Lessons Learned in Testing the TreyResearch Sample Windows Azure Application

Setting Test Environment in the Cloud - Part 1: Creating Base VHD Hyper-V Image

Introduction

We created and deployed many Azure VM Role Instances during the course of testing the TreyResearch Windows Azure Hybrid Application. For example, in order to do the functional test and performance test, we created and deployed to the cloud four Visual Studio VM Role Instances with one for each tester, one VS Load Test Controller VM Role Instance shared by all testers, and ten VS Load Test Agent VM Role Instances registered with the Controller. It would have taken lot of time and effort if we had started from scratch to repeatedly build a new VM, install the OS, configure the firewall, and installed the common software each time we need a new VHD. Instead, we took the approach of creating a base VHD that has the common configurations for all of our VHDs as the starting point for build all of our VHDs. Whenever we needed a new VHD with specific requirement, we made a copy of the base VHD, made necessary changes such as change the disk size, then installed additional tools such as Visual Studio, and uploaded it to the cloud. This approach worked well for us.

Lessons learned

By going through the process of creating a base VHD as a starting point, extending the base VHD to other specific VHD, uploading the specific VHD to the cloud, publishing the VHD into a Windows Azure VM role instance, and using the published instances, we learned the following lessons regard building the base VHD:

• Having a base VHD file as the starting point for creating various other specific VHD files instead of start from scratch each time we need a new VHD can save time and effort.
• Specifying the hard disk size for the base VHD to be equal to the smallest hard disk size we want to deploy in the cloud, which is 15GB. Later, if we need bigger hard disk for a new specific VHD, we can increase the disk size. However, we cannot reduce the disk size use the Hyper-V manager.
• Don’t install local endpoint of Windows Azure in a VHD. If we install local endpoint from windows azure in the VHD, the computer identity will be different from the original VHD VM after the VHD is sys-preped and deployed to windows azure, and local endpoint would become invalid. We would have to un-install the local endpoint, restart the VM role, and re-install local endpoint. The correct way is to install local endpoint after the VM role instance is running in the cloud.
• Use sa authentication or mixed mode authentication when installing SQL Server or SQL Server Express in the VHD even if we would eventually use the integrated Windows Authentication when the VM Role instance is in the cloud. The reason is that after Sys-prep the computer identity will be changed and the Windows user (even for the administrator) in the original VHD will become invalid, and we would be unable to access the SQL Server.
• Run the common tasks needed for all of the planned VHDs in the base VHD. One of those tasks is to opening a few windows firewall ports to support the load test.
• Don’t worry about the memory allocation of the VHD. The assigned memory in the VHD is not the actual memory used when deployed in Windows Azure. The actual memory when VHD is deployed in the cloud is determined by the vmsize attribute in ServiceDefinition.csdef file.
• Always test the VHD after sys-prep. After the VHD is sys-preped, we always save it and test it to make sure that the software installed still works. This step will catch issues such as not being able to access the SQL Server due to authentication settings not using sa.

Steps for Creating Base VHD Hyper-V Image

We performed the following steps to create a virtual machine in Hyper-V and save it as the base VHD image for Windows Azure VM Role:

1. Start with Hyper-V Manager

• Open Hyper-V Manager in the Start menu. We used a Hyper-V enabled computer with a 64bit Windows Server 2008 R2 operation system.

2. Create Virtual Machine

• In Hyper-V Manager, right-click the server name, point to New, and then select Virtual Machine. Click Next at the welcome screen to start the New Virtual Machine Wizard.

3. Assign VM Role Name

• In the Specify Name and Location step, set the name to VM Role and then click Next.

4. Assign Memory for the VM Role

• In the Assign Memory step, set the amount of memory to 2 GB. then click Next. Refer to the azure portal sizing requirements to run VM roles. Typically 2048 and 4048 will fit into small and medium instances.
• Note: The memory assign here will not be used when the VHD is deployed to the cloud. The actual memory when VHD is deployed in the cloud is determined by the vmsize attribute in ServiceDefinition.csdef file.

5. Configure Network

• Next, in the Configure Networking step, select Local Area Connection - Virtual Network and then click Next.

6. Configure Virtual Hard Disk

• Now, in the Connect Virtual Disk step, select the option labeled Create a virtual hard disk. Set the Name of the disk to AzureBase.VHD. , change the location to a suitable folder in our Hyper-V server, set the disk Size to a 15GB. Click Next to continue.

Note:

• Azure limit was 65GB at the time of our testing. If we specified a size bigger than 65GB, we would receive an error and fail to upload the VHD to azure. The following table lists the allowable sizes of VHDs in Windows Azure at the time of our testing. For dynamic disks, the sizes in the table are the maximum sizes that the VHD can grow to as additional space is required.

Windows Azure VM size	Maximum mounted VHD size
Extra Small	15 GB
Small	35 GB
Medium, Large, or Extra Large	65 GB

• We were unable to reduce the disk size once the VHD is created. However, we were able to increase the VHD size later. For that reason, we specified the disk size to 15 GB for our base VHD and increase it later for specific VHD if necessary.

7. Configure Location to Install Operating System

Note: at the time of our testing, azure only support 64bit win2k8 R2 VHD.

• In the Installation Options step, we chose the option that is the most suitable for the type of setup media that we had, and then click Next. What we did was to place an ISO file for Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition to a location in hard drive and browse to point to this location.
• Click Finish to create the virtual machine. In Hyper-V Manager, in the results pane, under Virtual Machines, right-click the name of the newly created virtual machine and then select Connect.
• Note: If Hyper-V manager does not list the virtual machine, we may need to right-click the server name and select Refresh. In the toolbar of the Virtual Machine Connection window, click the Start icon.

