Virtual Server becomes reality

After two years of fits and starts, Microsoft will finally deliver its Virtual Server 2005 product, which company officials contend will be an important contributor to its Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), the company’s plan for managing distributed systems.

Expected to be initially available next Monday, but more broadly available early next month, the new server allows corporate users to significantly consolidate workloads by allowing multiple operating systems to run side by side on a single server box.

“One of the key thrusts of DSI is what we can do to help people use hardware more effectively in datacenters and to more flexibly apply those resources to applications over time as they need to. Virtual Server [2005] is a step in that direction,” said Eric Berg, group product manager for Windows with Microsoft in Redmond, Wash.

Microsoft will focus the new server primarily in three areas including testing and development, rehosting legacy applications, and for those corporate users who need a production server for infrastructure-oriented workloads.

“There are many situations out there where users have a legacy app they want to move natively to Windows Server 2003 or a plan to end-life that app, that is running on old hardware. So if they want to upgrade that hardware to run Windows Server they can put Virtual Server on it and run that legacy app on a legacy machine and have the flexibility to upgrade on their own schedule,” Berg said.

The new product can mange workloads from Winders Server 2003, Windows Server 2000, and Windows NT, as well as from non-Microsoft operating systems, most notably Linux.

Microsoft said larger IT shops have been using Virtual Server 2005 in production environments including All State Insurance, Jack-in-the-Box restaurants, and Atlanticare, a health provider.

“All State is using this as part of a larger server consolidation strategy in their testing and development environment, where they feel they can do a better job of automating that environment. Companies like Allstate and other are telling us they are using the COM APIs [inside Virtual Server 2005], which they are finding make it easier to automate a lot of the product’s functionality through writing scripts,” Berg said.

Some analysts see virtualization technologies such as those used in the Microsoft product as become more prevalent — if only to achieve better cost efficiencies.

“We predict that enterprises that don’t leverage virtualization technologies will spend as much as 25 percent more for their x86-based servers,” said Tom Bittman, research vice president with Gartner in Stamford, Conn. “We think things like Virtual Server can help corporations reduce the time, effort, and costs associated with consolidating servers and applications,” he said.

Microsoft will offer two versions of the product. The Standard Edition, which supports up to four processors, is priced at $499;  the Enterprise Edition, which supports up to 32 processors, has a retail price of $999. Both versions are expected to ship within the next 30 days.

For more technical information about Virtual Server users can go to www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/vsoverview.mspx