Microsoft Hyper-V
Hyper-V is a hypervisor based virtualization product from Microsoft. Hypervisor is a very thin abstraction layer that allows to run multiple copies of virtual server on a single piece of hardware. Hyper-V is the most talked about thing in the virtualization industry today. People have already started comparing it with VMWare, which has been darling of virtualization industry for quite some time.
Hyper-V comes as a feature of 64-bit Windows Server 2008. It's a part of x64 editions of Windows Server 2008 RTM - Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. Hyper-V provides you with a technology which you can use to create and manage a virtualized server computing environment. If you've got Windows Server 2008 RTM edition, and fulfill Hyper-V's installation prerequisites, you can download an approximately 30 MB update (KB950050) from here.
Prerequisites for installing Hyper-V
First of all, you need to have a x64 based processor and of course, Windows Server 2008 x64 edition. Your machine, on which you are planning to install Hyper-V, should have following -
The settings for hardware-assisted virtualization and hardware data execution protection are available in the BIOS. If you modify the settings for hardware-assisted virtualization or hardware data execution protection, you may need to turn off the power to the computer and then turn it back on. Restarting the computer may not apply the changes to the settings.
How to install Hyper-V
Start Server Manager in your copy of Windows Server 2008, and click on Add Roles under Roles Summary. Just check the box against Hyper-V and Windows will install it for you. Windows may ask you for a reboot to complete the installation.
Default settings
Virtual machines are stored at the following location by default. You can provide a custom location for it too -
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\
Virtual hard disks are stored at the following location by default. You can provide a custom location for this too -
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks\
Hyper-V takes a default value of 127 GB for virtual hard disks. This is a dynamically expanding hard disk. Dynamically expanding virtual hard disks provide storage capacity on need basis. The size of the .vhd file is small when the disk is created and grows as data is added to the disk. Microsoft says - The size of the .vhd file does not shrink automatically when data is deleted from the virtual hard disk. However, you can compact the disk to decrease the file size after data is deleted by using the Edit Virtual Hard Disk Wizard.
You can have fixed size virtual hard disk too. Just mention 10 GB if you want to disk to be of 10 GB fixed size.
Features
Hyper-V offers following features -
Fig. - Architecture of Hyper-V
Supported Guest Operating Systems
Following operating systems are supported as Guest OSes on Hyper-V -
Hyper-V comes as a feature of 64-bit Windows Server 2008. It's a part of x64 editions of Windows Server 2008 RTM - Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. Hyper-V provides you with a technology which you can use to create and manage a virtualized server computing environment. If you've got Windows Server 2008 RTM edition, and fulfill Hyper-V's installation prerequisites, you can download an approximately 30 MB update (KB950050) from here.
Prerequisites for installing Hyper-V
First of all, you need to have a x64 based processor and of course, Windows Server 2008 x64 edition. Your machine, on which you are planning to install Hyper-V, should have following -
- Intel VT
- AMD-V
How to install Hyper-V
Start Server Manager in your copy of Windows Server 2008, and click on Add Roles under Roles Summary. Just check the box against Hyper-V and Windows will install it for you. Windows may ask you for a reboot to complete the installation.
Default settings
Virtual machines are stored at the following location by default. You can provide a custom location for it too -
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\
Virtual hard disks are stored at the following location by default. You can provide a custom location for this too -
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks\
Hyper-V takes a default value of 127 GB for virtual hard disks. This is a dynamically expanding hard disk. Dynamically expanding virtual hard disks provide storage capacity on need basis. The size of the .vhd file is small when the disk is created and grows as data is added to the disk. Microsoft says - The size of the .vhd file does not shrink automatically when data is deleted from the virtual hard disk. However, you can compact the disk to decrease the file size after data is deleted by using the Edit Virtual Hard Disk Wizard.
You can have fixed size virtual hard disk too. Just mention 10 GB if you want to disk to be of 10 GB fixed size.
Features
Hyper-V offers following features -
- Quick Migration - Migration of one virtual machine from one host to another with minimum downtime. Live migration, like VMWare offers, is currently not possible.
- High Availability - All virtual machines can be clustered for high availability.
- Live Backup - This is a great news! Microsoft uses Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) for live backups of virtual machines in terms of snapshots.
- Linux Integration - Beta Linux components are available. Currently SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 x86 and x64 editions are supported.
Fig. - Architecture of Hyper-V
Supported Guest Operating Systems
Following operating systems are supported as Guest OSes on Hyper-V -
- Windows Server 2008 x86 and x64
- Windows Server 2003 x86 and x64 - All editions with SP 2
- Windows Server 2000 - With SP 4
- Linux Distribution - Virtual machines configured with 1 virtual processor only. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with SP 1
- Windows Vista x86 and x64
- Windows XP Professional x86 and x64
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