5nine Manager for Hyper-V

  

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A great tool I found for managing Hyper-v servers is called Hyper-v manager from 5nine. They have both a free tool version and a paid version. I will tell you the differences, but first let me tell you about some of the reasons you may want to check this tool out:

• Installs directly on the Hyper-V server.
• GUI interface that allows you to manage your virtual machines.
• Can be run remotely from another Windows installation.
• Check resources of virtual machines.
• Snapshot directory access.
• Hardware administration.
• Administer multiple Hyper-V servers.
• File explorer under the view menu.
• Events and services viewer for Hyper-V services and hardware.

Now the paid version does have some benefits when it comes to the networking and gaining access to the actual server. The binding of the NICs can be a very nice option to have as well as being able to double click and view your servers and workstations. The paid version comes at a cost of just about $100.00 per install.  If you have a cluster or a server farm this would be a great option at a relatively low cost. I give the folks at 5nine a lot of credit for releasing this tool for free. I think this tool runs better and is easier to use then the Hyper-V manager from Windows which makes it a steal at a cost of $0.00 for most of its features.

Dennis Foote-Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Create a Private Cloud in your Business for $100

  

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Virtualization is a hot topic these days.  While VMWare is considered to be the top software for virtualization, it also comes with a sky high price tag.  The other two major vendors in virtualization technology, Citrix and Microsoft, have very competitive offerings, often for a good savings.

In particular, Microsoft has recently begun to release their Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 product for free.  This is a major move on the part of Microsoft to try to encourage the industry to try their Hyper-V virtualization technology and compare it to their competition.  In our experience here at Terminal, it is definitely worth a try, whether you're currently using competing virtualization products or considering virtualization in your infrastructure.  Hyper-V is a very robust and well-performing product.  While it may not perform as well as VMWare in the large enterprise environment, it is more than capable of handling anything thrown at it in the small and medium business market.  That coupled with being entirely free make Microsoft's Hyper-V an almost unbeatable deal.

The one downside to Microsoft Hyper-V has been the ease of management.  Unlike Citrix or VMWare, if you install a Microsoft Hyper-V server, you are not able to actually manage that server from its own keyboard and monitor.  Instead, you need a second server or workstation to connect over the network to the Hyper-V server.  This is often tedious, impractical, or costly and has been a major reason people have not given Microsoft's Hyper-V much of a chance.

However, new software released by vtTechnology finally helps Hyper-V overcome this limitation.  The software, known as vtCommander, installs directly onto the free version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and allows the server to be managed directly from the server console.  This eliminates all the headaches and hurdles associated with getting Hyper-V up and running and makes it, in our opinion, by far the best virtualization option for small and medium businesses.  The cost of vtCommander?  A mere $100.  Terminal has been so thrilled by vtTechnology's groundbreaking software, we've partnered with them to help bring their benefits to all our customers.

If you're interested in seeing how virtualization can improve your business agility and cost you virtually nothing, Contact Us today.

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Handy Hyper-V Tools

  

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This week we have been building a new Microsoft Hyper-V server for a client. For this installation, I decided to use a couple of tools that really helped to speed up the process.

Hvremote is a handy script written by John Howard who is a senior program manager on the Hyper-V team at Microsoft. This script compiles the multiple strings of commands used for diagnosing and configuring the Windows firewall, WMI and DCOM permissions in order to control a Hyper-V server from a remote client MMC regardless of the domain or workgroup association of either computer. This was once an extremely lengthy task that can now be completed in just 3 or 4 commands using the hvremote tool.

VHDtool was another big help. I needed to create a rather large 450GB fixed-size VHD. Personally this is the largest virtual hard disk that I have ever created and I was quite surprised at how long the process was taking through the manager. After several hours I decided to employ VHDtool.exe which is a nifty command line tool that allows you to instantly create large fixed-size VHDs. My 450GB VHD was created in approximately one second! This tool also provides the ability to extend drives, convert RAW disk images to VHD and repair broken Hyper-V snapshot chains.

I will definitely be keeping both of these time savers in my Hyper-V arsenal! If you need help configuring a Hyper-V server for your company feel free to Contact Us and an engineer will be glad to assist!

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!