Cloud computing is not a solution that all web hosting companies could provide. Some simply do not have the size to be able to offer these solutions because of the fact that they have their own data centers and thus have higher costs than to other companies. For those who are thinking of creating a cloud computing service, such platforms are used.

Cloud Ubuntu: Ubuntu is the solution designed to create a cluster of machines based on Ubuntu Server, which can be used in a public or private cloud hosting services.

eNlight Cloud Computing Services: One of the latest solutions launched by ESDS Software Solution Pvt. Ltd. Functions substantially as the virtualization platform and integrates with the billing system for managing the entire infrastructure.

VMware and XenServer: Two known suppliers who can provide the technology needed to launch a cloud computing solution, cost is often quite high. These solutions still require the development of solutions for billing and service activation.

Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V: Microsoft does not offer a real platform exclusively dedicated to the creation of the cloud for hosting providers. The product is intended for this purpose, especially for private clouds.

What are the other solutions that you know?

In the setting of a virtual machine on Hyper-V server, you can see the options:

Virtual Machine Reserve:

This setting determines the percentage of CPU resources host server, which should be guaranteed by the virtual machine. If the host at the time of starting the virtual machine cannot guarantee, the virtual machine will not start. That means you can run 5 machines with Virtual machine including reserve of 20%, but if you try to add 6th machines- it will not run.

However, this setting will only be meaningful when there is a shortage of CPU resources. If 4 out of 5 machines are used by 4% per CPU of dedicated servers, and a fifth wants 70% – it will get them, but until such time as the rest do not require CPU resources. That is, setting up Virtual machine reserve ensures that the machine will have at its disposal resources not less than a specified percentage of the CPU – in the fight for CPU resources between the host machines.

By default, the Virtual machine reserve setting is 0. This means that you can run virtual machines as much as physically available resources allow the host Hyper-V server.

Virtual Machine Limit:

This setting is also given in percentages. It shows what the maximum possible percentage of CPU resources of virtual machine can use the power of virtual processors (depending on their number). This setting is used in two cases – when the host started the test of virtual machine that may under certain conditions, “eat” all the resources, as well as when the application in a virtual machine is written in a wry and can cause the processor load, brake the other machines.

This setting is always active, which means that the machine will never take more resources than a Virtual machine limit, even if free resources are many. Therefore, it should be put in exceptional cases, and to control resources better to use Virtual machine reserve. In addition, we must remember that Virtual machine limit is applied to multiple virtual CPU – so, if the application in the virtual will give the load to only one virtual processor – it will be limited to 50% of the resources available to him, while others are idle.

CPU Relative Weight:

This setting allows you to set the relative weight of virtual processors machine relative to other virtual machines. CPU relative weight – it’s just a number ranging from 1 to 10000, which defines the proportional weight of the machine relative to the others. In the case of a lack of CPU resources on the host Hyper-V, it will get twice the resources of CPU, than any other. Note – setting begins to work only in case of shortage of CPU resources on the host and not before.

The meaning of this setting is the separation of virtual machines in categories of priority use of resources in case of shortage (eg, 300 – high priority, 200 – normal, 100 – low). Since this is all relative value. And one more thing – if your virtual infrastructure is having several Hyper-V administrators, each of them can enjoy their own classification scales. For example, one is 100, 200 and 300, and another – 500, 1000 and 2000. If your host sets these values to each of them, and then any of the machine is dynamically moved to another host through the Live Migration – the distribution of weight changes much, which may affect the performance of systems with limited CPU resources of dedicated hosting server.

If we consider the question – why these values are in percentages and not in megahertz like VMware. The answer is – 1 GHz, has a different performance on different generations of CPU, and the hosts may have different processing power, making it preferable to use relative values instead of absolute.

In previous posts we have already discussed some crucial aspects of Hyper-V and also provided some information about the most frequently asked questions. Here is the new series of questions containing a little more information about Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization technology.

Q. What types of physical storage does Microsoft Hyper-V Server support?

A. Hyper-V offers flexible storage support such as:

• Direct Attach Storage (DAS): SATA, eSATA, PATA, SAS, SCSI, USB, FIrewire
• Storage Area Networks (SANs): iSCSI, Fiber Channel, SAS

Q. Are virtual machines created with Microsoft Hyper-V Server compatible with virtual machines created with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V?

A. Yes, virtual machines created with Microsoft Hyper-V Server compatible with virtual machines created with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

Q. Does Microsoft Hyper-V Server include Live Backup support through Volume Shadow Services?

A. Yes, Hyper-V Server includes support for Live Backup when used with a suitable backup solution such as System Center Data Protection Manager.

Q. Does Microsoft Hyper-V Server include virtual machine snapshots?

A. Yes.

Q. Does Microsoft Hyper-V Server include any local UI?

A. Hyper-V Server includes a minimal, easy to use command-line based UI for system configuration. This allows a user to easily configure system settings such as:

• Changing the computer name
• Joining the server to a domain
• Configuring DHCP/Static IP Address Settings
• Enabling Remote Desktop
• Enabling Failover Clustering
• Configuring Remote Administration settings

Q. Can you create virtual machines and manage them locally?

A. Virtual machine creation, configuration and management are accomplished remotely.

Q. How do you manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server?

A. Hyper-V Server can be managed in a number of ways:

• Remotely from Windows Server 2008 (x86/x64) using the Hyper-V Manager MMC
• Remotely from Windows Vista SP1 (x86 /x64) using the Hyper-V Manager MMC
• Remotely from System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Q. Can you use PowerShell locally with Microsoft Hyper-V Server?

A. Yes. PowerShell is now included with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. PowerShell can be enabled from the SCONFIG menu.

Q. Does Microsoft Hyper-V Server require Client Access Licenses (CALs)?

A. No.

Q. Can I run applications in the Microsoft Hyper-V Server parent partition?

A. No. The Microsoft Hyper-V Server parent partition is specifically for system management.