Hyper-V Experiences – Part I

Here are my experiences using Hyper-V and learning how best to use the virtualization of servers in one physical server box.

ArrowQuick has started looking at virtualization of Microsoft servers! Since ArrowQuick does not have a spare 64-bit Quad or Duo Core server, I decided to partition my meager 250 GB hard drive on my HP xw4600 workstation and start learning Hyper-V, Microsoft’s virtualization software. Here are my experiences using Hyper-V and learning how best to use the virtualization of servers in one physical server box.

Virtualization is not new to me; being a Macintosh user has offered me options to virtualize Microsoft operating system for almost 20 years. In the 1980s, Macs could virtualize MS-DOS with a software virtual environment called TOPS. In the early 1990s, with the aid of a 386/486 processor on a daughterboard in a PowerMac, Windows 3.1 was virtualized on a Mac. And Virtual PC allowed PowerPC Macs to run Windows 98/2000 pretty well. Currently, Intel based Macs run all versions of Windows in either Fusion or Parallels virtualization software.

So what is Hyper-V and how will it make PC virtualization helpful to IT professionals and administrators of servers? With today’s very powerful multi-core processors, 64-bit processors, and vast amounts of memory, multiple servers can now run on a single hardware box. Hyper-V handles the communication with the hardware and Windows Server 2008 is the core operating system with multiple instances of other server and workstation operating systems running at the same time.

The beginning of the process for me was to use Gparted to change the single partition on my HP workstation’s hard drive to allow for the installation of Hyper-V. Once the partition was created for Hyper-V, I booted the installation DVD that was created from the Hyper-V ISO file. Once booted, the Hyper-V installation looks for the hard drive partitions and lets you select one for installation. The copying of files from DVD and basic setup only took my HP workstation about 10 minutes.

The first boot of Hyper-V asks you to enter the administrative user and leave the initial password blank. You must then enter a non-trivial password of good strength for the setup process to continue. The Hyper-V configuration will finally come up on your screen. At this juncture, you must configure your settings for domain, computer name, network, region and language. In addition, you can download and install Windows updates.

If you change the domain or workgroup, you will be asked to reboot just as if you were changing a standard Windows workstation domain or workgroup. Windows updates can be set for manual or automatic updates. I did manual updates and the server found 14 updates for the Hyper-V product. Remember that Hyper-V is Windows Server 2008 at the core, so those updates are patching that OS too. I finally checked to make sure the server date and time setting was automatically synchronized with time.windows.com.

Hyper-V Server appears to have some limitation. It inherits the limits of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition of a maximum of 4 sockets per host, 32 GB of physical memory per host, and 31 GB of virtual memory per virtual machine. Only time will give us a better picture of Microsoft’s intentions with Hyper-V.

In review, Hyper-V Server is Windows Server 2008 where Server Core roles have been disabled except for Hyper-V. The basic interface is command line and menu driven for basic setup. The only graphical elements are the login screen and interface for setting the date and time. Hyper-V Server is also license-less; there is no product key.

In Part II of my Hyper-V Experience, I will talk about my attempts to install an actual licensed OS into a virtual partition in Hyper-V.

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Hyper-V Experiences – Part I

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