Appendix A. Hyper-V Architecture and Components

Virtualization is not a new feature or technology that everyone decided to have in their environment overnight. Actually, it's quite old. There are a couple of computers in the mid 60s that were using virtualization already, such as the IBM M44/44X, where you could run multiple virtual machines using hardware and software abstraction. It is known as the first virtualization system and the creation of the term virtual machine.

Although Hyper-V is in its third version, Microsoft virtualization technology is very mature. Everything started in 1988 with a company named Connectix. It had innovative products such as Connectix Virtual PC and Virtual Server, an x86 software emulation for Mac, Windows, and OS/2.

In 2003, Microsoft acquired Connectix and a year later released Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. After lots of improvements in the architecture during the project Viridian, Microsoft released Hyper-V in 2008, the second version in 2009 (Windows Server 2008 R2) and the current version in 2012.

In the past years, Microsoft has proven that Hyper-V is a strong and competitive solution for server virtualization and provides scalability, flexible infrastructure, high availability, and resiliency. To better understand the different virtualization models, and how the virtual machines are created and managed by Hyper-V, it is very important to know its core, architecture, and components. By doing so, you will understand how it works, you can compare with other solutions, and troubleshoot problems easily.

This appendix includes well-explained topics with the most important Hyper-V architecture components compared with other versions.