What are the best servers to run Microsoft Hyper-V?
Hardware requirements and configurations for running Microsoft Hyper-V — CPU, memory, storage, and network considerations for whitebox virtualization hosts.
Servers Direct · October 22, 2020
Hyper-V is a server virtualization software developed by Microsoft Corporation that virtualizes a single hardware server into multiple virtual servers/machines. Each virtual machine runs as an isolated logical unit/partition and the underlying hardware resources (processor, hard drive, memory, etc.) of the host server are shared between the virtual machines.
Microsoft Hyper-V is available in the following three variants:
- Hyper-V for Windows Server: An optional add-on to the Windows Server Family that includes Windows Server OS licenses for guest VMs
- Hyper-V Server: A stand-alone, stripped-down and command line interface (CLI)-based version of Hyper-V with no included licenses for guest VMs
- Client Hyper-V: This is the streamlined version of Server Hyper-V for individual desktops and machines
Hyper-V offers a number of benefits. Key use cases include maximizing the usage of hardware resources, minimizing downtimes by offering live migrations and failover clustering, and reducing data center footprints. It also assists IT teams by increasing their productivity, improving manageability, and enabling R&D and troubleshooting.
Minimum hardware requirements to run Hyper-V
Hyper-V has the following system requirements listed as a minimum:
- 64-bit processors with Second Level Address Translation
- Minimum 4 GB memory
- Virtualization support enabled in BIOS/UEFI
While hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention is also listed as a requirement, most modern CPUs have this feature by default.
The hardware requirements listed above are fairly basic and any system that meets these criteria can become the host server for Hyper-V installation. However, to get the most out of a Hyper-V enabled environment, further hardware considerations need evaluation. Since the host server's physical hardware resources like CPU, memory, and network limit the performance of guest VMs, it is important to design and scale these resources accordingly.
CPU
While the speed of the CPU is important, it is actually the number of cores that improve the performance of VMs. The greater the number of cores and threads, the faster the VMs will be able to perform.
It's important to maintain a certain correlation between the number of cores on the host machine and the vCPUs on the guest OS. Physical compute power should neither be under-provisioned nor over-engineered. For most workloads, a physical to vCPU correlation of 1-to-8 or 1-to-12 will suffice. Processors with higher caches will also boost performance.
Memory
Because guest virtual machines run in memory, the physical RAM of the host server can directly impact VM performance. Mission-critical VMs should be allocated greater memory compared to non-intensive applications like a mailserver.
While sizing the memory, remember that Hyper-V itself will have a memory overhead of 2-3% and the host OS should also have 2-4 GB memory available. For example, if 5 VMs are deployed on a server and each VM requires 2GB memory, the host server should have at least 16GB RAM. Overloading the server with more VMs or fitting it with more RAM will not be a good choice in this case.
Storage
While storage is not exactly a hardware bottleneck, it must be sized rightly to ensure enough space is available for files and data of both the host and guest OS. The total disk space is dependent on the expected cumulative size of all systems combined. A data growth rate for each VM/application should also be factored into sizing. RAID configurations, higher spindle counts, greater RPMs, and the option to use SSDs will improve performance.
Network
Although a network adapter is not listed as a hardware requirement, all traffic of the host server and guest VMs will transit from available physical network interfaces. It is generally a good practice to have two network adapters — one dedicated for the host OS while the second is shared among VMs. In case a traffic-intensive workload is expected for a particular VM, another dedicated network interface might be considered. 2 x 10 Gig Ethernet/SFP should be taken as minimum with a quad port card considered for greater network traffic.
Which whitebox servers are best for Hyper-V?
Whitebox servers have been a popular choice in the data center industry for a long time and have consistently held a solid share in terms of number of units shipped and overall server revenue. Cloud service providers tend to tilt more towards whitebox servers compared to enterprise clients or telcos.
Ease of customization and configurability, lower cost of ownership, and ease of maintenance/support by virtue of using standard hardware modules are key reasons for adopting whitebox servers over branded systems. The rise of virtualization use cases has further increased the popularity of whitebox servers.
For Hyper-V deployments today, dual-socket Xeon Scalable platforms (1U and 2U) configured around the workload's vCPU-to-physical-core ratio are the right starting point. Configure with adequate DDR5 capacity, NVMe primary storage for VM disks, and at least dual 10 GbE networking. See our Enterprise Compute lineup for current configurable SKUs, or talk to a sales engineer and we'll spec the BOM to your VM density and growth profile.
Conclusion
The right server hardware for Hyper-V should support your current VM density and have headroom for 2-3 years of growth. From hosting a few VMs to 100+ VMs, properly sized dual-socket whitebox platforms scale well across diverse workloads. Considering configuration options, extensibility, value, and support, modular whitebox systems are among the best server hardware to run a virtualized environment.
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