Microsoft releases Hyper-V Server 2008

Last week, Microsoft announced that it had shipped its Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 virtualization platform to market. And it is now readily available for download.

So what’s new and different? Didn’t they already release Hyper-V? This platform is slightly different from the version found in Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 operating system. According to Microsoft, it provides a simplified, reliable, and optimized virtualization solution for customers to consolidate Windows or Linux workloads on a single physical server or to run client operating systems and applications in server based virtual machines running in the datacenter. And it allows customers to leverage their existing tools, processes and skills. But perhaps best of all, Microsoft is making this product a no-cost Web download –- yup, it’s free!

The company describes it as a stand-alone version of the Hyper-V role that’s currently included in the Server 2008 OS. It is sort of looked at as a bare-metal version of Microsoft’s hypervisor technology, detached from the rest of Windows Server 2008. In fact, the product will install much like Server 2008, though there is no GUI – and you are left with a command line UI unlike anything Microsoft has provided to folks in quite some time! It comes with a bare bones management tool, Hyper-V Manager, to help with remotely configuring things on the server.

Some of the requirements you’ll need to keep in mind before downloading the product:

• It is still only supported on 64-bit processors
• It requires Intel and AMD hardware-assisted virtualization-aware CPUs
• It recommends at least 2GB of RAM, but it supports up to 32GB
• It needs Windows Vista SP1 for Hyper-V Manager on a client side (You cannot use Windows XP)

Over on the official Microsoft Windows Virtualization Product Group blog, they listed a few items about the release that people might be interested to know.

• Hyper-V Server 2008 was built using the Windows hypervisor and other components, including base kernel and driver technologies.
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 shares kernel components with Windows Server 2008.
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 contains a sub-set of components that make up Server Core deployment option of Windows Server 2008, and has a similar interface and look and feel. But as you know, Server Core has roles like DNS, DHCP, file. Hyper-V Server 2008 is just virtualization.
• Because Hyper-V Server 2008 shares kernel components with Windows Server 2008, we don’t expect special hardware drivers to be required to run Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
• The maximum number of guest instances that can run on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is 192 (of course this is dependent on the hardware, memory and workloads). Additionally, each guest OS must have a valid license.
• Hyper-V Server 2008 runs/supports all the guest OSes supported by WS08 Hyper-V.
• Windows Server licenses are not included with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. Client access licenses (CALs) are only required for Windows Server and all Windows Server images that are virtualized, regardless of virtualization platform (e.g. ESXi). No CALs are required for Hyper-V Server 2008.

And Hyper-V Server is going to be available in a number of languages, including English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian.

The provisioning and management tools are based on Microsoft System Center, providing centralized, enterprise-class management of both physical and virtual resources. Microsoft also announced that Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (MSCVMM) 2008 will be released and available by the end of October. I was hoping it would be out sooner, but, if they can make it out before the end of the month, I think most people will be happy. Hopefully it doesn’t get pushed out any further, or people will start to groan … as well they should.

You can now download Microsoft Hyper-V Server for free.