BUILDING

A HYPER-V 2016
CLUSTER
FOR UNDER

$2500
CONTENTS
Highlights............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Shopping List..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Optimal Items.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Parts Usage Assessment................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8
Unboxing and Assembling the Items.......................................................................................................................................................................10
A Pictorial Guide to the Components......................................................................................................................................................................10
Hyper-V Host Assemply.................................................................................................................................................................................................17
1. Storage Server Only: Insert Drives in the Upper Drive Bay.......................................................................................................................18
2. Insert Drives in the Lower Drive Bay...................................................................................................................................................................21
3. Install Memory.............................................................................................................................................................................................................21
4. Install Network Adapters.........................................................................................................................................................................................21
Closing Up..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................23
Configure the Hyper-V Hosts BIOS..........................................................................................................................................................................24
Boot Sequence..................................................................................................................................................................................................................24
Sata Operation: RAID on...............................................................................................................................................................................................25
Smart Reporting: Enable Smart Reporting..........................................................................................................................................................26
TPM Security: Activate..................................................................................................................................................................................................27
CPU XD support: Enable CPU XD support..............................................................................................................................................................28
Intel SpeedStep: Disabled......................................................................................................................................................................................28
C-States Control: Disable C States...........................................................................................................................................................................28
Deep Sleep Control: Disable Deep Sleep Control...............................................................................................................................................29
Virtualization: Enable Entel-Virtualization to Technolody.............................................................................................................................29
VT for Direct I/O: Enable VT for Direct I/O..............................................................................................................................................................30
Trusted Execution: Enable Trusted Execution.....................................................................................................................................................31
Applying BIOS Changes.................................................................................................................................................................................................31
Configuring the Storage Hosts BIOS......................................................................................................................................................................32
Configuring Intel Active Management on the Hyper-V Hosts........................................................................................................................32
Configuring AMT with a Web Browser....................................................................................................................................................................33
Remote Power Control..................................................................................................................................................................................................34
AMT Network Settings...................................................................................................................................................................................................35
AMT User Configuration................................................................................................................................................................................................36
Accessing AMT with KVM Software...........................................................................................................................................................................36
Accessing an Intel AMT Host with MeshCommander........................................................................................................................................37
Configuring RAID.............................................................................................................................................................................................................41
Installing an Operating System.................................................................................................................................................................................45
Installing from USB Key................................................................................................................................................................................................45
Installing via AMT............................................................................................................................................................................................................46
Where to Go From Here.................................................................................................................................................................................................48
About Altaro.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................49
About Eric Siron...............................................................................................................................................................................................................51

2
HIGHLIGHTS
The tighter your budget is, the greater the challenge of meeting the needs of your
computing infrastructure. Whether youre a very small business trying to achieve
superior uptime in an always-on customer service world or an administrator in a not-
so-small business trying to test new software without impacting live systems, you need
something more than just a basic host.

This document outlines an inexpensive build for a fully-functional and extensible

system that can support a two node cluster of Hyper-V hosts with independent storage.
This design is suitable for production purposes in a small business or as a test lab.

Highlights of this build:

Two hosts that support the most-requested features in Hyper-V Server 2016

Quad-core Intel CPU (Xeon E3-1225 v3)

16 GB of RAM

250 GB fault-tolerant internal storage

5x 1GbE connections for teamed and multi-channel connectivity

Out-of-band remote console connectivity, even when powered off

One host that acts as a NAS

Dual-core Intel CPU (G3220)

12 GB of RAM

6 TB usable fault-tolerant internal storage

3x 1GbE connections for MPIO and/or SMB Multipath connectivity

Smart 24-port switch that includes such features as 802.1q VLAN and LACP
port aggregation

Upgradable hosts

3
Notes about this build, including limitations

The original incarnation of this cluster was built during the fifth Technology
Preview iteration (TP5) of Windows Server 2016. It has since been updated to
the production release of 2016 without issues. This document does not explain
how to install or configure Hyper-V Server or Windows Server 2016, but I have
verified that the new operating system does work well on this hardware.

The pricing mentioned in the title does not include any Windows operating
systems or any software licenses. You are responsible for properly licensing
your environment.

The storage host is internally redundant, but represents a single-point of

failure. A second, similar host could be purchased and configured with backup
and/or replication technology, including Storage Replica.

