Hyper-V requirements
Overview
This topic outlines the requirements for deploying the DCT appliance on Hyper-V, including recommended configuration parameters. Deploying DCT on Hyper-V requires a VHDX image. Download it from the Delphix download site under the DCT Appliance folder.
The DCT appliance relies on EFI boot, which is only available on Generation 2 (UEFI) VMs. Generation 1 (BIOS) is not supported. Select Generation 2 when creating the VM.
Supported versions
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Hyper-V version: 10.0 and later.
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Virtual machine generation: Generation 2 (UEFI) only.
Virtual CPUs
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8 vCPUs minimum: CPU resource shortfalls can occur on an overcommitted host. CPU reservations are strongly recommended so DCT is guaranteed its full vCPU allocation even when the host is under pressure.
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Reserve host CPU capacity: Do not allocate all available physical CPUs to virtual machines. Reserve a minimum of 8–10% of host vCores for Hyper-V hypervisor operations.
Memory
Hyper-V Dynamic Memory can cause the DCT VM to run below its minimum memory requirement. Disable Dynamic Memory for the DCT VM and use a static allocation.
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16 GB RAM minimum: Sufficient for most DCT deployments regardless of the number of registered engines.
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32–64 GB RAM: Recommended when using Delphix AI Services features, which significantly increase memory pressure.
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Static memory allocation (required): Do not use Hyper-V Dynamic Memory. Configure a fixed reservation to prevent the DCT VM from being memory-pressured or swapped during host contention.
Network
DCT communicates with registered Continuous Data and Continuous Compliance engines exclusively over HTTPS. It does not use NFS, iSCSI, or DSP, and does not move bulk data between the appliance and the engines. This means DCT has significantly lower network bandwidth requirements than a Continuous Data engine, which carries high-throughput replication and provisioning traffic.
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Standard virtual ethernet adapter: A standard virtual NIC is sufficient. HTTPS control-plane traffic to registered engines does not require SR-IOV or a high-throughput adapter.
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Dedicated NIC (optional): If the Hyper-V host carries high network load from other VMs, consider dedicating a physical NIC to the DCT VM to ensure consistent API response latency.
Storage
DCT requires two virtual disks: a system disk and a metadata volume. Both must be stored on NTFS volumes. Unlike Continuous Data, DCT does not require a DxFS storage pool or additional data disks.
| Disk | Size | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| System disk | 128 GB | VHDX — Fixed Size | Pre-configured at 128 GB. The NTFS volume where the VHDX is stored must have at least 128 GB of free space before deploying. |
| Metadata volume | 50 GB minimum | VHDX — Fixed Size | Stores DCT application metadata. Fixed-size VHDXs are recommended over dynamically expanding for predictable I/O performance. Differencing Disk Types are not supported. |
Provision VHDX files from NTFS volumes backed by redundant storage (for example, RAID or equivalent). DCT does not protect against data loss originating at the hypervisor or storage layer. For recovery options, see Backup and restore.