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

Updated: 2009-04-16

This article provides preliminary guidance for using Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization technology.

Support statement

PerformancePoint Server is supported in a Hyper-V environment. Microsoft testing confirms that PerformancePoint Server functions similarly on both Hyper-V virtual server and physical servers. You can view a support statement for virtualization, provided by Microsoft at Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments.

Hyper-V prerequisites

Hyper-V must be configured in a server role on 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008. 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).

Architecture recommendations

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

Note:
Windows Server 2008 requires that PerformancePoint Server Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3 be installed, and that Service Pack 1 of either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007 be installed.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 recommendations for Hyper-V

The following are recommendations for setting up PerformancePoint Server 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 PerformancePoint Server, Windows SharePoint Services, and Office SharePoint Server guidance for hardware selection, performance, and scalability. For more information, see Performance tuning and capacity planning for PerformancePoint Server 2007) 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 using Hyper-V you can 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. Using Hyper-V you can 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, PerformancePoint Server, SharePoint Products and Technologies, and SQL Server 2008.

Title	Description
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP)	Use MAP to determine if your servers can be virtualized.
Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide	This guide includes information about hardware requirements and limits, supported guest operating systems, and instructions for installing the role and management tools.
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.
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.
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008	Provides details on tuning Windows Server 2008 and includes a section specifically focused on Hyper-V.
All Topics Performance Blog Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part one of many - The overview Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part two of many – “Hyper-V Hypervisor” counter set Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part three of many – “Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processors” counter set Hyper-V Performance Counters – Part four of many – “Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor” and “Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Virtual Processor” counter set	Written by Tony Voellm and is 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.
Windows Server 2008 TechCenter	Windows Server 2008 TechCenter on TechNet.
Virtualization Solution Center	Information on Hyper-V, Application Virtualization, Virtual Machine Manager, and Virtualization on Windows Server.
TechNet Hyper-V landing page	Direct link to Hyper-V documentation on TechNet.
Plan for performance and capacity (Windows SharePoint Services)	Performance and capacity planning is the process of mapping your solution design to a server farm size and set of hardware resources adequate tosupport your business goals.
Plan for performance and capacity (Office SharePoint Server)	Performance and capacity planning is the process of mapping your solution design to a server farm size and set of hardware resources adequate to support your business goals.

Conclusion

In any scenario, a virtual server running PerformancePoint Server has the same minimum, and fundamental, requirements as a physical server running PerformancePoint Server. 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 PerformancePoint Server environment.

Download this book

This topic is included in the following downloadable book for easier reading and printing:

See the full list of available books at Downloadable content for PerformancePoint Monitoring Server.