The RAID controllers in each of these systems is not based on dedicated

hardware. For the hosts that doesnt matter because the most performance-
dependent virtual machines will not be stored locally. For the storage server
it should not matter because the host will not be doing anything except
performing storage functions. A hardware RAID alternative will be covered in
the shopping list section better yet, it wont take you much over the $2500
line.

The manufacturers material on the server indicates that it supports 4x 3.5

drives and 2x 2.5 drives, but that the additional drives require an expansion
kit. I was unable to locate any such expansion kit. There will be more about
storage options in the section of this document devoted to the storage server.

The manufacturers material indicates a total of 6 possible drives, but the

motherboard only has power and data connectors for 4. This will be discussed
further in the shopping list section.

As built in this document, each Hyper-V host will have 16GB of RAM. It will
leave two slots open for an additional 16GB. These hosts are limited by the
Intel CPUs to a maximum of 32GB of RAM.

The storage host uses an Intel G3220 processor which does not share the
same feature set as the Xeon E3-1225 CPU in the Hyper-V hosts. This host does
not support hardware TPM (helpful for BitLocker and related tech), will not

4
 support nested virtualization, and (arguably most importantly) cannot run the
Intel AMT software for out-of-band remote management.

The RAID controller supports RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-10, and RAID-5.

Most of the available internal slots will be used during this build, thereby
limiting your future expansion options. If you have other hardware add-ons in
mind, please refer to the sections on each host for more information.

There is no monitor, keyboard, or mouse included in this build.

SHOPPING LIST
In order to achieve optimal pricing, I purchased through Amazon. Stock amounts and
pricing will vary. I did forego some cheaper alternatives so that I was always buying
from a vendor that used Amazon as the distributor (will either say nothing about
the seller or will be marked as Fulfilled by Amazon) because it seems fairly common
for people to have better experiences that way. As I browsed, I saw notes from other
customers indicating that the Intel network adapters in particular were commonly
counterfeited. Before ordering anything, please read the rest of this section and the
Parts Usage and Assessment section so that you understand how your purchase will be
put to use.

REFERENCE PRICE
ITEM LINK QUANTITY (USD)

Dell PowerEdge T20 amazon.com/dp/ 2 $509.00

(Host) B01LKQJCBK

Dell PowerEdge T20 amazon.com/dp/ 1 $349.00

(Storage) B00IF7RDZK

Dual Port NIC amazon.com/dp/ 5 $42.90

B000BMZHX2

Memory amazon.com/gp/ 2 $125.00

product/B008EMA5VU

Hyper-V Host Drives amazon.com/gp/ 4 $18.65

product/B001VKY8GA

Storage Host Drives amazon.com/gp/ 4 $60.00

product/B005T3GRN2

5
 REFERENCE PRICE
ITEM LINK QUANTITY (USD)

Network Switch amazon.com/gp/ 1 $157.95

product/B00I5W5EGA

Uninterruptible Power amazon.com/gp/ 1 $166

Supply product/B009TZTGWK

On the day that I priced these items for this document, the total price is $2,471.
If youre in the United States and have Prime shipping, thats the all-in cost.

OPTIONAL ITEMS
If you double the memory purchase, you can upgrade the two Hyper-V hosts to their
CPU-limited maximum of 32GB.

I chose to use the on-chip RAID controller for all of the systems. It will not provide the
same level of protection and performance as a fully hardware-based RAID controller.
For the design methodology that I have in mind, the performance difference will not be
measurable, and certainly not detectable during any production load that is otherwise
adequately scaled to this hardware. The improved protection of hardware RAID would
be the primary driving factor behind an upgrade. The secondary reason would be to use
more than 5 drives. If you wish to employ a hardware RAID controller, you will need the
following:

REFERENCE PRICE
ITEM LINK QUANTITY
(USD)

RAID Controller amazon.com/gp/ 1 $151.00

product/B0050SLTPC

SAS to SATA Connector amazon.com/gp/ 1 $19.00

product/B001L9DU88

For less than $200, this will get you a fully-functional hardware-based RAID with
many desirable features, including data scrubbing. It does not have a battery backup,
unfortunately, but that should be covered by the UPS.

If you wish to use more than four drives, youll need additional power connectors and
additional SATA connectors. The RAID card and cable listed above will cover the data

6
connectors. For additional SATA power connections, you will need the following item
(or something similar):

REFERENCE PRICE
ITEM LINK QUANTITY (USD)

SATA Power Splitter amazon.com/gp/ 1 $6.00

product/B0086OGN9E

With all of these options, your total buy-in will still be within a few hundred dollars of
the $2500 USD target.

