SSR 2011 and Hyper-V network drivers

[alex_rose]

Hi Guys,

After leaving a client without their servers for 48 hours last week I am doing some more test restores using SSR 2011. I have found that in a Hyper-V environment the SRD only seems to recognise virtual Legacy Network Adaptors and only loads drivers that run at 100Mb/s! So now I know why the restore took a ridiculously long time.

Now I'd like to know how to get 1000Mb/s networking. Can anyone advise as restoring 500GB of data over 100Mb/s is a complete waste of time :)

[criley]

I believe this is because the SRD does not contain the Hyper-V integration services which means you are forced to use the legacy network adapter. This in turn has limits in terms of performance (do a Google search and you will find loads of comments on this).

This may all change with the next version of SSR 2013 as the SRD uses the latest version of WindowsPE (4.0).

I will need to look into this though..

[alex_rose]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for that. Do you know if it's possible to create a custom SRD containing the drivers for the VM Bus Network Adaptor? My reading around seems to indicate that it's not but given that I'm currently testing weird work-arounds like copying the recovery points to a newly created VHD on the DR server which I'll then have to mount across the network from the Hyper-V host I'd really like to be proven wrong!

Cheers,

Alex

[criley]

Do you know if it's possible to create a custom SRD containing the drivers for the VM Bus Network Adaptor?

Not sure about that. There may be a way but it is unlikely to be supported by Symantec. A simple google search finds loads of info on this, here is one example:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mikester/archive/2008/05/30/using-the-hyper-v-integration-components-in-winpe.aspx

Whether or not this will work with the SRD, I couldn't tell you though.

I'm currently discussing this internally as things may improve in this area with SSR 2013. I'll post back here once I get some news on this. May take a few days though...

[alex_rose]

Thanks Chris, I'll give it a try, although I've had no luck installing the integration services within the SRD PE perhaps doing it from a custom SRD will work better.

[alex_rose]

Unfortunately the blog article you linked references an old version of vmguest.iso. Luckily there's a Symantec article at http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH159025 that contains more up-to-date information about adding Hyper-V features to the SRD.

May have to mark my own post as the solution :)

[criley]

OK, let us know if this helps then.

By the way, that article is for NetBackup not SSR so it may or may not work.

[alex_rose · Accepted solution]

OK, sometimes things really are as simple as they should be.

Grab a copy of vmguest.iso, grab a copy of Windows6.0-HyperVIntegrationServices-x86.cab from within the ISO and extract the contents of the CAB somewhere.

Start a VM with the SRD ISO attached and load the following drivers:

wvmbus.inf

wnetvsc.inf

and if you want mouse: 

wvmbushid.inf

The easiest way I can see of getting access to these drivers would be to stick the extracted CAB onto a USB key, plug it into the Hyper-V, make it an offline drive and then just map it through to the VM in question.

I did it first by mapping a network drive using the legacy network card but that would be a pain in the butt to do every time!

As I have lots of clients running Hyper-V I'll just be making a new SRD ISO with a /VMDrivers folder containing all the drivers, then just boot up the SRD as normal, go to Load Drivers and load them off of the ISO.

If anyone needs any of this clarifying just give me a shout.

[criley]

Thanks for the update!

[Andreas_Horlach]

Just fyi, I found this on technet regarding WinPE 4.0: 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824964.aspx#BenefitsofWindowsPE

"Inclusion of all Hyper-V™ drivers except display drivers...to run in a hypervisor. Supported features include mass storage, mouse integration, and network adapters."