tenative target is the next 30 days or less. My feeling is that it will be a day with "teen" in the name, but still TBD. Its a big, big, big release, so theres lot of non-engineering stuff that needs to come in line at the same time.

RE Fixes for Hyper-V
As with any release we're always fixing and enhancing things, is there something specific you're looking for to be fixed/enhanced for Hyper-V?
Badge +7
"Tenative target is the next 30 days or less. My feeling is that it will be a day with "teen" in the name,"
Is that a November "teen" or a December "teen"?

Nothing in particular for hyper-v but wodnering how we will be able to upgrade to 2016 with a 3 node cluster. 2016 has a rolling upgrade feature but we would still be missing out on some features like REFS etc as the cluster storage would have already been formatted.

http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=8310
Hoping that Part 2 will have some Hyper-V specific features

We could also move to AHV for our new setup but even that would create a challenge for us namely:

  • the ability to perform backup using our VEEAM backup server
  • using our APC UPS to shutdown the servers cleanly (Still haven't find an easy and documented way to do that from an APC UPS)

A 3 tier infrastrucure has it downside but I can't see how this would be possible with a 3 nodes nutanix cluster (Actually even with more nodes)

RIght now we have 3 Servers running Hyper-v and on a Power outage, after 30 minutes, we live migrate all VMS from one server and then shut it down to give us more runtime, after another 30 minutes, the same scenario happens until there is only 20-30 minutes left and then all vms are turned off and the last server is then shut down as well. When power is restored, all servers are then powered up and re-balanced automatically without me having to ping a Server or Storage. Doing this with CVM would be suicide i reckon...
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
RE Asterix Date
I see you caught my dry humor joke. Internally we're targetting the month of November, but this is a really, really big release, so we want to get it right.

RE Hyper-V 2016
I've forwarded this over to our PM for Hyper-V, so he can respond in more detail cc Raymon

Here's my 2 cents: Keep in mind that Hyper-V 2016 is an absolutely massive new release from Microsoft, which will fundamentally have different considerations for how Nutanix integrates. There are many things to consider; however, the largest is Microsoft's DDA, which is their version of PCI Passthrough.

As you might know, Nutanix uses direct PCI Passthrough of the SAS controller on ESXi, AHV, and XenServer. Hyper-V does not have this same capability in 2012 R2, so we take a different approach currently. We've been clamoring for PCI passthrough for years, to standardize the disk connectivity approach between all four hypervisors we support, and Microsoft is now allowing this in 2016.

That said, Unlike ESXi and AHV, it isn't just a simple passthrough, it requires guest OS kernel changes to support the DDA-enabled devices, so we've had to patch those in, which takes some qualification time.

That's just one low hanging example of what we've got to work through to get 2016 enabled correctly.

RE Hyper-V specific features
Are you looking for something specifically? Or wanting the system to do something it doesn't today? I'm happy to investigate or advocate on your behalf, just let me know.

RE Veeam + AHV
We've talked about this in the past, the ball is in Veeam's court on this one.

RE APC + AHV
APC would need to do work to enhance their PowerChute network shutdown product, that's really the best way to do that. I'll ask our alliances folks to see if we're working with them already.

RE Shutdown sequence
Yes, that would be a challenge with Nutanix (or most SDS products), as in your 3 node cluster, its N+1, so you'd be able to do that with one node, then the whole thing would need to be gracefully shutdown.
Badge +7
Hi Jon

any feedback from Raymon regarding rolling cluster upgrade?
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
I sent him and the PM team an email to get some clarification on this one. I'll bet "yes", but again, this is a massive massive massive shift on Microsoft's part, I have a feeling this is going to be tricky. Looking forward to what Engineering pulls off.
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
word from product management is that yes, this is the plan to support rolling upgrades from 2012 to 2016. Since the feature isn't done yet, we'll have to wait a bit to see exactly what that looks like
Userlevel 2
Badge +5
Just adding my name to list of people eager to see this; I'm been holding off implementing our new block as I'd sooner have 2016 "from the begining" rather than upgrading the block at a later date.
Badge +7
Me too!
Especially if the container has to be formatted as REFS from the get go! I don't think it will be possible to upgrade from NTFS to REFS without destroying the cluster first hence why we are waiting as well.

Now if AHV had VEEAM support we wouldn't be waiting 😛
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
RE File system
eh, what? The container is not formatted with NTFS now, nor any other windows file system, so we couldn't format it with REFS even if we wanted to.

The container is presented, from a protocol perspective, with SMB3. The actual formatting on the filesystem is invisable to windows.

Much like doing a SMB share from a linux box running a XFS or ZFS file system, or ext or something like that, the protocol and the underlying file system are not coupled together.

RE Veeam
You've got that sentence in reverse ... more like if Veeam had AHV support, and let you read into that what you will. Very simply put, we're waiting on them, not the other way around.
Badge +7
Understood! I thought that the container was presented as storage to Windows cluster and we would them need to format it! That makes sense and as long as Nutanix will support cluster rolling upgrade, then we don't have to wait any more time and deploy 2012 R2 and upgrade afterwards. If we were to do it that way, will we be missing any features from an upgrade to 2012 r2 compared to a full install of 2016?
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
It is presented to the cluster as storage, but its SMB3 volume, not a block device that needs to be formatted.

As far as upgrades and such, thats not defined yet, we know we want to support rolling upgrades, but as I mentioned in a prior post, we haven't completed the work on 2016 yet, so we'll have more clarity as time goes on there.
Badge +1
Any update on the progress of this? Little past the 90 day mark now.
Userlevel 6
Badge +29
Mikasa - Thanks for reaching out, right you are.

This is still a work in progress. Microsoft's changed a TON that we need to deal with, so we're taking the time to do it right.


Work with your Nutanix account team to get the forward looking details on when we project this to land, but in this public forum I'll simply say, we're working on this, trying to get this off the ground, at least in tech preview at minimum, by end of calendar Q1 2017. All dates subject to change based on internal progress, but its looking that way.
Badge +1
any update on this thread in term of supportability?
Badge +2
We're keen to see Hyper-V 2016 on the Nutanix platform aswell. Is this the best place be notified for updates / Tracking progress?
Badge +1
Any update for support Hyper-V 2016 & Windows Server 2016? If lets say hyper-v we still continue using 2012 version, can we put client as MS windows 2016?
Badge +1
desmondgooi This is our current setup, 2012r2 hypervisors with '16 on everything apart from SCVMM that also requers 2012 to play nice with the Nutanix platform. Runs perfectly.

Very disapointed with the lack of updates regarding the 2016 Hypervisor support. We'd aimed to be up on 2016 from the get go as we foolishly belived the 90day statement when making the purchase.