Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
8. When your machine has finished restarting, log on, and the Hyper-V installation finishes.
Click
Close
in the Installation Results window.
9. In Server Manager's left pane, click
Roles
. Under Roles Summary on the right, Hyper-V
should be listed, if all went well.
10. Close all open windows.
Before jumping into creating a virtual machine, you should review some benefits of virtualiza-
tion in the following sections.
Solving Server Sprawl
Using virtualization for server consolidation has several advan-
tages. As the number of physical servers increases, so do space, power, and cooling requirements.
Consolidating servers by converting physical servers to virtual machines helps decrease these
physical plant requirements. At the same time, network administrators have fewer physical servers
to manage and maintain. Fewer physical components means higher overall reliability because not
only are servers usually better maintained, but also fewer parts exist that could potentially fail.
Backups are streamlined, too. A virtual machine can be backed up simply by copying a few files
to backup media. In addition, you can back up all your virtual machines and their hosts with a
single backup operation instead of running backup jobs on each physical server.
You might be wondering how organizations wind up with too many physical servers. Server
sprawl can occur for several reasons. For example, when a new application is added to the net-
work, installing it on existing servers might not be practical. The installation process might
require several server shutdowns and restarts and modifying the server's configuration during
testing; both procedures are usually unacceptable on a production server. In addition, some
applications run best when they're isolated from other applications to avoid conflicts. The solu-
tion to these problems is to put the new application on its own server.
Server sprawl also happens when new servers are purchased to supplement existing servers
because of network growth or increased use. Adding memory, disk space, and processing power
to existing servers running at full capacity might not be practical or even possible. Adding a
server to the network can improve overall performance, too. After a few years, you wind up with
several servers, with some running obsolete hardware technology.
Virtualization can reduce server sprawl and the resulting problems. By using virtual machines,
you can stop, start, and reconfigure a new server without affecting the VM's host machine. In addi-
tion, applications running on a VM are isolated from both the host and other virtual machines,
thus preventing conflicts. If you have half a dozen old servers, it makes sense to implement them
as VMs instead of buying new hardware. Today, a typical server can run several VMs at the same
performance level for the same cost of a single server 10 years ago. In addition, with programs to
convert a physical computer to a virtual machine, time-consuming reinstallations aren't necessary.
Simplifying Training, Testing, and Development
Trainers, testers, and developers
were among the first to use virtualization. With virtualization, you can run your favorite OS on
your host machine and install a new version of the same OS or a different OS as a VM. In fact,
you can run several different OSs simultaneously in VMs on the same host machine and network
them together. Want to try out the latest beta of a new Windows version? Instead of having to
wipe your existing computer's hard disk, install a new disk, or find another computer, you can
just install it as a virtual machine. Need to teach a survey of operating systems class? You can
install DOS, Windows 98, countless Linux distributions, all the Windows Server editions, and
more as VMs, which gives students instant access to all these OSs.
As a network administrator, you'll find no end to the uses for virtualization. Servers are a
critical component of today's business operations, and downtime of any service affects produc-
tivity and costs money. Unfortunately, certain maintenance tasks, such as installing patches and
service packs, often require testing and server restarts. By using virtualization, administrators can
copy an existing VM to a test environment, apply the patch or service pack, and test the updated
server thoroughly. After testing is finished, the update can be applied to the production machine
without having to disrupt it with a lengthy test cycle.
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