Role-Based Security in VMM

VMM implements role-based security to provide finer control over who can do what within the virtualized environment.

A user role defines a set of operations that can be performed on a selected set of objects.

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Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO)

Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) enables the dynamic management of virtual resources though Management Packs that are PRO enabled.

Utilizing the deep monitoring capabilities of System Center Operations Manager 2007, PRO enables administrators to establish remedial actions for VMM to execute if poor performance or pending hardware failures are identified in hardware, operating systems, or applications.

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How Does VMM Place Virtual Machines?

Intelligent Placement looks like one of those topics that will inevitably pop-up in the 70–659 exam.

On his blog, Irish MVP Aidan Finn  discusses Intelligent Placement — an algorithm used by Virtual Machine Manager to decide where to place virtual machines in your environment.

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Exam 70–659 Revision Notes — Module 2

Time for a review of Module 2 — Configuring Child Settings

A much shorter module dealing with the Child Partitions in Hyper-V.

Skills Measured

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Managing Hyper-V Virtual Machine Snapshots

Once you create snapshots, they can be viewed in the Snapshots pane of the the Hyper-V Manager.

Within Hyper-V Manager, you can perform a number of actions on the snapshots: Continue reading

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Hyper-V VM Snapshots — FAQ

What are virtual machine snapshots?

Virtual machine snapshots capture the state, data, and hardware configuration of a running virtual machine. Continue reading

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Jumbo Frame Support in Hyper-V VMs

Another new network optimization feature added to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2, was support for Jumbo Frames inside the VM.

Jumbo Frames are Ethernet frames > 1500 bytes and they are most often used to optimise iSCSI connectivity. Continue reading

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VM Chimney & Virtual Machine Queue

Windows Server 2008 R2 introduced two new features for Hyper-V which are available if the hardware supports it:

  • VM Chimney (TCP Offload Support)
  • Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ)

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Hyper-V — Child Network Adapters

Hyper-V supports synthetic and emulated network adapters in virtual machines, but the synthetic devices offer significantly better performance and reduced CPU overhead.

Synthetic Adapters Emulated Adapters
  • No Physical Device
  • Communicates via VMBus to vmswitch,sys
  • Does not support PXE Boot
  • Significantly higher performance vs Emulated
  • Drivers exist for only supported OS’s:
    • Server 2003 SP2
    • Server 2008
    • Server 2008 R2
    • Windows XP
    • Windows Vista
    • Windows 7
    • Linux (SLES 10,11), RHEL 5.x
  • Emulates physical DEC21140 chipset
  • Communicated via Interrupts to vmwp.exe then to vmswitch.sys
  • Supports PXE Boot
  • Drivers exist for most OS’s

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Storage Options for Hyper-V VMs

In Hyper-V you can select to use either virtual hard disks or physical disks that are directly attached to a virtual machine.

Virtual hard disks can have a capacity of up to 2040 gigabytes and include the following types: Continue reading

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