Hyper-V has RTM'd and is Available!
Today, Microsoft released Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization technology that is a feature of select versions of Windows Server 2008. I've been using Hyper-V for some time, and it is rock solid, easy-to-use, and scalable. As I blogged previously, both the TechNet (1 million hits a day) and the MSDN (3 million hits a day) Web properties are running inside of Hyper-V and have been for weeks, without any issues.
Since then, because things went so well for TechNet and MSDN, Microsoft Operations migrated 25% of the Web servers running microsoft.com, one of the world's largest Web properties, to Hyper-V. We've not encountered any performance, stability, or availability issues at all. More Web servers for microsoft.com will be deployed in Hyper-V once the needed hardware arrives. For more details on this, see http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2008/06/25/microsoft-com-powered-by-hyper-v.aspx.
Hyper-V is quite flexible, supporting a number of virtual machine (VM) guests, such as:
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2003
- Windows 2000 Server
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
- Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux
See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-supported-guest-os.aspx for specific details.
As the Exchange team announced at Microsoft TechEd recently, Microsoft will be publishing a support statement with respect to Exchange Server within 60 days of today. While you're waiting, if you have a server that is a 64-bit environment and supports hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel VT or AMD-V) technology, I highly recommend download and trying Hyper-V. Hyper-V is available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F3AB3D4B-63C8-4424-A738-BADED34D24ED. Hyper-V is also expected to be available on Windows Update/Microsoft Update on July 8, 2008.
For other information about Hyper-V, see the Virtualization Team blog at http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/06/26/wu-hoo-only-12-days-to-wu.aspx.
Below are some Hyper-V resources:
Blogs:
Webcasts:
For news about Hyper-V, see:
