As Hyper-V being the biggest fuzz in the Virtualization solutions today, thanks to the Microsoft marketing forces. They can generate the biggest noise about each product they produce. As a lot of people hearing the fuzz, but did not have the chance to discover Hyper-V, I have decided I will discover it and take every one with me in a Hyper-V Tour with explanation and snapshots. This discovery trip consist of 5 parts & Intro as below:

Intro: Introduction to Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM & Our Discovery Trip.
Part one: Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V RTM Installation
Part Two: MS Hyper-V Virtual Networks Configuration & Hyper-V Server settings.
Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation.<==
Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.
Part Five: Microsoft Hyper-V Snapshots Technology.

Bonus: Install SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 & Component Integration for Linux on Hyper-V

Part Three: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Creation:

If you had completed reading part 2 of this tutorial, then you had completed the installation of Hyper-V & the configuration of your virtual network and ready to create virtual machines based on your requirements. If you have not read Part 1 & 2 I highly recommend you do so, before going across this one as they will provide you the background and put you on the same page where this part start at.

Ok, so you had installed Hyper-V & already configured your Virtual network infrastructure. Did you ask your self yet, where is virtualization? Where is my virtual machines? Well, they are here at part 3. Here where the fun start. In this part, I will go about creating virtual machines and configure them up to your specific needs.

Let’s start. Fire up your Hyper-V manager from MMC as learned from part 1 & 2. After that right click on the Physical server on the left panel where you want to create your virtual machine. From the right click menu choose new ==> Virtual Machine as showing in the image below:

The New Virtual Machine Wizard pop up as showing in the image below. Just fill the desired name for the virtual machine and the location to store your virtual machine configuration files. Then click next.

Now, you will need to configure the amount of memory you desire for your virtual machine. As shown in the image below I have decided to use 512MB for my VM. Then Click next.

Now its the time to choose the virtual network you desire this virtual machine to be connected to. If you remember in part 2 we had already configured one External Virtual Network called “Public Network” which I will use in this example. This step is the reason, I have already created my virtual network before creating the virtual Machine. It seems to me easier to plan it when I create the Virtual networks based on my networking requirement, then create my virtual machines and connect them to the virtual networks I have already created. In the other hand, you could created the virtual machine and not connected it to any virtual network, then created a virtual network and assigned the virtual machine to it, but this seems to be a messy approach as you create virtual networks on the run. It better to plan it first. This step is illustrated in the image below.

In the next step, you will need to create a Virtual Hard Disk or connect an existing one to your Virtual Machine. A Virtual Hard Disk is where you VM OS & Data is stored. For our Scenario we will be creating a new Virtual Hard Disk & store it in C:\VMS\Suse Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 X86\. You can store your Virtual Hard Disks any place you desired. Then click next. The image below show our configuration:

In this step, you will need to tell Hyper-V where is your installation media for your Virtual Machine OS. In our case we decided to try to Install Suse Linux from a CD inside the Physical Machine of Hyper-V. After making our choices as illustrated in the image below we clicked next.

Check up your configuration summary then click finish. Your virtual Machine OS installation will start as showing in the images below. Just complete the installation of your Virtual Machine OS as you would do normally with a normal Physical machines OS Installation. The below images show SUSE during the installation.

And finally you get your virtual Machine up and running in our Example (SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1) as shown in the image below:

Ok, so you have got your virtual Machine up and running now. I believe its the time to discover the setting panel of your Virtual Machine and how to tune them. That is covered in part 3. Check it out.

Before moving you to Part 3 I thought I will mention that the amount of memory assigned to your virtual machines should not sum up to any amount larger than the exact physical memory available in your server. Even turned off virtual machines reserve their memory share. That is totally different than VMware. As VMware allow you to over commit on the memory, so you can assign almost double the size of physical memory to your virtual machines. In addition, turned off virtual machines in VMware does not hold you from using that memory for another VM. Below is an image of the error you will get if you try to do so.

If you concentrate on the image above, you will notice all the machines were off and still can’t assign memory to a new virtual machines as Hyper-V had held the resource assigned to the turned off machines. I am not sure why Microsoft has decided to do it this way, but its something to take into your consideration when creating your virtual machines.

Now you can head to Part 4 where I will take you in a tour around the Virtual Machine Settings. Part Four: MS Hyper-V Virtual Machine Settings.

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