Q&A from our Virtualize your world with Microsoft Virtualization webcast! Time/Date: Thursday, May 10 2007 9:00 AM PT

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Questions and Answers:

Question: what is the difference if a virtual server running exhange and a straight server running exchange in performance

Answered: With today's technology at a 1:1 with resource, it's about 15%. It will be 3% with the new technology we are releasing.

Question: is the virtual server multiprocessor awareon the new quad core processor servers

Answered: yes

Question: So is Hypervisor simmilar to a PE environment then?

Answered: Sorta. Its basically a low lever service talking directly to hardware for Virtualization.

Question: Why can we not virtualize Vista?

Answered: You can! Virtual PC 2007 runs Vista fine. https://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

Question: Is VPC going to support Virtual Hardware model?

Answered

Question: And it will run Server 2003 also?

Answered: Yes, it sure will.

Question: how much memory do we need for vista virtual machine...?

Answered: Virtual instances need as much resources as a physical computer, you should still allocate at least a gig per instance.

Question: How is Microsoft Virtualization different from VMware Virtualization?

Answered: There are two key differences in functionality that you'll need to consider. However, in deciding between the two choices (and I'm lumping the two

VMWare products together even though they are quite different, because their overall functionality is similar.) If you must have USB support in your virtual machine environment, then you'll need to choose a VMWare product, since Virtual Server doesn't support USB yet. Even VMWare only supports USB 1.1 specification, not USB 2. And neither product supports FireWire. On the other hand, the Virtual Machine Remote Client is a very useful windowing tool that gives Virtual Server a definite advantage over VMWare, especially when the guest operating system doesn't support Remote Desktop. And I think the mouse behavior in Virtual Server is slightly better.

Question: Can you virtualize compute cluster server?

Answered: NO, CCS is x64 only and you cannot have x64 guest OS yet.

Question: Jaisson mentioned that W2K3 R2 comes with 4 VM licenses, is this exclusive for R2?

Answered: yes, it is.

Question: Does Microsoft Virtualization support SATA or SAS drive interfaces?

Answered: Yes for SATA, I am pretty sure also about SAS. Our VM HW interface supports SCSI as well.

Question: Regarding the about question about the 4 licenses. That was the enterprise server?

Answered: Yes it is.

Question: What are some of the things that we can do to improve performance, other than the obvious of buying into high end V enabled processors? I have

seen there is over head to the two os levels.

Answered: Ram, Ram and more Ram. Also don’t forget to install the Virtual Machine Additions as well.

Question: But Hypervisor is where you go to start/stop/load virtual machines right? Can you work with Hypervisor remotely? Such as connecting to it over the network to start/stop virtual servers?

Answered: You can do all of this with Virtual Machine Manager

Question: is virtual manager available to try out today?

Answered: Please try downloading System Center Essentials 2007 @ https://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx

Question: So what we are seeing now will be available in Longhorn? Currently unavailable?

Answered: These items are available today with Virtual Server, Virtual PC, and System Center Essentials. "Longhorn Server" will have Virtual Server as a "native" feature.

Question: So if I have a small business with 3 servers currently (sql+file/exchange/web), using this Vertual server, I could consolodate all 3 of these systems into one powerful server?

Answered: yes. That's the idea.

Question: where exactly will you post the labs you were sharing? can you give the web address

Answered: https://oem.microsoft.com/serversource

Question: what is the cost of windows virtual server?

Answered: Free! https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx

Question: can you use your sbs 2003 dvd that came in the action pack on a live server and a VM for lab exercises or do you need a 2nd lic?

Answered: You can use the action pack version, I would actually recommend it!

Question: As a developer who maintains code in VS6, 2003 & 2005 plus also uses other applications such as video capture & edit, I see the benefit in creating

VMs for testing, but is it a good idea to create different VMs to isolate applications? Any best practices for desktop virtualization?

Answered: For testing I would certainly isolate them. I would recommend going here for more training on this:

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/SearchResults.aspx?culture=en-US&evtTyp=0&kwdAny=virtualization

Question: Any big "Dont's" I should be aware of before installing virtual server?

Answered: Not really, but I would look at the Virtualization FAQ first: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/virtualizationfaq.mspx

Question: Where do we go if we have further questions?

Answered: you may contact bobtalk@microsoft.com

Question: So is hardware virtualization currently availalable, or is this only through the new Longhorn services?

Answered: Hardware virtualization will be in Longhorn Server.