VM 1 VM 1
VM 3
VM 2
(“Admin”) (“Parent”)
VM 2 VM 3
(“Child”) (“Child”)
Drivers
Drivers
Hypervisor Drivers
Drivers
Drivers
Drivers
Hypervisor
Hardware Hardware
Traditional Approach Hyper-V Approach
Microkernelised Hypervisor has an inherently secure architecture with
minimal attack surface

OS
Parent Partition Child Partitions
Hyper-V
VM Worker
Processes ISV / IHV / OEM
Applications
Applications Applications MS/ XenSource
WMI Provider
VM Service
User Mode
Windows Server Xen-Enabled Linux
Non-
Windows Server
Windows Server 2008, x64
2008, x64 Kernel
2008, 2003 Hypervisor
Windows Linux
Aware OS
VSP
Drivers
VSC
Windows
VSC
Windows Kernel
Kernel Windows
Hypercall
Windows Drivers
Kernel
Adapter
VMBus
VMBus Emulation VMBus Kernel Mode
Hyper-V
“Designed for Windows” Server Hardware

VLAN 101 VLAN 102
Virtual Machines
Virtual
Network
Physical NIC
Physical Switch

LAN
Hyper-V Host Hyper-V Host
Heartbeat
Virtual Machine
SAN

1.
Copy memory pages from the source to the target via Ethernet
2.
Final state transfer
3.
Pause virtual machine
a)
Move storage connectivity from source host to target host via Ethernet
b)
Run new VM on target; Delete VM on source
4.
Host 1 Host 2
Blue = Storage
Purple = Networking
Shared Storage

Configuration
State

Parent Partition VM1 VM2
Virtual Machine Switch
Routing TCP/IP TCP/IP
VLAN Filtering
Data Copy Port 2 Port 1
VM NIC 1 VM NIC 2
Miniport
Driver
VM BUS
NIC
Ethernet

Parent Partition VM1 VM2
Virtual Machine Switch
TCP/IP TCP/IP
Routing
VLAN filtering
Data Copy Port 2 Port 1
VM NIC 1 VM NIC 2
Miniport
Driver
Default
Q1 Q2 VM BUS
Queue
Switch/Routing unit
NIC
Ethernet

Guest Virtual Guest Virtual
Address Address
Guest OS Shadow page
defines GVA-to- tables combine
GPA mappings these mappings
because the
Guest Physical
processor knows
Address
how to perform
Hypervisor
only one level of
defines GPA-to-
translation
SPA mappings System System
Physical Physical
Address Address