The Hyper-V

Hyper-V is Microsoft’s server virtualization technology built-in to Windows Server 2008. (You can read more here on the microsoft windows server 2008) Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is a System Center add-on that helps organizations better manage their virtual guest images, delegate administration and management, and even extract virtual images from existing physical and virtual servers.

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Hyper-V is not built on top of Xen nor are the two platforms interoperable or interchangeable. This is a rumor that’s been floating around for at least 8 months, mostly based on the MS XenSource announcement in 2006, and although the rumor is completely false, there is some overlap in their technologies.

Hyper-V is a bare-metal hypervisor, meaning it sits directly on hardware and controls the creation and operation of virtual machines (VMs). It’s intended to compete directly with ESX, the flagship hypervisor of industry leader VMware.

Hyper-V is considerably cheaper than ESX; Microsoft’s approach is to give the core functionality away for free and then charge for VM management tools, whereas ESX is sold in the more conventional way. For those who need the extra features, ESX is still a good option, but Hyper-V is sure to cause some VMware customers to look elsewhere.

The Hyper-V Virtual Machine connection is a wrapper around remote desktop client and as of now only works on the host machine. So if the host machine is on a remote location, you have to use remote desktop and then connect to the guest machine. The Hyper-V snuggling involves Opterons and AMD Virtualization technology, which somehow works with Hyper-V to increase server efficiency whilst lowering power consumption. It’s all about Hyper-V working well with AMD-V, with servers able to host more virtual machines, carry out more transactions and support more users. The Hyper-V guide represents the host instances as virtual machines with the guest OS of Windows Server 2003. It is important to note that this guide does not recommend or endorse BizTalk running in a host OS of Windows Server 2008, although this is technically possible.

The Hyper-V Management Console provides everything necessary to perform these basic tasks, but it’s important to understand the options available and their potential ramifications. This tip describes the steps that are required to create and manage all types of VHDs – dynamically expanding, fixed sized and differencing disks — along with some performance-related recommendations. The Hyper-V technology provides a scalable, reliable and highly available virtualization platform along with a single set of integrated management tools to manage both physical and virtual resources. A key feature of Hyper-V is the virtualization of multiple operating systems, including Windows and Linux, on the same server, allowing users to consolidate systems into a single environment without losing control, security or performance. The Hyper-V virtual machine integration services won’t install otherwise, and you need those services in order to connect the virtual machine to the network.

Virtual processors are what the virtual machines actually use, and all execution in the root and child partitions occurs in virtual processors. Virtualization is key to making the best use and securely isolating properties from multiple customers that might not use even a full inexpensive CPU, and moving them geographically or whatever to provide resilience and robustness. So, it is something that’s extremely important. Virtual networks can also be created, modified, and deleted at any time using the Virtual Network Manager . It is considered a best practice to have at least one physical network adapter that does not have a virtual network associated with it to be used for host server management. Hyper-V is now ready for deployment in production environments and eligible for full support. For more information on support, please refer to the Windows Server 2008 Support page.