Migrating virtual machines and updating their integration services
Most people think that the process to migrate the virtual machine from one host with a previous Hyper-V version, to another one with a newer version, is simply done by the export and import process shown in the previous task. You will probably notice some strange behavior in the VMs such as mouse integration, slow performance, and some other issues. You will understand with the next steps why this problem occurs and how to migrate the virtual machine without such problems.
Getting ready
For virtual machines with a supported Linux operating system, you need to download the latest Linux integration components. You can download the current version from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34603 .
To know which Linux operating systems have the Hyper-V support, access the website http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831531.aspx .
For instructions about the Linux integration components' installation, refer to the following documentation: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&srcfamilyid=216de3c4-f598-4dff-8a4e-257d4b7a1c12&srcdisplaylang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fA%2f5%2fE%2fA5EEAE8B-570D-4882-8215-21EE3C0CABAF%2fLinux%20Integration%20Services%20v3.2%20Read%20Me.pdf.
How to do it...
The following steps will demonstrate how to upgrade the Integration Components of Windows virtual machines and some details about Linux VMs:
- For Linux virtual machines, you should uninstall the integration components manually before the export process; for Windows virtual machine, proceed with the following process.
- Using Hyper-V Manager, export the virtual machine to a temporary location.
- In the new Hyper-V server, open the Hyper-V Manager again and import the virtual machine.
- Start the virtual machine and after logging in, navigate to the Virtual Machine Connection, click on Action | Insert Integration Services Setup Disk, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Install the integration components for the Linux operating system manually. You can refer to the documentation provided at the beginning of this recipe.
- In the Upgrade Hyper-V Integration Services window, click on OK. Wait until the Integration Services installation has finished and click on Yes to restart your virtual machine. The VM will start normally after the installation, loading the new integration services and providing all the necessary components to allow communication between the virtual machine and Hyper-V.
How it works...
Every virtual machine running on Hyper-V needs a set of services called Integration Components for Windows VMs, and Integration Services for Linux VMs. These components allow complete integration between the VM and the virtualization stack. The services are enabled when the correct integration components are installed. These are as follows:
- Operating system shutdown
- Time synchronization
- Data exchange
- Heartbeat
- Backup (volume snapshot)
To check whether these services are available, you can open the Virtual Machine Settings and click on Integration Services, as in the following example:
Failing to install or having an older version of the Integration Components can lead to poor performance, mouse issues, and other problems with the integration services.
Some operating systems that run as a virtual machine have Integration Components in their kernel by default—for example, in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008,2008 R2, and some Linux distributions. But because the Integration Components are based on the Hyper-V version, when moving the virtual machine to a Hyper-V 3.0 host you need to update it as shown in the previous steps.
Following this task, you will ensure that every virtual machine has the latest Integration Service, thus providing more reliability and better performance.
There's more...
To check the Integration Services version on all the virtual machines from your host computer, you can use the following commandlet:
Get-VM | Format-Table Name, IntegrationServicesVersion
All the virtual machines and the Integration Services versions will be listed in the result pane.
See also
- The Exporting and importing virtual machines recipe in this chapter