Hyper-V Security Guide

Brief Description

This Solution Accelerator provides instructions and recommendations to help strengthen the security of computers running the Hyper-V role on Windows Server® 2008. It covers three core topics: hardening Hyper-V, delegating virtual machine management, and protecting virtual machines.

Overview

This Solution Accelerator consists of a security guide and an overview packaged in a .zip file format. The security guide is a Word document intended for IT and security professionals. It includes three chapters that discuss methods and best practices that will help to secure a Hyper-V environment. The overview is a two page description of the security guide and other virtualization Solution Accelerators that are available. Brief descriptions follow for each of the chapters in the security guide.

Chapter 1: Hardening Hyper-V This chapter provides prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V role. It discusses several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 server with a focus on security. These best practices include measures for reducing the attack surface of a server running Hyper-V and recommendations for properly configuring secure network and storage devices.

Chapter 2: Delegating Virtual Machine Management This chapter discusses several available methods for delegating virtual machine management so that virtual machine administrators only have the minimum permissions they require. It describes common delegation scenarios, and includes detailed steps to guide you through using Authorization Manager (AzMan) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008) to separate virtual machine administrators from virtualization host administrators.

Chapter 3: Protecting Virtual Machines This chapter provides prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources. It discusses best practices and includes detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing. Also included are resources for hardening and updating the operating system instances running within your virtual machines.

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System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows Vista; Windows XP

Microsoft Word or Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 (available as a free download) can be used to view Word documents

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats (available as a free download) can be used to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

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Instructions

Click the Download button next to one of the files listed below to start the download.
Do one of the following:

To start the .zip file extraction immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location. Then extract the files to your preferred location on your computer.
To save the download to your preferred location on your computer for .zip file extraction at a later time, click Save or Save this program to disk.

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Additional Information

Solution Accelerators are free, scenario-based guides and automations designed to help IT Professionals who are proactively planning, deploying, and operating IT systems using Microsoft products and technologies. Solution Accelerator scenarios focus on security and compliance, management and infrastructure, and communication and collaboration.

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