5 Great Things you Can Do With the New Hyper-V 3.0 And Windows Server 8
Windows Server 8 “Beta ” is out there. It comes with important list of cool stuff like PowerShell v3, Metro UI, Resilient File System (ReFS), DHCP failover, etc. However, one of the most important parts Microsoft has enhanced that time, has been Hyper-V. Microsoft has introduced with Windows Server 8 an important number of new Hyper-V features that should consolidate it as an enterprise virtualization platform. Today, I would like to show you the ones that exited me most:
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Perform VMs and VHDs Live Migrations between clustered and non-clustered Hyper-V hosts. Built-in Hyper-V live migration moves running virtual machines from one physical host to another with minimal impact on virtual machine availability to users. No need of clustered environments or Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) anymore. Microsoft also has included a new feature in Hyper-V that allows administrators to move the virtual hard disks of a virtual machine while those virtual hard disks remain available for use by the running virtual machine.
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Replicate VMs between remote sites. With Hyper-V Replica, administrators can asynchronously replicate their Hyper-V virtual machines from one Hyper-V host at a primary site to another Hyper-V host at a replica site. This feature also provides failover to the replica site if a failure on the primary site occurs, VSS snapshots, and IP address ingestion.
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Create a monster cluster with few limitations. The enhanced failover clustering capability in Windows Server 8 now supports up to 32 nodes and 4,000 virtual machines running on Hyper-V (125 VMs/Node). Virtual machines running on Hyper-V 3.0 now support up to 160 processors and 2 TB of memory, so the 8:1 logical to virtual processor limitation has been removed.
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Virtualize Windows Server 8 domain controllers. In Windows Server 8, virtual domain controllers use a unique identifier exposed by Hyper-V (GenerationID). It changes whenever the virtual machine experiences an event that affects its position in time; but before starting and completing any change the domain controller compares the GenerationID against the one stored in Active-Directory. If there is a mismatch the domain controller interprets it as a “rollback” event and the new Windows Server 8 safeguards allow the virtual domain controller to converge with other domain controllers and also prevent it from creating duplicate security principles. The hypervisor platform should be GenerationID-aware to offer that extra level of protection.
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Forget Virtual PC. Hyper-V is included in the client operating system for free. It’s the same Hyper-V as in the server, offering VM mobility and an easy introduction to Microsoft’s enterprise virtualization. So, finally a true hypervisor platform for client operating systems and not the old limited Virtual PC.
The Windows Server “8” Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster, provides a visual reference for understanding key Hyper-V technologies in Windows Server 8 and focuses on Hyper-V Replica, networking, virtual machine mobility (live migration), storage, failover clustering, and scalability.
But if you prefer technical detailed documentation, don’t forget to check the following documents: