Hyper-V virtual servers

The Hyper-V menu gives a hosting space its own virtual private servers, plus the networks they attach to and an audit log of what has been done to them.

Space-level, not the platform Hyper-V screens

This is the customer-facing surface. The servers and infrastructure screens under Settings are where an administrator manages the underlying host, templates and networks for the platform.

The Hyper-V menu is empty when the account being administered is an Administrator or a Reseller. It is genuinely a customer surface — these machines belong to a hosting space, so the menu only appears once you have selected a customer. See accounts, roles and what you can see.

Virtual servers

The list of the space’s virtual machines, and where they are created, started, stopped and reconfigured.

Power actions do not ask the guest first

Stopping a virtual server from here is a host-level action. Whatever is running inside it — a database mid-write, a scheduled job — is interrupted rather than asked to close cleanly.

Shut down from inside the guest where you can, and reserve the host-level stop for a machine that is unresponsive.

Networking: two modes, and you only ever see one

The networking screens depend on whether virtual networks are enabled for the hosting space. The two modes are mutually exclusive.

Virtual networks off — fixed networks

Up to three fixed network screens, each needing two things: the quota in the hosting plan, and the corresponding network actually configured on the virtualization service.

Network	Purpose	Also requires
External Network	Reaches the internet, with public addressing	An external network configured on the service
Management Network	Administrative access, separate from customer traffic	A management network configured — and Administrator role
Private Network	Between the space’s own machines, not routed outside	A private address range configured

Virtual networks on — a single screen

The three fixed screens are replaced by one Virtual Networks item, gated on the number-of-virtual-networks quota. The customer defines networks rather than choosing from fixed ones.

The quota alone does not produce the menu item

In fixed mode, a network screen needs the quota and the network configured on the virtualization service. Granting the quota and seeing nothing appear is the expected result when the service side has not been set up — check there before assuming the quota did not apply.

Management Network is Administrator-only

Even with the quota and the service configured, Management Network is never shown to a customer or a reseller — it is restricted to Administrators. A customer reporting they cannot see it is describing correct behaviour.

The usual pattern in fixed mode is application servers on a private network, one machine with external connectivity as the entry point, and management reachable only by the operator.

Moving a machine between networks changes what can reach it

Attaching a private machine to an external network exposes it, and it will be found — internet-facing hosts are scanned continuously. Confirm the machine is patched and firewalled before it gets a public address, not afterwards.

Audit log

Records actions taken against the space’s virtual servers. This is the screen to use when a machine’s state changed and nobody remembers doing it.

Related

• Servers and infrastructure — the platform-level view
• Hosting plans — where the Hyper-V quotas are set

The tabs on a virtual machine

Opening a VM gives a fixed set of tabs:

Tab	What it holds
General	Identity and current state
Resources	CPU, memory and disk allocation
Network	Adapters and their network attachment
DVD	The mounted ISO
Snapshots	Point-in-time captures
Replication	Replication to another host

A snapshot is not a backup

Snapshots live on the same storage as the machine they protect. Lose the volume and you lose both. They also grow: a snapshot left in place for weeks consumes space unpredictably and slows the VM down.

Use them for a change you expect to reverse within hours — before a patch, before an upgrade — and delete them afterwards. For anything you would need after a hardware failure, use backups.

Replication is not a backup either

Replication copies the current state to another host. It protects against losing a host; it does not protect against something bad being replicated. A deletion or an encryption event reaches the replica exactly as it reached the original.

Resource changes usually require the machine to be off, and increasing an allocation is bounded by the hosting plan quota — see networking modes above for how the space’s configuration constrains what a VM can be given.