Microsoft Hyper-V provides suite of services known as Microsoft Hyper-V Integration services in order to enhance the integration between the host machine and guest machine. It will improve the performance and manageability of virtual machine which is running under Hyper-V virtualization environment. For instance, Integration service provides drivers to all virtual components installed on guest machine such as interface devices,network cards, IDE/SCSI drives.
Installing the Integration service:
Most guest operating systems have pre-installed Integration service. It can also be manually installed on guest operation system by clicking the Insert Integration Services Setup Disk option, from the action menu of virtual machine connection.
Post installation, you can confirm whether Integration service is installed or not by checking the services
Enabling the Integration service:
Most of Integration services are enabled by default. You can check the available and installed integration services by using following steps,
1.Right click the respective virtual machine and select the settings option.
2.In setting dialogue, select the Integration services under Management column.
3.Now you can view the installed integration serivces in right side panel. Some services might not enabled by default. You can install manually by selecting them.
We have listed the purpose of each integration services as below.
Operating system shutdown:
This service used to shutdown the virtual machine via Hyper-V manager without accessing the virtual machine. Once user initiates the shutdown, Host operating system will trigger the shutdown request to guest operating system using WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) call. This process is similar to performing the shutdown inside the virtual machine.
Time Synchronization:
Time Synchronization service is used to synchronize the date and time between host machine and guest machine. Using this service, Hyper-V host takes the responsibility of correcting the guest machine time based on host machine time with the help of windows time service.
Data exchange:
Data exchange or key-value pairs (kvp) provides ability the exchange the information between host machine and guest machine. Using this service, Host machine is able to fetch the guest machine configuration details such as device name, OS version, system configuration etc. Additionally, set of pairs(key-value) also is used to share the information between guest and host machine. Actually, Key-value pair is a file consisting of pair of strings and visible to host and guest without using any kind of network connection.
Heartbeat:
Heartbeat services used to monitor the guest machine by sending heartbeat messages at regular intervals from host machine. Heartbeat service is installed on guest machine response to each heartbeat message which sent by host machine. If host machine receives the response for all heartbeat message, It considers that guest machine is running fine without any issues. You can view the heartbeat of guest machine in summary tab or using Get-VMIntegrationService.
By using powershell cmdlet,
Get-VMIntegrationService -VMName <VMName> -Name Heartbeat
Backup(Volume Checkpoint):
Backup Integration service enables to perform the volume shadow copy in guest machine from host machine. Backup softwares uses this service to get consistent backup. For instance, Vembu VMBackup requesting the volume shadow copy on guest machine by using this backup service and backup the standby copy of virtual machine.
Guest Services:
Guest services provides the ability the copy the files from host machine to guest machine without using any network connection. To perform this, Hyper-V uses either WMI calls or Copy-VMFile powershell cmdlet.
By using powershell cmdlet,
Copy-VMFile -Name <VMName> -SourcePath <path_in_host_machine> -DestinationPath <path_in_guest_machine> -FileSource Host -CreateFullpath
You can ignore the CreateFullpath argument in command If you already created the folder structure in guest machine.
Vembu VMBackup is a one stop backup solution i.e., provides backup, recovery and replication for backup continuity and backup needs. It improves the value of backup and pure data protection for Hyper-V Environments. Vembu supports windows servers of all versions to protect Hyper-V environment for better business continuity and provides Microsoft VSS API to offer you application-aware, image-based and truly incremental Hyper-V backups.
To learn more about Vembu VMBackup and its features, visit here : Vembu VMBackup
Interested in trying Vembu VMBackup? Click here to download: https://www.bdrsuite.com/try/
Go questions? Email us at: vembu-support@vembu.com for answers.
Follow our Twitter and Facebook feeds for new releases, updates, insightful posts and more.
