Defrag Hyper-V

                                                 

Last year, Kansas-based William Newton Hospital, which serves a community of 40,000 people and has revenues of over $40 million, made the switch to PerfectDisk to improve its virtualization performance. The hospital looked to PerfectDisk's virtualization defrag solutions, which include tools for vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance improvements. William Newton Hospital maintains physical and virtual servers for database functions such as electronic medical record keeping, financial, inventory, lab and radiology information, and Point of Care charting. Medical Verification is also used at patient bedside via wireless Chart Carts and PDAs, along with a radiology image storage and retrieval system.

The big appeal, according to IT director Randy Mayo was PerfectDisk's unique Virtual Awareness capability, which eliminated "the severe system slowdown on our servers that we were experiencing with Diskeeper." As Randy points out, "PerfectDisk automatically determines guest and host activity to eliminate resource contention and minimize the impact on our shared storage. The result is faster systems, improved productivity and better service to our patients.”

                                             

But William Newton didn't stop there, as they continued to look to Raxco Software for performance and productivity improvements. This investigation led them to PerfectSpeed, Raxco's tool for boosting performance as well as cleaning up performance-debilitating clutter. While its typical use is for the home consumer, William Newton found so many useful tools for slow PC fixes and slow PC performance in PerfectSpeed that they've put it on over a hundred employees' computers. For these users, Mayo gets not only the benefit of the best defrag software, but also a powerful duplicate file removal program and one of the best registry cleaners, all helping speed up PC performance and ensuring these computers run at peak performance and efficiency.

From virtualization performance to an easy slow PC fix -- William Newton Hospital has found its fix.

                                             
 

Sometimes it's fun to take a step back from all the file system, slow PC tips, and Hyper-V performance counters talk and see how the best defrag software tool plays out in the real world. On its own, a server defrag may seem a little drab. But if you see how it's helping a baseball team, well...that can make it a little more interesting.

                                                    

The Greater Des Moines Baseball Company is the umbrella company for the Iowa Cubs minor league baseball team of the Pacific Coast League. Recently, the Cubs selected PerfectDisk 11 Server to boost its servers’ performance through disk defragmentation. The Cubs, with several hundred employees serving an annual attendance of over 500,000, use its servers for ticketing, merchandise sales, food and beverage sales, video boards and score boards, video production, financial and back office functions, and database management. The team's servers have several physical and virtual servers on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 to run the business. Prior to selecting PerfectDisk over a competitive product, the Cubs used the Windows built-in disk defrag utility, but it was not up to the task. “Microsoft’s built-in defragmenter did not really accomplish much in terms of improved performance for our server, plus it was very slow,” said Larry Schunk, Chief Technology Officer at Greater Des Moines Baseball. “With PerfectDisk, our servers are running faster than ever, which means all our employees are more productive; in addition, its automation and powerful reporting tools provide a great value.”
                                        

You can see the complete press release of the Cubs server defrag selection here. 

Play ball. Win. Give your servers a good server defrag with the best defrag software.

The Cubs are in first place. Coincidence? That's crazy talk.

                                                             

We had a nice win recently. Easter Seals Hawai’i, after comparing PerfectDisk with another solution, chose the PerfectDisk 11 Hyper-V Bundle to boost its Hyper-V performance. The key decision drivers? Automation, Virtual Awareness and user-friendly licensing options (i.e. host-based) for virtualization environments.

You can read the press release here. Virtualization defrag to boost Hyper-V performance -- paradise.

                                             

                                               

Those of you who have followed us for at least the last couple of years have observed our entry into the virtualization performance space. As we pioneered technology such as PerfectDisk's patent-pending Virtual Awareness for vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance tuning, we've talked directly to hundred of enterprise and small business users. We've received lots of feedback on both the technology as well as the business side -- licensing and pricing.

In ComputerWorld today, Elisabeth Horwitt has a piece on Virtualization and software pricing: Very tricky. Elisabeth raises several interesting points, including:

Virtualization can provide significant TCO savings for server and desktop hardware, and in desktop software and security administration. But saving on software license costs through virtualization is problematic. For one thing, vendors can't seem to agree on a model that works for both them and their customers, says Amy Konary, a research director at IDC.