To make things a little cheaper, look at your network adapters. I chose dual port Intel
adapters because many shops prefer to go with familiar, big brand names. Theres
nothing directly wrong with these adapters; theyve worked well in my system.
However, theyre an older model, and one feature that they are missing is RSS.
According to the specification sheet, they support a single RSS queue, but that isnt
really helpful. I know that the Syba models with the Realtek 8111 chipset support RSS
(ex: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HH5YEKC/). If you do some shopping around, you
can find dual port adapters for less than $20 USD.

7
PARTS USAGE ASSESSMENT
Before you buy anything, lets take a look at how all of the parts in the previous section
are going to be put to use. This will help you to understand what youre using your
money on and will help you think of ideas of how you might modify the build to better
suit your own situation.

The basic steps that I am going to take are:

1. Remove the RAM that ships with each of the Hyper-V hosts and use it to extend
the RAM in the storage server.

2. Use the purchased memory kits in each Hyper-V host so that they have 16GB.

3. Remove the 1TB drives that ship with the Hyper-V hosts. Replace them with a
pair of 250GB drives in a RAID-1 mirror.

4. Place all four of the 2TB drives in the Shopping List inside the storage server.
Use the on-chip RAID controller to configure it as a RAID-5.

5. Install two of the dual-port Intel NICs in the Hyper-V hosts.

6. Install the remaining dual-port Intel NIC in the storage host.

7. Configure the smart switch with trunked LAGs for the Hyper-V hosts to use
convergence.

8. Connect all devices to the UPS in the Shopping List. The USB connector and
control software will be on the storage server. It will have a power-outage
response script that shuts down all of the virtual machines and the two
Hyper-V hosts prior to shutting down the storage server.

Some other thoughts, including things that you need to be aware of before buying
these systems:

The two Hyper-V hosts ship with a DVD drive, but the storage server does
not. As configured, it wont have anywhere to put a DVD drive. I personally
deployed Windows Server from a USB key. Other options for OS deployment
would be an external DVD drive or PXE booting.

I dont have any alternative use in mind for the 1TB drives that ship with

8
 the Hyper-V hosts. If you like, you can just use those for Hyper-V without
redundancy. For no more usage than theyll see, your danger levels are low.
I will be running domain controllers from local storage, so I prefer to have
redundancy. Another option would be to replace and/or augment the internal
storage with one or more SSDs, which will increase reliability and boot speed.
The cost of SSD will not really provide a reasonable return and will limit any
options that you would have to use local storage on the hosts. A third option
would be to purchase additional 1TB drives instead of multiple 250GB drives
to mirror the drives that ship with the hosts. The reason I didnt do that was
because I didnt know anything about the internal drives in advance and I
prefer to mirror matched drives.

Ive repeatedly said that the reports of the demise of RAID-5 have been very
premature and I stand beside that statement (as do the statistics). However, I
dont think that I would use any larger drives than the 2TB disks that I selected
for this build in a RAID-5 configuration. If I did, I would be certain to purchase
the hardware RAID controller so that I could perform data scrubs. Thats more
about reliability of large platters than anything else. Performance isnt much
of an issue since, in a four-spindle array, RAID-10 will not be much faster than
RAID-5 in any usage. The difference is certainly not meaningful in traditionally
read-heavy server usage. If your usage will be write-heavy, consider using
RAID-10. If youd rather use larger disks, choose RAID-10.

9
UNBOXING AND ASSEMBLING THE ITEMS
The following discussion will take you through assembling all of the items from the
original Shopping List. There is no direct coverage of the optional items, because I do
not have those.

A PICTORIAL GUIDE TO THE COMPONENTS

Netgear GS724T smart switch:

Crucial 16GB memory kit (2):

10
Seagate ST2000DM001 2 terabyte hard drive (4):

11
Western Digital WD2500AVVS 250GB hard drive (4):

12
Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Network Adapter (5):

13
Tripp Lite SMART1500LCDT Smart Uninterruptible Power Supply:

14
Hyper-V Host (2):

15
Storage Server host:

16
HYPER-V HOST ASSEMBLY
Start by removing the sides from the server computers. These cases can be opened
without tools. Simply lift up on the lever at the top of the cases right panel (when
viewed from the front), then pull the side away:

This is an inside shot of the storage server:

Ive marked where were going to work in the order that were going to tackle the items.

