windows server 2012 hyper-v extensible switch and cisco

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches 1

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches Streamlining Virtual Networks in the Data Center A Microsoft/Cisco White Paper

May 2012


Table of contents Copyright information ...................................................................... 3

Introduction .......................................................................................... 4

Working Together: Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches.......... 4

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch .................. 5

Five New Native Policy Features in the Hyper-V Extensible Switch ....................................................... 6

New Extension Classes for the Hyper-V Extensible Switch ......................................................................... 7

Extensibility and the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch ............................................. 7

Efficient Management with Microsoft System Center 2012 ...................................................................... 8

Providing an Efficient, Flexible Switch for Virtual Networks ....................................................................... 9

Cisco Virtual Networking Solutions .............................................. 9

Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches ........................................................................................................................ 9

Cisco UCS VM-FEX ......................................................................................................................................................... 10

Reducing Complexity, Increasing Benefits in Virtual Networks ............................................................. 11

Microsoft and Cisco: Providing Advanced Choices for

Virtual Networking ........................................................................... 12

Extending Network Functions to Hyper-V with Nexus 1000V Series Switches ............................. 12

Extending a Physical Network to Hyper-V Virtual Machines with the Cisco VM-FEX ................ 14

Conclusion .......................................................................................... 15

For More Information...................................................................... 15

List of charts, tables, and figures ................................................ 16


Copyright information © 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is provided "as-is." Information and

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Introduction The growth of virtualization technologies in

enterprises and data centers is one of today’s key IT

trends. IT professionals are looking more and more

to virtualization to help control costs, create greater

efficiencies in meeting business demands, and

innovate with solutions such as private clouds.

Windows Server, which powers many of the world’s

largest data centers and enterprise IT systems, has

been at the forefront of giving organizations the

tools to create, deploy, and manage virtual

networks, virtual machines, and complete virtual

environments. A core Windows Server component

that supports virtualization is Hyper-V, which first

shipped with early versions of Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V has been updated and enhanced with

Windows Server 2012; now organizations have an even better foundation for advanced virtualization tasks

and scenarios, such as extensive server consolidation, delivering secure multitenancy for hosting different

customers on physical servers, and creating private clouds.

One of the core features in Hyper-V is the new Hyper-V Extensible Switch. As its name implies, a central

feature of this switch is its extensibility. Hyper-V Extensible Switch offers an open platform that lets third

parties create software that adds to or extends the capabilities of a virtual switch. It provides a standard

application programming interface (API) to make solution development easier and faster for IT

departments and third-party independent software vendors (ISVs).

The Hyper-V Extensible Switch delivers management capabilities that streamline IT tasks by integrating

physical and virtual network management tasks. It also integrates tightly with the Virtual Machine

Manager component of Microsoft System Center 2012 for advanced virtual network management

functions.

Working Together: Hyper-V

Extensible Switch and Cisco

Nexus 1000V Series

Switches In developing the Hyper-V Extensible Switch,

Microsoft worked closely with Cisco Systems, the

world leader in networking technology. The Cisco

Nexus 1000V Series Switches and the Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) Virtual Machine Fabric

Extender (VM-FEX) have been widely adopted by enterprises to deliver advanced networking features for

their virtual environments.

At a Glance: Windows Server

2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch Provides an open platform for easy

development of extensions

Readily available APIs for quick solution

development

Only virtual switch that can be extended

without requiring rewrite of entire switch

Easily managed using standard tools

At a Glance: Cisco Virtual

Networking Solutions Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches:

Market-leading virtual switches used by

organizations worldwide to extend

comprehensive networking capabilities to

their virtualized environments

Cisco UCS VM-FEX: Delivers near bare-

metal performance for virtualized workloads

and a streamlined management model


Now, Microsoft and Cisco are providing enterprises and data centers with the combined power of the

Hyper-V Extensible Switch and the Cisco networking technology to deliver advanced networking features

to virtual environments running on Windows Server 2012. Customers using Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

can choose the Cisco solution that best suits their needs: either the software-based Nexus 1000V Series

Switches, or the hardware-based UCS VM-FEX solution, which offers simplified management and near

bare-metal input/output (I/O) performance.

This paper provides an overview of the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and the Cisco

technologies. It provides a general discussion of the key benefits for customers in using these

technologies together, including the ease of adding extensions, migrating switches and virtual machines,

and working in a unified management environment. It also provides at-a-glance descriptions of common

scenarios.

Windows Server 2012

Hyper-V Extensible Switch The demand for virtualization technologies is growing at a fast and accelerating pace. The reasons for the

trend are apparent to IT professionals and business users alike.

