Microsoft Hyper-V

MS-Windows-Server_HyperV

Hyper-V provides a reliable virtualization platform that allows customers to virtualize their infrastructure and reduce costs. It has thin micro-kernelized hypervisor architecture, minimal attack surface and is available as a Server Core role.

System Center integrated management tools mean you can use a single set of tools to manage both your physical and virtual resources. And becuase it easily plugs into your IT infrastructure, you can leverage existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools, and processes. As its available as a feature of Windows Server 2008 R2, it provides great value and businesses can leverage the breadth of solutions from Microsoft partners, existing IT Pro skill sets, and comprehensive support from Microsoft.

Server virtualization, also known as hardware virtualization, is a hot topic in the IT world because of the potential for serious economic benefits. Server virtualization enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine as virtual machines (VMs). With server virtualization, you can consolidate workloads of underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Fewer physical machines can lead to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus the creation of a more dynamic IT infrastructure.

Hyper-V Key Features

Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes five core areas of improvement for creating dynamic virtual data centers:

  • Increased availability for virtualized data centers
  • Improved management of virtualized data centers
  • Increased performance and hardware support for Hyper-V virtual machines
  • Improved virtual networking performance
  • Simplified method for physical and virtual computer deployments by using .vhd files

 

Hyper-V as a part of Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter) and of x64 editions of Windows Server 2008 (Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter) includes the following capabilities:

  • High availability
  • Server Core role
  • Integrated into Server Manager
  • Live Backups with VSS
  • VHD tools
  • Linux integration components
  • VM manageability
  • Improved performance
  • Improved access control with AzMan
  • Remote management
  • Increased virtual SCSI support
  • Increased memory support

 

Core Scenarios for Hyper-V

Server Consolidation
Businesses are under pressure to ease management and reduce costs while retaining and enhancing competitive advantages, such as flexibility, reliability, scalability, and security. The fundamental use of virtualization to help consolidate many servers on a single system while maintaining isolation helps address these demands. One of the main benefits of server consolidation is a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), not just from lowering hardware requirements but also from lower power, cooling, and management costs.

Businesses also benefit from server virtualization through infrastructure optimization, both from an asset utilization standpoint as well as the ability to balance workloads across different resources. Improved flexibility of the overall environment and the ability to freely integrate 32-bit and 64-bit workloads in the same environment is another benefit.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Business continuity is the ability to minimize both scheduled and unscheduled downtime. That includes time lost to routine functions, such as maintenance and backup, as well as unanticipated outages. Hyper-V includes powerful business continuity features, such as live backup and quick migration, enabling businesses to meet stringent uptime and response metrics.

Disaster recovery is a key component of business continuity. Natural disasters, malicious attacks, and even simple configuration problems like software conflicts can cripple services and applications until administrators resolve the problems and restore any backed up data. Leveraging the clustering capabilities of Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V now provides support for disaster recovery (DR) within IT environments and across data centers, using geographically dispersed clustering capabilities. Rapid and reliable disaster and business recovery helps ensure minimal data loss and powerful remote management capabilities.

Testing and Development
Testing and development are frequently the first business functions to take advantage of virtualization technology. Using virtual machines, development staffs can create and test a wide variety of scenarios in a safe, self-contained environment that accurately approximates the operation of physical servers and clients. Hyper-V maximizes utilization of test hardware which can help reduce costs, improve life cycle management, and improve test coverage. With extensive guest OS support and checkpoint features, Hyper-V provides a great platform for your test and development environments.

Dynamic Data Center
Hyper-V, together with your existing system management solutions, such as Microsoft System Center, can help you realize the dynamic data center vision of providing self-managing dynamic systems and operational agility. With features like automated virtual machine reconfiguration, flexible resource control, and quick migration, you can create a dynamic IT environment that uses virtualization to not only respond to problems, but also to anticipate increased demands.

Quantix Partners