17
1. STORAGE SERVER ONLY: INSERT DRIVES IN THE UPPER DRIVE BAY
This is probably the most difficult part of what were going to do, which you should take
as very good news because its not difficult at all. First, we need to remove the front of
the case. There are four fairly large black tabs along the front edge. Just lift them up
and the front will hinge off from the opposite side.

With the front removed, next you need to slide the drive bay. Pull downward on the

18
large blue retaining clip in the same direction as the arrow. It doesnt move far, just
enough to clear the mounting screw. While holding that in its extended position, push/
pull the drive bay so that it slides out from the front of the chassis:

Now you need to extract the blue drive carriers from the cage. They pull right out.

19
Inserting a drive into a carrier is a mostly straightforward process. The carriers plastic is
very flexible, so you just need to bend it enough to place the drive inside. There are four
metal posts that align with the drives normal mounting holes, so you will only be able
to seat the drive comfortably if it is in the correct orientation:

Once you have both drives in the carriers, insert them into the drive bay. They cannot
be comfortably inserted in an incorrect orientation. With the drives placed, reinsert the
bay into the chassis and reinstall the front cover. Unhook the cabling from beneath the
cage and connect the drives to power and data.

20
2. INSERT DRIVES IN THE LOWER DRIVE BAY
The drive carriers in the lower drive bay pull straight out. Load the drives into the
carriers and return them to the bay. The last photo in the preceding sub-section
illustrates how drives are loaded. Connect the power and data cables that are
conveniently located nearby.

3. INSTALL MEMORY
Remove the memory sticks from the two Hyper-V hosts and install them in the storage
server. The best configuration will be to use slots 1, 2, and 3 (two leftmost and the
rightmost slot). This will allow the first 8GB of RAM to be dual-channel while the final
4GB will only be single-channel. I remember being very stressed about the memory
layout in my first computer that supported dual-channel memory and I know that a lot
of people still are. Let me assure you that, in the intervening 20ish years since that first
computer, I have never once been affected in any way whether using single- or dual-
channel memory. Not once. This is a storage server. It doesnt matter.

Install a pair of 8 GB memory sticks in each of the Hyper-V hosts. Use the slots with the
white clips: second from the left and the rightmost. They are numbered 1 and 2. Single-
channel vs. dual-channel doesnt really matter here either, but no point in not getting
dual if its possible.

4. INSTALL NETWORK ADAPTERS

Installing the network adapters is also a tool-less procedure probably. If you look at
section 4 of the screenshot at the start of this section, youll see a black tab with a blue
square on the rear edge of the case near the bottom. Lifting this tab outward from the
inside of the case will release all four of the slot covers. In the Hyper-V hosts, install a
dual-port network adapter in the top slot and in the bottom slot. In the storage host,
you can install the remaining dual-port adapter in either slot. If youre going to be using
an add-in RAID controller, I would recommend placing the RAID controller in the top
slot as it has faster bus access that the dual-port adapter will not need.

I did have a slight issue with a couple of the server slots. For as long as I can remember,
add-in cards have shipped with their slot covers slightly bent at the edge that inserts

21
into the computer. It helps to create some tension between the card and the outside of
the case which increases stability. However, some of the adapters would not seat until
I used a pair of pliers to slightly straighten the slot cover. I did some testing with the
different cards that I had and determined that the problem was the server computer,
not the cards.

22
CLOSING UP
All of your work is now complete. Close the hosts up.

The UPS has enough capacity to run the hosts and the switch from battery. You might
not want to place them in their final home until youve had a chance to discover the
matching of physical adapters to the Windows representation, but other than that, the
physical work is over.

23
CONFIGURE THE HYPER-V HOSTS BIOS
Youre going to need to make several changes to the BIOS setup of the Hyper-V hosts.
You are certainly welcome to use UEFI mode, but I kept with the traditional BIOS route
because UEFI adds nothing for me.

Because youve changed the memory layout since the host shipped, its first boot will
prompt you to enter BIOS. Go ahead and press F2 when prompted. If you missed that,
you can press F2 at any time during the Dell logo screen to enter BIOS.

These are the options that I used:

BOOT SEQUENCE
My screenshot is going to look a little confusing, and will be different from what you
see. Thats because I configured my system before coming back to get screenshots.
The order that you want to select is CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive, then whatever shows for
your primary hard disk, and finally the USB Storage Device. If youll be PXE booting for
installation, the Onboard NIC should come next.

