Implementing nested virtualization
Nested virtualization is a feature that enables a Hyper-V VM to host VMs that also have virtualization enabled. You could, for example, take a Hyper-V host (say, HV1
) and, on that host, run a VM (say, PSDirect
). With nested virtualization, you could enable your PSDirect
VM to host VMs. You could then create a nested VM inside the PSDirect
VM called NestedVM
.
Nested VMs have many uses. First, nested virtual machines hosted in one VM are provided hardware isolation from nested VMs run in other VMs. In this case, nested virtualization offers additional security for VMs.
Nested virtualization is also helpful for testing and education/training. You could give students a single VM (on a large blade server, for example). Nested virtualization enables them to create additional VMs for the course lab work. And most IT pros find it cool! You can, for example, run all the recipes in this chapter using nested virtualization.
Enabling nested Hyper-V is very simple...