TABLE OF CONTENTS At this point, we know all about the what, the why, and the when; the next step is the how. The install is very straightforward, as with most Microsoft applications. The installation application is a wizard-based graphical install. The important detail not to overlook is that, before you are able to virtualize servers, you must determine the hardware needed to run your virtual servers environment and set up the virtual server software.
Running the setup will result in a working server, but when nothing is configured after the installation, only administrators are able to connect to any machine via the console. Configuring your virtual server correctly will provide secure and reliable access while giving the best performance possible.
This process of determining the size of the physical server that will host the virtual servers is a critical step that should not be neglected. Adequately planning the size of the physical server will provide a solid foundation from which to run virtual servers. Some of the key things that need to be addressed when planning what physical hardware is needed are the number of virtual machines that will be on the host, and, more importantly, what will be running on these virtual machines. What each virtual machine is running is critical because, for example, a virtual machine that is a basic domain controller may require far fewer resources than that of a virtual machine running SQL or Microsoft Exchange. Refer to Table 4.1...