24
SATA OPERATION: RAID ON
All three of my hosts will use the on-chip RAID controller, so it must be enabled in BIOS.
The default is RAID On, so this should be nothing more than confirmation.

25
SMART REPORTING: ENABLE SMART REPORTING
As far as I know, this really only takes effect during boot-up and is only visible if
youre in front of the screen. I will be using other ways to know if my drives are failing.
However, I dont know of any negatives of having SMART enabled, so I turned it on.

26
TPM SECURITY: ACTIVATE
The very first time that you access this screen, it will only have a single check-box
named TPM Security. If you check it and then click Apply, TPM is enabled (Trusted
Platform Module). You will need to leave and return for the other options to be enabled.
You then need to set the option to Activated in order for TPM to work. The text says that
the change takes effect immediately, which is sort of true. The options that depend
upon TPM do not become available until you restart the system. I did not change any of
the other items.

27
CPU XD SUPPORT: ENABLE CPU XD SUPPORT
I did not screenshot this option. There is only the single checkbox, and it is checked by
default. XD is Intels no-execute option. It is required for Hyper-V.

INTEL SPEEDSTEP: DISABLED

I did not screenshot this option either. Disable SpeedStep on your Hyper-V hosts as
power management features can have several impacts on virtualization performance.

C-STATES CONTROL: DISABLE C STATES

C States can have an extremely detrimental effect on Hyper-V virtualization, especially
Live Migration.

28
DEEP SLEEP CONTROL: DISABLE DEEP SLEEP CONTROL
I did not capture a screenshot for this item. Windows/Hyper-V should prevent the
host from ever entering deep sleep anyway, but do ensure that it is disabled in BIOS.
Disabled is the default.

VIRTUALIZATION: ENABLE INTEL VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGY

This is the basic checkbox for Hyper-V virtualization support. It will enable most
features on its own. It is required.

29
VT FOR DIRECT I/O: ENABLE VT FOR DIRECT I/O
VT is the advanced checkbox for Hyper-V virtualization support. It is required for
nested Hyper-V.

30
TRUSTED EXECUTION: ENABLE TRUSTED EXECUTION
Trusted Execution will allow for additional protections via the TPM module. This feature
will not even appear on your storage server. While its not especially required, especially
in a low-security organization, there is no harm in enabling it. If the option is grayed
out, you either did not fully enable the TPM or you have not rebooted since enabling
the TPM.

APPLYING BIOS CHANGES

Once youve got all of the settings the way that you like them, Apply saves them. Exit
restarts the host. Repeat the above for the other Hyper-V host.

31
CONFIGURING THE STORAGE HOSTS BIOS
Im not going to show screenshots for the storage hosts BIOS, mostly because the
storage host doesnt support AMT and I would have to use my cellphone camera.
Fortunately, you dont necessarily need to configure anything anyway. I did enable
as many of the virtualization options as are available, since I will most likely use the
storage server to run Hyper-V for testing and demonstrating Hyper-V Replica. I also
enabled SMART reporting, even though its not any more useful on the storage server
than it is on the Hyper-V hosts.

CONFIGURING INTEL ACTIVE MANAGEMENT ON

THE HYPER-V HOSTS
Intels Active Management Technology (AMT) allows for all sorts of remote
management, including out-of-band KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) operations. Its
not as convenient or full-featured as other solutions, but its included with your two
Hyper-V hosts at no additional charge. It was used to take all of the BIOS screenshots
that you saw previously. Once enabled, AMT shares the onboard controller.

Unfortunately, AMT is designed so that I cant KVM to the host while Im configuring
AMT. So, I cant show you how to configure it. I will tell you enough to get started,
though.

If you dont want to read my text-only list, Intel has a document that can guide you
through a couple of options for configuring AMT. They do not use the local console like
my directions. I did not test them to ensure that they work. The document is available
at: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/vpro-
setup-and-configuration-guide-for-intel-vpro-technology-based-pcs-guide.pdf

To starting configuring AMT manually:

1. During boot-up, while the Dell logo is visible, press CTRL+P.

2. Press Enter on MEBx Login. The default password is admin. You will be
required to change it on first login. The password must be complex; the error
message you receive if your password isnt complex enough is very generic.
From the Intel documentation, the password must be a minimum of eight
characters in length with at least one of each of the following:

a. Numeric

32
 b. Uppercase letter

c. Lowercase letter

d. Non-alpha (the documentation says that underscores are considered

alphanumeric, but doesnt say which of the first three that it counts as)

3. Enter the AMT Configuration area, then the network settings area. Press Enter
on Activate Network Access. Configure any other options that youd like.

