About Microsoft Hyper-V
Posted on September 22nd, 2016
What is Microsoft Hyper-V?
To learn about the Microsoft Hyper-V, we must know what a hyper-visor is and the types of the hyper-visors available.
What is a hyper-visor?
A hyper-visor is a program that enables the virtualization. It allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware and each operating system will appear to have the hosts’ resources including the processor, and the memory. The hyper-visor is also called as VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor or Virtual Machine Manager or Virtual Maching Monitor). A computer on which a hyper-visor runs one or more virtual machines is called a host machine while each virtual machine running on it is called guest machine. The first hyper-visor, CP-40, was developed by the IBM in 1960s. There are two types of hyper-visors. They are:
1) Native or bare-metal hyper-visors
2) Hosted hyper-visors
Native or bare-metal hyper-visors
The native or bare-metal hyper-visors run directly on the host machine’s hardware to control the hardware and manage guest operating systems. It runs on a computer and the multiple operating systems run over the hyper-visor. The first hyper-visor by IBM was a Native hyper-visor.
Hosted Hyper-visor
In the hosted hyper-visors, they run on the host machine’s operating system as other computer programs run and not on the hardware directly. Here, a guest operating system runs as a process on the host. The VMware workstation, VirtualBox and the Parallels Desktop are examples of the hosted hyper-visors.
Now, coming to the Hyper-V, it is a native hyper-visor. It is able to create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows.
Hyper-V Prerequisites
There are some prerequisites to install the Hyper-V on a system. Let’s see what are the prerequisites for the Hyper-V.
1) An x64-based processor
2) Hardware-assisted virtualization
3) Hardware-Enforced DEP
An x64-based processor
The Hyper-V is available in x64 based versions of Windows Server 2008. Specifically the x64 based versions of Windows Server 2008 Standard, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Datacenter.
Hardware-assisted virtualization
The Hardware-assisted virtualization facility is required to install the Hyper-V. Usually this is available on the processors which include a virtualization option.
Hardware-Enforced DEP
The Hardware-Enforced DEP is a type of Data Execution Prevention. It must be enabled on the system to install the Hyper-V.
These are the prerequisites of the Hyper-V to get it installed on a computer system.
Creating a Virtual Machine
We can create new virtual machines easily with the help of New Virtual Machine Wizard. This can be found at the Hyper-V Manager. You can select two options there to create new virtual machines.
1) There is a default setting to create a virtual machine without proceeding all the configuration pages.
2) You can specify settings in the configuration pages to create a new customized Virtual Machine.
The default settings will have the following predefined values:
Name: New Virtual Machine
Location: The default location configured for the server running Hyper-V
Memory: 512 MB
Network connection: Not connected
Virtual hard disk: Dynamically expanding hard disk with a storage capacity of 127 GB.
Installation options: No media is specified
SCSI controller: No disks connected to this device. Integration services are required in the guest operating system in order to use this device. Some newer versions of Windows include integration services. For more information, see Install a Guest Operating System.
Create Virtual Hard Disks
You can create new virtual hard disks using the New Virtual Hard Disk wizard. There are three types of virtual hard disks we can create using this wizard.
1) Fixed virtual hard disk
2) Dynamically expanding virtual hard disk
3) Differentiating virtual hard disk
Steps to create a virtual hard disk
1) Open Hyper-V Manager -> Start -> Administrative Tools -> Hyper-V Manager.
2) In the ‘Action pane’, click on New -> Hard Disk.
3) You can customize the virtual hard disk by proceeding through the wizard. To proceed to next page click on ‘Next’.
4) Click on ‘Finish’ when completed.
Configuring Virtual Machines
After creating a new virtual machine, we need to configure it by configuring the virtual machine settings. When configuring a virtual machine, you can add or remove a virtual hardware, add or remove virtual hard disks, and modify the startup order of the devices in the BIOS. A virtual machine can be configured at the Hyper-V manager.
Steps to configure a Virtual Machine
1) Open Hyper-V Manager -> Start -> Administrative Tools -> Hyper-V Manager.
2) Select the virtual machine under the Virtual Machines in the resultant pane.
3) Click ‘Settings’ under the virtual machine name in the ‘Action pane’.
4) Select the item you want to configure from the ‘Navigation pane’.
You can add or modify of remove the item in the coming window.
5) To make more changes, click on the next item that you want to configure and repeat the above step. When the configuration is finished, click OK.
Install a Guest Operating System
An operating system that you will install and run on a virtual machine is called a guest operating system. Follow the below steps to install a guest operating system.
Steps to install a guest operating system
1) Open Hyper-V Manager -> Start -> Administrative Tools -> Hyper-V Manager.
2) From the Virtual Machines section, you can connect to the virtual machine using any of the following methods.
Right-click on the name of the virtual machine and click ‘Connect’.
Select the name of the virtual machine and click ‘Connect’ in the ‘Action pane’.
3) Click ‘Start’ from the ‘Action’ menu in the virtual machine connection window. The virtual machine will start and load the installation package.
4) Install the operating system.
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