Hyper-V is a Microsoft virtualization product that allows users to create and run multiple virtual machines on a physical host. It is a native hypervisor that can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. Hyper-V provides hardware virtualization, which means each virtual machine runs on virtual hardware. It includes features such as remote connectivity, secure boot, and shielded virtual machines to help protect against malware and unauthorized access to virtual machines and their data. Hyper-V is available in Windows Server and Windows as a server role available for x64 versions of Windows Server, and as a feature in some 64-bit versions of Windows. It is also available as a downloadable, standalone server product called Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Some key features of Hyper-V include:
- Nested virtualization: This feature allows users to run a Hyper-V virtual machine inside another Hyper-V virtual machine.
- Discrete Device Assignment (DDA): This feature allows users to pass through compatible PCI Express devices directly to guest virtual machines.
- Windows containers: This feature allows users to achieve isolation at the app level rather than the OS level.
- Hyper-V Replica: This feature allows users to replicate virtual machines to a secondary site for disaster recovery.
- Virtual Fiber Channel: This feature allows users to connect virtual machines directly to Fibre Channel storage.
- SR-IOV networking: This feature allows users to assign a physical network adapter to a virtual machine.
- Shared .VHDX: This feature allows users to share a virtual hard disk between multiple virtual machines.
Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtualization technology that uses the Windows hypervisor, which requires a physical processor with specific features. Hyper-V virtual machines include the same basic parts as a physical computer, such as memory, processor, storage, and networking. Hyper-V supports many different operating systems in a virtual machine, including various releases of Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows.
