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Hyper-V Architecture
In this articleHyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtualization technology for certain x64 versions of Windows. The hypervisor is core to virtualization. It is the processor-specific virtualization platform that allows multiple isolated operating systems to share a single hardware platform. Hyper-V supports isolation in terms of a partition. A partition is a logical unit of isolation, supported by the hypervisor, in which operating systems execute. The Microsoft hypervisor must have at least one parent, or root, partition, running Windows. The virtualization management stack runs in the parent partition and has direct access to hardware devices. The root partition then creates the child partitions which host the guest operating systems. A root partition creates child partitions using the hypercall application programming interface (API). Partitions do not have access to the physical processor, nor do they handle the processor interrupts. Instead, they have a virtual view of the processor and run in a virtual memory address region that is private to each guest partition. The hypervisor handles the interrupts to the processor, and redirects them to the respective partition. Hyper-V can also hardware accelerate the address translation between various guest virtual address spaces by using an Input Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU) which operates independent of the memory management hardware used by the CPU. An IOMMU is used to remap physical memory addresses to the addresses that are used by the child partitions. Child partitions also do not have direct access to other hardware resources and are presented a virtual view of the resources, as virtual devices (VDevs). Requests to the virtual devices are redirected either via the VMBus or the hypervisor to the devices in the parent partition, which handles the requests. The VMBus is a logical inter-partition communication channel. The parent partition hosts Virtualization Service Providers (VSPs) which communicate over the VMBus to handle device access requests from child partitions. Child partitions host Virtualization Service Consumers (VSCs) which redirect device requests to VSPs in the parent partition via the VMBus. This entire process is transparent to the guest operating system. Virtual Devices can also take advantage of a Windows Server Virtualization feature, named Enlightened I/O, for storage, networking, graphics, and input subsystems. Enlightened I/O is a specialized virtualization-aware implementation of high level communication protocols (such as SCSI) that utilize the VMBus directly, bypassing any device emulation layer. This makes the communication more efficient but requires an enlightened guest that is hypervisor and VMBus aware. Hyper-V enlightened I/O and a hypervisor aware kernel is provided via installation of Hyper-V integration services. Integration components, which include virtual server client (VSC) drivers, are also available for other client operating systems. Hyper-V requires a processor that includes hardware assisted virtualization, such as is provided with Intel VT or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology. The following diagram provides a high-level overview of the architecture of a Hyper-V environment. Glossary
FeedbackSubmit and view feedback for Which component is most likely to allow physical and virtual machines to communicate with each other?Which component is most likely to allow physical and virtual machines to communicate with each other? Virtual switches allow multiple virtual servers and/or desktops to communicate on virtual network segments and/or the physical network.
Which is the virtual environment that emulates a physical computers hardware and BIOS?Which of the following is the virtual environment that emulates a physical computer's hardware and BIOS? machines.
Which virtual technology provides sharing of RAM or CPU between the operating systems in each VM?A hypervisor is a crucial piece of software that makes virtualization possible. It abstracts guest machines and the operating system they run on, from the actual hardware. Hypervisors create a virtualization layer that separates CPU / Processors, RAM and other physical resources from the virtual machines you create.
What is hardware based virtualization?Hardware virtualization is the method used to create virtual versions of physical desktops and operating systems. It uses a virtual machine manager (VMM) called a hypervisor to provide abstracted hardware to multiple guest operating systems, which can then share the physical hardware resources more efficiently.
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