Live Export a Running Virtual Machine or a Checkpoint

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A remarkably little known feature in Windows Sever 2012 R2 (and Windows 8.1)  is the ability to export one or multiple running virtual machines.

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You just select right click in the Hyper-V manager and select Export from the context menu and follow the wizard to select an export location. Easy. This is also possible via PowerShell so you can automate this. The result is a VM you can import which gives you a copy of the original virtual machine in a saved state, at the point in time that you exported it.

More people seem to know about the capability to export a checkpoint of a running virtual machine, not so many of the capability to export a running VM itself. I noticed this because some people figured the latter was a new feature in Windows 2016. No it’s not. We’ve had this option since Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

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So why even have the option of exporting a checkpoint of a running VM? Because this enables you to have exports from various points in time, which is pretty cool and handy during test and development and trouble shooting or lab work. As a standard checkpoint has state in Windows Server 2012 R2 I prefer to shut down the VM, create a checkpoint and start the VM again. When I then export that checkpoint I don’t have to worry about the state in the VM at that point in time as it was shut down.

For some workloads this isn’t a big deal bit for some this is not a great experience, hence the fact that checkpoints are “”not supported in production but for test and dev.

In Windows Server 2016 we now have production checkpoints. That means that when we apply such checkpoints we have a consistent state just like when we restore VM from a backup. You’ll have to boot it up after applying the checkpoint, they do not appear running with the state at the time the snapshot was taken. Well, not unless you opt to create standard checkpoints. The reduces the need for me to shut down a VM before I create a checkpoint to export in many cases.

When you export a running VM in Windows Server 2016 you’ll have a copy of it in saved state. Just like you did in Windows Server 2012 R2, no change there. When you import that you’ll have a VM in saved state that you need to start up. If you want an application consistent copy, create a production checkpoint first and export that one.

So there you go. The feature to live export a running virtual machine was here before and it’s still here. The real extra capability with live exports comes from leveraging the live export of a checkpoint of a running virtual machine and the fact that we now have production checkpoints.

E2EVC 2016 Dublin

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So after 4 days in London with the Veeam Vanguards I’m hopping over the Irish sea tonight towards Dublin to attend and present at the Experts 2 Experts Virtualization Conference (E2EVC) 2016  Dublin.

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I’ll be presenting on High Availability with Windows Server 2016 Failover Clustering and Hyper-V. These are supported and enhanced by other new or improved capabilities in Windows Server 2016. So there will be a lot to take in. I’ll be around to talk shop before and after the session so if you want to chat, find me around the conference.

E2EVC a boutique community driven conference. It’s small scale and independence makes it a very direct experience in both realism and hard core real world experience in the virtualization ecosystem and related technologies. We encourage anyone to attend and present. No “prima donnas”  – you can speak when you want to as long as you’re willing to do so and share knowledge and insights.  Give it a shot!  I hope to see you there

Email Notifications in Veeam Endpoint Backup

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I have been pinged by a few people to ask how to set up Veeam Endpoint Backup e-mail notification with a Hotmail / Live mail or outlook.com consumer address. The same goes for gmail or any other consumer e-mail service. So let’s share this with the world.

I’ll provide an example that you can use for your own needs and environment. Only the details will differ based on your provider.

Fill out your e-mail address and the password for your e-mail account.

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Click on”Show SMTP server settings” (see the red arrow) and than fill out the smtp server address. For outlook.com this is smtp-mail.outlook.com. The port to use is 587 (TLS). Leave the checkmark for secure connection enabled. By using port 587 you’re indicating you’ll use TLS not SSL, which is being going away, don’t use that anymore, over port 465. Unless you must with your provider. If you can’t use a secure connection you’ll probably need port 25 nut most consumer free e-mail service providers don’t even offer /allow this.

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Click on the test message button, what about 5 to 10 seconds, hit F9 in your e-mail client and you should see the test e-mail arrive.

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Another smtp servers that will work for Hotmail / Live mail / Outlook.com is smtp.live.com also with port 587. For gmail you can use smtp.gmail.com over port 587. For Yahoo it’s smtp.mail.yahoo.com again, port 587.

Every morning I find a e-mail that tells me about the success of issues with my Veeam Endpoint Backup. Easy.

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The only thing you need to remember is that such consumer accounts are throttled in the number of e-mails you can send per day. So don’t go spamming yourself now. Hope this helps some of you out there!

SQL Server 2016 Is Generally Available

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I have always had a sweet spot for SQL Server as I used to work more with it than I do to day. However I keep a keen eye on it and especially it’s capabilities for I’m also doing SQL Server virtualization on Hyper-V with great results.

So today is a good day. SQL Server 2016 is generally available.

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This means you can grab the evaluations bits here, the production bits from Microsoft Volume License Center.

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I’m downloading as we speak and my DBA’s are extra enthusiastic and ready to roll/

For those who hadn’t yet hear the good news. The SQL Server Developer Edition is now FREE. So have a ball, everyone can test & develop against the latest and the greatest SQL Server version and all its features!