Installing Hyper V on an "established" DC

[Joanne]

Hello everybody!

 

So I have a primary school where a certain company in Lancashire have done the network install. I don't like how they have set everything up. I have tried changing things, like creating my own OU in active directory and creating my own group policies, which has sort of worked, but they are still having an issue with netbooks and folder redirection. Kids saving work in the wrong place and whatnot. I have completely reimaged the netbooks with my own image and all they have on them is Windows 7 and Office 2010.

 

I don't know what else to do, so I had this suggested to me, and I think it would be an awesome idea, but I need to know if it is feasable before I go ahead and dive in...

 

Can I install Hyper V role on this server? The server is a SIMS server as well as curriculum, so I want to completely separate the two. It is a DC, does DHCP, DNS, etcs etcs...

 

I know that I would need to dedicate a NIC to the Hyper V server, that's fine. My concern is that I might completely mess up the sims server, and I would be in deep doo doo.

 

Who has played with hyper v before?!

 

Thanks in advance...

[FragglePete]

It's recommended NOT to install Hyper-V on a DC. DC is supposed to do one job, and that's really be the DC. I was playing with Hyper-V on a new machine here for a bit, but this is now to be our main physical DC so have had to remove the Hyper-V role from it before promoting it.

 

Could just be Microsoft doing the usual Microsoft thing, but I read the various posting on tech net and other sites that recommended NOT having Hyper-V running on a DC.

 

Pete

[AngryTechnician]

You'd be better off virtualising the DC, so your physical box runs Hyper-V (and nothing else) and then the DC and second server both reside as VMs within that.

 

You may have seen posts by people saying you should always have at least one physical DC. These generally refer to keeping at least one physical DC outside of a clustered Hyper-V environment, in case the clustering fails (no cluster = no DC = no way to fix the cluster). If you are only using local storage this isn't an issue. It actually makes recovery easier in the long term since if the hardware fails you just connect the disks to another Hyper-V host (or restore from backup if it's the disks that have gone) and the virtual DC is none the wiser that its on completely different hardware.

[FishCustard]

A server which is already a DC and SIMS server is somewhat unlikely to be able to handle Hyper-V anyway, regardless of whether it's a good idea or not!

 

(Also: what AT said while I was writing! Ninja posts... )

[Joanne]

Boooo... I thought as much. Guess I'm going to have to lump it then. Maybe try and persuade them to buy a second server that I can have as curriculum server!!

[sted]

ive got dcs out there running hyper v quite happily mainly for testing stuff or it used to be to have a 2003 print server which just worked better with xp i found. I also know of dcs running hyper v dc's (works but dont reboot unless you have lots of time) diddnt do it personally