30 Ways to Improve Hyper-V Virtualization

We at Monitis like to keep you informed and we want to make your job as a system admin or webmaster as easy as possible. We’re all about reducing the pressure! So, lately we’ve been creating all kinds of online resources for you to access that offer tips on everything from monitoring server metrics with WMI, to tracking IIS with VBScript, to picking the most effective NoSQL database tool.  The list goes on!

Today, we’d like to offer some tips on hyper-v virtualization. What exactly is that? some of you may be asking, and why should I care?  According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian and formerly known as Windows Server Virtualization, is a hypervisor-based virtualization system for x86-64 systems. Released as a beta version, Hyper-V  has since been released in a free stand-alone version, and has been upgraded to Release 2 (R2) status.

So what does Hyper-V do? Again, according to Wikipedia, Hyper-V supports isolation in terms of a partition. A partition is a logical unit of isolation, supported by the hypervisor, in which OSs execute. A hypervisor instance has to have at least one parent partition, running Windows Server 2008. The virtualization stack runs in the parent partition and has direct access to the hardware devices. The parent partition then creates the child partitions which host the guest OSs. A parent partition creates child partitions using the hypercall API, which is the application programming interface exposed by Hyper-V.

All in all, Hyper-V makes virtualization possible. And virtualization lets sysadmins do more with fewer resources. And isn’t that what every business wants today?

So, to make your life easier, here are some tips for working with Hyper-V:

1. Don’t share the Hyper-V hardware with other services

Your Hyper-V host resources should be dedicated to run a Virtual Machine. If you install and run other services such as SQL Server or Exchange on the host, they will not only consume resource but will also make troubleshooting more difficult.

2.Install Hyper-V on Windows Server Core.

The Server Core installation option of the Windows Server 2008 operating system installs a minimal server installation of Windows Server 2008 to run supported server roles such as the Hyper-V role. When you select this installation type, the Windows setup program installs only the files that are required for the supported server roles, the GUI and other non-essentials subsystem are not installed and that reduces memory and storage requirements.

3. Create performance baselines

In order to keep the optimal level of performance on your Hyper-V installation, you need to be able to quickly identify and react to changes in resource consumption as your system runs. You will only be able to identify changes if you have first created a baseline; in other words you have to know how your system performs when everything goes well. You can get instantaneous updates of your resource picture with a 24/7 monitoring tool like Monitis.

4. Allocate plenty of CPU and Disk Resources to the Hyper-V Virtual Machines

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