Hyper-V – Don’t forget these simple administrative points! Part 1.

All,

Thought i’d put together a quick guide of often forgotten/overlooked configuration items, which may seem to be benign, but can pop up at exactly the wrong time and bite you in the proverbial. Most of these config items I have seen over the years and still run in to them from time to time!

1. DO configure all your Hyper-V hosts as CORE

There is absolutely no good reason to install GUI/Desktop Experience. If you are still not sure on your powershell commands, then use ‘SCONFIG’ to get an initial IP address in, firewall rules open for remote management, join the domain.

As the old adage goes – practice makes perfect. None of us started out knowing powershell off the top of our heads, so roll up your sleeves and give it a try. Once you have used it for a while it’ll become second nature.

2. DO run AV on your Hyper-V hosts

The exclusions are well known – published on technet for all to use – HERE  There is nothing worse these days, than making it easy for malware to spread. Be mindful of lateral movement in your organisation – think of malware intrusion not as an ‘IF’ but as a ‘WHEN’. Plan ahead and don’t make things easy for them.

3. DO turn on local firewalls

Again, group policy makes it easy for domain machines to have common rule sets applied to them. Don’t open the gates, for the sake of a few mins configuration work

4. DO plan your Hyper-V deployment ahead of time

Bad configuration is often the cause of bad planning. Even if you are only deploying a few hosts in a small cluster, how you approach this should be exactly the same as if you were planning for 32 hosts. Draw up your design according to the requirements. Even if the requirements are on the slim side, document your process and decision making.

Try to think of scale, if the company grows, would it be easy to add another few hosts later on?

5. DO connect a pair of 1gb onboard NICs – for dedicated managament use

You’ve invested in 10GbE – you have a pair of NICs and you are going to use them. There’s usually 2 x 1gb NICs onboard, doing nothing. Configure them as your OS main management network. Don’t put a vSwitch on top, keep it simple and easy to reach. If you do encounter any vLAN/vSwitch/vAnything issues down the line – you’ll be glad you can still manage your server – without the need for clunky iLO/DRAC sessions.

6. DO check your cluster metrics!

It’s pretty smart, it’ll auto assign the networks, but it’s not infallable. Get powershell open and check them HERE. It might be an old article – but it is still relevant. Make sure your CSV traffic is going where you want it to go, in the event of a redirect – you dont want it going over the wrong network.

Finally…..

7. DO make the most of your Microsoft Licences!

So many people overlook system center, believing it to be a set of expensive management tools. If you have datacenter licensing, software assurance and the right CALs then you are set to use the full suite of products, plus some of the MDOP goodies that have been written for you.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/cloud-platform/system-center-pricing

I’m sure you are all familiar with the components now. Quite simply, Hyper-V without VMM is like toast without butter – dry and boring!

Take your time planning system center and the investment will pay dividends, alternatively, get a consultant in to do the leg work for you! 🙂 You can contact me on the site.

Part 2 here…