Installing and configuring Hyper-V and virtual machines

Explore storage options on Hyper-V host servers—virtual hard disk formats (.vhd/.vhdx), types (fixed, dynamic, differencing, pass-through)—and storing disks on local or SMB3 shares for high availability.

Examine virtual hard disk formats and types in Hyper-V, including VHD and dynamic versus fixed sizing, and understand Fibre Channel support and storage locations for virtual disks.

Create and manage differencing virtual disks in Hyper-V using Hyper-V Manager and PowerShell, exploring VHDX versus VHD, dynamic and differencing disks, and nested virtualization.

Examine Hyper-V storage options, including VHD and VHDX formats, dynamic and differential disks, and virtual fiber channel, plus SMB3.0 bandwidth and storage placement factors.

Configure external, internal, and private Hyper-V switches to control traffic between virtual machines, the host, and the physical network, including NAT and VLAN considerations.

Configure Hyper-V virtual networks to guarantee minimum bandwidth, allocate per-virtual-network bandwidth, improve performance with VMQ, and ensure fault tolerance via NIC teaming across switches.

Explore new Hyper-V networking features in Windows Server 2016, including software defined networking enhancements, QoS integration, VMQ, RDMA for virtual switches, and switch embedded teaming with NAT.

Showcases configuring hyper-v networking with an internal net switch via PowerShell, using a 192.168.100.0/24 network, and enabling icmp through firewall rules for VM communication.

Explore optimizing Hyper-V networks on Windows Server 2016 and later through bandwidth management, NIC teaming, VMMQ, QoS, and network virtualization, with practical knowledge checks and PowerShell commands.

Explore configuring Hyper-V virtual machine versions, compare generation one and two, upgrade VMs to the latest version, and consider shielded VMs, host compatibility, and import rules.

Learn to create and configure Hyper-V virtual machines, compare generation 1 and 2, plan OS support and VHD format and fixed-size disks, and manage dynamic memory and networking.

Learn to create and manage Hyper-V virtual machines with PowerShell, using New-VM and Get-VM, configure memory and VHD, choose generation, attach an existing VHD, and manage start and stop.

Explore Hyper-V VM configuration concepts—versions, generations, creation methods, and management considerations—through knowledge checks on upgrades, secure boot, dynamic memory, and PowerShell VM creation.

Identify virtual machine states in Hyper-V to ensure adequate host resources and plan capacity. Manage checkpoints, export and import virtual machines, and use PowerShell Direct for offline VM management.

Manage Hyper-V checkpoints, choosing between standard checkpoints and production checkpoints based on app compatibility. Create, revert, export, and branch checkpoints while understanding storage, data integrity, and checkpoints are not backups.

Demonstrates creating production and standard checkpoints in Hyper-V manager, renaming, applying, exporting, and deleting checkpoints, using PowerShell direct to configure virtual machines remotely.

Learn to manage Hyper-V virtual machines by handling checkpoints and states, production vs standard checkpoints, memory and saved states, differential disks (.avhd/.avhdx), and PowerShell Direct.

Explore importing and exporting virtual machines in Hyper-V, including register in place, restore, or copy options, exporting with or without checkpoints, and live migration considerations.

Learn how to perform live migrations of virtual machines in Hyper-V, enable live migrations, configure migration networks and Kerberos authentication, and troubleshoot authentication and resource issues that can block migrations.

Explore importing, exporting, and migrating virtual machines in Hyper-V through a knowledge check, covering import options, checkpoints, SMB share storage for live migration, and Kerberos authentication.

Install and configure virtual machine manager and explore the VMM console. Learn the five components: VMs and services, fabric, library, jobs, and settings, and perform configuration tasks with PowerShell automation.

Install and configure System Center Virtual Machine Manager by setting up the management server and console, a service account, and a database, then manage the library and VHD storage.

Navigate the virtual machine manager console and its five components—VMs and services, fabric, library, jobs, and settings—and use the context-sensitive toolbar and PowerShell for automation.

Review initial configuration tasks in Virtual Machine Manager, including general settings, run as accounts, user roles, servicing windows, backups, and integrations for Azure Site Recovery and Ops Manager.

Explore the power of PowerShell and Virtual Machine Manager to automate Hyper-V tasks, generate and customize scripts from the VM console, manage host properties, and monitor automation jobs.

Master bare metal deployment with ipmi or smash management ports via Virtual Machine Manager, provisioning a Hyper-V host from a Windows Server 2016 image using Windows Deployment Services.

Enable bare-metal to Hyper-V host deployment with SCVMM by configuring BIOS for PXE, provisioning a Pixy server, and building profiles to deploy Hyper-V hosts.

Build a Hyper-V compute cluster with Virtual Machine Manager by adding Hyper-V hosts, installing clustering tools and executing the cluster wizard, including bare-metal deployment options and switch propagation across nodes.

Implement and manage highly available failover clusters with Windows Server, covering prerequisites, hardware, shared storage, networking, VM provisioning, validation wizard, quorum settings, and cluster aware updating, plus monitoring and troubleshooting.