The traditional model of fixed physical server assets brings with it potentially high up-front expenses and

significant maintenance costs. It also lacks flexibility and scalability, whether that means ramping up to

meet demand, or scaling back and consolidating to save money on idle hardware.

With virtualized server environments, on the other hand, IT departments can achieve many technical and

financial benefits when responding to constantly shifting business needs. Windows Server 2012 not only

helps enterprises and data centers with basic virtualization projects, but it also helps organizations to

move “beyond virtualization” to support advanced scenarios, such as the development of private clouds

for specific departments and initiatives, and running more virtual machines on a single physical server for

greater efficiencies. With Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, organizations benefit from enormous scalability,

flexibility, and speed for IT departments that need to respond to shifting business needs while

simultaneously controlling costs and overhead.

One of the key elements of virtual environments is the configuration and management of virtual networks.

Previous editions of the Windows Server Hyper-V virtual switch provided essential virtual networking

tasks, such as handling network traffic between virtual and physical networks and the host operating

system. Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 delivers a number of new and enhanced features that improve

virtual networking operations.


Five New Native Policy Features in the Hyper-V

Extensible Switch Microsoft has added native policy features to Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V that enhance virtual

environments. These improvements affect the following five areas of virtual network operations:

Traffic Isolation and Flow

Port access control lists (ACLs). ACLs are used to allow or deny specific addresses to move through the

network.

Private virtual LANs (PVLANs). These let IT administrators establish a gateway without the need to

define a strong two-tier network.

Trunk mode. Previously, when Hyper-V sent VLAN traffic to a virtual machine, it could only choose a

single VLAN per virtual machine. Trunk mode in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V allows multiple VLANs

to be used on a virtual machine network adapter.

Traffic Shaping

Quality of Service (QoS). QoS is used to set minimum and maximum bandwidth levels by using

absolute or relative amounts. QoS can be used to guarantee minimum levels of bandwidth to

customers to meet service level agreements, and also to minimize or prevent excessive usage by

specific clients.

Security

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) guard. This is used to control whether or not a virtual

machine is allowed to behave as a DHCP server, which can help prevent network attacks involving the

deliberate misuse of addresses.

IP security (IPsec) task offloads. This enables virtual machines to offload IPsec encryption directly to the

IPsec offload engine on a network adapter.

Performance Enhancements

Dynamic virtual machine queues (VMQs). Windows Server 2012 provides support for dynamic VMQs,

which adjust the number of cores used by the host virtual switch base on traffic load.

Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV). SR-IOV accelerates performance by letting network traffic go

directly to a virtual machine.

Diagnostics

Port mirroring. This provides the ability to copy traffic from multiple virtual machines to multiple port

switches, which can help in identifying network issues.

Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). ETW helps IT managers to easily diagnose issues with a switch and

related extensions without having to use a debugger.


New Extension Classes for the Hyper-V Extensible Switch In addition to the policy features listed

above, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

now includes three extension class

types that are typically found on

physical network switches:

Capturing. Capture extensions can

inspect traffic and generate new

traffic for report purposes. They

cannot modify existing switch

traffic. Multiple capture extensions

can be present on the same switch.

Filtering. Hyper-V now includes the

Windows Filtering Platform (WFP).

WFP extensions are commonly used

in antivirus and firewall scenarios,

and can be used to change traffic in

a switch, such as dropping packets,

modifying packet contents, and

blocking delivery to specific destinations. Filtering extensions can be implemented by using Network

Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) APIs. As with capture extensions, multiple WFP extensions can be

on the same switch.

Forwarding. Forwarding extensions are used for computing the destination of each packet. They can

do everything that capturing and filtering extensions do. There can only be one instance of a

forwarding extension per switch instance.

Extensibility and the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

Extensible Switch During development of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, Microsoft listened closely to customer and partner

requests for new features and functionality that could help streamline the creation and deployment of

virtual networks. A significant pain point for IT departments is finding easier, less disruptive ways of

adding virtual tenant security, isolation, traffic shaping, and network intelligence to their data center

deployments. Virtual switch extensions should help them accomplish these tasks, but installing those

extensions can be a challenge.

The process of adding software-based functionality to virtual switches has always meant rewriting the

entire switch. This is cumbersome and time-consuming, and frequently discourages enterprise developers

and third-party ISVs from innovating with solutions that can address specific tasks and issues.

