For those who have looked at Hyper-V previously, it is important to check out the third iteration of Hyper-V that is part of Windows Server 8. The recently released beta of Windows Server 8 introduces a slew of new features, one of which is easy migration.

For starters, migration of Hyper-V VMs is available today with generally available solutions leveraging Failover Cluster Manager and/or Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager. But with Windows Server 8, it is now possible to easily migrate VMs from one disk resource to another directly in the Hyper-V Manager console (and through PowerShell of course). This is critical for the smaller environments who need migration flexibility, yet don’t invest in higher-end management solutions.

Within the Hyper-V Manager, the option to move a VM is easily found in the context menu by right-clicking on the VM. This step is shown in Figure A:

Figure A

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The wizard that appears next is straightforward, yet it gives a lot of options to the administrator. Specifically, if only a certain VHD file needs moved, the wizard can accommodate that task. If the entire configuration and data for the VM needs moved as part of the task, the wizard can accommodate that as well. Figure B shows the wizard options for Windows Server 8’s version of Hyper-V:

Figure B

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The tasks will then start and proceed seamlessly. In my home lab, I didn’t have a lost ping. I didn’t change hosts, only storage from local disk to an iSCSI storage resource; however, if there were a host change, there would likely be one lost ping due to the ARP table being updated on managed switching. Figure C shows the progress of the storage migration task for the Hyper-V VM:

Figure C

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Hyper-V with Windows Server 8 brings this and many more features to the virtualization platform, even without centralized management. Have you used the new version of Hyper-V? Does this migration option appeal to you? Share your comments below.