Microsoft published an article detailing how they use server virtualization in their internal IT environment. Included in the article is host server configurations, storage configuration, network configuration, high availability, security considerations, and network configurations. Also, Microsoft has several recommended best practices:

• Plan the server virtualization infrastructure carefully. Like any other IT project, the optimal deployment of server virtualization will require tradeoffs between higher availability with increased costs and lower availability. An organization must consider tradeoffs between cost and performance . Microsoft IT has developed two different server virtualization platforms: one for lab and development environments, and one for production environments. Another important consideration is whether to design a short-term solution or a long-term solution. The organization will need to find the balance between over-provisioning and over-engineering, and creating an infrastructure that cannot grow with its needs. Microsoft IT has found that short-term planning tends to result in solutions that have limited scalability, and now is developing an infrastructure that will meet its requirements for the next three to five years.
• Simplify and standardize the platform on which to deploy server virtualization. Microsoft IT has adopted a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 as its operating system for virtualization hosts and plans to use a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 R2. The virtualization hosts also are dedicated to this one task, so an administrator should install only the software and settings that this role requires.
• Automate and standardize the administration of the virtual server environment. Microsoft IT is planning to deploy several thousand virtual servers over the next few years, and the only way to manage them efficiently is to standardize the deployment and then automate the management tasks as much as possible. This includes:
  • Standardize the virtual machine builds by creating standard templates for different server workloads. Ideally, Microsoft IT wants to create a set of templates for building standard virtual machines for each server workload. For example, by examining the standard Internet Information Services (IIS) server build or the standard Microsoft SQL Server® build, Microsoft IT wants to create a standard virtual machine template for IIS or SQL Server. This will make deploying new virtual servers for each workload much more efficient.
  • Standardize the host and virtual server configuration. For example, Microsoft IT strives to assign the same administrator groups to all host computers, and to assign the same network names on all host computers. Increasingly, Microsoft IT is using scripts and other forms of automation to deploy and manage the host and virtual machines. Automation makes it much easier to ensure that users adhere to server build standards.
  • Implement remote management solutions. One of the important criteria that Microsoft IT uses when choosing hardware and software platforms is the support that is provided for remote management and automation.
  • Explore the option of using self-service provisioning of virtual machines. Microsoft IT has implemented self-service provisioning, which can alleviate the workload for the team that is managing the virtual environment, while increasing the responsiveness to business requirements. Self-service provisioning increases the requirement to make sure that an organization has automated and standardized all virtual machine settings.
  • Implement System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Virtual Machine Manager provides many tools for simplifying the administrative tasks that are required to manage a large virtualization environment. An organization can use Virtual Machine Manager to store server templates and to automate the virtual server deployment to the appropriate host computers. Virtual Machine Manager provides self-service provisioning of virtual machines and automatically places virtual machines on the most suitable host.

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Technorati : Hyper-V, Microsoft, Server Core, Virtual Server, Windows Server 2008
Del.icio.us : Hyper-V, Microsoft, Server Core, Virtual Server, Windows Server 2008