14 DAY TRIAL // Customers that are using Linux and Windows Server in the same environment can also turn to a free resource from Microsoft designed to enhance the performance of the open source operating system when used together with the Redmond company’s hypervisor role. Best Practices for Running Linux on Hyper-V is a whitepaper offered free through the Microsoft Download Center, set up to highlight virtualization benefits associated with Linux on Hyper-V. At the same time, customers with heterogeneous environments can leverage the best practices described in the whitepaper in order to boost the performance of Linux when used as a guest operating system on a Hyper-V host.
“Most data centers use a variety of applications and operating systems. If you use both Linux and Windows operating systems, you can use Hyper-V to take advantage of the benefits of virtualization across your data center,” an excerpt from the whitepaper reads. “Hyper-V, the Microsoft hypervisor-based server virtualization platform, provides virtualization capabilities through the Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system infrastructure. Hyper-V lets you efficiently run multiple operating systems in parallel on a single server and fully capitalize on the power of x64 computing.”
As far as guest platforms for Hyper-V are concerned, the Redmond company supports a limited number of Linux distributions, namely certain versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). In this context, the Best Practices for Running Linux on Hyper-V is tailored to the supported Linux guests, including: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with SP1 and SP2.
“If you are running servers in a production environment, you want to use a supported configuration. “Supported” means that Microsoft has thoroughly tested the specific configuration. If you have a problem, you can call Microsoft Support, and Microsoft troubleshoots and resolves the problem and releases a fix if necessary. If the problem is with the Linux distribution, Microsoft works with Novell or Red Hat for a resolution, and Novell or Red Hat release a fix if necessary. Note that the best practices […] can help you avoid or minimize any potential problems,” the Redmond company added.