Many enterprise software vendors still charge per hardware box, which means customers can save by consolidating applications on a single server that has multiple CPUs. However, a growing number of vendors, such as Oracle, charge per CPU, says Altimeter Group partner Ray Wang. 

                                                

For a time, we had internal disagreements as well. And we've modified our pricing since moved into the virtualization space. But as we continued to talk to organizations, we finally came to a pricing model that we are very comfortable with, as are the businesses and government agencies that are customers of PerfectDisk's virtualization performance products. This pricing model has been with us now for several months. Companies that have been with us for years know we try to be their partner in the performance management aspect of their business. And because cost savings are a key motivator for moving to virtualization, we didn't want to be an obstacle to that goal. So we charge by the hardware box, which, as analyst Ray Wang notes, means customers can save money.

Many factors come into play as organizations move to virtualization, or look to maximize its benefits once they have moved. Virtualization performance is a key aspect of the process. After all, the potential cost savings don't mean a lot if performance degrades. As IT delves into the environment, it usually learns that all the problems associated with the Windows environment at the physical level haven't gone away. In fact, they may have multiplied because of the very nature of the host/guest relationship and interaction. Since they are so entwined, if the relationship between host and guest do not account for each other, virtualizaton performance suffers, with the resulting negative impact across the board.

Despite the obstacles and potential pitfalls, virtualization can, in most cases, provide numerous benefits. One of those is cost. We look to help organizations maximize the benefits with improved performance, without the downside of screwing the customer on the pricing side.

Virtualization performance via vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag -- you can get premier performance without paying a premium price. 

                                                  

 
 

1. The developers of your defrag utility meet regularly with Microsoft development teams, including file system experts, for a true understanding of file system behaviors, strategies and plans.
2. The defrag utility employs disk and file optimization strategies for the best possible drive optimization, rather than simply defragments files, so it is a true PC performance optimizer, beyond just a simple defrag utility.
3. It performs robust free space consolidation to significantly prevent fragmentation, reduce the rate of future fragmentation and improve write performance.
4.  It's smart enough to just defrag a file -- a single file or a few selected files -- rather than the entire drive, if that's all that is fragmented and that's all you need done at a particular time.
5. It doesn't force you into a single way to defrag - it provides flexible scheduling options that are accommodating to your activity and requirements, whether you need or want automatic background defragmentation during idle time, screen saver defrag, or daily or weekly schedules.
6. It optimizes boot files to improve boot time by 20% or more.
7. It provides a free, Microsoft-certified duplicate file remover and file recycler to further assist disk cleanup and optimization efforts.
8. It's simple enough for the novice user but with free, optional advanced features for power users.
9. It's smart enough to be the choice for tens of thousands of World of Warcraft users around the world to improve World of Warcraft performance and used by millions of gamers around the world to improve the performance of other PC games.
10.   It's intelligent enough to contain patent-pending technology that ensures no resource contention in virtual environments and can boost virtualization performance with specific solutions for vSphere and Hyper-V.
11.   It's passed the internal tests, pilot programs and RFPs of many of the world's largest companies and government agencies, and is deployed in and helping those enterprises today.
12.   It is certified by Microsoft for Windows 7.

The PerfectDisk 11 Client and Enterprise Console have been updated to Build 174. These latest builds include various bug fixes and minor enhancements.

You can “Check For Updates” in the products or wait for Autoupdate.

