Plan for using Project Server 2010 ...

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The 2010 product release

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The 2007 product release

Plan for using Project Server 2010 in a Hyper-V virtual environment

Published: September 9, 2010

This article contains preliminary guidance for using Microsoft Project Server 2010 with the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization technology. The scope of this guidance covers Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

Support statement

Microsoft Project Server 2010 is supported in a Hyper-V environment. An official support statement for virtualization can be found listed at Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=126635).

Hardware and software requirements

In order to run Project Server 2010 in a Hyper-V environment, you must meet the Hyper-V prerequisites and follow the recommendations documented here and in Other resources later in this article.

Project Server 2010 recommendations for Hyper-V

The following are recommendations for setting up Project Server 2010 in a Hyper-V environment.

Review the documents described in Other resources, later in this article, as a prerequisite to deploying Project Server 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 in a virtual environment.
Any Hyper-V virtual server must meet the requirements of the physical server (for example, CPUs, memory, and disk I/O) that you will 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 Project Server 2010. This is because the timer services and the search applications might become unsynchronized during the snapshot process, and after the snapshot is finished, errors or inconsistencies can occur.
Do not use more virtual CPUs than there are physical CPUs on the Hyper-V host computer. Although Hyper-V lets you 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 kinds of virtual networks:
- Private: The virtual machines on the private network can communicate with one another.
- Internal: The virtual machines can communicate with one another and with the host computer.
- External: The virtual machines can communicate with one another, the host computer, and computers on the physical network.
Private networks and internal networks do not use the physical network adapter or cable. Therefore, 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 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, and SQL Server 2008.

Title	Description	URL
SharePoint 2010 Virtualization Resource Center	Provides information about Hyper-V for learning about virtualization, plus articles and models for planning and deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 in a virtual environment.	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff602849.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine Guidance	Guidance designed to help you plan and implement a server virtualization solution for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 server.	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621103.aspx
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP)	Used to determine whether your servers can be virtualized.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=117991
Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide	Includes information about hardware requirements and limits, supported guest operating systems, and instructions for installing the role and management tools.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=124368
Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with Hyper-V	Provides a full walk-through of how to create and configure virtual machines in a Hyper-V environment.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=122588
Hyper-V Step-by-Step Guide: Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering	Shows you how to make a virtual machine highly available by creating a simple two-node cluster.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=120666
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 R2	Provides details on tuning Windows Server 2008 R2 and includes a section specifically focused on Hyper-V.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=121171
All Topics Performance Blog	Written by Tony Voellm and dedicated to performance topics. Tony is currently the lead of the Hyper-V Performance Team. Of particular interest is the four-part series that Tony wrote about Hyper-V performance counters.	Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part one of many - The overview (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=125651) Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part two of many – “Hyper-V Hypervisor” counter set (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=125652) Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part three of many – “Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processors” counter set (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=125653) Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part four of many – “Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor” and “Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Virtual Processor” counter set (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=125655)
Windows Server 2008 R2 TechCenter	Information on Windows Server 2008 R2, including documentation, downloads, and community resources	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=126642
Virtualization Solution Center	Information on Hyper-V, Application Virtualization, Virtual Machine Manager, and Virtualization on Windows Server.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=126643
TechNet Hyper-V landing page	Direct link to Hyper-V documentation on TechNet.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=126647
Planning and architecture for Project Server 2010	Provides information and guidance for planning the architecture of a Project Server 2010 installation.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=92795

Conclusion

In any scenario, a virtual server that is running Project Server 2010 has the same minimum, and fundamental, requirements as a physical server that is running Project Server 2010. Virtualization provides many benefits. However, it does not eliminate or circumvent the existing requirements and best practices that relate to deploying, configuring, and maintaining a Project Server 2010 environment.

Change History

Date	Description	Reason
September 9, 2010	Initial publication