Microsoft offers administrators three free Hyper-V virtualization tools

As the virtualization wars continue, hypervisor platform vendors are looking for every opportunity to make their virtualization platform stand out among the rest. One way is by expanding product support with additional application stacks. These add-on management application stacks can include lab management, lifecycle management, orchestration, disaster recovery, or business continuity, to name a few.

However, in some cases, providing useful yet simple tools can go a long way with virtualization administrators, and it looks like Microsoft may be taking a page from that book. Over the last few weeks, Microsoft has introduced a few tools to help with Hyper-V virtualization management.

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Last month, the Virtualization Report detailed new enhancements made by Microsoft to help boost the performance of Linux virtual machines running on Hyper-V. The updated 2.1 version of Microsoft’s Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V provides additional enhancements or “enlightenment” for Linux guest operating systems. Some of the new updates include providing SMP support for Linux workloads (Linux VMs will be able to have up to four virtual CPUs rather than restricted to a single virtual processor), introducing a Timesync option (to keep the guest operating system synchronized with the parent partition), adding a heartbeat feature (to detect if the guest is still running) and an integrated shutdown feature (to gracefully shut down the Linux guest rather than pulling the power cord).

This release is currently available for download on Microsoft Connect under the Linux Integration Services for Microsoft Hyper-V connection.

For many of its back-end server products, Microsoft offers something called the Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) tools. To help IT professionals optimize the way they administer the hypervisor role included in the latest Windows Server operating system, Microsoft has introduced the Hyper-V Best Practice Analyzer tool. This BPA is designed to scan servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role installed and find configuration problems that conflict with Microsoft best practices for the hypervisor. It will scan the configuration of the physical machine and the virtual machines, as well as other resources such as the virtual networking and storage.

The BPA tool runs from the Server Manager console in Windows Server 2008 R2 or through PowerShell scripts. It provides a list of issues that can be sorted by severity and includes recommendations for fixing issues by providing links to further instructions. Another interesting feature is the ability to remove or exclude certain best practices that may not fit or apply to a specific environment. That way, users don’t have to deal with a large number of unnecessary errors or warnings that may not apply. It is important to note, however, the BPA tool is only a scanning and reporting tool — it does not actually make any configuration changes to the system, administrators are still responsible and in control here. The tool merely provides guidance; what administrators do with it is strictly up to them.

You can download and install the BPA update for Hyper-V on Microsoft’s Website.

Finally, Microsoft also announced the beta release of yet another new tool for Hyper-V called the Virtual Machine Servicing Tool (VMST), now at version 3.0. VMST 3.0 is designed to help administrators reduce IT costs by making it easier to update offline virtual machines in a SCVMM library, virtual machine templates, stopped and saved state virtual machines on a host server, and offline virtual hard disks in a SCVMM library with the latest operating system and application patches.

According to Microsoft, customers using VMST 3.0 can also keep users productive during updates and maintenance of physical hosts. The latest version automates the servicing of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V host clusters, leveraging Microsoft’s new live migration feature.

You can download the beta version of the VMST 3.0 tool from Microsoft Connect.

Know of any other free and useful utilities like these for Microsoft Hyper-V? Let us know.

This article, “Microsoft offers administrators three free Hyper-V virtualization tools,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter and on your mobile device at infoworldmobile.com.