Simplified Management with Familiar Tools
Microsoft has added functions to Hyper-V that enhance management capabilities:
Simplifying management by replacing product-specific tools (browser interface) with industry-standard tools (Microsoft Management Console [MMC] interface)
Automating tasks and event response to minimize human interaction wherever possible
Performing extensive monitoring to keep administrators aware of issues before the issues become problems
From a network management standpoint, virtual machines should be easier to manage than physical computers. To this end, Hyper-V includes many management features designed to make managing virtual machines simple and familiar, while enabling easy access to powerful VM-specific management functions.
Hyper-V can be managed in three ways:
MMC interface
Microsoft System Center
Third party management tools
MMC Interface
Hyper-V moves from the browser-based remote management used in Virtual Server to a standard
MMC 3.0 interface. With Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, VMs and servers are configured through a familiar and widely used management interface. Benefits of this standardized approach include:
Broad industry support, reducing the learning curve experienced when moving from managing physical computers to managing VMs.
Enabling VM management with enhancements from third-party management console plug-ins.
Ability to enhance the MMC with user-created Windows® PowerShell™ commandlets.
Microsoft System Center
Microsoft System Center, a suite of system and server management tools, manages all of the Microsoft virtualization offerings as well as networks’ physical resources. System Center provides a single set of integrated tools to manage both physical and virtual environments. System Center is designed to help businesses create self-managing dynamic systems, where the management and monitoring tools are able to diagnose and address problems with as little human interaction as possible.
System Center includes a virtualization-specific management tool, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, as well as virtualization functions in its other tools.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) provides centralized and powerful management, monitoring, and self-service provisioning for virtual machines.
SCVMM host groups are a way to apply policies and to check for problems across several VMs at once. Groups can be organized by owner, operating system, or by custom names (such as “Development” or “Production”).
In the SCVMM interface, selecting a virtualization host server results in a displayed list of its VMs. Select a specific VM to show its CPU and memory usage, as well as a live-updating thumbnail. The interface also incorporates Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP); double-click a VM to bring up the console for that VM—live and accessible from the management console.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Main Features
Feature
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Description
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Host configuration
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Host setup and configuration can be automated, including global settings, such as storage, like Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) paths and VM Additions.
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Virtual machine creation
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A wizard-based user interface creates VMs, enabling rapid VM creation, including physical-to-virtual conversion (P2V) and templates.
The virtual-to-virtual (V2V) conversion in SCVMM can convert VMware ESX VMs (VMDK format) to Hyper-V VMs (VHD format).
SCVMM includes the ability to save VM definitions as templates for rapid deployment.
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Library management
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SCVMM can store and manage offline VMs, templates, and ISO images, enabling rapid VM deployment. It can create, update, delete, and store objects in the library without launching the associated VMs.
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Virtual machine placement and deployment
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SCVMM can provide recommendations for where to place VMs, based on host capacity and utilization, facilitating movement (including Quick Migration) of VM files over a local area network (LAN) or storage area network (SAN).
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Monitoring and reporting
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SCVMM provides a centralized view of all VMs in the environment and their status. The view can be customized by host and VM groupings, scalable to thousands of VMs.
Integrated tools provide for complete reporting and health monitoring, including VMs and physical machines. Standard reports include consolidation candidates, utilization trending, and optimization opportunities.
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Rapid recovery
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VM snapshots and live backup help departments quickly recover from outages.
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Self-service provisioning user interface
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Instead of requiring an administrator to create and configure VMs, the SCVMM self-service interface enables users to create and delete VMs themselves. Administrators set the rules, boundaries, and permissions for self-service provisioning.
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Automation
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SCVMM contains a completely scriptable user model based on Windows PowerShell and includes the ability to view the
Windows PowerShell script for each action—enabling administrators to develop scripts for complex actions.
| Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 monitors the health and performance of physical and virtual workloads. Administrators have powerful tools, such as at-a-glance status, highly customizable alerts, and integrated configuration management, to respond to issues immediately and can enable automated response without administrator involvement. For example, when a virtual machine shows network saturation, SCOM might respond with a script to add a network adapter and restart the VM with more available bandwidth. A virtual machine overloading its processor or paging excessively could get additional logical processors or memory.
Third party management solutions
In addition to the above options, Hyper-V provides APIs that can be used by third party management solutions. This enables customers to use third party management solutions to manage Hyper-V.
Integrated Virtualization
Microsoft offers customers a complete set of virtualization products, from the data center to the desktop. As discussed, all assets – both virtual and physical – can be managed with our System Center management platform.
Hyper-V is a key component of Microsoft’scomplete virtualization solution suite.Virtualization is a key pillar to the Microsoft Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), embedding operational knowledge in the management tools, and enabling the system to manage and even heal itself. (See “Microsoft System Center Integration and the Dynamic Systems Initiative,” below.)
Figure 2. The Microsoft end-to-end virtualization strategy enables centralized management for virtual and physical assets through Microsoft System Center.
Presentation virtualization through Microsoft Terminal Services enables remote users to access applications and operating systems hosted from remote locations. A common usage model is accessing the corporate data from home or while traveling, giving the remote user the ability to manipulate files, log in to applications that require hardware locks on the desktop PC, and use other resources that wouldn’t otherwise be available. Presentation virtualization has the added benefit of enabling resource-intensive applications to be used through lower-power portable computers or other computers that would otherwise be incompatible, even those running different operating systems.
Application virtualization with Microsoft SoftGrid® insulates applications running on the same operating system, helping to eliminate potential conflicts and enabling rapid provisioning. An application that would normally update the registry, for example, updates a virtual registry, so the system is able to meet the application’s requirements without impinging on other applications. Applications are not “installed” in the traditional sense, so they can be set up and removed more quickly than through typical setup and uninstall procedures, including custom options that would otherwise have to be configured manually.
Desktop virtualization with Microsoft Virtual PC enables users to run guest operating systems. It is commonly used for vertical applications that require different operating systems and testing.
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