Here we are with the second part of the articles series focusing on Hyper-V. In this part we’ll cover the Hyper-V 2016 install steps. In the introduction article the post shows the steps for the deployment of Hyper-V 2016 in vSphere using the Windows Server 2016 Guest OS template available. I want to remind nested hypervisors installations are not supported in Production environments. Surely home labs offer a convenient sandbox to play with and also learn more about the latest offerings. Essentially this is also my method of choice when replicating customer scenarios and studying for new certifications.
The Hyper-V 2016 installation steps are not different from the previous release. Pretty much same look and feel for the end user. In this article the screenshots show a quick walk through.
Hyper-V 2016 install
As soon as the provisioned VM we are using as Hyper-V Host” is ready and powered on the installation wizard will start with language and locale selection options.
Next hit on install to continue.
Let’s accept the EULA and continue.
Since this is a fresh install let’s go for the Custom option.
At this point we can choose the drive where to install the Hyper-V Server. In the previous step we created a VM with 2 disks. Ideally I like to keep the VMs separated from the OS and keep them on a dedicated drive. Now unless the second drive (a vmdk attached to the Hyper-V Host VM in our case) is physically sitting on a different storage there is really no performance gain. Other than keep OS and Hyper-V VMs files tidy.
Also 40 GB of disk space (size of the vmdk) is enough to install a few VMs with the thin provisioned disks (vhd or vhdx). In my case this Hypervisor will be managed by a Veeam Backup and Replication environment. The purpose is to run a few VMs to Protect, Restore and Replicate with different jobs.
Another interesting option at this point is the ability to load additional drivers for unknown storage devices. Clearly not an issue when using VMs as they ship with a “standard virtual hardware” Should we install Hyper-V on a physical box we also have an easy option to install the disk drivers to acknowledge the available storage.
At this point the installation begins by copying the files and executing them. This phase doesn’t take long. Of course depends on usual factors like CPU, Memory and Storage allocated to this VM. In my case it was about 5 mins.
And finally a restart before getting into the next phase for the first configuration of Hyper-V Server 2016.
A super quick and easy article on Hyper-V 2016 install. Looking forward to use this as a base for my home lab. In particular amongst the other new features coming with Hyper-V 2016 is new File System ReFS. In the next article let’s see how to add a second disk to the Hyper-V Host VM to store the Hyper-V VMs!
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