Windows 8 : Configuring virtual machine networking and storage (part 1) - Introducing storage and networking for Hyper-V

 In the case of the networking technologies associated with Hyper-V, as with physical network interfaces, a MAC address is used. A MAC address is the hardware address of a network interface. Hyper-V virtual machine MAC addresses have a range that starts with the first three sections of this format: 00-15-5D-xx-xx-xx. In this example, the xx-xx-xx placeholders are the unique elements of the MAC address for the specific network interface. Physical interfaces have a MAC address format; for example, 00-05-B5-xx-xx-xx is for the network interface manufacturer Broadcom. Every brand of network interface has its own format of MAC address, and Hyper-V virtual machines are easy to find because they adhere to this format in default configurations. Figure 1 shows the Hyper-V Virtual Switch Manager, located in the Action menu of Hyper-V Manager. Virtual machines that are on the Hyper-V virtual switch will have MAC addresses in the defined range.

Figure 1. The Hyper-V virtual switch configuration for specifying a MAC address range

Storage functions in much the same way. The Virtual Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA) interface technology for Hyper-V uses an implementation of N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) for storage networking. For Fibre Channel networks, this means that individual World Wide Names (WWNs) of virtualized Fibre Channel interfaces can be presented on the storage network. For most Windows 8 systems, having Fibre Channel interfaces is more storage I/O than is needed, but it is a great option for the technology to be available in the hypervisor (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The virtual storage options in Hyper-V enabling NPIV virtualization of Fibre Channel interfaces