Hyper-V virtualization in a flash, drive that is

• VMWare Server 2 and Virtual PC 2007 (XP Mode)– These virtualization software packages are installed on top of an existing host OS, and can allow you to easily create and manage virtual machines.  They do not require any dedicated hardware, and you can turn on and off the systems easily, as well as configure them from only 1 PC.  This is the easiest way to get virtualization up and running for a simple test system without any additional computers needed.  An example for how this could be used is that you have a mediasmart WHS already, and want to test some add-ins before you put them on your “production” box.  You could setup a test VM with the free WHS trial, and see how the add-in performs before you decide if it’s ready for prime time or not.
• Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and ESXi 4.0 – These baremetal virtualization platforms are installed and run directly on the PC’s hardware.  They are the boot drive for the PC they are connected to, and require that the attached PC is dedicated to running virtualization systems when in use.  A second PC is used to manage and interact with the virtual machines running on the main virtualization PC.  These systems are designed to run headless, meaning no monitor/keyboard attached after initial configuration and all management is performed from a separate PC.  This is a more advanced setup for virtualization, is designed for an always on virtualization environment, and is more efficient when running multiple virtualized systems at one time.  Some examples for how this could be used is you have an OEM license for WHS and you create your production WHS in a VM.  You can also have running on the same machine any other system you would like such as a Windows 7 install running Media Center, a Ubuntu Linux OS for testing, an old XP installation, or even a router or security appliance.  On one of my main VM systems I have WHS, Server 2008, PFSense router, Untangle UTM, jeOS Ubuntu webserver, and a pound reverse web proxy all running.  It can be as advanced or basic as you like!

Different listeners and readers will want to take advantage of host based, baremetal based, or both of the types of virtualization as they give you different features and advantages.  In the first write-up, I’ll go through how to set up a USB based Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 system.  For the more cautious of our readers out there, don’t fear if this seems too much and you’re only looking for a simple host-based platform for virtualization.  A write-up for that is coming soon!

Alright, let’s set up Microsoft’s Hyper-V Server R2, and we’re going to do it on a USB drive.  This is Microsoft’s bare metal type 1 hypervisor from MS’s Server 2008 R2 platform.  The hypervisor can be installed by itself (for free), or as a role with a purchased Server 2008 R2 installation.  This is a very powerful virtualization platform on top of which you can run/develop/design anything from simple to very complex virtualization environments.  For the enthusiast market, we lucked out that MS is letting us use this for free because we can take the virtualization capabilities that the big enterprises use and put them to work for our own benefit.  Once we create our Hyper-V USB drive it can be used to turn your computer into a virtualization server that can run any virtualized system you like.

You might be wondering why a USB drive?  Well, they’re cheap, (about $20 for the 8gb one used in this demo), they don’t use much power, the hypervisor isn’t competing for any of our hard drive space and I/O, and also they’re easy to remove!  That way you can try this out on a computer, boot off of your USB, and then change back to your normal system if you like.  In fact, most enterprise systems (read big business virtualization) are implementing their hypervisors on flash memory going forward as well.  What we’re putting together today can be used permanently (i.e. you always have this computer running hyper-v and your VM’s on top of it), or just to try it out and see if this is something you’d like to do going forward and maybe make your next hardware purchase to support some type of virtualization.

So what ingredients will we need to make this happen?

• 2 computers you can access, one w/ Windows 7 used to set up the flash drive (Vista doesn’t support VHD’s which this process uses)
  • 1 to use as your virtualization system w/ the USB drive, and another to setup for the management.  The virtualization system’s CPU needs to support virtualization (either VT-x for Intel, or AMD-V for you guessed it, AMD.)
• 1 USB drive, at least 8GB size
  • Note, if your USB drive comes with some embedded software it can be a problem as the computer detects a USB drive, and a CD drive sometimes.  In one of my installs, I used a SanDisk USB drive that had U3 software on it causing problems.  A format of the drive doesn’t get rid of it, you need to download the removal tool from their website if the removal tool isn’t included with the USB drive.
• 3 free downloads
  • First, the Hyper-V server itself.
  • Second, the Windows Automated Installation Kit.
  • Third, the cool little tool the MS Hyper-V team made to automate setting this up on a USB drive.

Once you have downloaded all 3 of those files, our first step is to install the Window AIK.  Find the KB3AIK_EN.iso file and either burn it to a DVD and install, or extract/mount the ISO and install it.  We’re going to want the Windows AIK Setup from the screen below.  You can change the install location, and if you do you’ll see an additional prompt later on but it’s not a problem.

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