Subscribe to Windows IT Pro

 

Get Newsletters

  • Get the Latest News
  • Product Updates
  • Helpful Tricks
  • Productivity Tips

Subscribe Now!

March 23, 2009 12:00 AM

Q. Does Hyper-V support Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption running on the host?

Windows IT Pro
InstantDoc ID #101746
Rating: (0)

A. You can enable BitLocker on all volumes with Windows Server 2008, if you want. With virtualization, you place your virtual hard disks (VHDs) on the file system, which may contain sensitive information or be running on a server that isn't physically secure, so the question often comes up if BitLocker can be used on volumes that hold VHDs. Using BitLocker on a volume with VHDs is a fully supported configuration and one you are very likely to use in branch or remote offices or any location where you can't physically secure the servers.

Before virtualization was available as part of the Server 2008 OS, the best practice for branch and remote locations was to roll out a server with Server Core, encrypted with BitLocker, and run the Read-Only Domain Controller role (and possibly others). With virtualization, you probably want to place a Hyper-V server running on Server Core and use BitLocker to encrypt all the drives, including your VHDs, thus protecting your virtual machines (VMs) at a disk level. You then run your services on VMs on the Hyper-V server. Because you can't pass through the physical Trusted Platform Module to the VM, you can't easily perform BitLocker encryption inside the VM.

In terms of overhead caused by encrypting the disk with BitLocker, you'll only see the normal BitLocker overhead, which is minimal in most situations. There's no additional performance penalty caused by virtualization running on BitLocker.

Related Reading

Videos:

Audio:


Check out hundreds more useful Q&As like this in John Savill's FAQ for Windows. Also, watch instructional videos made by John at ITTV.net.

Related Content:

ARTICLE TOOLS

Comments
    There are no comments to display. Be the first one!
You must log on before posting a comment.

Are you a new visitor? Register Here

advertisement

advertisement

White Papers

Get your Windows 7 deployment off to the right start by implementing PC lockdown. A locked-down environment is easier and cheaper to support since users are less likely to make unnecessary changes to the core system configuration - read more here!

Essential Guides

Is your iSCSI "lossy"? The reality is that most off-the-shelf Ethernet hardware deployed for iSCSI can lose packets, resulting in slow performance or application downtime. Learn how to assess your current iSCSI infrastructure and engineer an advanced iSCSI SAN infrastructure.

Web Seminars

What's the best way to keep your network safe from malware? In this web seminar, security expert Greg Shields suggests an alternative method to the traditional blacklisting approach that is common with anti-virus and anti-malware solutions.

eLearning Series

We bring the experts direct to you to share their real-world perspective and expertise. During each event, three sessions stream in real time, so you can learn, ask questions, and get solutions.
Upcoming event: Getting the Most with Exchange 2010 with Paul Robichaux

Subscribe to Windows IT Pro!

Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. Windows IT Pro is used by Penton Media Inc. under license from owner.