One of the areas Microsoft says it has addressed in the new (still in beta as of this writing) R2 release of Server 2008 is virtualization, which in the Microsoft world now means Hyper-V. There are some performance improvements; for example, Microsoft indicates that TCP offload and jumbo frames support will improve virtual networking speeds in R2. And Live Migration is a big deal; I’ll write more about that soon. But many of us are most interested in the management features, because this is where Hyper-V tends to lose out to VMware in head-to-head comparisons.
There are some improvements here. One thing Microsoft has done is to tidy up the Hyper-V management console somewhat. For folks who need to automate Hyper-V management functions, there are some new options in the command line and some new commandlets in PowerShell. But the big news in Hyper-V management isn’t R2, it’s System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which went gold in October ’08.
The cool features include better visualization of both physical and virtual environments, improved cluster management, and some artificial intelligence to help you allocate VMs in a way that optimizes performance. You can even use VMM 2008 to manage your VMware ESX environments in addition to your Hyper-V systems. The cost ranges from $505 for the workgroup edition to $1497 if you get the Enterprise addition as part of Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE). I’m no math genius, but that sure looks cheaper than comparable functionality from VMware. It will be interesting to see if VMware responds.
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Glenn Weadock is a longtime instructor for Global Knowledge and teaches Windows 7, Server 2008, and Active Directory. He has recently co-developed with Mark Wilkins two advanced Server 2008 classes in the Microsoft Official Curriculum. Glenn also consults through his Colorado-based company Independent Software, Inc. and is technical director of MarketCoach Investment Education Software LLC.
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