hello, I'd like to install Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008 x64 running as a guest on a Windows 2008 Hyper-V host. Is it possible? If yes, is there any documentation or known bugs? I read about the fact you need to configure a fix IPv6 for the transport role etc...and I know it's not yet supported but did anyone succeed? thanks m.

Hi orba, This would be possible, as in it would work, however not only is it not supported by the exchange team, but it probably would not perform well unless you had a screaming machine behind it. Also hyper-v is still not released, it is RC1 which means it is still "use at your own risk." However I would suspect that not long after Hyper-V is released the Exchange team will announce support for Ex2007 on Hyper-V (with some caveats to ensure people don't try and run it on substandard hardware and expect support). -matt

Hi, The first 64-bit guest support is expected to be included with Hypervisor, which is an add-in for WindowsServer2008 from Microsoft that is scheduled to ship within 180 days of WindowsServer2008. Note that this is within 180 days, meaning it could ship the same day asWindowsServer2008, or it could ship 180 days after WindowsServer2008 ships. For more information about Microsoft virtualization plans, see the Microsoft Machine Virtualization Roadmap Chat Transcript. So far,it is under investigation,Hyper-V guidance will be released later. It will be better guide us to use Hyper-V with Exchange 2007 sp1. Thanks for your understanding. Best regards, Xiu

Hi Xiu, Thans for the information but I don't think we (me and company) can go back and keep the exchange 2003 environment untill the official release comes out. Don't you have some information regarding the installation? I'm not afraid about the performance issues there might be as the environment I m setting up is meant for a small company that will expand in the future. So for the moment I'm sure the hyper-v cluster will handle the load for the whole environment. I found some posts on other boards telling you need IPv6 enabled, internet connectivity and of course dns and ad working properly.I also heard you need to copy the installation files to disk to avoid problems with cd/dvd. Anybody few tips and/or tricks? Thanks again, m.

Hi, Today MSFT released Hyper-V! There also is official support from Microsoft on Exchange Server 2007 within Hyper-V While at TechEd IT Pro North America 2008, I also had the opportunity to attend Brent Alinger's session on Exchange Server 2007 and Hyper-V. Brent is a Senior Test Lead on the Exchange Team at Microsoft, and he's leading our testing efforts around Hyper-V. Brent described a number of terms, such as the Hyper-V root (which is the parent or the host machine), Hyper-V guest (which is the child or virtual machine), virtual hard disks (VHD), passthrough disks, fixed and dynamic disks, and virtual machine state files. Some of the more noteworthy bits of info from the session are: Within 60 days of Hyper-V's RTM, the Exchange team will publish a detailed support statement for Hyper-V, and a TechNet article with best practices. I'm part of the Exchange Virtualization Working Group and will be helping to deliver some of this content. Customers should not deploy Exchange on Hyper-V until our support guidance is available. Early results show that performance of Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V is quite good, and that it scales very well from 1-4 processors per VM. In terms of best practices and requirements, Brent shared the following: We're only supporting guests running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008. We're only supporting fixed disks, and not dynamic disks. Storage should be on spindles that are separate from the Guest operating system VHD physical storage. Storage must be SCSI passthrough or iSCSI (with a preference of SCSI passthrough for queues, databases and log files). All Exchange server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, will be supported. For backup, hardware VSS should be used. There's a limit on VHD size of 2040 GB. Brent also mentioned that Hyper-V is a good fit when Exchange servers in branch offices cannot be consolidated to a central datacenter (for example, because of bandwidth or connectivity issues). In terms of workload, not every workload is a candidate for virtualization. For example, server roles such as Client Access and Hub Transport can be good candidates, but a more heavy hitter like the Mailbox role (which often uses all available resources on a physical server) might not be the best candidate for virtualizing. Regards, Peter