8. Setup Partition and Install Operating System

• If the installation does not start automatically, we may have specified an incorrect location of the setup media for Windows Server 2008 R2 in the Installation Options page of the New Virtual Machine wizard.
• Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition using default settings. The only special requirement for a valid VM Role image is to allocate the entire virtual hard disk file to a single partition where we installed the operating system.
• Optional: To avoid creating a recovery partition during the installation, follow these steps:

• Choose the Custom (advanced) installation type to select the partition where we will install Windows.
• Press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt during GUI-mode setup.
• At the command prompt, enter the following commands:
•           diskpart
•           select disk 0
•           create partition primary
•           exit
• Close the command prompt window.

• Install Windows in the newly created partition

9. Install Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components

    In this step, we installed the Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components.

• In the Hyper V Manager Console right click on the Virtual Machine and select settings. Click on DVD Drive then select Image File and then click Browse. Navigate to the directory C:\Program Files\Windows Azure SDK\v1.5\iso and select file wavmroleic.iso then click Apply.
• Note: If we have not installed the Windows Azure SDK in our Hyper-V server, we would need to copy the wavmroleic.iso file from another computer where we installed the SDK to the Hyper-V server’s hard disk. We could find this file in the iso folder of the Windows Azure SDK installation directory.
• After we connect the ISO file to the DVD drive the virtual machine, wait for the AutoPlay dialog to appear and then click Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer. If the AutoPlay feature is not enabled, open a Windows Explorer window and browse to the CD/DVD drive.
• In the Windows Explorer window, locate the WaIntegrationComponents-x64.msi (Windows Installer) file and double-click it to start the installation.
• At the Welcome screen, click Next to proceed.
• In the Operating System Configuration step, enter an Administrator Password, confirm it, and then click Next.
• Click Install to begin the installation of the Integration Components.
• When prompted to install device software, click Install to proceed.
• Wait for the installation to complete, which should only take a few seconds.
• Click Finish to exit the setup program.
• Once the installation of the components has finished, we will be prompted to restart the system. Click Yes to continue.
• Wait for the system to restart and log in to the guest machine once again.

10. Turn off IE ESC

    Configure IE ESC off by running Server Manager.  Otherwise, we are unable to install the Windows Azure Connect Local Endpoint later.

• Start Server Manager
• Under Security Information, click Configure IE ESC
• Check Off radio button under both Administrators and Users.
• Click OK.

11. Disable Automatic Update and Install Latest Updates

This step will disable the automatic update feature of Windows Operating System. This will require to update the VM manually after is deployed.

• Open the Windows Update control panel from Start | All Programs | Windows Update.
• In the Windows Update page, select Change Settings.
• In the Change Settings page, select the option labeled Never check for updates (not recommended) and then click OK.
• Next, click Check for updates and install all available updates.

Note:

• If prompted, we may need to reboot and repeat the check for updates in case there are additional updates to install.

12. Add start up task in task scheduler to open windows firewall ports

• Create C:\ AzureSTartUp.cmd. Start task scheduler, create a basic task, name it AzureStartUpTask, set the trigger to the computer starts, set the action to start a program->c:\AzureStartup.cmd to run AzureStartUp.cmd. Make sure to change the owner of the task to system account. Use highest permission.
• To open windows firewall ports for VS2010 client, VS2010 load test controller, and VS2010 load test agent. We copied the following script to the AzureStartup.cmd file:

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="ICMPv6" dir=in action=allow enable=yes protocol=icmpv6

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Port 445 TCP" dir=in action=allow service=any enable=yes profile=any localport=445 protocol=tcp

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Port 445 UDP" dir=in action=allow service=any enable=yes profile=any localport=445 protocol=udp

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Port 6901 TCP" dir=in action=allow service=any enable=yes profile=any localport=6901 protocol=tcp

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Port 6901 UDP" dir=in action=allow service=any enable=yes profile=any localport=6901 protocol=udp

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Port 6910 TCP" dir=in action=allow service=any enable=yes profile=any localport=6910 protocol=tcp

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Port 6910 UDP" dir=in action=allow service=any enable=yes profile=any localport=6910 protocol=udp

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="devenve.exe" dir=in action=allow program=""%"ProgramFiles"%" (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Conmmon7\IDE\devenv.exe” enable=yes

          netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="mstest.exe" dir=in action=allow program=""%"ProgramFiles"%" (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Conmmon7\IDE\MSTest.exe" enable=yes

          net stop lanmanserver

          net start lanmanserver

          exit /b 0

13. Run Sysprep to Prepare Image for Cloning

• The purpose of this step is to prepare the image for cloning by generalizing unique elements that are present on the operating system like computer names, security identifiers and driver cache. By doing this step we will be able to clone from this image and generate VMs that are unique after the base image is uploaded.
• Now, inside the VM, open the Start menu, type %windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe and then press Enter to launch the System Preparation Tool. Set the System Cleanup Action to “Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)”, check the option labeled Generalize, set the Shutdown Options to Shutdown, and then press OK.
• Note: The Sysprep tool (Sysprep.exe) prepares the image by cleaning up various user and machine settings and log files, as well as removing any hardware-dependent information.
• Wait for the system to completely shut down. Our image is now ready for deployment.

 

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