5.8.1.1. Virtual Machine Hardware Version 9
vCloud Director 5.1 exposes the highest version of virtual machine hardware available in the provider virtual datacenter. Users can choose the virtual machine hardware version desired up to the latest version supported by the provider virtual datacenter for their organization virtual datacenter. vSphere 5.1 supports the use of virtual machine hardware version 9.
Virtual machine hardware version 9 provides capabilities to vCloud vApps such as Windows 8 XP mode, 64-bit nested virtualization, and CPU-intensive workloads.
Windows 8 XP mode
– XP mode allows a virtualized XP instance to run for compatibility with older applications that
do not natively run on Windows 8. Users with a need to run XP mode in Windows 8 have
to choose an organization virtual datacenter that is backed by a provider that allows version 9 virtual hardware.
After specifying version 9 virtual hardware, the user must also enable the Nested HV feature.64-bit nested virtualization
– Hyper-V and virtualized ESXi nested virtualization can be helpful for non-production use cases such as training and demonstration environments. Virtualized Hyper-V or virtualized ESXi running nested 64-bit virtual machines requires
version 9 virtual hardware with the Nested HV feature enabled.CPU-intensive workloads
– Users with a need to run an extremely CPU-intensive workload in a virtual machine
that requires 32 to 64 vCPUs,
must use version 9 virtual hardware.