Intro.

This article series is related to my latest speech at the Linux SA Meeting on Tuesday May 15th, somehow related to my previous post about CentOS Networking configuration ([SOLVED] CentOS 6 networking and Hyper-V) and to my recently released VHD/Virtual Appliances (New Centos-6.2-x86_64-minimal Hyper-V VHD - Ubuntu 12.04 LTS X64 Desktop Hyper-V Virtual Appliance available & Ubuntu 12.04 LTS X64 Server Hyper-V Virtual Appliance available).

On this series I'm going to show you how to efficiently deploy new CentOS Virtual Machines inside your Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with the Hyper-V Role enabled.

Please note that this is also the fastest way to deploy new CentOS VMs on your lab since you don't have to go through the whole setup procedure again and again and it could be scaled as-well for your production environments and/or datacenter environments, by using a combination of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (which is the freeware, CLI-only Hypervisor Edition), and the automation offered by the PowerShell scripting environment.

Once you prepare your main VHD, the VM provisioning is streamlined and New CentOS VMs are ready in no time.

This article series is aimed at those who wish to prepare their own set of virtual appliances (and have plenty of time, patience and resources).

If you wish to get up and running, simply Download my ready-made Virtual Appliances and off you go: no need to wait for the whole article series to be released :O

The procedure described could be adapted to other (Supported) Linux Distributions like Red Hat and Novell, to unsupported (but reported to work) Ubuntu/Debian (recent news has Ubuntu not even needing the Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V since the mouse seems to be working even during the setup process!), and of course, to the Microsoft Windows family of products.

Outside Hyper-V, the procedure I'm describing is also known as "base image" on Linux and "template" on VMWARE.

Efficient:

1. Have plenty of VMs with no impact to your (limited) storage.
2. Save bandwidth! CentOS 6.2 Minimal is a very small download - 321 MB only!
3. CentOS-minimal allows you to install into your new VMs only the software needed to accomplish your specific tasks.

Once you deploy new VMs based on your main image, you will simply launch the update process and/or customize your distribution to your liking, the point here is that you'll only download and install the programs needed for the specific tasks your VM needs to perform, while the main, "distribution" instance, will remain "frozen" in time (and powered OFF for good!).

This article is just a descriptive introduction and a placeholder index for the whole procedure, the next articles will present you a complete step-by-step tutorial and I will conclude with a final surprise. I will also update this index with direct links to the other articles (once they've been authored...that is!).

if you wish to know when my follow-up articles will be released, open a twitter account (it's that easy!) and follow me by clicking at the following address: https://twitter.com/amatesi

Alternatively you may receive updates about my articles through Facebook or Linked-in.

Articles Index.

1. This Summary.
2. Download the software needed.
3. Create the "Father" VM (a New VM).
4. Create the "Child" VM (a 2nd VM, that depends from the previous Father VM).
5. Make the Child VM independent!

Bibliography:

• Mastering Windows Server® 2008 R2 - Wiley Publishing - ISBN: 978-0-470-53286-7.

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Andrea Matesi

Senior Professional Network and Computer Systems Engineer during work hours and father when home.

Andrea strives to deliver outstanding customer service and heaps of love towards his family.

In this Ad-sponsored space, Andrea shares his quest for "ultimate" IT knowledge, meticulously brought to you in an easy to read format.

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