How to deploy Skylight sensor: capture Virtual Appliance in Hyper-V

Introduction

This article explains how to deploy Skylight Skylight sensor: capture Virtual Appliance in Hyper-V.

Basic Principles

North to South Visibility

• 100% user activities covered
• 100% applications analyzed
• Long look back retention
• Performance baselines
• L2 to application transactions
• Automated analysis

East to West Visibility

• Addresses both infrastructure and application requirements
• Non-intrusive virtualized datacenter integration
• Full application-chain insight across hybrid clouds & SDNs
• Fast time to value
• Low TCO

Why is Skylight sensor: capture better for E/W visibility than other NPMD technologies?

Skylight sensor: capture leverages its pure software sniffer to deliver agentless performance management in virtualized and cloud environments.

Others relying on hardware components offer intrusive alternatives requiring NICs, Network Packet Brokers (NPB), and generate additional traffic load.

Hyper-V Traffic Mirroring Capabilities

Hyper-V vs VMware virtual switching capabilities:

• Virtual switching can only be configured on a per-host basis.
  

• Virtual switching on host-basis or Virtual distributed switching on a global level.

Hyper-V Virtual Switches Deployment Models

Three deployment models of Hyper-V Virtual Switch

External Virtual Switch	Internal Virtual Switch	Private Virtual Switch
Bound to the host physical network cards	Not bound to a physical network card Can communicate with the Hyper-V host OS (vEthernet interface created) As from Hyper-V version 2016, external connectivity possible via NAT configuration	Only used for virtual machines to communicate with each other

Single Host Hyper-V Virtual Switch Configuration

A Virtual Switch is a host-based configuration:

Mulitple Hosts Hyper-V traffic Capture Designs

No ERSPAN capabilities like in VMware; Hyper-V only supports intra-VMs traffic monitoring within the same Hyper-V host (due to the lack of VMware VDS alike switching capabilities):

If you need to monitor intra-VMs traffic in a Hyper-V host on which there is no Skylight sensor: capture VA running, RPACPD technique can be used. (See Skylight sensor: capture deployment in AWS/Azure environment for more information about RPCAPD implementation.)

• Solution 1: RPCAPD service on each monitored VM:
  

• Solution2 : Centralized CPB
  

Physical Network Traffic Monitoring

Capturing traffic from the physical network to Hyper-V is not supported.

Tested Hyper-V Platforms

Platforms that have been successfully tested and validated:

• Windows 2012 Server
• Windows 2016 Server
• Windows 2018 Server (1803)

How to Install Skylight sensor: capture in a Hyper-V Environment

Hyper-V Manager is the tool being used.

▶ To install Skylight sensor: capture in a Hyper-V environment

1. Right-click on the Hyper-V host.

2. Select Import Virtual Machine... in the drop-down menu.
   

3. In the Before You Begin step, click Next >.

4. In the Locate Folder step, click Browse. The Skylight sensor: capture Hyper-V software image is composed of three folders.

5. Select the folder with the three subfolders in it. The three folders are Snapshots, Virtual Hard Disks, Virtual Machines.

6. Click Select Folder.
   

7. Click Next >.
   

8. In the Select Virtual Machine step, select your VM and click Next >.
   

9. In the Choose Import Type step, select the Copy the virtual machine (create a new unique ID) radio button.

10. Click Next >.
    

11. In the Choose Destination step, if needed, change the virtual machine storage location and click Next >.
    

12. In the Choose Storage Folders step, select the folder to store the Virtual Hard Disk and click Next >.
    

13. In the Connect Network step, select the external vSwitch that you will use to acccess the Skylight sensor: capture Web UI. By default, the Skylight sensor: capture image looks for a vSwitch called 'admin' to link its administration interface.

14. Click Next >.
    

15. Select the internal vSwitch you'll use to capture intra-VMs traffic. By default, the Skylight sensor: capture image looks for a vSwitch called 'mirror' to link its capture interface.

16. Click Next >.
    

17. In the Summary step, review and click Finish once done.
    

• Skylight sensor: capture virtual appliance is now deployed.
  

• Once deployed, right-click on the virtual machine name and select Rename... in the drop-down menu.
  

• Click Start by either right-clicking on the Skylight sensor: capture virtual machine or by using the Actions menu.
  

How to Add Sniffing Interfaces to the Skylight sensor: capture Virtual Appliance

▶ To add sniffing interfaces to the Skylight sensor: capture virtual appliance

1. Right-click on the Skylight sensor: capture virtual appliance virtual machine and select Settings... in the drop-down menu.
   

2. In the dialog box, select Add Hardware.

3. Select Network Adapter.

4. Click Add.
   

5. Choose the Virtual Switch to which you want to attach the new virtual network adapter.

6. Click Apply.
   

How to Configure a Hyper-V Virtual Switch

▶ To configure a Hyper-V Virtual Switch

1. Click on the Hyper-V host.

2. Select Virtual Switch Manager... in the Actions menu.
   

3. Select the vSwitch type to create.

4. Click Create Virtual Switch.
   

5. Provide a name for the vSwitch.

6. Add notes if needed.

7. Select the Hyper-V host physical network adapter to attach to this external vSwitch.

8. Click OK.
   

9. Click Yes once the pop-up window appears.
   

• The external vSwitch has now been successfully created.
  

• Refering to the Interal network radio button, the procedure is identical for internal vSwitches except that you do not link any physical network adapter.
  

How to Configure Port Mirroring

Configuring the mirroring on the monitored virtual machines

▶ To configure port mirroring

1. Right-click on the virtual machine and select Settings... in the drop-down menu.
   

2. Select the Network Adapter and Advanced Features menu.

3. Select Source in order to capture the virtual machine corresponding traffic.

4. Click OK.
   

Configuring the Skylight sensor: capture virtual appliance mirror interface as traffic destination

▶ To configure the Skylight sensor: capture virtual appliance mirror interface as traffic destination

1. Select the Skylight sensor: capture virtual appliance virtual machine.
2. Select the sniffing interface.
3. Select the Destination for the captured traffic.
4. Click OK.