Creating a Windows Server that runs Hyper-V

Before you can start building VMs to use in your environment, first, you need a virtualization host server on which Hyper-V will run. The first consideration is hardware. The hardware requirements for a server running Hyper-V depend on how many virtual servers you plan to run on top of this host platform. For example, if all you have is a quad-core desktop processor with only 8 GB of RAM, this is not going to be conducive to a successful Hyper-V environment – you will only be able turn on four or five VMs at a time, each of them with very minimal amounts of memory per VM. In my day job, I am fortunate to have both an AMD ThreadRipper desktop and a dual-Xeon desktop, each with 64 GB of RAM, that can run a lot of small VMs – such as what's required to write the recipes in this book.

A server-class machine with Xeon processors and 256 GB of RAM or more with solid state storage may become the criteria if you intend to run...