Figure 1: The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible

Switch comes with three native extensions that support

essential virtual networking activities


Microsoft is the first vendor to truly address this issue with the new Hyper-V Extensible Switch, which

comes with an open platform that has easily accessible APIs and an efficient path for adding new

functions to the switch. Today, the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch is the only virtual

switch on the market that is extensible instead of being only replaceable. With the Hyper-V Extensible

Switch, ISVs and enterprise developers creating virtual appliances and functionality can create their

extensions and simply plug them into the existing switch.

Several key aspects of the Hyper-V Extensible Switch set it apart from the competition and deliver more

benefits to enterprise IT professionals and ISVs:

Open, accessible platform with a public API. The Hyper-V Extensible Switch provides an open

platform that uses a public API that is readily available for download from the Microsoft Developer

Network (MSDN) website. For developers, this opens the door to new solutions that deliver just the

functionality that they want to create. For IT departments, the flexibility and simplicity provided by the

open platform and API mean smaller, more streamlined extensions for virtual switches, smaller

footprints, and fewer issues that need attention in the long term.

Easy development with existing API model. Extensions are coded by using either WFP or NDIS—the

same programming model that has been available for more than a decade for creating networking

filters and drivers. For developers, this means they can begin working immediately without being

forced to learn a new development environment.

First-class citizens of the system. Hyper-V Extensible Switch extensions receive the same levels of

support and service as the switch itself. IT professionals benefit from this because functions and

activities, such as offloads and live migrations—and the related migration of configuration settings—

simply work, with no additional effort.

Quality extensions with Windows logo certification. Extensions built in this framework are backed

by the Windows Hardware Certification program and associated tools to test and certify the end

products. This results in fewer bugs, better overall performance, and higher customer satisfaction.

Simpler diagnostics with unified tracing. With Unified Tracing support in the Hyper-V Extensible

Switch, ISVs and developers can spend less time diagnosing issues, which increases productivity while

cutting support costs. For IT professionals, it also leads to shorter down times.

Efficient Management with Microsoft System

Center 2012 The Hyper-V Extensible Switch helps organizations enhance their virtual networking scenarios. If they have

Microsoft System Center 2012 installed, they gain additional tools to help manage virtual switches and

extensions.

Configuration information that is applied to both physical and virtual switches is critical for providing

network connectivity and capabilities. In most IT environments, transmitting information between network

management systems and virtual machines involves a data exchange—often in the form of

spreadsheets—between network administrators and server administrators. This can be a time-consuming

and error-prone approach, one that becomes even more complex with the introduction of additional

third-party extensions.

The Virtual Machine Manager component of System Center 2012 addresses this management issue to

help simplify and streamline the management of switches and their extensions. At the center of the new

capabilities is the Virtual Machine Manager logical switch. The logical switch provides a central location


where a fabric administrator can define what extensions are used and the port profiles that are available

for those extensions. Virtual Machine Manager uses this feature to distribute extensions to hosts as

needed and to ensure that ports are configured uniformly, which helps to provide consistent virtual

machine behavior across the data center.

Organizations can benefit from this integration of Virtual Machine Manager through:

Automated importing of network settings from a virtual switch extension manager, which helps reduce

errors related to improper configurations.

Simplified management of network capabilities across all hosts in a single object.

The ability to create network capabilities as needed by the virtual machines, rather than providing all

virtual machines with equal access to those capabilities.

Providing an Efficient, Flexible Switch for Virtual Networks The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch offers enterprise organizations and data centers an

efficient and flexible virtual switch that provides an open platform for easy modifications and added

functionality. When used with Cisco virtual networking products, organizations can select from powerful

technology options to develop and deploy private clouds.

Cisco Virtual Networking

Solutions The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch delivers significant advances for enterprise

customers and data centers that are deploying private clouds. Now enterprises and data centers can

combine the virtualization features of the Hyper-V Extensible Switch with world-leading networking

products from Cisco. These include the Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches and the Cisco UCS VM FEX.

Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches are distributed virtual switching platforms that deliver advanced

networking features, integrated virtual services, and a consistent operational model across virtual and

physical networking environments.

Like other modular Cisco switches, Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches have two major components:

The Virtual Ethernet Module (VEM) is a software line card that is embedded with Hyper-V when

deployed on a physical host. It delivers advanced networking capabilities to the virtual machines and

replaces Hyper-V Extensible Switch functionality. The VEM takes configuration information from the

Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM) and performs layer 2 switching and advanced networking functions,

including port channeling, QoS, and security and monitoring.


The VSM is a virtual machine that provides functionality similar to that of a supervisor module in a

physical modular switch. It controls multiple VEMs and provides a single point of management and

monitoring for the distributed virtual switch. All the switching and virtual machine networking

configuration is performed through VSM, and VSM automatically propagates the relevant data to the

participating VEMs.

