Hyper V Server - 1 Host... What are the benefits?

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

We are taking over IT support for a number of primaries and one of the schools has a Hyper-V setup which I (admittedly) have very little knowledge of. It seems they have a box running Windows Server and Hyper-V Manager. This server has a single hyper-v host which does everything domain related and is the only functioning server in the school (DHCP, DNS, File Server, Print Server etc.).

 

What would be the advantages to running this as a single virtualized system, rather than just running it on a single server with no Hyper-V at all? Only things that spring to mind for me are Snapshots (backups could be run another way and server will still need to be rebuilt if there is an OS issue) and the ability to add servers in the future (not sure what hardware capacity the system has, will be checking this on my next visit).

 

Have I missed anything?

[PotNoodleTech]

I would say there are all advantages to virtualising via Hyper-V and no real disadvantages.

 

1. You divorce the O/S from the physical hardware. This is a massive benefit as it means you can move or restore your VMS on to ANY HyperV sever regardless of make/model/spec. Server dies horribly? Install HyperV on a Core i5 workstation, fill it with RAM and restore all your VMs onto that. In an emergency you could have your network back up and running (probably a bit slowly...but) in one evening - that is impossible with a physical server as your O/S instllation is tied to the hardware on that server.

 

2. Flexibility. Almost infinite flexibility in terms of what hardware you use. Need more HDD space, get a second server and split the VMS, or get a second server and move everything over to it.

 

3. Backups and server recovery. Once virtualised you can leverage awesome backup products like Veeam (others are available) to ensure that you can always restore all of your IT services in a matter of minutes or hours depending on your hardware. This is IMPOSSIBLE with physical servers particularly if an old server dies and has to be replaced with a new one - can not restore and NTbackup on to a totally different spec server! You can with HyperV and Veeam!

 

4. Licencing. For a primary may not be so applicable, but in a secondary we saved a packet by just licencing our 2 physical hyper-v hosts with Datacentre and then we have UNLIMITED VMs we can create.

 

There's loads more but I am in a rush.

 

No negatives.

[TwistedHelixis]

All my primary schools have one host with two VM servers. Biggest reason for me is backup and restore. Windows server comes with a very underrated feature to backup the VMs on the host and it works perfectly.

 

I have needed to restore an entire server once and it took no time at all, just install the host OS, install the VM roll and click restore.

[supportman]

I couldn't imagine NOT using Hyper-V these days, makes everything so portable and easy. Just don't forget to back them up with Veeam! Edited October 3, 2018 by supportman

[CyBeRkId2002]

Thanks folks! All I needed and very much appreciated.

[Sonic007]

All of my servers are Virtual. So easy to bring back up in case of failure. Would never rely on physical only.

[LeMarchand]

All 3 of my sites (primary/junior) are 1 host, 4+ VMs. In addition to the above, if you plan the separation of "duties" carefully you can get away with rebooting some of them when it suits you rather than having to wait until out-of-hours.

[smurfomatic]

We have one host, two VMs (though the "second" VM is just a backup DC, DNS etc.) - we had a server failure in the past that took a week to recover from. A recent ransomware attack took a few hours, and that was including formatting & reinstalling Windows Server on the host!

[DCUK6]

WOuld do the same these days to.

 

Had to recover a VM before using the built in backup tools. So easy to do. (obvs not really for DC but for everything else)

 

With newer servers you can also replicated domain controller using hyper v and its supported. Get an old machine and stick server/hyperv on and start replicating. If you ever have to use it, it wont be fast but will keep you going.