Server virtualization has been isolated from the mainstream IT and Datacenter vendors for quite a while. In fact Vmware’s enormous success can be attributed to the lack of competition from any of the top tier software vendors. Only after Vmware captured majority of the market share that Citrix and Microsoft started scrambling to get in on the virtualization game. Now Microsoft has joined in the revelry with its Hyper-V virtualization product.

Microsoft’s Virtualization Edge

All is not lost for Microsoft. They are taking advantage of the Windows Server market share and capitalizing on their widespread use. The Hyper-V virtualization engine is being embedded in Windows Server 2008. This will give MS a head start with all customers who upgrade to the Server 2008 line. For obvious licensing reasons MS gives customers the choice - ”Windows Server 2008 will be able to be licensed without Hyper-V”.

Download Hyper-V With Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition is already equipped with Hyper-V virtualization engine and ready for download. You can download this release and take it for a spin. MS describes the current release as ”The Release Candidate 0 (RC0) update to the Hyper-V role provides improvements to security, stability, performance, user experience, forward compatibility of configurations, and the programming model”. Detailed install procedures and best practices are available from Microsoft help pages.

Hyper-V Features

Microsoft is touting the Hyper-V virtualization product as the best ever made. But comparing it with many of the options Microsoft only has a few features which makes Hyper-V unique.

Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP) Support: Ability to support up to four multiple processors in a virtual machine environment enables you to take full advantage of multi-threaded applications in a virtual machine.

Network Load Balancing: Hyper-V includes new virtual switch capabilities. This means virtual machines can be easily configured to run with Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service to balance load across virtual machines on different servers.

Quick Migration: Hyper-V enables you to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from one physical host system to another with minimal downtime, leveraging familiar high-availability capabilities of Windows Server and System Center management tools.

Did you like this article? Subscribe to our full RSS feed or subscribe via email.