Wednesday, Microsoft said Hyper-V beta for Windows Server 2008 is feature complete. Included in the list of operating systems supported are Windows Server 2003 SP2, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, Windows Vista SP1 (x86), and Windows XP SP3 (x86). See John Fontana's article for more details about the Hyper-V RC announcement.
Though I'm anxious for Hyper-V to be released, especially the standalone version (which is not what this RC announcement was about), I'm very disappointed in Hyper-V's lack of support for Linux.
No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing.
Sure, if you are a Microsoft only shop, Hyper-V will be an option for virtualization. But so will VMware and XenServer. But if you run a mixed shop, Hyper-V won't solve your problems alone -- you'll have to also add VMware or Xen to your virtualized data center portfolio. Or just go with VMware and Xen and forego Hyper-V.
Microsoft, while I know you aren't keen on promoting non-Microsoft stuff, virtualization spans operating system technology. You're assuming, yet again, a Microsoft-only world. Data centers are already going virtual without you since Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager aren't on the scene yet. When you're behind in the race you don't tie rocks to your ankles.
Leaving out support for the most widely used versions of Linux means an even bigger hill for Microsoft virtualization products to climb. If you can support SUSE, how hard can it be to support Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS (which are based on the same technology) and BSD?
You're only making an already tough job more difficult.
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