- What Is Server Virtualization and Microsoft Hyper-V?
- Choosing to Virtualize Servers
- Understanding Microsoft's Virtualization Strategy
- What's New in Hyper-V
- Determining What Is Needed to Virtualize Servers
- The Right Time to Implement Hyper-V
- Migrating from Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and VMware
- Understanding the Administration of Virtual Guest Sessions
- Ensuring High Availability of a Hyper-V Host Server
- Summary
- Best Practices
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Summary
This introductory chapter was intended to highlight what Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is, generally how it works, where it fits in to an organization, and how virtualization can greatly decrease the cost, management, and administration of network server systems. In addition, through the implementation of failover technologies, a virtualized environment can leverage host clustering, guest clustering, stretch clusters, and SAN technologies to greatly improve the reliability of network and server system operations.
The inclusion of Hyper-V into an existing Windows 2000 or 2003 Active Directory requires just attaching a member server to an existing domain. The built-in administration tools in the form of the Hyper-V Administration tool or the purchase of the System Center VMM 2008 tool provides extensive capabilities to an organization for virtual guest image support.
In just a few short years, server virtualization has shifted from being a technology that was good to fiddle with for test and development lab purposes. Drastic improvements in server technologies and initiatives to decrease costs and provide better environment-conscious business practices have driven server virtualization out of the test labs and into mainstream production environments. It's no longer whether an organization will virtualize part or all of its IT environment, it's a matter of when and how virtualization will be implemented.
The balance of this book covers planning, testing, implementing, administering, managing, and supporting the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization technology in production environments.