FAQ

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is a stand-alone hypervisor-based server virtualization product that allows customers to virtualize workloads onto a single physical server. It provides a simplified, reliable and optimized virtualization solution that easily plugs into customers’ existing IT infrastructure enabling them to improve server utilization and reduce costs.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is a simplified and optimized stand-alone server virtualization product. It contains just the Windows hypervisor and other kernel components to support virtualization. Since Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is built on the Windows hypervisor, it has an inherently more secure architecture with no third-party device drivers in it. It easily plugs into customers’ IT existing environments leveraging their existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools and processes. ITPros can easily to leverage their existing knowledge and skills with Microsoft virtualization products, as well as the collective knowledge of the community, minimizing any learning curve.

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The key new features in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 are:

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System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is required to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. It is available today. An eval version of SCVMM is currently available or download from http://www.microsoft.com/scvmm.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a stand-alone hypervisor-based server virtualization product that allows customers to virtualize multiple operating systems onto a single physical server. It provides a simplified, reliable and optimized virtualization solution that easily plugs into customers’ existing IT infrastructure enabling them to improve server utilization and reduce costs.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 supports single and multi-core x64 processors. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 requires 64-bit machines with AMD-V or Intel Virtualization Technology enabled processors. Hyper-V server does not support Itanium systems.

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The actual number of guest OSes will depend on the physical hardware and the characteristics of the different virtualized workloads. The maximum number of guest instances that can run on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is 384. Additionally, each guest OS must have a valid license.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server will support all guest operating systems supported on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
For a complete list of supported guest operating systems please see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954958.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a separate stand-alone product. Customers cannot upgrade from a previous version of Windows Server to Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Customers cannot upgrade from Microsoft Hyper-V Server to Windows Server 2008 as they are different products. To migrate from a Microsoft Hyper-V Server environment to a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environment, export the virtual machines from Hyper-V Server, install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, enable the Hyper-V role and import the virtual machines.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will be available as a free download. CALs are only required for Windows Server and all Windows Server images that are virtualized, regardless of virtualization platform. No CALs are required for Microsoft Hyper-V Server

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Hyper-V is the hypervisor-based virtualization feature of Windows Server 2008. Microsoft Hyper-V Server is the hypervisor-based server virtualization product that allows customers to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server.

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Yes. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes live migration and host clustering and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will be available for free.

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Live Migration is supported on up to 16 node failover clusters.

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For production deployment, up to 64 VMs per node are supported. Customers must plan for adequate capacity when a failover occurs and VMs from the failed host are brought online on different nodes of the cluster.

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For Live Migration to work, all cluster nodes must have processors from the same processor vendor, for example Intel or AMD.

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It is highly recommended to use identical processors on all nodes of a cluster using Quick or Live Migration.

Live Migration or Quick Migration will work moving VMs from and older processor to a newer processor. However, to migrate a VM from a newer processor to an older processor, the VM must be turned off and restarted after moving the VM.

A new functionality is the “Processor Compatibility” option. This functionality can be enabled for VMs to allow both Live Migration and Quick Migration from newer to older processors from the same manufacturer.

The setting is under VM settings > Processor > “Migrate to a physical computer with a different processor version”.

You can live migrate or quick migrate a running VM from an older processor to new processor and back without the “Processor Compatibility” option as long as the VM is running all the time.

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A new server configuration script is available in the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Type sconfig at the command line to start the server configuration utility.

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Read the system requirements for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

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Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 supports systems with up to 64 logical processors on the physical machine.

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Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 supports up to 1 TB of physical memory.

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No. Microsoft Hyper-V Server uses standard Windows drivers. Microsoft Hyper-V Server shares some things in common with Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role enabled including a common kernel and drivers.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 can run up to 384 virtual machines or as many will fit within 1 TB of memory whichever comes first.

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Yes.

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Yes. Microsoft Hyper-V Server shares some things in common with Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role enabled including a common kernel and drivers.

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 Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V both support the same guest operating systems.

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Yes.

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Yes, Hyper-V Server includes support for Live Backup when used with a suitable backup solution such as System Center Data Protection Manager.

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Yes.

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Virtual machine creation, configuration and management are accomplished remotely.

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Additionally, Hyper-V Server includes a WMI interface for remote management extensibility. The WMI interfaces are detailed here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc136992(VS.85).aspx.

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Yes. PowerShell is now included with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. PowerShell can be enabled from the SCONFIG menu.

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No.

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No. The Microsoft Hyper-V Server parent partition is specifically for system management.

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Hyper-V Server2008 R2 is available as a free download.

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No. Hyper-V Server doesn’t require a special OPK, but it is 100 percent compatible with it.

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No.

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Yes. Microsoft Hyper-V Server includes all twelve languages. The first screen a user is presented with is to choose the language they wish to install Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

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No. Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Windows Server 2008 are different products. To migrate from a Microsoft Hyper-V Server environment to a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environment, export the virtual machines from Hyper-V Server, install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, enable the Hyper-V role and import the virtual machines.