Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Private clouds are comprised of processors, memory, storage, network resources, and a business application that coalesce into a platform, or business partition, to run a critical program in the law firm or other setting. Clearly, virtualization plays a key role in bringing the computing resources at the same time to bear the weight of a business application. However remember the whole point is the business application and not the virtualized infrastructure. Toward that end, Microsoft's Hyper-V has some cool tools that can make your private cloud look like a picnic.

First, let's talk about Dynamic Memory, which is a new Hyper-V feature available in Windows Server 2008 R2. With Dynamic Memory, Hyper-V can automatically reallocate memory among virtual machines, in real time, based on demand and other values that you specify. This will allow your firm to run more VMs per physical machine without dedicating memory to specific VMs.

Before Dynamic Memory, changing the memory resources on a VM required you to turn it off, reconfigure the memory, and at the time turn the VM back on. With Dynamic Memory, Hyper-V can now allocate memory on demand, in response to VM workload. Actually, no downtime to reallocate memory. Unfortunately, Dynamic Memory is only supported on VMs with Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista/7, or Windows Server 2003 R2 operating systems. Nevertheless what did you expect: immediate support for Oracle Solaris 11?

The second tool for today

The second tool for today, or I should say tomorrow, is Hyper-V Replica, which was unveiled with the at once iteration of Windows Server at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference held in Los Angeles from July 10 to 14. The at once version of Hyper-V running in accordance with Windows Server 8 will support the off-site, asysnchronous replication of a VM to another host server. Usually, replicating servers and virtual machines can be a complex and expensive affair of matching hardware and resources and optimizing network resources to synchronize or maintain server states between offices or data centers. Nevertheless Microsoft says all you will need is Hyper-V and a network connection. Clearly, you will as well need the source and target hosts running the forthcoming Windows Server 8.

Microsoft boasts that Hyper-V Replica will support equipment from any server, storage, and network vendor. And that you can implement a replica of, say a complex VM running SQL Server, in a few clicks by identifying the replication site, target server, the virtual disks to replicate, and the number of snapshots to keep for the replicated machine. You as well have the option to select how synchronization will ensue, e.g., suddenly, on a schedule, or with the use of off-site media just as tape or disc.

So if you need to keep computing resources locally for security and compliance reasons, plan on setting up your own private cloud to maximize server resources in your data center. The tools to set up your own private cloud are getting easier. I as well noticed that the straightway iteration of Microsoft's System Center has a one-button click to create a cloud and click and drag your resources into the thick or thin of it.