VMM 2008 System Requirements

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Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 is an enterprise level administrative suite. As such, there as a number of strict system and configuration requirements which must be met, or exceeded, in order to install and run this technology. The goal of this chapter of VMM 2008 Essentials is to provide an overview of these requirements.




VMM 2008 and Active Directory

The first, and perhaps most crucial requirement is that the system on which VMM 2008 components are installed, together with any servers on which virtualization is to be managed, must all belong to an Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain. It is not, however, necessary for the servers to belong to the same domain.


Operating System Requirements

As has been mentioned a number of times in preceding chapters, VMM 2008 comprises a numbe rof different components which may be installed on a single server, or distributed over multiple servers. When considering operating system requirements, therefore, it is important to understand that the system requirements differ from one components to another. For example, whilst the VMM Administrator Console is supported on Windows Vista, it is not supported on Windows Server 2008 Core. The following table provides a complete overview of supported operating systems and VMM components.


Operating System

VMM Server

VMM Admin Console

VMM Library Server

VMM Self-Service Portal
Windows Server 2008 32-bit Standard, Enterprise Datacenter No Yes Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 64-bit Standard, Enterprise Datacenter Yes Yes Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 Server Core Standard, Enterprise Datacenter No No Yes Yes
Windows Server 2003 32-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter No Yes Yes Yes
Windows Server 2003 64-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter No Yes Yes Yes
Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter No Yes Yes Yes
Windows Server 2003 R2 64-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter No Yes Yes Yes
Windows Vista (SP1) No Yes No No
Windows XP Professional 32-bit (SP2 or SP3) No Yes No No
Windows XP Professional 64-bit (SP2 or SP3) No Yes No No

VMM Server Software Requirements

In addition to the above operating system requirements (i.e Windows Server 2008 64-bit Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter), the VMM Server component requires that the following items be installed prior to installation:

  • Windows PowerShell
  • Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0 or later
  • Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK)
  • Windows Remote Management (WinRM)

Both Windows PowerShell and the Microsoft .NET Framework are available as options with Windows Server 2008 and may be installed using the Add Features option of the Server Manager console. WinRM is installed by default with Windows Server 2008, and the Windows AIK will be installed automatically by the VMM 2008 setup wizard if it has not already been installed on the target system.

Self-Service Portal Software Requirements

In addition to the requirements for VMM Server, Internet Information Services (IIS) is required on the system on which the Self-Service Portal is installed. the IIS installation must also include the IIS Metabase Compatibility and IIS 6 WMI Compatibility options.

IIS may be installed on Windows Server 2008 systems using the Add Roles option of the Server Manager console.

Database Requirements

VMM 2008 also requires that a database be available. This can be either Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Server Express. The database may be installed either on the same system as VMM Server, or on a separate server. For the management of larger virtualized infrastructures (in excess of 150 host systems), the deployment of the full Microsoft SQL Server product on a separate server is strongly recommended. For smaller environments, SQL Server Express may be installed on the same system as the VMM Server component.

VMM 2008 Single System Installation Hardware Requirements

The extact hardware requirements for a VMM 2008 installation depend on a number of different factors, including whether the components are distributed over multiple systems or installed on a single computer and the number of hosts to be managed and monitored.

The following hardware specification covers the recommended hardware configuration for a complete VMM 2008 installation on a single computer managing up to 5 hosts:

  • Dual-Core Pentium 4, 2 GHz (x64) or greater
  • 2GB of RAM
  • 40GB of free disk space

For configurations involving up to 20 virtual machine hosts, with all VMM 2008 components installed on a single server, the hardware recommendations are as follows:

  • Dual-Core Pentium 4, 2 GHz (x64) or greater
  • 4GB of RAM
  • 50GB of free disk space

VMM Server Hardware Requirements

When installing just the VMM Server component on a server system, the recommended hardware configuration for managing up to 150 hosts is as follows:

  • Dual-Processor, Dual-Core, 2 GHz (x64) or greater
  • 4GB of RAM
  • 50GB of free disk space (with SQL Server Express installed)

For configurations involving more than 150 hosts, the following hardware levels are recommended:

  • Dual-Processor, Dual-Core, 2 GHz (x64) or greater
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 50GB of free disk space

VMM Administrator Console Hardware Requirements

When installing only the VMM Administrator Console component on a computer system, the recommended hardware configuration for managing up to 150 hosts is as follows:

  • Pentium 4, 1 GHz or greater
  • 1GB of RAM
  • 2GB of free disk space

For configurations involving 150 or more hosts:

  • Pentium 4, 2 GHz or greater
  • 2GB of RAM
  • 4GB of free disk space

VMM Self-Service Portal Hardware Requirements

When installing only the VMM Administrator Console component on a computer system, the recommended hardware configuration for managing up to 10 concurrent connections is as follows:

  • Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz
  • 2GB of RAM
  • 20GB of free disk space

To support more than 10 concurrent connections to the Self-Service Portal, the following hardware configuration is recommended:

  • Dual-Core 64-bit, 3.2 GHz or greater
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 40GB of free disk space

VMM Database Hardware Requirements

When installing only the VMM Database component on a computer system, the recommended hardware configuration for managing up to 150 hosts is as follows:

  • Dual-Core 64-bit, 2 GHz
  • 4GB of RAM
  • 165GB of free disk space (includes installation on Microsoft SQL Server Express)

For configurations involving 150 or more hosts:

  • Dual-Core 64-bit, 2.8 GHz
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 200GB of free disk space (installation of full edition of Microsoft SQL Server recommended)

VMM Library Server Hardware Requirements

  • Dual-Core 64-bit, 3.2 GHz or greater
  • 2Gb of RAM
  • Disk space requirements depended on volume of files stored in library
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