Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V – 10 things to remember

By Mikael Nystrom on November 13, 2009 • ( Leave a comment )

Storage, store the .VHD file and the settings file at the same location and if possible format the hard drive using 64k blocks instead of using standard, that will increase speed and lower impact on the parent partition
The Time Synchronization service should ONLY be enabled when the child OS does not have any other way of getting the correct time, that means that member servers, domain controllers, workstations in a domain should NOT get the time from the parent partition. Also it is important the the parent partition get’s the correct time, if the parent partition is part of a domain then it should sync from that of course.
When upgrading from Hyper-V RTM to Hyper-V R2 you need to turn of all running machines and you need to remove all snapshots. BEFORE you start them up please modify the following:
1. Add a SCSI interface and move all disk’s to the SCSI disk instead of having them on the IDE interface, that makes it possible to de-attach them if needed whiteout turning of the machine later on (It has NOTHING to do with performance, just management)
2. Check the CPU Setting, there is a new feature that enables you to migrate between machines that NOT have the same CPU, you wnat to have that checked before you want to move it, otherwise you will have to turn it off before moving it, kind of boring
Use separate NIC’s, the minimum of NIC’s is TWO, one for management, and one for the child partitions. I recommend 4 NIC’s if you use iSCSI or have a decent load on the server. In the case of using iSCSI as storage for the parent partition use one NIC for management (that should have the highest order in the binings list)

(this is NOT my hyper-V server, ok, just want you to understand what I mean with “Binding Order”
Also on the Network adapters that you use for iSCSI, DO NOT USE any kind of loadbalancing stuff from the vendor, iSCSI it self is redundant when you add MPIO and configurea that for iSCSI use (Go into control panel and check the “Support for iSCSI”, wait two seconds and reboot)
Also, use Jumbo Frames if possible on the iSCSI network, it does require that all network devices on that network can handle Jumbo Frames
Will contione later on, need to back to work now.