If you’re starting to look for virtualization platform options for your company, or if you’re a new Hyper-V user, it’s hard to find all the information you need in one place.
Hyper-V is a Microsoft technology that allows users to create virtual server environments and run and manage multiple operating systems on a single physical server.
Historically, IT departments have used multiple physical servers, each with a primary function, for example, an e-mail server dedicated only to processing outgoing and incoming e-mails. Buying a physical server meant choosing a suitable processor and RAM.
Usually, organizations have acquired too much or too little from these sources; this meant that the server was often subscribed (unused) or non-subscribed and, therefore, less reliable than it should be. For these organizations, especially for growing companies, it was expensive to constantly buy new servers because they need a lot of energy to operate and maintain—a costly expansion offer to meet additional business requirements.
That was until 18 or 20 years ago when the first virtualization technologies were introduced. Virtualization technology allowed to split and split a single physical server into separate virtual machines (VMs); this meant that only one server was available for multiple functions. So if you have a physical 16-CPU server with 128 GB of RAM, you can analyze these computing resources and assign them to several workloads.
Virtualization technology allows scaling without much space required for multiple physical servers. Workloads can be more intelligently balanced because virtualization has made reallocating resources between virtual machines more accessible.
It is worth mentioning that virtualization is often confused with cloud computing, but in reality, these are two different concepts. Both relate to common computer resources where some confusion may occur.
However, virtualization is manipulation so multiple operating systems can share a server. Cloud computing is the exchange of computer resources offered as a service over the Internet. Virtualization makes cloud computing possible. Companies often use both tactics to gain benefits in cost, resource utilization, and increase.
Today, virtualization is a relatively standard way of working; over 75% of organizations currently use server virtualization. This brings us back to the technology that allows virtualization: the hypervisor and Hyper-V.
Virtualization technologies or platforms are more commonly known as hypervisors. There are several different hypervisors on the market – Hyper-V is the Microsoft version; Some of the well known are VMware ESXi and VSphere, XenServer (Citrix), KVM Open Source Hyper Manager, and RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization). Most of the virtualization market is currently divided between VSphere and Hyper-V.
What is Hyper-V used for?
Like all hypervisors, Hyper-V provides a way to create and manage virtual machines to help you:
Develop and test applications, operating systems, and updates. The ease of creating virtual machines in Hyper-V and the ability to keep virtual machines separate from the rest of your system provide the perfect environment for testing. You can also create a virtual lab to try different operating systems and see how your application works on each of them without using multiple computers. You can quickly delete the VM when you have completed the experiment.
Quickly scale your IT infrastructure to fit larger workloads. Virtual machines are easier to manage than physical hardware and do not have a significant purchase cost. You can maximize the use of your server by allocating resources more intelligently than just physical hardware.
Save or move data from a hereditary system. Many companies continue to protect servers that support legacy hardware or software solutions because they want to protect the data. Switching your commercial applications and their content to a virtual machine frees resources.
Virtual machines you create can shorten server downtime because running workloads can be easily copied and moved to another server without interruption. They can also be configured to restart VMs affected by server errors automatically.
After you create your virtual machines, you must manage them. Hyper-V provides:
- You can create and delete virtual machines.
- You can monitor runtime, bandwidth usage, CPU, and RAM consumption.
- You can make backup copies.
- You can assign resources.
- Having the right management tool is the key to your success in virtualization.
The ability to create a virtual key has no additional cost. A virtual switch is an integral part of a virtual network, allowing all virtual machines to communicate with each other. Virtual switches are “smart”; they control data packets before routing communications. This ability to configure traffic this way increases your virtual environment’s security.
Hyper-V is compatible with multiple operating systems. Because Microsoft supports multiple Hyper-V operating systems, including Linux, it is not limited to the local operating system. However, to avoid problems, refer to best practices and supporting documentation to integrate other systems properly.
This Hyper-V feature allows you to migrate running virtual machines from one host to another seamlessly. Live transitions are simple and keep your network running.
Integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products. If your department already uses Microsoft products, it makes sense for your hypervisor to adopt Microsoft technology, especially since it allows you to host unlimited Windows Server 2016 virtual machines.
For simplicity, you should choose only one hypervisor: why do you manage multiple systems? However, sometimes the reasons you have more than one hyper-controlled in a virtual environment are invalid. This decision may depend on your workload; For example, if you use Microsoft Exchange Server for mail, Microsoft recommends running Hyper-V and all other products.
For more information about Hyper-V, visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/about/.