VT Technology Blog: Simplified Management for Microsoft Free Hyper-V Server.

Whether you're a novice or an experienced administrator, you'll need management tools to simplify your daily tasks. VT Technology Management Utilities for Hyper-V (vtUtilities) are an easy to use all-in-one suit that provides out of the box solution for setting up and maintaining virtualization environments based on Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

vtUtilities are easy to download, deploy and use, don't require expensive hardware, eliminate the need for System Center, Virtual Machine Manager and RSAT, can be used to manage Hyper-V from Windows 7 and Windows 8 and support all recent versions of free/core Hyper-V Server (Hyper-V Server 2008, 2012, 2012 R2).

vtUtilities: GUI for Hyper-V

Easy to navigate GUI provides a view into the performance of the virtual environment, lets you start, stop, create and interact with virtual machines. With vtUtilities you can change and read VM's settings, see host and guests performance data, configure virtual networks and virtual hard disks, create snapshots, configure, start and monitor replication.

vtUtilities deliver GUI for:

Replication
Guest Migration
VHDX
Virtual Fibre Channel Adapters
Virtual Network Management including the management of virtual connections and bindings
Virtual Switch
File System Views and Operations

vtUtilities also implement GUI allowing connecting to the Virtual Machine Console.
This is an important factor when managing or troubleshooting virtualization environments on GUI-less hosts when local management utilizing command line interface (PowerShell) or remote management is difficult or even not feasible.

Besides managing capabilities for virtual machines created using past versions of Hyper-V, vtUtilities deliver every essential solution to manage free Hyper-V Server 2012 R2:

Generation 2 Virtual Machines
Virtual Hard Disk and Storage Quality of Service
Hyper-V Replica Enhancements Including Support for Extended Replication
Hyper-V Virtual Networking Enhancements

Extended Replication Monitoring

Gen 2 VMs

Common Scenarios for Using vtUtilities:

vtUtilities can be installed locally on a Hyper-V Host and deliver GUI with functionality level similar to Microsoft Hyper-V Manager, while it can run on environments where Hyper-V Manager is not supported such as core installations of Windows Server and standalone free Hyper-V Server.

vtUtilities can be used for remote management of different versions of Hyper-V from a single application, adjusting to the features supported by managed version. (Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2 / 2012 / 2012 R2 as well as Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 / 2012 / 2012 R2). With vtUtilities you can manage Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 while still having a full access to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012

vtUtilities allow local and remote management of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V Server 2012/ 2012 R2 not only from Windows 8 / 8.1, but from Windows 7 as well (otherwise, proper server administration without System Center requires Windows 8 because the administration tools don't run on Windows 7).

Diagnostic and Troubleshooting with vtUtilities:

vtUtilities enable an easy access to Hyper-V event logs and virtual machine jobs history.
Clicking on 'Hyper-V Events' button next to host drop-down box or using 'Tools|Hyper-V Event Log' menu will open a dialogue that allows further filtering and ordering of Hyper-V events as shown on screen below.
This functionality is available for local and remote Hyper-V hosts and is especially convenient for diagnostic on Core installation of Windows Server or standalone Hyper-V Server.

vtUtilities even further simplify diagnostic of Hyper-V environment by providing access to the virtual machine job execution history with a possibility to cancel asynchronous jobs on Windows 8 hosts as shown below:

Real Time Monitoring of Hyper-V Hosts and Guests with vtUtilities

Effectively monitor your virtual infrastructure by visualizing virtual machines health, performance, storage and memory usage. vtUtilities have a very small memory footprint and do not consume any resources on managed Hyper-V servers when they are not running.

Resource Monitoring

vtUtilities do not extend a potential attack surface on managed Hyper-V hosts and do not install or require any additional components

Installation

vtUtilities run only on 64-bit version of Windows.

Virtualization Platform: Microsoft Hyper-V

It is recommended that you download and read the latest version of the User Guide prior to installing vtUtilities.

Download and run vtUtilities bootstrapping executable that will guide you through the installation process. You will be able to start vtUtilities from a command console by typing ‘vtUtilities’ on the Windows Server core and the Hyper-V Server intstallations after that.