Microsoft on Thursday released Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, its virtualization technology for Windows servers.
Nearly 1.5 million copies of the beta version of Hyper-V have been distributed. The technology is based on hypervisor, a virtualization platform that allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on a single host computer.
Efficient Data Centers
By switching from a one-server-per-box model to running multiple servers on a shared hardware box, virtualization helps IT departments reduce their server footprint, conserve energy and maximize technology investments. It also makes systems more flexible and easier to change as business conditions dictate.
“Customers who buy Windows Server 2008 are not only getting the scalability benefits, the high performance and reliability,” but “as of today they can benefit from integrated virtualization with Hyper-V,” said Bill Hilf, general manager of Windows server marketing and platform strategy.
To illustrate the benefits, Microsoft cited Land O’Lakes, an early adopter of Hyper-V. With tremendous growth from acquisitions, the Minnesota-based company’s data center was strained by aging servers and a utilization rate of just three percent. “We faced a combination of underutilized and aging hardware, applications running on outdated operating systems, and rising data-center power and cooling costs,” said Jason Nord, the company’s server administrator.
The Land O’Lakes solution was an initial rollout of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 with four physical servers, each hosting 10 to 13 virtual machines, and each virtual machine running one application. This year, the company will migrate to Hyper-V and move an additional 10 to 15 new applications onto virtual machines.
Management Tools
To manage changing data centers, Microsoft’s System Center family provides tools to allocate both physical and virtual resources. “To truly see the full benefits of virtualization, it is critical to have the right processes and tools in place,” Hilf said. “That’s why management tools are so important — they are the glue that…