Introduction - Hyper V Server

Introduction to Hyper V Server:

Mictrosoft Hyper V also knows as Windows Server Virtualization is a Hypervisor based virtualization. A Free Stand alone version of Hyper V also called as Microsoft Hyper V Server 2008 was get release on 1st October 2008 which includes full Hyper V Functionality.

Hyper V Supports isolation in terms of partition. A partition is logical unit of isolation supported by hypervisor in which OS gets executed. A hypervisor instance must have atleast one parent partition running Windows Server 2008. Virtualization stacks run on parent partition which has direct access to physical hardware devices. The Parent partitons than create child partitons which hosts the guest OS's. Child partition is created using Hypercall API which is application programming interface sxpose by Hyper V.

A Virtualize partition does not have any access to physical devices. It has virtual processor and runs in Guest Virtual address. A hypervisor could choose to expose only subsets of processors to each partition. Hypervisor handles interrupts to processor and redirect them to respective partitions using Logical Synthetic Interrupt Controller (SyncIc). Child partitions does not have direct access to physical resources but they have virtual view of resources like virtual devices. Any requests to Virtual devices is redirect via VMBus to devices on parent partition. VMBus is a logical channel which enables inter partition communication.

Requirements:

# X86-64 processor running x64 version of Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise or Data Center Edition.

# Processor which includes Virtualization option called as Hardware assisted Virtualization.

# Minimum 2 GB Ram. Each Virtual OS will require its own Memory.

# Windows server 2008 Standard (x64) Hyper V Core requires Approx 3 Gb of Disk space for installation.

#  Windows server 2008 Standard (x64) Hyper V full GUI requires Approx 8 Gb of Disk space for installation.

# Windows server 2008 Standard (x64) Hyper V full GUI supports 31 GB Ram for running VM's and 1 GB for Hyper V parent OS.

# Windows server 2008 Standard (x64) Hyper V full GUI supports up to 4 processor with 1,2 or 4 cores.

# Windows server 2008 Standard (x64) Hyper V full GUI supports up to 128 Guest OS's.

# Hyper V Supports 32 and 64 bits Guest VM.

Supported Guests:


# Windows Server 2008 x64/86 SP1/2 R2




# Windows Server 2003 x64/86 SP1/2 R2


# Windows 2000 Server SP4 and Advance Server SP4


# Windows 7


# Windows Vista SP1/2


# SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1/2 and 11


# Red Hat Linux Enterprise 5.2/5.3/5.4 X86/64

Benefits:


# Server Consolidation


# Development and Test


# High availability system requirement.


# Dynamic Data center


Installation of Hyper V will be continue on Next Blog. Please do not forget to share this article amongst your friends.