Scenario 2: Installing the Primary and Second Servers in Hyper-V Virtual Machines on a Single Physical Computer

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Updated: February 4, 2010

Applies To: Windows SBS 2008

This scenario uses a single physical server that runs the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role enabled. On this platform, you install the primary server and the second server for Windows SBS 2008 in virtual machines.

Note

When you install Windows SBS 2008, you must provide product keys to activate the physical and virtual instances of your servers. For more information, see “Using Windows Small Business Server 2008 Product Keys” at the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=124547).

Figure 2 depicts an implementation of Scenario 2.

Figure 2.   Scenario 2

Note

As an option, you can use Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 to achieve a configuration that is similar to this scenario. You may prefer this option if you purchased Windows SBS 2008 Standard. For more information about Hyper-V Server 2008, see the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=131667).

You should use only the parent partition of a Hyper-V enabled physical computer to manage the guest operating systems that are installed on virtual machines. You must not install any software on the parent partition that you do not use to directly manage the guest operating systems. Additionally, you should ensure that the software that you install on a Hyper-V virtual machine works within a Hyper-V environment.

For a current list of guest operating systems that are supported on Hyper-V, see the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131614).

For a current list of Microsoft server software that is supported in a Hyper-V virtualization environment, see Knowledge Base article 957006 at the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=129034).

After you enable Hyper-V, you can create child partitions as necessary, and then you can create virtual machines on which to host the second server and other guest operating systems.

For a list of known issues, see “Known Issues with Running Windows Small Business Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment.”

For information about how to implement this scenario, see ”Install the Second Server on a Hyper-V Virtual Machine.”