Best Practices

• Do not overallocate memory or processor resources; maintain a maximum of a 2:1 ratio between the number of allocated virtual CPUs on guests and the number of cores on the host.

• Use an approved hypervisor for virtualization, such as Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 or a third-party hypervisor that is part of the SVVP.

• Allocate up to 1GB of the memory of the virtual host to running the virtualization host software.

• Highly consider pass-through (Raw Device Mapping) NICs and pass-through disks rather than virtual NICs or virtual hard drives, because the best performance can be achieved with them. This is particularly true for virtual SQL database servers.

• If using Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor, use the latest version included with Windows Server 2008 R2; it has significant performance improvements over the initial version of Hyper-V.

• Do not install anything other than virtualization software on the host sessions. Exceptions to this rule may include backup or antivirus software, although you should avoid these if possible.

• Consider the use of Server Core for the host OS session if using Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor for virtualization. This will cut down on the overall system requirements and provide a more streamlined host.

• Consider the use of a tool such as Microsoft’s System Center VMM for virtualization guest and host management and for scenarios such as those where farm members need to be provisioned quickly and reliably.