Virtual Machine Technology
Q. What is virtual machine technology?
A.
Virtual machine technology applies to both server and client hardware. Virtual machine technology enables multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a single machine. In particular, Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008 R2, enables one or more operating systems to run simultaneously on the same physical system. Today, many operating systems are supported by Virtual PC 2007, Virtual Server 2005, and Hyper-V.
Q. What is virtual machine technology used for?
A.
Virtual machine technology serves a variety of purposes. It enables hardware consolidation, because multiple operating systems can run on one computer. Key applications for virtual machine technology include cross-platform integration as well as the following:
- Server consolidation. If several servers run applications that consume only a fraction of the available resources, virtual machine technology can be used to enable them to run side by side on a single server, even if they require different versions of the operating system or middleware.
- Consolidation for development and testing environments. Each virtual machine acts as a separate environment, which reduces risk and enables developers to quickly recreate different operating system configurations or compare versions of applications designed for different operating systems. In addition, a developer can test early development versions of an application in a virtual machine without fear of destabilizing the system for other users.
- Legacy application re-hosting. Legacy operating systems and applications can run on new hardware along with more recent operating systems and applications.
- Simplify disaster and recovery. Virtual machine technology can be used as part of a disaster and recovery plan that requires application portability and flexibility across hardware platforms.
- Moving to a dynamic datacenter. Hyper-V, along with systems management solutions, helps you to now create a dynamic IT environment that not only enables you to react to problems more efficiently but also to create a proactive and self-managing IT management solution.
Q. What is Microsoft's strategy for virtualization?
A.
Our goal is to help customers make their IT systems more self-managing and dynamic so that they can gain more control of their IT systems, and enable their businesses to respond faster and stay ahead of the competition. We're doing this by:
- Providing a complete set of virtualization products that span from the desktop to the datacenter
- Helping manage all IT assets—both physical and virtual—from a single platform
We are making broad investments—in the areas of the platform, management, applications, interoperability, and licensing, and working to enable customers to take advantage of their existing platform investments, utilize their existing support skills and infrastructure, and to reduce costs associated with implementing virtualized environments.
Hyper-V
Q. What is Hyper-V?
A.
Hyper-V, previously codenamed Viridian, is a hypervisor-based technology that is a key feature of Windows Server 2008 R2. It provides a scalable, reliable, and highly available virtualization platform. It is part of Microsoft's ongoing effort to provide our customers and partners with the best operating system platform for virtualization.
Q. What is Windows hypervisor?
A.
A core component of Hyper-V, Windows hypervisor is a thin layer of software between the hardware and the OS that allows multiple operating systems to run, unmodified, on a host computer at the same time. It provides simple partitioning functionality and is responsible for maintaining strong isolation between partitions. It has an inherently secure architecture with minimal attack surface, as it does not contain any third-party device drivers.
Q. What benefits does Hyper-V offer customers?
A.
Hyper-V provides customers an ideal platform for key virtualization scenarios, such as production server consolidation, business continuity management, software test and development, and development of a dynamic datacenter.
Hyper-V provides key functionality, which an ideal virtualization platform should provide—scalability, high performance, reliability, security, flexibility, and manageability. It provides scalability and high performance by supporting features like guest multi-processing support and 64-bit guest and host support; reliability and security through its hypervisor architecture; flexibility and manageability by supporting features like quick migration of virtual machines from one physical host to another, and integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
Hyper-V provides key functionality, which an ideal virtualization platform should provide—scalability, high performance, reliability, security, flexibility, and manageability. It provides scalability and high performance by supporting features like guest multi-processing support and 64-bit guest and host support; reliability and security through its hypervisor architecture; flexibility and manageability by supporting features like quick migration of virtual machines from one physical host to another, and integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
Q. Will Microsoft continue to support Linux operating systems with Hyper-V?
A.
Yes, Microsoft provides integration components and technical support for customers running select Linux distributions as guest operating systems within Hyper-V. Please check the Supported Guest Operating Systems page for more information and updates.
Q. Can you provide a brief overview of Hyper-V's feature set?
A.
Some of the capabilities of Hyper-V include x64 host and guest support, ability to run guest machines in a multi-processor environment, large memory allocation per virtual machine, integrated virtual switch support, and ability to migrate virtual machines across hosts with minimal downtime. With the R2 release of Hyper-V, Live Migration, new processor support, and dynamic virtual machine capabilities were added.
Q. How will customers migrate to Hyper-V?
A.
