Motivation

I need to showcase the capabilities of Windows HPC Server 2008 and for doing so I’ve decided to host 4 VMs that will be part of the cluster.  My VM server only has 4 GB of RAM and I need to make the best usage out of the hardware.  I decided to install Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise as the Server Core option, this would give me more RAM for the VMs to run. I wrote this guide to get your base Windows Server 2008 R2 installation to a full Hyper-V server in a matter of minutes, let me know if it works for you!

Procedure

One of the first things you want to do is enable remote desktop connections:

WMIC RDToggle Where ServerName="%COMPUTERNAME%" Call SetAllowTSConnections AllowTSConnections="1"

Then, enable the firewall to allow RDC:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="RemoteDesktop" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=3389

That’s it in terms of sitting in front of your server core, you can now connect remotely and carry out the rest of the procedures.

If you have not done so already, log-in from a remote computer to your server core box.

Let’s now enable .Net 2.0:

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx2-ServerCore

And now, let’s enable PowerShell:

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell

Download Core Configurator, burn it to a CD/DVD and insert it into the server core box.

Copy all the contents of the DVD to your server core machine, for instance:

xcopy /Y D:\* c:\Program Files\CoreConfiguratorv20\

Open PowerShell:

c:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Enable RemoteExecution policy:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Change directories to the CoreConfigurator directory:

cd "C:\Program Files\CoreConfiguratorv20\"

Launch Core Configurator:

.\CoreConfig.ps1

Now on CoreConfigurator carry out these steps:

1. Click “Computer Settings…”
   
2. Click Roles and Features
   
3. Enable the Hyper-V role and click Apply:
   
4. You will be prompted to Reboot, click Restart now
   

   You machine will reboot and after configuring Windows will reboot once again

   You should now have a full Hyper-V Server Core installation, pat yourself in the back, you deserve it.  Now…how do you do stuff with it?  Well, first and foremost, CoreConfigurator has a Hyper-V settings button:

From that setting you should be able to start/stop VMs:

But what about controlling the Hyper-V settings from a Hyper-V manager from another machine?  The good news is that is possible, and the bad news is that is not straightforwards.  Luckily for us, John Howard was cool enough to write a utility that enables a much easier configuration: the Hyper-V Remote Management Configuration Utility

Read the instructions carefully and you should be able to control your Server Core Hyper-V from a remote Hyper-V machine:

Last week was Supercomputing 09 in Portland Oregon. We had the great opportunity to assist with setup and demos, which all turned out quite good.

Microsoft’s booth was huge this year, we had about 12 demo booths and people showed lots of interest in partner demos and Microsoft demos alike. A partner demo that particularly called my attention was Adaptive Computing (formerly Cluster Resources), which had an on-demand solution for provisioning an HPC cluster with either Linux or Windows machines.

Unfortunately, my camera decided to die at the event and it was until the last day that I managed to get a replacement. I took the following pics of the Microsoft booth way early in the a.m., so there no one was at the show.

BTW, the whole booth was created by SOEST, who have been building amazing trade show exhibits for quite some time, and I think the pictures speak for themselves:

The booths looked quite futuristic

The theme was taking flight with HPC Server 2008

A flight simulator was placed at the middle of the booth, pretty sweet.

Meeting place in front of the flight simulator

This was Eric Lantz’s booth, which had a real time rendering of car that was sent to 15 partner booths across the show floor.

Information booth, the machine at the right was a demo Cray (about $35K for one of those puppies)

Front of the booth.

This was the theatre where live HPC presentations took place througout the day.

Kudos to both Amys, Fred, and Doug, who made the event a complete success and whom are always a pleasure to work with.