Hyper-V - where to start in learning the product.

Well, with the emergence of virtualisation its really no surprise that Microsoft has entered the market place. The aim of the blog is to introduce Hyper-V and show how to learn & configure the product, and use it to cut costs, consolidate servers, and deliver a flexible virtual environment. So how am I going to do this? By using the blog to show you what I've done and how I'm learning the product!

I know there are other Hypervisors in the market - but this blog just concentrates on Hyper-V.

So where to start? Personally I'd recommend you watch the edge.technet webcasts by the Hyper-V engineering team. http://edge.technet.com/Tags/Hyper-V/

If you've used other virtualisation products then some of the high level terms and features will be familar. If you're new to the virtualisation world its a good place to get an understanding of the architectural design of Hyper-V. There are 5 webcasts in total, labelled Hyper-V Part 1 to 5 and they are a great way of understanding what's happenning under the Hyper-V GUI. Any IT person can click a GUI - but when things go wrong, understanding the products "nut n bolts" sure helps in fixing it!!

The second place I'd visit is the Hyper-V technet site http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753637(WS.10).aspx. I know its a dry read - hence recommending the webcasts, but its still the best way to gather the design and architectural knowledge needed if your serious in deploying Hyper-V.