At this point, youve done enough for remote access to work immediately, although
it might behave a bit oddly. What I did was dive in to the AMT configuration and set
a static IP address. From there, it worked automatically with AMT-compatible KVM
software (which Ill talk about after this). I did start by using DHCP, which also worked,
but DNS didnt pick it up, so I couldnt find it. I would not spend much time in the text-
mode setup, because

CONFIGURING AMT WITH A WEB BROWSER

Once AMT has a password, you can access it via http://amt-ip:16992 in a web browser.
The default username is admin, with the password that you specified above. There
are a few information screens. For instance, I can see here that my CPU socket does
indeed have a CPU in it, which is very important:

33
For some reason, the Disk tab only shows disk 0 and 1. In my system, disk 0 is the DVD
drive, which I really dont care about. You might consider re-arranging the SATA data
cables so that disk 0 and 1 are the two drives in your RAID-1 configuration.

The items past all of the informational screens are where the real usefulness will be
found. They do most of the things that the text-mode configurator does and some that
it doesnt.

REMOTE POWER CONTROL

Switch to the Remote Control tab, shown below:

On the right, you can see several options. If your host is ever completely hung up, or you
believe that the operating system has been compromised, you can force it to power off.
Just select the item that you wish and click the Send Command button.

34
AMT NETWORK SETTINGS
This is actually the way that I initially switched from DHCP to static, not through the
text-mode interface.

35
AMT USER CONFIGURATION
I did not add anyone to my AMT because Im fine with the default admin account, so
this screenshot probably does nothing for you:

Using the Change Admin button, you can change the AMT administrators user name
and password.

ACCESSING AMT WITH KVM SOFTWARE

Intel provides AMT with KVM ability, but they do not directly provide any free KVM client
software that I can find. I think that I saw hints of an enterprise management suite that
will do it, but Im guessing that the reason that I didnt find it directly is because theyre
not going to give it to us for free.

I found three applications that will connect to the KVM, but after some time tinkering
with all of them, Im only going to recommend one.

1. MeshCommander: http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcommander

36
MeshCommander is free, its open source, and its rock solid. Use this one.

2. Spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com

Spiceworks includes a great many things in one package. It does system monitoring
and device discovering and help desk ticket tracking and all sorts of other things. Intel
has made an AMT plugin available for it. However, Spiceworks is very heavy (needs a
Windows server) and after two weeks of use, the KVM tool of the AMT plugin simply
stopped working for me. There were no errors or warnings, it was just gone. Nothing
I did brought it back. If you want to use Spiceworks for all of its other capabilities,
thats fine. If youre just looking for Intel AMT support, MeshCommander is a drastically
superior choice.

3. RealVNCs Viewer Plus: https://www.realvnc.com/download/viewerplus/

I assume that most administrators have used some VNC tool at one point in their career,
and RealVNC seems to be fairly common. Among other things, the paid Plus version
adds support for Intel AMT KVM. It costs money though, which on its own isnt a terrible
thing. What is a terrible thing is that Viewer Plus struggles to maintain connectivity. I
suffered frequent connection drops using the same desktop computer and target hosts
that neither MeshCommander nor the Spiceworks plugin had any troubles with. Viewer
Plus also does not have the range of capabilities that MeshCommander enjoys. Unless
youve already got a paid copy of RealVNC Viewer Plus, I would not recommend it.

ACCESSING AN INTEL AMT HOST WITH MESHCOMMANDER

MeshCommander is a very straightforward application to use. Start by downloading
and installing the application (http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcommander).
I wont detail everything that this app can do, but I will show you how to get connected
to a host and view its console.

1. In the center of the main screen, go to File->Add Intel AMT Computer or click
the Adding link in the center of the main window:

37
2. Fill out the Add Computer dialog with the necessary information. You dont
necessarily need to supply anything for Grouping Tags. Leave the Auth/
Security setting at Digest / None if using AMT defaults.

3. Upon clicking OK, youll be returned to the main screen where the host that
you entered is now displayed. Click the Connect button at its right:

38
4. Wait a few moments for everything to populate. When its loaded, click the
blue next to the right of Active Features. In the following screenshot, it
currently says Redirection Port, Serial-over-LAN, IDE-Redirect.

