Welcome to the ITFreeTraining video on Integration Services. Integration Services is software
provided with Hyper-V designed to provide the user with the best possible experience
when using Hyper-V.
To put it simply, Integration Services is a suite of drivers and utilities for use with
Hyper-V virtual machines.
Hyper-V Integration Services enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest
operating system and optimizes the drivers of the virtual environments to provide a better
experience.
The suite augments virtual machine management by replacing generic operating system driver
files. Some examples include those for the mouse and video. Further, it synchronizes
time between the guest and host operating systems and can allow file interoperability
and a heartbeat function to monitor the virtual machine.
Let’s consider a virtual machine. There will be an operating system installed on the
virtual machine, in this case Windows 8.1. In order to access hardware resources, the
operating system uses device drivers.
Without integration services installed, the hardware is emulated. This means in order
to access the virtual hardware, it must first go through emulated hardware. In contrast,
if integration services is installed, the operating system accesses the virtual hardware
directly. This gives a performance boost, but this is not the only advantage of using
integration Services.
The most noticeable feature is that it allows unrestricted mouse movements. As shown here,
the mouse pointer is not able to move outside the virtual machine Window. In order to release
it, the ctrl alt and left arrow must be pressed. Integration Services allows seamless movement
between the virtual machine and the desktop without having to use a keyboard shortcut
to release the mouse. If you are using a newer operating system, you may notice that you
have unrestricted mouse movement even though you have not installed integration services.
This is because the newer operating systems have integration services pre-installed. However,
it is recommended that you check the version that is being used, to make sure that it is
the newest version.
There is also a component that improves video performance and adds additional video features.
Without the additional software installed, we are limited to the basic video features,
and video updates on the virtual machine can be sluggish.
The next feature that it adds is a heartbeat service. Using the heartbeat service, the
host can monitor the virtual machine. If the virtual machine was to crash or become unresponsive,
the host will not receive a heartbeat from the virtual machine and will know something
has happened to it. In this case, the host could be programmed to power cycle the virtual
machine or alert an administrator, depending on how the administrator wanted this handled.
Integration Services adds data exchange ability between the host and virtual machine. Using
data exchange, the client can pass information to the host like host name, OS Version and
build number. This information helps Hyper-V manage the virtual machine. For example, configuring
performance options based on the virtual machine that is running.
We will also find support for time synchronization between the host and the virtual machine.
With this feature, the host will ensure all the virtual machines are set to the time configured
on the host. We can also achieve the same result using time synchronization software
on the virtual machine. It is up to the administrator to decide if they want to use this feature.
Another feature is improved snapshot performance. A snapshot allows the virtual machine state
to be saved and then recalled later on. The virtual machine will be returned to the same
state when restored including what was in memory. Snapshots are still available without
this feature; however, when preforming a snapshot, there may be a noticeable delay on the virtual
machine when the snapshot is performed. That is, the virtual machine may stall for a period
of time.
The last feature is remote desktop virtualization. This allows management to be performed with
the virtual machine using remote desktop. With all the additional remote management
features in Windows Server 2012, this allows better management in Windows Server 2012,
assuming that the operating system supports the installation of Integration Services.
Shown here are all the operating systems that Integration Services supports. Essentially
everything from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 and above is supported. With the older
operating systems, you will need to install a service pack before you can install Integration
Services. With Linux, only certain distributions are supported. If your operating system is
not listed, you can still install that operating system however the performance of the virtual
machine may be reduced since emulated hardware will need to be used.
Thanks for watching this video on integration Services for Hyper-V. In upcoming videos,
we will look at how to install integration services in Windows and Linux. Until those
videos, thanks for watching and see you next time.