Hyper-V Security Guide
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About This Solution Accelerator
The Hyper-V Security Guide provides IT professionals with guidance, instructions, and recommendations to address key security concerns about server virtualization.
Microsoft Hyper-V technology allows consolidation of workloads that are currently spread across multiple underutilized servers onto a smaller number of servers. This capability provides a way to reduce costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead while creating a more dynamic IT infrastructure.
The Hyper-V Security Guide can help you elevate the security of virtualized Windows Server environments to address your business-critical needs.
This guide focuses on three key areas:
- Hardening Hyper-V
- Delegating virtual machine management
- Protecting virtual machines
Included in the Download
The download for the Hyper-V Security Guide includes the following components:
- Hyper-V Security Guide.zip. This file includes the following individual files:
- Hyper-V Security Guide.docx. This Microsoft Word document is the primary component of this Solution Accelerator. See the following "In More Detail" section for chapter descriptions.
- Hyper-V Security Guide Overview.docx. A two-page overview description of this Solution Accelerator.
- Release Notes.rtf. This file describes any outstanding issues and other important information.
In More Detail
The Hyper-V Security Guide includes the following content:
- Overview. The overview states the purpose and scope of the guide, defines the guide audience, and describes its structure to help you locate the information that is relevant to you. It also describes the user prerequisites for the guidance.
- Chapter 1: Hardening Hyper-V. This chapter provides prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V role, including several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V with a focus on security. These best practices include measures for reducing the attack surface of Hyper-V as well as recommendations for properly configuring secure virtual networks and storage devices.
- Chapter 2: Delegating virtual machine management*.* This chapter discusses methods for delegating virtual machine management so that virtual machine administrators only have the minimum permissions they require. It describes common delegation scenarios, and includes detailed steps to guide you through using Authorization Manager (AzMan) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008) to separate virtual machine administrators from virtualization host administrators.
- Chapter 3: Protecting virtual machines. This chapter provides prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources. It includes best practices and detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing.
Related Resources
The following resources provide additional information about security topics and in-depth discussion of the concepts and security prescriptions in this guide:
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