5. In the Intel AMT Features dialog, check KVM Remote Desktop. OK out.

39
Switch to the Remote Desktop tab and click the Connect button. Youll be
rewarded with whatever is currently on the console of the target system. If you
need to send a CTRL+ALT+DEL, theres a button in the lower left.

Ill leave it to you to explore the rest of the application.

40
CONFIGURING RAID
I wasnt able to capture a solid screen shot of the controllers prompt during boot,
but youll see it if you watch for it. CTRL+I is the hotkey combination. If youre having
trouble with video initializing too slowly, just start slowly pressing the combination
during the Dell logo screen and you should have no troubles.

I will illustrate how to build the RAID-1 array for your hosts. I cannot display the RAID-5
or -10 build that youll use on your storage server because it does not have an AMT, but I
will talk about the options that youll need to pick.

Upon entering the RAID interface, youll see all of the available physical disks as non-
RAID.

Start by pressing Enter with 1. Create RAID Volume highlighted. This will take you to
the CREATE VOLUME MENU.

41
The first thing that youll need to do is name the volume. On my first go-round, I named
my volume Hyper-V. The first host accepted it, but the second one rejected it because
it decided that the hyphen was a special character and didnt like it. I recommend
that you not use any special characters. Enter the name that you like and press TAB to
switch to the RAID Level field.

Special note for the storage server: I chose to create two separate logical disks on my
storage servers RAID array. The first is for Windows and the second is for everything
else. If youre going to do that as well, name and size this RAID volume for Windows.

Your options for RAID Level will be automatically made available depending on what
the host detects in the system. For the Hyper-V hosts, your choices will be RAID-0 or
RAID-1. The storage server will allow you to choose between RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5,
and RAID-10. For the Hyper-V host, use the up and down arrow keys to select RAID-1.
For the storage server, use the up and down arrow keys to select RAID-5 or RAID-10,
depending on which you prefer.

42
When you pick RAID-1 with two disks, the system figures out what to do. Therefore,
everything except Capacity is unavailable.

For a RAID-5, youll need to select the disks that are to be part of the array. TAB to that
field and press Enter. Youll be shown a screen with all available disks. Use the up and
down arrows to move between them and press Spacebar to select them. A selected disk
will have a green triangle to its left. When youre done selecting disks, press Enter.

For a RAID other than 1, youll need to select the Strip[sic] Size. Ive read a lot of
material on choosing the optimal stripe size throughout my career, including recently,
and I still dont have a clear view of whats really important. The wider the stripe (the
more bits), the more data that must be read or written in a single pass. For writing out
long chunks of data in sequence, a wide stripe is sort of a natural choice. A narrow
stripe allows the system to store smaller chunks of data more effectively, but reading
and writing larger amounts of data requires more I/O operations to do the same
amount of work. So, I just chose a 64KB stripe width for my RAID-5 just like I have for
years. If you spent the time to benchmark them all out, I think that youd only see
meaningful differences between the very smallest and the very largest, and which way
it went would depend upon the criteria of your benchmark. 64KB will result in a solid
all-purpose storage array.

43
Your final choice here is Capacity. For the Hyper-V hosts, I left it at its default of
allocating all capacity to create a single volume. On the storage host, I created a 100GB
volume named Windows. When that was created, I went back in and created another
volume that contained the rest of the space in a volume called Storage. This controller
only allows you to create two volumes per array.

The final step is to Create Volume. TAB to that and press Enter. Youll be prompted one
final time to create the volume. Press Y to confirm.

Youll be returned to the main screen. Verify that you now have a RAID volume defined
and that it is built the way that you desire. If you need to create another volume on
remaining space, start with option 1 again. If you made a mistake, you can use option 2
to delete a particular volume or option 3 to throw out everything. Once youre satisfied,
choose option 6 (or press ESC). The host will reboot.

44
INSTALLING AN OPERATING SYSTEM
On the Hyper-V hosts, you can install using the DVD drive in the traditional fashion. I
wont cover that. Also on the Hyper-V hosts, you can install using AMT. On any of the
hosts, you can install from a USB key.

INSTALLING FROM USB KEY

I like the USB key installation method because its all but foolproof and you can easily
add things that you want to the installation image. I outlined one method for preparing
a USB key as a bootable ISO in the beginning of this blog article: http://www.altaro.
com/hyper-v/free-script-configure-a-hyper-v-host/. Thats pretty easy, but I found an
even easier way. First, get the ISO of Windows Server or Hyper-V Server that you want to
install. Next, go to this article: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-
usb-dvd-download-tool. Its got instructions for and a link to a download tool on
Codeplex that will prepare the USB key for you.

