Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Windows Server 2008 Revealed: Hyper-V virtualization

December 20, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Companies of all sizes are looking to virtualization as a seemingly game-changing scenario. Server consolidation, energy efficiency, increased capacity, and simpler management and deployment are all tangible benefits to be gained from a move to virtual servers and virtually hosted services.

Microsoft Corp. has seen the light and is here to help with Hyper-V (previously known by its code name, Viridian, or by the previous brand name, Windows Server Virtualization), which was released in beta earlier this month, ahead of the planned February 2008 date.

According to the company, Hyper-V "is a next-generation hypervisor-based virtualization platform integrated with the operating system that allows you to dynamically add physical and virtual resources."

You might know about virtualization in general, but you might not be familiar with what the buzz is about. Here's a look at how Hyper-V works, its major benefits and when you can expect to deploy this feature in production environments.

How it works

To understand Hyper-V, consider its three main components: the hypervisor, the virtualization stack and the new virtualized I/O model. The Windows hypervisor basically acts to create the different "partitions" that each virtualized instance of code will run within. The virtualization stack and the I/O components provide interactivity with Windows itself and with the various partitions that are created.

All three of these components work in tandem. Using servers with processors equipped with Intel VT- or AMD-V-enabled technology, Hyper-V interacts with the hypervisor, which is a very small layer of software that is present directly on the processor. This software hooks into threads on the processor that the host operating system can use to efficiently manage multiple virtual machines, and multiple virtual operating systems, running on a single physical processor.

Since there are no third-party software products or drivers to install, you get nearly guaranteed compatibility. Along with efficient process management, you can hot-add resources to the machine hosting your virtualized services. From processors to memory to network cards to additional storage media, you can add these devices to the machine without needing to bring down any services and interrupt user sessions. You can also host 64-bit guest sessions, which is a big boon to organizations moving toward adoption of 64-bit software. You can virtualize your migration, save money on deployment costs and then assess how many physical machines you'll need when you finish your migration.

High availability

Part of the idea behind virtualization is not only to eliminate machine duplication and save on costs, but to also ensure that services are available more than they otherwise would be on unvirtualized servers. In that context, Hyper-V includes support for clustering across multiple guests. Additionally, you can cluster multiple physical machines running the Hyper-V component, so that virtualized instances can fail-over to another host should something occur with the primary host. Finally, you can migrate virtualized guests from one physical host to another with no downtime, easing servicing, planning and reorganization while significantly limiting detrimental effects on production services.



Jump to comments

Hyper-V

Additional Resources

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know
WHITE PAPER
Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.
Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009
WHITE PAPER
The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.
Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing
WHITE PAPER
Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

The Business Case for Virtualization
Download this Resource Now!  

Effectively Implementing Datacenter Automation
Effectively select and deploy the best datacenter automation solution today!

Efficient Root-cause Analysis in the face of Datacenter Complexity
Isolating Virtualization and n-Tier Application Issues, Measuring Success, Assessing Business Impact, and Enabling Technologies

A Green Architectural Strategy That Puts IT in the Black
Levergage green computing across your data center. Read more now.  

XenApp Extends Virtualized Application Delivery
Download this webcast to learn how to accelerate delivery of virtualized applications and streamline management.


IT Jobs

 

Virtualization Everywhere
Virtualize your servers in less than ten minutes! Citrix XenServer is powerful server virtualization software that makes data centers more agile through improved server utilization, workload mobility, and enhanced disaster recovery. All the features you need - radically lower TCO.

Download this white paper 
XenServer FREE Trial
Citrix XenServer™ is the simplest and most effective way to virtualize and provision servers. XenServer combines comprehensive server virtualization capabilities with unparalleled scalability, performance, economics, and ease-of-use. Based on the open source Xen hypervisor, XenServer delivers fast performance, easy management, and advanced features such as live migration.

Download this free trial 
Business Value of Virtualized IT: Ensuring That Your Virtualized Servers and Storage Work in Harmony
The growing number of virtualized servers is affecting storage network environments, policies for provisioning capacity, and storage management and data protection practices. Storage assets allocated to virtualized servers can help deliver significant business value, but when deployed incorrectly can lead to "unintended consequences" that minimize the original business value of server virtualization. In this paper, IDC examines how implementing a virtualized networked storage environment ensures that organizations can maximize the benefits of server virtualization.

Download this white paper