Users Guide

8 Solutions Overview Guide
Figure 1. Hyper-V High-Level Architecture
The indirect I/O model utilized by Hyper-V allows VMs to be independent of
the specific type of hardware devices on the physical server (the device drivers
for the specific hardware devices are running in the Windows Server 2008
parent partition). This architecture allows Hyper-V to leverage the broad
support in Windows Server 2008 for Dell servers, storage, and I/O devices.
NOTE: It is recommended that you download the latest Dell-certified drivers
available for your system at support.dell.com, and install the drivers in the parent
partition.
Operating systems installed within the virtual machine are commonly
referred to as guest operating systems. The virtual devices that a VM exposes
to a guest operating system can be broadly categorized into two types:
• Emulated Virtual Devices
•
Synthetic Virtual Devices
Emulated virtual devices are a software implementation of a typical PCI-
device. To the guest operating system, an emulated device appears as a
physical PCI device. Synthetic virtual devices, which are also implemented in
software, are based on a VSP-VSC architecture unique to Hyper-V and use a