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Optimize Hyper-V for SC Series
9 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Hyper-V Best Practices | CML1009
2 Optimize Hyper-V for SC Series
SC Series storage is an excellent choice for external storage for stand-alone or clustered Windows Servers
including servers configured with the Hyper-V role. Core SC Series features such as thin provisioning, Data
Progression, data reduction, snapshots (Replays), and replication work seamlessly in the background
regardless of the platform or OS. In most cases, the default settings for these features are optimal for
Windows Server and Hyper-V. This document will point out additional configuration or tuning steps needed to
enhance performance, utilization or up-time.
2.1 Hyper-V integration services
Guest integration services are a package of virtualization-aware drivers that are installed on a guest VM to
optimize the guest VM virtual hardware for interaction with the physical host hardware and storage. Installing
these drivers is typically the first step for optimizing VM performance. If a VM is not performing as expected
(due to CPU, disk I/O, or network performance), verify that the VM integration services are current.
Installing and updating integration services is a commonly overlooked step to ensure overall stability and
optimal performance of guest VMs. Although newer Windows-based OSs and some enterprise-class Linux-
based OSs come with integration services out of the box, updates may still be required. New versions of
integration services may become available as the physical Hyper-V hosts are patched and updated.
With earlier versions of Hyper-V (2012 R2 and prior), during the configuration and deployment of a new VM,
the configuration process does not prompt the user to install or update integration services. In addition, the
process to install integration services with older versions of Hyper-V (2012 R2 and prior) is a bit obscure and
is explained in this section. With Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 Hyper-V, integration
services are updated automatically (in the case of Windows VMs) as a part of Windows Updates, requiring
less administration time to ensure Windows VMs stay current.
One common issue occurs when VMs are migrated from an older physical host or cluster to a newer host or
cluster (for example, from Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V to Windows Server 2012/R2 Hyper-V). The
integration services do not get updated automatically, and degraded performance may be encountered as a
result. This may erroneously lead an administrator to suspect the storage array as the cause of the problem.