Hyper-V Overview

With Hyper-V you can run multiple operating systems, including open source operating systems such as Linux, on a single host computer. Such an arrangement helps you create a scalable, reliable, and a security-enhanced virtualized platform. Further, Hyper-V can be used in many scenarios to help you achieve greater efficiency, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness throughout your organization.

Main Components of Hyper-V

The main components of the Hyper-V architecture are the parent partition, multiple child partitions, the hypervisor, and the Designed for Windows Server hardware.

The parent partition provides the virtualization services for the child partition. Typically, the parent partition operating system is Server Core.

The kernel mode of the parent partition contains the VSP that provides emulation of hardware, such as hard disks and network cards. Third-party and native drivers also operate in the kernel mode. These drivers provide connectivity to the physical devices for the parent partitions and emulation for the child partitions.

The user mode of the parent partition contains the Virtual Machine Service (VM Service), multiple instances of the Virtual Machine Worker (VM Worker) process, and an implementation of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

The VM Service provides virtual machine management for all running child partitions and also implements administrator interaction with child partitions. The VM Service spawns a VM Worker process for each running child partition. The VM Worker process contains the settings for the child partition, such as the number of processors.

The child partition runs in a separate memory space. It connects to virtualization services that the parent partition provides over the VMBus. In the child partition, applications run in the user mode.

In the kernel mode, the VSCs connect over the VMBus to the VSPs. There are VSCs for hard disks that provide an endpoint for disk writes from the child partitions. The VMBus provides high-speed communication between the VSCs and the VSP. This includes calls to video, I/O, storage, and networking.

If the child partition is a Windows NT–based operating system, then there is a Windows kernel component running in Ring 0. Third-party operating systems run equivalent code in Ring 0.

The hypervisor maintains separation between the parent and child partitions and provides mappings between real and virtual components such as processor, memory, storage, and network cards. The hypervisor sits on top of the Designed for Windows Server hardware. Hardware compatibility is important because it increases stability for parent and child partitions.