Introduction

A virtual server isn t of any use without any servers deployed on it. Deployment of servers can be done by using the Virtual Server Migration Toolkit, but also by creating a virtual server (virtual hardware) and installing an operating system on it.

Before installing the guest operating system onto the virtual hardware, you need to make the correct decisions about the (virtual) hardware setup. This contains selecting the correct network, choosing the correct disk and controller type. Setting this correctly will give you a fast and flexible (virtual) server.

You need to configure at least one virtual hard disk for the virtual machine to install an operating system. You can have more than one virtual hard disk on a virtual machine if it is needed for separation of data or loading a database or for some other reason. You can configure a virtual machine to boot from a floppy disk or a CD-ROM, but a virtual hard disk is normally required to maintain the operating system and applications of the virtual machine. The four types of virtual hard disk all are saved as .vhd files in the My Virtual Machines folder by default. The four types are:

• Dynamically expanding The actual size of the virtual hard disk expands as it is written. The initial size starts small at less than 100 KB. As data is added, the size expands until it reaches the specified maximum size established when the disk was created. (This is the default...