Hyper-V Server Arrives
Hiya, folks. Long time, no blog. We're in serious crunch time on the next print issue of the magazine, and that has taken almost all of my time. I hope you haven't forgotten about me.
Anyway, Microsoft made a couple of announcements yesterday that I had to mention. First is that Hyper-V Server is available now. Go here. Microsoft made it available yesterday afternoon, less than a month after the official announcement last Sept. 8. Hyper-V Server is a standalone hypervisor, meaning that you don't need to have Windows Server 2008 to get it, as is the case with Hyper-V.
Some requirements you'll need to keep in mind before downloading:
- It's still 64-bit only
- It requires virtualization-aware CPUs from Intel and AMD
- You can't manage it from a Windows XP machine; you'll need Vista SP1. On the server side, it can be managed from Hyper-V Manager in Windows 2008 or System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
Speaking of VMM 2008 (which is a subset of System Center), it is not available yet in finished form. An e-mail from Microsoft yesterday said it will be released to manufacturing (RTM) "by the end of October." I was a little surprised by that; I kinda assumed the two would be released together, since they were announced at the same time. Of course, VMM 2008 is a significantly more complex product, so maybe it's to be expected.
On the other hand, the Sept. 8 announcement made it clear that VMM 2008 would be available within 30 days, which would give Redmond six days from now to get it ready. I don't necessarily think it's a red flag if that deadline isn't hit -- this is Microsoft, after all. Still, it makes one wonder if a snag was encountered. I asked Microsoft officials directly about this when I learned of it at a recent pre-briefing. They indicated nothing was wrong, and things were going according to plan. I'll take their word on it for now; if, however, VMM 2008 slips out of October, I'll get a lot more suspicious.
Posted by Keith Ward on 10/02/2008 at 12:48 PM