In addition to these two components, Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches include Cisco vPath technology,

which extends multiple network services to Hyper-V environments.

Cisco UCS VM-FEX The Cisco UCS VM-FEX simplifies virtual

machine networking by collapsing virtual

and physical networking into a single,

easily managed infrastructure. This

infrastructure takes advantage of the

Hyper-V Extensible Switch SR-IOV

technology to provide near bare-metal

I/O performance to the virtual machines.

With VM-FEX, IT administrators can

provision, configure, manage, monitor,

and diagnose virtual machine network

traffic and bare-metal network traffic

within a unified infrastructure. The VM-

FEX software extends Cisco network fabric

technology to virtual machines. As a

result, each virtual machine has a dedicated interface to the parent switch, and all virtual machine traffic is

sent directly to the dedicated interface on the switch.

Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches and the VM-FEX technologies are among the most widely used virtual

networking technologies for enterprises and data centers, and they integrate nicely with Windows Server

2012 Hyper-V deployments to deliver an advanced solution for virtual networking.

Scenario: Shorter Down Times

While monitoring network statistics, one of Contoso’s IT

administrators notices that packets are being dropped

somewhere between the external network connection and a

virtual machine. In the past, the administrator would have

contacted a technician with debugging skills to find the

cause by examining the virtual switch network stack. This

process could have taken hours—or longer.

Today, however, the organization is running a virtual

environment on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and Cisco

Nexus 1000V Series Switches for Hyper-V. Using the

troubleshooting tools available for Cisco NX-OS and the ETW

tool, the administrator views generated logs and quickly sees

which module and extension is dropping the packets. There

is no need to bring in extra resources, so the problem is

resolved quickly.


Scenario: Adding Virtual Switch

Functionality

A. Datum Corporation, a hosting company that serves

Fortune 1000 customers, has a network infrastructure that

consists primarily of Cisco Nexus switches. The company

uses Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and has a firewall

extension from Trey Research installed on every Hyper-V

Extensible Switch in the data center for customer

protection.

The company would like to unify management of both

their physical switches and virtual switches by deploying

the Cisco Nexus 1000V for Hyper-V extension into the

Hyper-V Extensible Switches. While the company expects

to eventually migrate to a Cisco ASA firewall, the first

phase is to deploy Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches for

Hyper-V onto each of the virtual switches with the Trey

Research firewall. This is easily accomplished because the

Hyper-V Extensible Switch framework allows multiple

extensions to coexist with each other. The administrator

can safely deploy Nexus 1000V Series Switches onto the

same switches, gaining unified switch functionality and

management while maintaining the same firewall

protection that is already in place.

Reducing Complexity,

Increasing Benefits in

Virtual Networks Cisco virtual networking solutions reduce the

complexities associated with virtual machine-

to-virtual machine networking, helping IT

professionals realize more of the benefits of

server virtualization technology. With Cisco

Nexus 1000V Series Switches and the VM-FEX

technology, organizations can preserve their

existing investments in network operation

models and management tools. Network

administrators can use Cisco NX-OS features

to manage network policies across both

physical and virtual environments, which

helps minimize the need for retraining. The

solutions offer high visibility into virtual

machine traffic, which streamlines

troubleshooting tasks. And virtualization-

aware networking features simplify virtual

machine network policy management while

providing better security through the

extension of enterprise network policies to

the virtual network.

Cisco virtual solutions operating in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environments provide organizations

with advanced technologies for optimizing the functionality of their cloud deployments.


Microsoft and Cisco: Providing

Advanced Choices for Virtual

Networking Major organizations worldwide have standardized on Windows Server and Cisco networking products. In

response to customer requests, Microsoft and Cisco partnered in response to those customers seeking a

powerful, integrated solution for managing their virtual networking and cloud environments.

With the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and the Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches and

VM-FEX solutions, customers with Windows Server environments now have compelling options for

deploying and managing virtual networking systems.

Organizations have two options when using the Cisco products with Hyper-V. The following is an

overview of each scenario.

Extending Network Functions to Hyper-V with Nexus

1000V Series Switches Organizations that want to extend comprehensive networking capabilities to their virtualized

environments can use the Nexus 1000V Series Switches to bring additional virtualization-aware

networking functions to the Hyper-V Extensible Switch. In this scenario, the Cisco VEM provides a software

line card that is embedded in Hyper-V. Each virtual machine on the host is then connected to the VEM

through a virtual Ethernet port. At the same time, the Cisco VSM helps to define virtual machine–centric

network policies in much the same way as a supervisor module works on a physical network switch.


