With availability of Windows Server08 RC0 and the CTP of Windows Server virtualization (aka, Viridian), I've seen the first review/comments on Viridian CTP. eWeek's Jason Brooks posted a review under the title "Hypervisor Showdown: Microsoft vs. VMware." Jason's summary is:
Along with the Release Candidate 0 build of Windows 2008 that Microsoft recently released came the debut public appearance of Microsoft's Windows Hypervisor, once known by the code name Viridian. Based on eWEEK Labs' early tests of the RC0 code, Microsoft's VMware challenger appears to be off to a good start.
Of course Jason's install had some hickups. He had to update the BIOS. For more setup guidelines, see Jeff's post or Robert's post. And Jason installed a Linux guest VM (rPath Mediawiki appliance), and the install "panicked shortly after boot." As Ben points out, the CTP has limited guest support, but I'm interested to hear about SLES, RHEL and Sun guest VMs running within Viridian.
I'm looking forward to seeing others' views/reviews of the CTP so that the beta is rockin'.
Patrick
For those of you in the server world who are looking at an easy way to deploy Windows Server 2008 need to look no further than the latest version of our deployment solution currently named 'Deployment 4 Beta 3'. This is the next generation of the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) toolkit built to support Windows Server (03 and 08) and Vista/XP Deployments.
All of the good details and how to sign up for the beta are here:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/09/18/just-released-deployment-4-beta-3-the-next-generation-of-business-desktop-deployment-bdd-2007.aspx
Ward Ralston
Yehaw! , today I pleased to announce the availability of Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0, and with it...the very first public release of Windows Server virtualization (codenamed Viridian).
You can download the bits today as part of our customer technology preview (CTP)program.
Not only does this milestone indicate that Windows Server 2008 is ready to march down the path to RTM....but it also is the first time WsV will be part of the code base and available to everyone. Now is the time for organizations to start testing with key virtuzliation scenarios...such as server consolidation....as well as getting ready for many of the other key features of Windows Server 2008.
With Windows Server virtualization CTP, customers will now be able leverage the scalability of hypervisor-based platform and features, including multi-processor guests, large memory allocation (more than 32 gigabytes per machine) and integrated virtual switch support that enables IT organizations to virtualize most workloads.
In addition to the RC0 news there are a couple of other things going on today that are of interest:
1. Microsoft and Zend have been working together on a technical collaboration with the PHP community to significantly enhance the reliability and performance of PHP on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. As part of this collaboration, the IIS product group has been working on a new component for IIS6 and IIS7 called FastCGI Extension which will enable IIS to much more effectively host PHP applications. You can get the FastCGI extension ( a free download) as part of the Go Live release of Microsoft FastCGI Extension for IIS 5.1/6.0 (FastCGI Extension) from the IIS community site, www.iis.net.
2. Windows Vista SP1 - Windows Vista SP1 beta will be released to approximately 12,000+ private beta testers.
Great week here at Microsoft!
Cheers,
One of last week's more interesting booth conversations had nothing to do with one of the demos in the booth. It had to do with training and support. A gentleman from a pharmaceutical company was saying that he's looking forward to Windows Server 2008/Viridian and SCVMM because he'll be able to reduce his training budget for virtualization by nearly half. He told me that VMware's documentation and training courses are very expensive compared to Microsoft's and don't have the same level of detail offered by Microsoft. He went on to say that aside from training, he's dealing with ISVs that don't support their apps running inside VMs. He has turned to VMware, but their support ends at the VM. His line to me was "VM support right now is a series of asteriks and fine print on vendors' web sites." I thought that was a funny line. He went on to say that while Microsoft's technical support policy is well documented, but he hopes it broadens so Microsoft takes tier-1 support calls for Windows Server running on 3rd-party hypervisors. And he predicted that with Windows Server 2008/Viridian, his other software vendors will get on board with virtualization.
I went on to share the good news that people are looking into ways we could offer broader tech support of Windows Server running on non-MS hypervisors. And I pointed out a few examples of expanded tech support:
It struck me that training and support are two hidden issues and costs of virtualization. But these opertational issues tend to be viewed by customers, in essence, as the cost of doing business. And neither item is sexy enough for a demo, let alone wall art (photo).
But are training and support issues important enough, in the end, to actually tip a customer's decision to choose one vendor over another? I'm not sure. In my head I'm drawing a parallel between a closer in baseball, who enters the game late, isn't often the focus of conversation but is a must-have service in baseball, and doesn't upset the winning formula -instead ends the game quickly and decisively. However, as we saw last week at the Giants game, the closer can be a major sore spot - in this case, giving up a 3-run homer in the last inning to lose the game. Perhaps the Giants' closer needed better training and support in AAA ball.
The show floor has been busy. Lots of people interested to kick the tires of Viridian and SCVMM. The funny thing is, after exhibiting at this show for 4 straight years, some people still say, "I'm surprised to see Microsoft here." To which I always say, "what OS and apps are you running in ESX?" That when there's the "ah-ha" moment.
Along these lines I had a good conversation with a gentleman from the civilian side of the U.S. government. After completing the above-mentioned dialogue, he said that he didn't know too much about our new hypervisor but that he needed to because someone up the chain of command had IP and security concerns over ESX Server. He proceeded to tell me that all the new hardware they bought specifically to run ESX Server had one major problem - driver incompatibility. He was interested to hear about Viridian's microkernelized architecture, where drivers run within guests, supports the existing windows server driver model, doesn't include 3rd-party code and minimizes the trusted computing base. And thankfully I was able to tell him that he'd be able to download Windows Server 2008 RC0 soon in order to preview Viridian.
This conversation was common - lots of folks still getting up to speed on what Viridian (and our management tools, SoftGrid, etc) can offer. That's one reason our booth traffic looked like this (photos from my T-Mobile Dash smartphone)
Jeff Woolsey demoing Viridian ... that black screen might be server core in all its glory.
Like last year, the Microsoft shirt has been popular. I'll post a photo of it in an upoming post.