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4.0 out of 5 stars
A solid primer.., January 18, 2011
This review is from: Microsoft Virtualization with Hyper-V: Manage Your Datacenter with Hyper-V, Virtual PC, Virtual Server, and Application Virtualization (Network Professional's Library) (Paperback)
This book deals with Microsoft's server virtualization solution and is for those who want to implement Hyper-V "the right way".
As the author's quote in the book's Introduction, the Gartner research group believes that "IT infrastructure and operations <will> be deeply impacted by virtualization by 2012". If you are new to virtualization as a whole or Microsoft's offering this book provides a solid foundation to both.
Using a comprehensive and logical approach in response to established business requirements the book covers the topics of planning, installation, configuration, management, backing up, restoring, disaster recovery, monitoring and securing of a Hyper-V environment. Throughout a number of associated Microsoft tools - primarily in the System Center range are introduced and their use expanded upon; As a result, this book may be of most practical use to those who are either Microsoft centric in their skill-sets or work for Microsoft "shops" but as I later discovered can also be explained by two of the three contributing authors working directly for/or in partnership with Microsoft - Avanade being a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft.
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The Introduction begins with a straightforward overview of what virtualization is, the benefits that can be achieved through its use (which cover the bases of the unspoken IT professional's mantra of "doing more with less"), the contribution of VMWare to the field, Microsoft's precursors to Hyper-V in the forms of VirtualPC and Virtual Server and finally an overview of Hyper-V itself - be it the Hyper-V system role under Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (W2K08 with Hyper-V), a server core based installation or the separate and free Hyper-V Server 2008 version.
At this stage, the authors make the important point that virtualization whilst in some ways bringing the use of computers full circle, this is different and distinct to the concept of cloud computing. Discussion of the environmental benefits of adopting virtual environments is also stressed but done so in an inclusive manner rather than as an afterthought and this is extended to production of the book itself as the pages are made from 100% recycled materials; Reference to a title by two of the authors solely on this topic is also made.
The book then goes on to discuss at what is an appropriate point storage considerations, but for some without prior knowledge or experience (or those without access to a storage administrator) this may be daunting and to a degree off putting.
Having guided the reader through how to initially create or migrate a number of virtual machines into a Hyper-V based environment the book then goes on to discuss the aspects of actually managing them.
Explained in a similar way to the chapter on monitoring, the dedicated chapter on security discusses the principles of general system security and then goes on to Hyper-V specific security - first by means of a high level/holistic overview of the technology stack and then by breaking down and scrutinizing things at the component level, principally the hypervisor.
Throughout the author's not only instruct the reader how to do things but also what is going on in the background which can be just as important as well as where specific tasks reside in the overall context of things technically as well as in the form of real-world tasks.
Screenshots are included throughout as are, when appropriate, tips and recommendations obviously based on real world experience with the products mentioned.
The inclusion of specific examples in a couple of instances such as a template for virtualization candidate profile interviews and a typical response would have been nice, particularly if made available for download via the publishers website along with other related material.
Although this book was originally released in August, 2009 and the field of virtualization is a fast moving one, the advice provided by the authors in a measured, considered way will not age and two of the most highly anticipated features originally targeted for release in 2010 - namely Dynamic memory and RemoteFX have still yet to be shipped in form of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
This review was based upon a copy of the book provided by the publisher.
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