Client enhancements and fixes: 

• Correct issues connecting to and displaying data stores for Exchange 2010
• Change behavior when stopping a defrag pass. PerfectDisk used to display the statistics at the time you stopped even though they were inaccurate. PerfectDisk no longer does this.
• The display files in block feature has been disabled during a defrag and analyze pass since there was no data to display
• Corrected some display issues on the virtual machine tab
• Added support for translation into Japanese
• Corrected some statistical calculations when files are being added and deleted from the drive during the defragmentation pass.
• The list of drive types that can be impersonated was limited to prevent confusion. The purpose of impersonating drive types was due to the inability to accurately determine whether or not a drive is a solid state drive.
• Corrected a display issue on the Hyper-V host product. GUID was being displayed in lieu of the guest computer name.
• Clarified the code to ensure the user realized the schedules maximum duration only applies to the online portion of the schedule. There is not maximum duration for a boot-time defragmentation pass.
• Ensure that PerfectDisk does not attempt to perform an offline defragmentation pass on a FAT/FAT32 from a schedule. This functionality is not supported.
• Corrected some typo's in displayed text
• Changed the default behavior regarding file modification date on FAT/FAT32 drives. When no date exists we now display nothing. We used to display 1980.
• Improved the layout to better fit all the on screen data
• Corrected a bug when defragmenting drives greater than 2,147,483,648 clusters (8 TB with 4k cluster size)
• Improved boot-time defragmentation logging.
• Corrected a display issue with the schedule tab buttons when using Group Policy.
• Certain error messages were improved to aid the user in understanding what went wrong.

• Improved the task planner
• Corrected an infinite loop in the Console User Interface. PerfectDisk Enterprise Console would appear to hang.
• Corrected a crash in the Console user interface.
• Updated to SQLExpress Service pack 3.
• Displayed the Space explorer Client when PerfectDisk is not installed. This feature replies on PerfectDisk Client being present.
• Improved the historic data reports.
• Default Configuration profile data values have been adjusted to better represent the real world.
• Corrected Connect using PD option not being available if Hyper-V Host installed on Console computer.
• Corrected Console listing Hyper-V Host software as VMware.
• Corrected import of settings that created registry keys that were not correct type.
• Corrected Console reports that incorrectly did not include the Console computer.
• Corrected issue in Deployment wizard that incorrectly displayed local/GP schedules.

     
Writing over at the Information Week Storage blog, Storage Switzerland's George Crump last week laid out an interesting analogy with a post titled Storage Checkers vs. Chess. Crump sets up his premise with this:

Checkers is a two dimensional game where all the pieces have the same ability. Its about covering space. Chess is a complex three dimensional game where all the pieces have different capabilities and there is one common target: the enemy’s king. In storage some features begin to look like checkers because they have become so commonplace, but when you dig deeper you find that the capabilities of these features between vendors vary greatly.

                                                                   

With the PerfectDisk 11 client solutions now rolled out, the next phase is on for our virtualization performance solutions:

• PerfectDisk 11 vSphere Bundle
• PerfectDisk 11 Hyper-V Bundle
• PerfectDisk 11 VMware Workstation Bundle.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we had the largest beta test ever for PerfectDisk 11, and had great feedback.  For our vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag solutions, we had significant feedback that gave us reason to take some very big usability enhancements. The final phase of the PerfectDisk 11 beta test for these products begins this week.

Stay tuned to this space and Twitter for updates.

                                                                       
Market researcher IDC has released its latest figures on worldwide server sales, and they indicate that businesses are starting to increase spending on their IT infrastructures. IDC's numbers showed that revenue from servers in the fourth quarter of 2009 declined 3.9% year over year to $13 billion, as shipments rose 1.9% to 1.9 million units. The fourth quarter was the second consecutive period of quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, and driving the increase was a rebound in spending on volume servers, particularly x86 machines. 

In a statement, IDC analyst Matt Eastwood said that "market conditions improved significantly in the fourth quarter as the marketplace transitioned from recent stability to growth in several critical server segments."

                                               

We've seen this trend in the server defrag area as well. Many large businesses appear to be on the move in their infrastructure buildup. And accompanying their server acquisitions is a high interest in server defrag, whether vSphere defrag, defrag Hyper-V or even SQL defrag as they look for SQL server performance improvements.

IDC's rival Gartner has similar numbers, with Gartner predicting a return to shipment growth this year in the middle or high single digits and revenue growth at a slightly lower level.

Server growth is upon us  -- get your server defrag ready.

