Plan for using Project Server 2007 in a Hyper-V virtual environment

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

This article provides preliminary guidance for using Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 with the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization technology. The scope of this guidance covers Office Project Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Support statement

Office Project Server 2007 is supported in a Hyper-V environment. Extensive testing was done to confirm that Office Project Server 2007 is functionally similar on a Hyper-V virtual server to the way it is on a physical server. An official support statement for virtualization can be found listed at Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=126635).

Hardware and software requirements

In order to run Office Project Server 2007 in a Hyper-V environment, you need to complete the Hyper-V prerequisites and follow the Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server recommendations.

Hyper-V prerequisites

Hyper-V needs to be configured as a server role on the 64-bit editions of the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Additionally, make sure that the physical hardware supports hardware-assisted virtualization. This means that the processor must be compatible with Intel VT or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology, and the system BIOS must support Data Execution Prevention (DEP). DEP must be enabled.

Support for third-party hypervisor technology

Deploying SharePoint Products and Technologies is supported on hypervisor technologies that are certified by Microsoft through the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125649\&clcid=0x409).

Architecture recommendations

We recommend that you install Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, 64-bit edition on a virtual machine that is running a 64-bit edition of either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008.

Project Server 2007 recommendations for Hyper-V

The following are recommendations for setting up Office Project Server 2007 in a Hyper-V environment.

• Review the documents described in "Other resources," below, as a prerequisite to deploying Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a virtual environment.

• Review and follow the published Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services, and Office SharePoint Server guidance for hardware selection, performance, and scalability. For more information, see Planning and Architecture for Office Project Server 2007) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=92795) and Plan for performance and capacity (Office SharePoint Server). The preceding documents include guidance for Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

• Any Hyper-V virtual server must meet the requirements of the physical server (for example, CPUs, memory, and disk I/O) that you are going to run as a Hyper-V guest. As with all virtual technologies, there is an overhead cost on the host computer for each virtual machine.

• Do not use the Hyper-V snapshot feature on virtual servers that are connected to a SharePoint Products and Technologies server farm. This is because the timer services and the search applications might become unsynchronized during the snapshot process, and once the snapshot is finished, errors or inconsistencies can arise.

• Do not use more virtual CPUs than there are physical CPUs on the Hyper-V host computer. Although Hyper-V allows you to allocate more virtual CPUs than the number of physical CPUs, this causes performance issues because the hypervisor software has to swap out CPU contexts.

• Leverage virtual networks. Hyper-V enables you to configure the following types of virtual networks:

  • Private: The virtual machines on the private network can communicate with each other.

  • Internal: The virtual machines can communicate with each other and with the host computer.

  • External: The virtual machines can communicate with each other, the host computer, and computers on the physical network.

  Private networks and internal networks do not use the physical network card or cable, so communications are faster and network congestion is minimized. You can take advantage of this network performance gain by creating an external network for the front-end Web servers and by creating a private or internal network for the application and SQL Server database servers.

Other resources

The following table provides important information about resources for Hyper-V, Project Server 2007, SharePoint Products and Technologies, and SQL Server 2008.

Conclusion

In any scenario, a virtual server running Office Project Server 2007 has the same minimum, and fundamental, requirements as a physical server running Office Project Server 2007. Virtualization provides many benefits; however, it does not eliminate or circumvent the existing requirements and best practices that relate to deploying, configuring, and maintaining an Office Project Server 2007 environment.