Hyper-V has had an interesting release cycle. It was bundled into the release of Windows
2008 as a beta component when Windows 2008 shipped in February 2008. And over the
first few months of 2008 as Windows Server 2008 was gaining momentum in organizations
as a solid server operating system, organizations were installing the beta version of
Hyper-V and giving it a try. Early adopters found Hyper-V to be extremely stable and reliable,
and because the images use the same Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file format used in
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, the adoption of Hyper-V since its formal release has been
brisk.
FIGURE 1.7 (click to enlarge)
So, the decision of when to implement Hyper-V has come down to the same decision on
implementing any technology: Identify the value received by implementing Hyper-V
virtualization, test the solution in a limited environment, and roll out Hyper-V when you
are comfortable that the product meets the needs of your organization.
Adding a Hyper-V Host Server in an Existing Active Directory
2000/2003 Environment
The Hyper-V server is nothing more than any other application server in a Windows environment.
You can join the Windows 2008 Hyper-V host to an existing Active Directory
2000 or Active Directory 2003 environment. The Hyper-V host will operate just like any
member server in the environment. If you want to remove the server, just "unjoin" the
member server from Active Directory. Because it is so easy to add and remove a Hyper-V
host to Active Directory and being that it requires no schema updates to Active Directory,
the choice to add or remove Hyper-V from Active Directory is pretty simple and selfcontained.
In addition, the fact that the Hyper-V host is or is not joined to the domain has no effect
on whether the Hyper-V guest sessions need to join or can choose to not be joined to the
domain. The guest sessions run completely independently of the host server. In fact, while Hyper-V is joined to one domain, the guest sessions of a Hyper-V host can easily be joined
to a different domain or to a completely different forest. Again, the guest sessions run
independently of the host server.
Waiting to Fully Implement Windows 2008 in the Environment
Although an administrator may choose to wait until more Windows 2008 servers are
added to the network before adding Hyper-V to the network, or wait until Active
Directory is upgraded to an Active Directory 2008 level, it is not necessary. In fact, there
are no benefits in joining Hyper-V to a Windows 2008 versus Windows 2000 or 2003
Active Directory. In the early-adopter community, Hyper-V has been one of the first
Windows 2008 servers added to an existing Active Directory 2000 or 2003 domain; after
all, it is so easy to just join or remove the Hyper-V server from the domain. And the benefits
gained from using virtualization (as discussed throughout this chapter) have been
compelling reasons for organizations to add Hyper-V to a network.
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| Rand Morimoto, Ph.D., MCSE, CISSP, has been in the computer industry for more than 30 years and has authored, co-authored, or been a contributing writer for dozens of bestselling books on Windows 2008, Exchange 2007, Security, BizTalk Server, and remote and mobile computing. Rand is the president of Convergent Computing, an IT consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area that was one of the key early adopter program partners with Microsoft implementing beta versions of Windows Server 2008 in production environments over 3 years before the product release.
Jeff Guillet, MCITP, MCSE, CISSP, has been in the computer industry for more than 25 years and has been a contributing writer and technical editor for several books on Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2007, and Exchange 2003. Jeff is a senior consultant for Convergent Computing and participates in many early adopter beta programs.
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Part 1: 