Figure 2: The Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches architecture used with Windows Server

2012 Hyper-V

This combination lets organizations take advantage of the Cisco virtual networking services that are part

of the Nexus 1000V Series.1 They include:

Cisco Virtual Security Gateway for providing detailed, zone-based policies for multitenant

environments.

Cisco ASA 1000V Cloud Firewall, which provides multi-tenant edge security, default gateway

functionality, and protection against network-based attacks.

Cisco Virtual Wide Area Application Services (vWAAS), which ensure application performance

acceleration to users connected to enterprise data centers and enterprise private clouds.

Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM), which provides visibility to troubleshoot performance

problems in virtual environments.

Organizations needing a dedicated hardware appliance to host all of their virtual appliances Nexus 1000V

from Series Switches, such as vWAAS and NAM, can use the Cisco Nexus 1010 Virtual Services Appliance.

With the Nexus 1010 Virtual Services Appliance, network administrators do not need to rely on server

administrators to run networking appliances.

1 Cisco will provide more information about the availability of these services closer the general availability

of the Nexus 1000V.


Extending a Physical

Network to Hyper-V

Virtual Machines with the

Cisco VM-FEX Organizations that want near bare-metal

performance for virtualized workloads running

with Hyper-V can turn to the Cisco UCS VM-FEX

solution. VM-FEX builds on the network fabric

extender technology developed by Cisco. Fabric

extender technology helps organizations achieve

the benefits of simplified management of

chassis-based modular switches and the

convenience of top-of-rack deployment. VM-FEX

brings these developments to virtual machines.

By using VM-FEX in Windows Server 2012

Hyper-V environments, organizations achieve

operational simplicity by being able to collapse

the physical and virtual networking layers into

one, which reduces the number of management

points that have to be monitored. It also delivers

the same consistent feature set and

infrastructure for both physical and virtual

environments. Using VM-FEX with Hyper-V also

provides improved performance through the SR-

IOV functionality discussed earlier in this paper.

Scenario: Migrating Switches and

Extensions

Kim is a developer at Litware Inc., an independent

software development company that provides a

range of niche enterprise software products for

Fortune 500 companies. Her primary role is to

provide security and network intelligence capabilities

for virtual networks. With third-party solutions, this

has always involved writing or rewriting the virtual

switches to include the new capabilities. Kim is an

expert at this task, but it is a tedious, time-consuming

process that involves a large amount of coding. It

also increases the possibility of bugs and security

holes.

With the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible

Switch, however, Kim has access to a plug-in

architecture that uses an open, public API. With the

open platform provided by Windows Server 2012,

Kim can focus her efforts on delivering just the

functionality she needs without rewriting the entire

switch. Her extensions will support live migrations

and network adapter hardware offloads without any

need for additional code. Because her extensions

have a smaller code footprint and went through

rigorous Microsoft extension certification tests, Kim is

confident that she is delivering high quality

extensions to her customers.


Conclusion Some of the biggest IT innovations today are being driven by the demand for new and enhanced

virtualization technologies to provide greater flexibility, scalability, and cost savings for enterprise

organizations and data centers. To realize the full potential of virtualization without suffering from

excessive cost and resource demands, IT professionals need solutions that can streamline the deployment

and management of virtualized networks.

The alliance between Microsoft and Cisco provides virtual networking solutions that fill this need. With the

capabilities provided by Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch, Cisco virtual networking

solutions, and the optional deployment of the Virtual Machine Manager component of Microsoft System

Center 2012, organizations can take full advantage of virtualization-aware networking features, simplify

their operations through this tight integration, and benefit from an operational model that streamlines IT

management for virtual and physical networks. This reduces complexity while helping reduce time-

consuming tasks for IT administrators. It also provides businesses with new possibilities for getting the

most out of their IT investments to make business operations more efficient.

For More Information To learn more about Windows Server and the enhanced Hyper-V Extensible Switch, go to

www.microsoft.com/windowsserver

To learn more about the Cisco Nexus 1000V and related virtual networking products, go to

www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9902/index.html

For more information about the Hyper-V Extensible Switch API, go to

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh598161(v=VS.85).aspx

A sample forwarding extension is available for download at

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Hyper-V-Extensible-Virtual-e4b31fbb

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9902/index.html

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh598161(v=VS.85).aspx

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Hyper-V-Extensible-Virtual-e4b31fbb


List of charts, tables,

and figures Figure 1: The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch comes with three native

extensions that support essential virtual networking activities .................................................................... 7

Figure 2: The Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches architecture used with Windows Server

2012 Hyper-V ........................................................................................................................................................................ 13

windows server 2012 hyper-v extensible switch and cisco

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