Hyper-V is a component of Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 that enables a Server 2008 machine to act as a host platform for multiple virtual machines. These virtual machines can themselves run several separate operating systems, including at this writing Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP/Vista, and SLES 10. Hyper-V runs only on 64-bit flavors (and hardware architectures) of Windows Server 2008; and further requires processors that themselves provide hardware-assisted virtualization and Data Execution Prevention (DEP) support--AMD64 and Intel IA-32e/EM64T are specifically listed as supported, while Itanium (IA-64) processors are specifically listed as NOT supported. Guest operating systems can be both 32 or 64-bit flavors.

Microsoft's Hyper-V-based virtualization architecture relies on a thin hypervisor software layer that resides between the physical hardware and the OS; it is this layer that provides partitioning and isolation capabilities between the virtual machines that run over it. The vendor states that this layer contains no 3rd party drivers. Although Hyper-V is a component of Windows Server 2008, it is possible to license a copy of Windows Server 2008 without the Hyper-V technology.

Hyper-V is activated as a Server Core Role, and provides multi-processor support (SMP) for some guest operating systems, including Windows Server 2008 (x86/x64), and Windows Server 2003 (x86). Other supported guest O/S's support only 1-way processors. Each VM can additionally support up to 4 virtual SCSI controllers and 64 GB of memory.

Hyper-V is integrated with and can be enabled from within Server Manager.

Other key features of the Hyper-V technology include support for the migration of VMs from one host to another; clustering support for VMs on a host; support for live VM snapshot backups via VSS; included tools for the compaction, expansion, and examination of Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs; the vendor also notes that the VHD format is available as an Open Specification); support for the import/export of VM settings/configurations; and support for remote management via a Hyper-V MMC only installation option. For SUSE Linux guest OSs in particular, Microsoft offers integration components enabling Xen-enabled Linux guests to leverage the Hyper-V architecture for increased overall performance.

The Hyper-V RTM (Release to Manufacturing) is available now. Also now available is Hyper-V Server 2008, a free and feature limited version of the product targeted to smaller and/or test and development environments. Hyper-V Server supports only 32 GB and 4 CPUs in the Host, and does not support clustering or migration features, among other limitations.

Visit the Microsoft Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

E-Mail this page to a colleague
send info about Hyper-V

Suggest a link
for the Hyper-V fact sheet