Plan a highly available failover cluster, including dynamic quorum with dynamic Witness, storage, hardware, network, and security considerations, plus migration and operating system upgrade steps.

Identify services and applications for failover clustering, focusing on stateful apps and Hyper-V virtual machines; plan capacity and hardware to prevent single points of failure and ensure automatic client reconnect.

Explore failover clustering with five shared storage options—shared SAS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, shared virtual hard disk, and SMB-based scale-out file server—and learn storage requirements and high-availability basics.

Ensure Hyper-V failover clusters use Windows Server certified hardware, identical node hardware and firmware, and consistent storage and network settings, then validate with the validated configuration wizard before deployment.

Demonstrates verifying RSS and RDMA compatibility on an SMB server using PowerShell, confirming RSS is enabled across adapters and RDMA is not.

Configure failover clusters by meeting hardware, security, and migration requirements: ensure Windows Server 2008+ domain controllers, DNS, and Server 2016 compatibility, with identical editions and updates across nodes.

Configure cluster properties and manage nodes via the Failover Cluster Manager, including adding or evicting nodes, and set failover and failback policies for Hyper-V environments.

Explore quorum modes in failover clustering, including node majority, disk majority, node and file share majority, and disk only; learn dynamic quorum and dynamic witness with Azure Cloud Witness.

Configure storage for the failover cluster by creating storage spaces and pools, adding disks, and selecting resiliency and virtual disk size. Set up private and public networks for cluster communication.

Use failover cluster manager to validate configuration, ensure both nodes have Hyper-V installed, and create a two-node storage-backed file server cluster.

Configure storage by building storage pools from physical disks, adding disks to csvs, and selecting resiliency options and virtual disk sizes; configure networks with private, public, and iSCSI storage networks.

Install the failover clustering feature on all nodes, create and validate the cluster, install and configure cluster roles, and test failover to ensure high availability.

Demonstrates building a failover file server cluster from scratch using Hyper-V VMs, iSCSI storage, and a simple domain; configures VHDs, network settings, and cluster creation for high availability.

Configure cluster quorum settings for Windows Server Failover Clustering using the quorum wizard or PowerShell, to manage node votes and disk or file share witnesses with dynamic quorum.

Learn to configure a cluster quorum by inspecting the current quorum, switching from disk witness to file share witness, and validating with Get-ClusterQuorum and Set-ClusterVolume commands.

Monitor failover clusters using Event Viewer, Performance and Reliability Monitor, and cluster reports; back up and restore cluster configurations and implement cluster aware updating to update nodes without downtime.

Add a shared folder to a highly available file server, configure failover and failback, and validate the deployment and failover behavior using Failover Cluster Manager and Windows Admin Center.

Back up and restore failover cluster configurations, test recovery, ensure quorum and application data availability, and follow a structured troubleshooting workflow using validator tools and logs.

Configure Windows failover clustering network heartbeat monitoring to balance aggressive and relaxed modes, and set same subnet, cross subnet, and cross site delays and thresholds for reliable failover.

Learn how zero downtime updates are achieved with cluster aware updating for a failover cluster, using a queue to update nodes and two modes: remote updating and self-updating.

Learn to configure CAU on a Hyper-V failover cluster by enabling self-updating, generating update previews, and scheduling weekly updates with a Sunday 4 am window.

Diagnose failover clusters by identifying network latency, failures, drivers, firewalls, and security software issues, generate and review the cluster.log, and monitor performance and event channels.

Identify and resolve failover cluster communication faults by resynchronizing CNO and VCO passwords in Active Directory, repairing computer objects, and managing quorum configuration and forced quorum mode.

Monitor failover cluster performance with performance counters and the management snap-in to troubleshoot cluster network messages and reconnections, database updates, and resource status using PowerShell for automation.

Deploy stretch clusters to deliver site resiliency by automating failover and replicating storage across sites, while managing prerequisites, network heartbeats, and admin overhead.

Explore deploying highly available stretched clusters across locations, including separate storage, automatic failover, and reduced admin overhead, while evaluating cost, complexity, and alternatives.

Understand storage replica on Windows Server 2016 enabling synchronous or asynchronous replication for site clusters without vendor storage, and recognize DFS replication's limitations for stretch failover clustering.

Explore storage replica, a storage agnostic, block-level replication in Windows Server 2016, enabling synchronous and asynchronous replication across storage cluster, server to server, or cluster to cluster.

Explore storage replica in Windows Server 2016, a storage-agnostic, block-level replication across clusters and servers, with synchronous or asynchronous modes for disaster recovery, not suited for branch offices.

Learn how to configure site-aware stretched failover clusters with dynamic quorum and dynamic witness, choosing between Azure cloud witness or file share witness depending on data centers and connectivity.

Define failover and failback procedures for stretched clusters, detailing critical services, quorum, storage replication, DNS and client connectivity, and controlled failback to prevent data loss.