Customers who invest in the .vhd file format—the format used by Virtual Server, as well as a multitude of vendor licensees—will have a clear path forward to Hyper-V. Customers can leverage V2V capabilities in System Center Virtual Machine Manager to conveniently migrate from Virtual Server or VMware to Hyper-V or work with Microsoft's partners who provide migration solutions.
Q. Are there tools available to assist in planning for Hyper-V migration?
A.
Yes, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit helps you plan for Hyper-V migration by determining which of your physical servers are underutilized and, therefore, good candidates for server virtualization.
Hyper-V — Windows Server 2008 R2 Specific
Q. How do users access the Hyper-V?
A.
Users can go to Server Manager and install the Hyper-V role. After the Hyper-V role is enabled, Hyper-V Manager will become available as a part of Administrative Tools. From the Hyper-V Manager users can easily create and configure virtual machines.
Q. Does Microsoft provide technical support for Hyper-V?
A.
Yes, technical support for Hyper-V is part of the support for Windows Server 2008 R2. For more information on support, please refer to the Windows Server 2008 R2 Support page.
Q. What is the expected performance of Hyper-V? How does it compare to Virtual Server? How does it compare to ESX server?
A.
We are not publishing performance numbers currently. Based on independent reports and benchmarks from partners like QLogic, we believe that we have a competitive virtualization offering.
Q. What is the list of guests that will be supported on Hyper-V? When can we expect support for key operating systems like Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, etc.?
A.
Microsoft supports a number of guest OS environments including Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Novell SUSE.
Q. What are the differences between Hyper-V and Virtual Server?
A.
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is the current server virtualization solution from Microsoft and is based on a hosted virtualization platform. Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008 R2, is a hypervisor-based virtualization platform that will enable customers to not only consolidate a vast array of workloads but also enable moving toward a dynamic IT environment. Core feature set differences include support for 64 guest virtual machines, SMP support, performance improvements, and other key features in Hyper-V.
Licensing Information
Q. How do I know which Windows Server 2008 R2 features or services I am allowed to run on the host without requiring CALs?
A.
When using Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V to run virtual machines with older versions of Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 CALs will not be required in certain scenarios.
- When the Host OS is only running services related to virtualization, such as Hyper-V and Failover Clustering, then Windows Server 2008 CALs are not required.
- If the Guest OS is Windows Server 2008, or if the Windows Server 2008 host, installs other services, then Windows Server 2008 CALs would still be required.
Q. What are the licensing considerations in a virtual machine environment?
A.
In addition, it's good to understand the licensing terms offered by independent software vendors (ISVs) for any software provided by those vendors. For more information on licensing considerations in these cases, you should consult with your ISV.
It is important to understand your licensing rights and obligations when running Microsoft Windows Server and/or other Microsoft applications in a virtual machine environment.
In addition, it's good to understand the licensing terms offered by independent software vendors (ISVs) for any software provided by those vendors. For more information on licensing considerations in these cases, you should consult with your ISV.
Q. Does running Windows NT in a virtual machine mean that Microsoft is extending its support for the product?
A.
No. While you may receive benefit from moving the applications from physical hardware to virtual machines, running applications in a virtual environment does not extend their support life cycles. For more information about the support life-cycle timeframes.
Technical Information
Q. What are the system requirements for Hyper-V?
A.
In addition to the systems requirement for Windows Server 2008 R2, the two key requirements for the Hyper-V platform are the need to ensure that the server is a 64-bit environment and supports hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel VT or AMD-V) technology.
Q. How many virtual machines can run per processor?
A.
The number of virtual machines running per host depends on many factors, including physical memory, processor, and workload running in the guest. With Hyper-V, you define the amount of memory available to a virtual machine, and that memory allocation can be altered to reflect the needs of the virtual machine.
Q. Does Hyper-V support 64-bit processors?
A.
Hyper-V runs on a 64-bit (x64) server platform and requires support of either AMD64 or Intel IA-32e/EM64T (x64) processors with hardware-assisted virtualization support. Note that Hyper-V does not support Itanium (IA-64) processors. For the virtual machines, Hyper-V supports both 32-bit and 64-bit systems as guest OSes.
Q. Does Hyper-V support symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) in the virtual machine environment?
A.
Hyper-V supports both uniprocessor and multiprocessor configurations in the virtual machine environment.
Setup and Requirements
Q. What are the prerequisites to install and use Hyper-V?
A.
In addition to the system requirements for Windows Server 2008 R2 as described in the release notes, a 64-bit system with hardware-assisted virtualization enabled and data execution prevention (DEP) is required. It is also recommended to ensure that you have a clean install of x64 edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 to be able to use the Hyper-V technology.
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