                                        
 

• #1 of Top 5 technologies most likely to be the target of spending increases in 2010: Servers
• #1 of Top 5 project priorities for 2010: Server upgrades, virtualization
• #1 of Top 5 most promising new technologies for respondents' industries or organizations: virtualization
• #1 of Top 5 technology areas for beta testing: virtualization.

                                        

I won't add to the barrage of articles, posts and more reviewing 2009 that list the the top stories of the year. But I did want to touch on 2009, from our perspective, as a supplier of a disk defragmentation tool that has evolved and continues to evolve with the times.

2009 brought the reality of a deep recession and tough times for many technology companies; there was Windows 7, Chrome, Bing, more mobile action. But 2 big areas that also stood out, and which helped us grow this year, was the increased movement towards virtualization and big growth on the storage front. Virtualization has been taking hold for awhile now of course, but the tough economic environment has accelerated its growth. For many companies, the potential savings realized from virtualization are too hard to ignore. And that's why our vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag solutions are resonating with users. Virtualization defrag with virtual awareness such as that provided by PerfectDisk allows organizations to maximize their investments in virtualization and help realize its benefits. Without proper management and resource control, virtualization efforts can fall short.

                                               

Storage was another big segment in 2009, with people and companies buying increased amounts of storage and different types of storage, including SSDs, as prices plummeted. Data requirements continue to expand, with new applications and lots of video driving demand. And cloud-based storage was another key driver.

                                           

These were the biggest factors (there were others) behind the growth of defragmentation utilities this year, even in a down economy. Individuals and companies looked for savings, and the result was an investment in infrastructure and certain types of software. Virtualization defrag and vSphere defrag to better manage the virtualization movement. Efficient hard drive defragmentation to control the storage explosion. 

All wrapped up in the PerfectDisk family of defragmentation utilities. 

                                                 

 

                                                

I was recently invited to speak at a VMware User Group meeting about the impact of file and free space fragmentation in a virtual environment. Before I started the presentation I asked the audience how many had ever defragmented a physical server and about 30% raised their hand. Then I asked how many had ever defragmented a virtual server and about 10% raised their hand. This is a pretty typical response.

Systems administrators running virtual machines seem to overlook the fact that each virtual machine is running its own version of Windows Server and within that machine NTFS is busy fragmenting files and free space. While fragmentation is a performance-stealing problem on physical servers, the problem is compounded on virtual machines where each virtual instance is competing for a finite amount of resources. This leads to resource contention between Windows guests and, with Hyper-V, contention between the Windows guests and the host. It is essential to keep the files defragmented and the free space consolidated on Windows guests to maximize performance and minimize resource contention in a virtual world.

After my presentation one attendee told me his company was having performance issues with several of their virtual servers. They were looking at upgrading the hardware and bringing in a consultant. He knew these virtual machines were frequently updating files, the kind of activity that produces fragmentation, but he never thought of fragmentation as the problem. After sitting through my presentation he was convinced fragmentation was the culprit and we just saved them a lot of unnecessary expense. In complex technical environments it is easy to overlook the obvious when looking for a solution. Sometimes you just need to defrag a computer to get a lot more out of it, and that includes VM's.

                                                                              
Continuing PerfectDisk’s pioneering role in defragmentation for virtual environments, I was happy to announce support for VMware vSphere 4 in the latest PerfectDisk 10 build. We’ve established a great relationship with VMware over the past few years, and as part of this we continue to evolve our support for VMware offerings. Whichever side of the ESX/Hyper-V — or others — debate you come down on, we know defragmentation of these environments is an important piece of getting these systems running at peak performance and efficiency, making the best use of resources while eliminating resource contention.

                                            

Upon release, VMware dubbed its vSphere 4 as the industry’s first operating system for building the internal cloud, enabling the delivery of efficient, flexible and reliable IT as a service, and bringing cloud computing to enterprises in an evolutionary way. As the leader in virtualization defrag, it’s a natural for PerfectDisk to lead the way in support for vSphere 4 and vSphere defrag. 

Head to the clouds, and remember to defrag -- virtual defrag.