14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has released a new server management tool designed to help IT professionals optimize the way they administer the hypervisor role included in the latest Windows Server operating system. Offered as an Update for Best Practices Analyzer for Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Edition (KB977238), the utility has been available through the Microsoft Download Center since April 26th, 2010. The Hyper-V Best Practices Analyzer is designed to scan servers with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V role installed and sniff out configuration problems that conflict with the best practices of Microsoft for the hypervisor.
“The Hyper-V Best Practice Analyzer is a tool that will scan your Hyper-V server and let you know if there are any common best practices that you are not following. To use it you just need to download and install the update and then open Server Manager,” Ben Armstrong, virtualization program manager for Microsoft, revealed.
In addition to the Best Practices Analyzer for Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Edition offered for download, the Redmond company has also published a knowledge base article with a few details on the tool. It is critical to note that BPA is only a scanning and analysis tool. While the utility can provide comprehensive information on the configuration of physical computers, virtual machines, virtual networking and even virtual storage, it will not make any sort of configuration changes. Setting up the hypervisor is entirely the job of admins.
“I have found this tool to be quite useful. When I ran it on my server at home it alerted me to the fact that I had a virtual machine where I had not updated the integration components to the latest version,” Armstrong added. “One other neat feature of the Best Practice Analyzer is the ability to exclude results. This way you can remove best practices that you do not believe apply to your environment – so you will not have to deal with a large number of unnecessary errors / warnings.”