45
Insert the prepared USB key into the host and press F12 during boot to select the USB
drive.

Windows installation will proceed just as it would from a DVD drive, and be faster as
well.

INSTALLING VIA AMT

As much as I want to like the ability to use AMT to install Windows, its my least
favorite. The remote control session uses VNC and VNC is just not a reliable connection
method. If its what you must do, then its what you must do. This is one thing that
MeshCommander turned out to be really awful at, so I would actually say that either of
the other tools are superior for this one task.

46
These instructions are for MeshCommander.

1. Connect to the host as shown earlier and switch to the Remote Desktop tab.

2. Shut the system down, if its not already off.

3. On the toolbar, click IDE-R:

4. On the Storage Redirection dialog, click the Choose File button on the .ISO
line.

5. Its strange, but you must pick something for the IMG file as well. I renamed an
empty text file to have an IMG extension and it liked that just fine. I also picked
a different ISO without renaming it, and it liked that too. Nothing worked when
I added an image to a powered-on system, though.

6. On the toolbar, click Power Actions.

47
 7. In the Power Actions dialog, click Power on to IDE-R CDROM.

8. The system will turn on immediately. Close the Power Actions dialog and
watch the screen. Youll be prompted to press any key in order to boot from
the image.

Even though this method works (usually), it is extremely slow and prone to disconnects.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

This document introduced you to a solid build for a small business or a test lab
environment. I encourage you to explore it further; especially learn what the AMT can
do for you. Set up the storage server to host an SMB share for your hosts. If you dont
like Windows, look into alternative operating systems to load for storage and host iSCSI
connections.

Look to the Altaro blog for guidance on configuring a full-blown cluster environment.

The UPS can be attached to one of your hosts via a USB connection to signal a loss of
power. Its got plenty of available battery to operate all three hosts and the switch, so
use the connected host to trigger an orderly shutdown of all three.

Expect to see many references to this cluster in my future articles and eBooks on the
Altaro blog. Happy computing!

48
ABOUT ALTARO
Altaro Software (www.altaro.com) is a fast growing developer of easy to use backup
solutions used by over 30,000 customers to back up and restore both Hyper-V and
VMware-based virtual machines, built specifically for Small and mid-market business
with up to 50 host servers. Altaro take pride in their software and their high level of
personal customer service and support, and it shows; Founded in 2009, Altaro already
service over 30,000 satisfied customers worldwide and are a Gold Microsoft Partner for
Application Development and Technology Alliance VMware Partner.

ABOUT ALTARO VM BACKUP

Altaro VM Backup is an easy to use backup software solution used by over 30,000 Small
and mid-market business customers to back up and restore both Hyper-V and VMware-
based virtual machines. Eliminate hassle and headaches with an easy-to-use interface,
straightforward setup and a backup solution that gets the job done every time.

Altaro VM Backup is intuitive, feature-rich and you get outstanding support as part of
the package. Demonstrating Altaros dedication to Hyper-V, they were the first backup
provider for Hyper-V to support Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 and also continues
support Windows Server 2008 R2.

For more information on features and pricing, please visit:

http://www.altaro.com/vm-backup

Dont take our word for it Take it for a spin!

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY OF ALTARO VM BACKUP

and enjoy unlimited functionality for 30 days. After your 30-day trial expires you can
continue using the product for up to 2 VMs for free, forever. No catch!

49
50
ABOUT ERIC SIRON

I have worked in the information technology field since 1998. I have designed,
deployed, and maintained server, desktop, network, and storage systems. I provided
all levels of support for businesses ranging from single-user through enterprises with
thousands of seats.

Along the way, I have achieved a number of Microsoft certifications and was a Microsoft
Certified Trainer for four years. In 2010, I deployed a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 system and
began writing about my experiences. Since then, I have been writing regular blogs and
contributing what I can to the Hyper-V community through forum participation and free
scripts.

51
FOLLOW ALTARO
Like our eBook? Theres more!

Subscribe to our Hyper-V blog http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v and receive best

practices, tips, free Hyper-V PowerShell scripts and more here: http://www.altaro.com/
hyper-v/sign-up

Follow Altaro at:

SHARE THIS RESOURSE!

Liked the eBook? Share it now on:

52