About Microsoft Hyper-V

Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a dedicated stand-alone product that contains the hypervisor, Windows Server driver model, virtualization capabilities, and supporting components such as failover clustering. Hyper-V Server produces a small footprint and requires minimal overhead.

• Roles and responsibilities
  • Managed virtual machines
  • Unmanaged virtual machines
• Licensing
  • Virtual machine licensing

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Roles and Responsibilities

The following section defines who is responsible for specific functions related to managed and unmanaged virtual machines.

If Rackspace is responsible for performing the function, the roles and responsibilities are designated as Rackspace. If the customer is responsible for performing the function, the role and responsibilities are designated as Customer.

Because your Microsoft Hyper-V environment can be comprised of both managed and unmanaged virtual machines, Microsoft Hyper-V’s roles and responsibilities are also divided into two sections: managed virtual machines and unmanaged virtual machines, which includes customer-provided images.

Managed Virtual Machines

Microsoft Hyper-V managed virtual machines are virtual machines run a guest operating system that is managed by Rackspace.

The following tables show all of the tasks that Rackspace handles for you for managed virtual machines and where there is shared responsibility.

Unmanaged Virtual Machines

Microsoft Hyper-V unmanaged virtual machines run a guest operating system that is not managed by Rackspace, which requires the customer to assume more responsibilities. Unmanaged virtual machines include customer-provided images. Customers might have a mix of managed and unmanaged virtual machines running in their Microsoft Hyper-V environment.

The following tables show the tasks for unmanaged virtual machines, with the customer involved in managing more tasks than with managed virtual machines.

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Licensing

All licensing for Microsoft Hyper-V is host-based licensing. Each processor is licensed with Windows Server 2016 Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) – Data Center Edition, allowing for unlimited Windows guest operating systems without any additional licensing fees.

Virtual Machine Licensing

Licenses for Windows and Linux (excluding Red Hat Enterprise Linux) virtual machines are included from Rackspace with Microsoft Hyper-V.

Customers can provide their own OS licenses or lease a Rackspace-provided Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) OS license. If you lease OS licensing from Rackspace, you can activate it with the Rackspace Red Hat Network (RHN) server.

For more details, contact your Rackspace Microsoft Hyper-V Support team.