Microsoft Windows Server 2008 RTM: Hyper-V clock begins

Things must have been extremely busy over at the Redmond campus last week, what with the announcement of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 going gold or being released to manufacturing (RTM).

Other than the obvious news that Microsoft is releasing a new version of the server operating system, what it means more specifically to me is the start of the internal clock counting down the release of Microsoft’s hypervisor technology, Hyper-V (or Viridian for those of us waiting long enough).

Sometime within the next 180 days, we should be able to get our hands on a finalized, complete version of the long awaited virtualization technology. Within the RTM release of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft did include a Beta version of the hypervisor – I believe it to be the same Beta version that was included with the RC1 build of Windows Server 2008. So that should at least allow us to continue to play with the technology, but I wouldn’t recommend putting this version into production use in your environment. Been there, done that! When something is marked as Beta, it’s for a reason. There are always bugs in a product (you learn something working in QA – testing is never done!), but you know you’ll find bugs easily in a Beta product. I say install it, try it, learn it – just not in production.

Users of this Beta Hyper-V version should also know that it sounds like Microsoft is planning an in-place upgrade of the hypervisor. Stay tuned, hopefully more information on this will unfold soon enough.

Server 2008 isn’t yet available for customers to purchase. But that should happen around March 1st. A global launch of the product is planned with something called “Heroes Happen 2008“, where the operating system will be joined in a three-prong attack with SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.