Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 14. Hyper-V

Companies of all sizes worldwide are looking to virtualization as a seemingly game-changing scenario. Server consolidation, energy efficiency, simpler management and deployment, and increased capacity are all tangible benefits to be gained from a move to virtual servers and virtually hosted services. Microsoft has seen the light and is here to help with Hyper-V (formerly known by its codename, "Viridian," or by the previous brand name, Windows Server Virtualization), which, according to the company, "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. Let's break Hyper-V down in this chapter: how it works, its major benefits, and when you can expect to be able to deploy this feature in production environments. I'll also present a virtualization strategy outline as you consider how to integrate Hyper-V or other virtualization technologies into your workflow.

Warning

The idea behind this chapter is to give you a fresh look at Hyper-V in its prerelease state as close to the release of Windows Server 2008 as possible. Some of the information and specific procedures in this chapter may change before Hyper-V is released to the public, but the architecture information and the general steps to manage Hyper-V should be very similar.

How It Works

To understand ...