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A current project, along with the recent RTM, has inspired me to try out Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization technology. However, getting it installed on my Dell PowerEdge 1900 required some digging. For the benefit of posterity, here roughly what you have to do:

First, get the latest Dell OpenManage (OM) software. That’s at least version 5.4, which includes the version of their Systems Build and Update Utility (SBUU) that supports Windows Server 2008 (WS08; required to run Hyper-V). Warning, the whole OM image is 3.5 GB, and you’ll obviously need a DVD burner. But trying to get SCSI, SAS, RAID, etc drivers installed without this is not worth your time, and previous separate versions of SBUU (such as 5.3) don’t support WS08. On the plus side, you end up with a single disk that has all of the OM tools (and it’s bootable for SBUU).

Next burn the WS08 x64 boot image (another DVD). Don’t forget, Hyper-V requires 64-bit Windows!

Now boot the OM disk, select the installation/SBUU options, and then select the WS08 x64 option. There are some additional choices here, such as using a utility partition and configuring RAIDs, that you have to decide for yourself.

As an Interesting side note – the latest OM uses the Vista-era WinPE. I hadn’t seen that before, so I thought something had gone wrong when the blue Vista “curtain” background suddenly appeared after OM-initiated reboot. Not to fear: you’re prompted for the WS08 media at that point, and the installation completed without issues.

Once the server is up, perform the usual initial configuration steps. Just be prepared to do lots of reboots. Then, to get Hyper-V going:

  1. Ensure that your processor’s virtualization extensions are enabled in the BIOS.
  2. Add the Hyper-V role from Server Manager. It’ll warn you that the feature is pre-release. That’s okay, just don’t forget the next step.
  3. Download and install the Hyper-V RTM update.

Initial reactions about Hyper-V? Well, it’s way better than Virtual Server 2005. Cleaner and faster. And, so far, building new VMs (Windows on Windows) is done via a more consistent and intuitive interface than VMware Server 5.x. Stay tuned.

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3 Comments »

  1. Good post — Tom and I will be posting our experiences with Hyper-V later this summer on our blog.

    Comment by Jason Koppe — July 1, 2008 @ 6:34 pm

  2. Thanks Dan for the informaiton it really helped

    Comment by T — July 11, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

  3. Any idea where to find this mythical OMSA 5.4 (or, even better, 5.4.1)? The link here is dead, and after two days of searching all I can find is an SUU 5.4.1 iso, which is not bootable. I’ve been all over the dell support site and ftp site. I fear I might actually have to call Dell’s tech support…

    Comment by Shane — July 30, 2008 @ 7:32 pm

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