MS Virtual Server

The benefits that are involved in virtual server host clustering are as follows:

• Server consolidation: allow virtual servers to consolidate multiple servers into one that will be easy to track and maintain virtual machines at one server together.

• Increased availability: virtual server host clustering increases the availability of consolidated server due to which if any failure occurs then another server can take up the job that is being served by the first server. The effect of failure is kept to minimum by providing risk management systems.

• Host clustering keeps the physical host as cluster node and if host stops performing then the processes can be given to another host to run, whereas guest clustering keeps the guest as cluster node and if guest stops working then it will fail all other guest that are connected with it.

• Host clustering protects from failure of the computer that is crashed, whereas guest clustering doesn't provide protection from failure.

• Host clustering protects system from failure due to the fact that guests are configured as clustered resource group and I consists of generic script resource, whereas standard clustering provide automatic checks to discover the cause of the failure and recover from it.

• Host clustering doesn't monitor the cluster services, whereas standard clustering monitors the failure.

Microsoft virtual server provides virtualization platform that allows the creation of virtual machine using a windows operating system. It is developed by Connectix. This platform provides the provision to create and manage the virtual machines using IIS web based interface that keeps all the settings and configuration at one place. It also allows the management of network configuration for communicating with host operating system or other guest operating systems.

Microsoft Virtual server includes the following features:

• It includes the support for Linux guest operating system.

• It includes Virtual Disk pre-compactor tool that prepares the disk for compacting.

• It includes SMP (Symmetric multiprocessing) for the host operating system.

• It includes the mounting feature for virtual hard drives on host operating system that enables backups to be taken.

• It includes the tool to mount VHD images.

The limitations of Microsoft Virtual server includes:

• It doesn't support 64 bit processors and can't run 64 bit guests.

• It uses SMP but doesn't have virtualization in it.

• It has limitation for guest users to use not more than one CPU.

• It decreases the performance of the system as the instruction set also get virtualized which increases the overhead on the application.

• It has very limited interaction with the host hardware.

Hyper-V server is a hypervisor that doesn't require any other operating system to run on. It is a good platform for organizations that needs one consolidated single server. This is used where the infrastructure work load is not high. It provides host clustering to produce high availability for virtual machines. Hyper-V server provides added functionalities like managing, creating and distributing the virtual machines. It provides flexible and cost effective solutions for enterprise organizations.

Remote site virtualization provides server virtualization and need for remote management for the virtual machines. It is provided due to limited resources that might not exist. The main challenge is to apply the server consolidations. Each server is using dedicative service functions and small servers and not using multiple servers. If single server approach is being given then there will be less power requirements, space requirements and only one server to manage and backup that will make it prone to fail and reduce the efficiency.

Microsoft Virtual server is used to access the network application resource that is in a non-clustered environment. In this clients connected to network must remain connected in case of any failure in network access to the application and resources get lost or the connection becomes unavailable. Microsoft Virtual server allows creation of virtual servers. These virtual servers don’t belong to any particular computer and can be damaged within a group too. The server is used to identify a group that belongs or communicating with each other in the form of IP addresses.

Kerberos is the authentication protocol that is being used by virtual servers. It maintains an active directory computer object that is involved in clustering. This provides the client security and easy to use features. It provides the provision of message queuing on a virtual server and allows the clients to publish the information to other computer systems. It provides clustering as well and by configuring its properties more options can be found out to be used.

The virtual server provided by Microsoft and physical server has few things common in between them and these are as follows:

• Both allow access to network resources that has to be shared between two computers.

• Both publish the resources to the network clients under a unique server name.

• Both are under same network name and IP address range.

• Both are used to provide same communication option.

• Both provide the same networking modes of operations through which clients can communicate with each other.