Microsoft Virtualization Secrets

Designing a Private Cloud with Hyper-V and System Center 2012

I’ve introduced the main applications and platforms that make up the Microsoft private cloud solution. I now want to spend a little time explaining how the components work together, and how to build a private cloud with SCVMM. Then you will see how System Center App Controller, Orchestrator, and Service Manager really round out the solution.

Service Pack 1 is important, as it introduces Dynamic Memory, which provides a level of VM density previously not possible.

This section describes an ideal Microsoft private cloud solution; and unsurprisingly, this solution reflects what is described in the preceding section: System Center 2012 and Microsoft Hyper-V running Windows operating systems. Although aspects of the private cloud were supported in the previous version of System Center and it offered some self-service capabilities, I believe an ideal private cloud requires abstraction from the underlying fabric and a focus on the application. That is why I believe System Center 2012 is Microsoft’s first true private cloud enabler.

You can also build a great private cloud with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1; but once Windows Server 2012 is released with the new version of Hyper-V, features available with a private cloud will skyrocket. Just looking at the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Network Virtualization feature alone, the capability for a virtual network infrastructure completely independent of the physical network—enabling ...