Automated Builds of Hyper-V

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to automate builds of Hyper-V servers in a Hyper-V cluster.  There’s lots of options now – I can create an image and sysprep it.  If I use diskless servers then I can snapshot that LUN in the SAN or I can use Ghost, ImageX or WDS to capture the image and deploy it.  Alternatively I can build up an unattended install using WAIK and scripts to slipstream the Hyper-V update and configure it.

We’re starting to see some posts hit the net on the subject now.  These 3 are interesting reads:

  • Sysprep and Hyper-V: Watch out because you still have some manual steps to repair networking and to enable the hypervisor after deploying your image.
  • Unattended Installation of Windows and Hyper-V: This might be the quick-hit solution but won’t be as fast as a sysprepped image when it comes to deployment.
  • Integrated Installation and The Beauty of the Win6 Servicing Stack: A continuation of the sysprep concept for WDS deployment.  I can see myself going down this route.

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