Hyper-V has been always in demand from the day it entered into the market because of Virtualization technology base. Virtualization has prove itself to be a very effective element for the IT Business. As effective and useful as virtualization has proven to be for business IT, a number of Hyper V server virtualization myths are still in circulation, and widely believed by many IT pros.

There are always a thin line between the misconceptions and the confusion regarding any product, following are some of the misconceptions :

Basically the Windows Update Agent which reports that the updates are needed on a particular machine and not the “WSUS”. The WSUS console merely reports what it has been told. A seemingly trivial semantic point, but actually very critical in understanding the process so that failures can be accurately diagnosed. When the update is needed (i.e. Not Installed), does not mean that the Windows Update Agent can actually access that update in order to install it. The W U Agent reports status for *ALL* updates contained in the catalog of the WSUS Server, but the WSUS server, initially, only has the Update Definition, not the actual Update, so the Windows Update Agent is unable to download/install any updates just because the Update Definition exists on the WSUS server.

Generally people consider that Virtualization is only good for server consolidation. In some respects, virtualization has become a victim of its own success. Server consolidation via virtualization has saved many IT departments millions of dollars in hardware and power costs, but also contributes to the perception among some IT pros that virtualization is just a server-side solution.

There have been many aspects which has been considered before collaborating the the misconceptions. Another myth consists of that the VMware doesn’t take advantage of multi-core systems. It has been years since this myth is been circulating,and VMware’s Anderson indicates that the ESX Server family of products has been taking advantage of multi-core processors for a long time. While multi-core support in ESX server.

There can be many advantages too to be considered while people still have some little misconception regarding those as well like Virtualization is said to be a silver bullet. Virtualization can do wonders when it comes to increasing efficiency and power savings, but it can’t do it all. Some IT pros don’t research the downside of virtualization fully, which leads to the misconception that virtualization is a silver bullet that can solve all your IT problems. “Some believe it can take away all the pain, that it’s a magic pill,”

There has been a different approach towards the application scenario of virtualization like as Virtualization doesn’t work for high I/O applications. The conventional wisdom used to be that virtualization wouldn’t work well with apps that had high I/O demands. Anderson agrees that this may have been an issue in the early days of virtualization, but virtualization technology has made great strides in this area over the last five years.

Myths and misconceptions are the regular talk in the IT industry considering the fact that every product has pros and cons. There has been one major myth that to use VMware you need to know Linux. In the early days of VMware, several of VMware’s products required use of a Linux command line console to access some management functions. While that command line support is still available, most VMware customers will never need to touch a command line to perform management functions. “We have many Windows-based installations where administrators never have to use those command line features.

The snap-in is graphical in nature, it is not installed on the command-line based Windows Server 2008 Core installation. The Hyper-V Manager snap-in is installed by default when the Hyper-V role is installed on a Full Windows Server 2008 installation. The only way to manage Hyper-V on a Windows Server 2008 Core installation using the Hyper-V Manager is to do so remotely by running the snap-in on a system running a full Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista installation.

To facilitate remote Hyper-V administration from systems that are not running Hyper-V, the snap-in may also be installed as a stand-alone tool on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise and Ultimate editions.

Both the Hyper-V Manager snap-in and the Virtual Machine Connection tool may be installed on Windows Vista by installing the Windows Vista SP1 Management Tools Update package.

To install Hyper-V Manager on a Windows Server 2008 system which does not have the Hyper-V server role installed, perform the following steps:

1. Start Server Manager

2. Select Features from the left hand panel

3. Click on the Add Features link in the main panel to invoke the Add Features Wizard

4. Locate the Remote Administration Tools category in the list of features and click on the + to unfold the sub-categories.

5. Click on the + next to Role Administration Tools to unfold the list of features in that category.

6. Select Hyper-V Tools.

Click on Install to : install the feature.

Launching

The Hyper-V Manager may be invoked using a number of different techniques, each of which will be outlined in this section.

• Administrative Tools Menu – Launch Hyper-V Manager by clicking on the Start -> Administrative Tools -> Hyper-V Manager menu option.

• Server Manager – Launch the Server Manager either from the Start -> Administrative Tools -> Server Manager menu option, or by clicking on the Server Manager icon in the task bar along the bottom of the desktop When Server Manager is running, unfold Roles followed by Hyper-V in the left hand panel by clicking on the + signs next to the corresponding item. From the Hyper-V branch click on Hyper-V Manager to display the tool on the main panel.

• Search – Click on the Start button, enter Hyper-V into the Search box and press enter.

Any of the above techniques will result in the Hyper-V Manager launching. The next step is to explore some of the features of this tool.

These can be be installed with ESDS : Hyper-V Hosting

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 contains just the Windows hypervisor and other kernel components to support virtualization. It is a simplified and optimized stand-alone server virtualization product.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. 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.

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

• Live Migration
• Host Clustering
• Support for up to 64 Logical Processors
• Processor Compatibility Mode for live migration– allows live migration across different CPU versions within the same processor family, (e.g.”Intel Core 2-to-Intel Pentium 4” or “AMD Opteron-to-AMD Athlon”) enabling migration across a broader range of Hyper-V host hardware.
• Networking Enhancements:
• VM Chimney (TCP Offload) and VMQ support are disabled by default
• Jumbo Frame Support
• Improved network performance via support for TCP Chimney and VMQ (specific hardware NICs required)
• Performance Enhancements:
• Hot Add/Remove of storage (VHDs and Pass Through Disks)
• Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) processor support for both Intel (EPT) and AMD (RVI)
• Core Parking
• Improved VHD performance for dynamic and difference disks