Virtualisation is not new. That is, running multiple Operating Systems in a 'virtual environment' (or 'Virtual Machines' or 'VMs') on one physical machine. I worked on Virtual machines 20 years ago in the mainframe world. But what is 'new' - as in the last 2 years or so - is the way that virtualisation is now rapidly being applied to the WinTel (Windows & Intel Architecture) server space.
After a sluggish start in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while vendors and customers were coming to grips with what this technology offered, virtualisation has become one of the most defining technologies in the server space.
Thanks to vendor activity and press coverage over the last 2+ years, most IT people have at least heard about virtualisation. And most have a reasonable understanding of the new levels of flexibility, environmental benefits (heat, power and real estate etc), disaster recovery benefits and financial benefits that virtualisation can offer.
So what is Microsoft doing in the Virtualisation space? In early 2003, Microsoft bought virtualisation technology from Connectix because we saw a customer benefit in including it as a core part of the Windows platform. To this end we eventually made both Virtual PC and Virtual Server freely downloadable products to run on Windows client and Windows Server.
With the release of Windows Server 2008, we finally achieve our goal of shipping virtualisation technology as a core part of the OS. When Windows Server 2008 is launched in February 2008, you will be able configure the server to perform as a 'Windows virtualisation' server, on which you will be able to run a range of Windows and non-Windows virtual machines.
At this stage, the Windows virtualisation code will still be considered 'beta'. We want to do a range of final tests of virtualisation scenarios after Windows Server 2008 is released. And we expect to issue production-ready 'gold' code for Windows Server Virtualization within 180 days of the release of Windows Server 2008. During that 180-day interim, customers will be able to get 'locked and loaded' with WSV, ready to go into full scale production the minute the gold code is released.
If you want full details of the virtualisation features in Windows Server 2008, or want to start playing with the Windows Server Virtualization code now, a preview copy of the code which is included with the Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate can be freely downloaded at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008 But what about Management? Great question! Having a great virtualisation platform is only half the story. Anyone actively using Server Virtualization with products like Virtual Server today is well aware it's great for consolidating hardware - but actually end up with more operating systems to manage (because organisations find it easier to satisfy pent up server demand). That's where our new server virtualisation management product, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), comes in.
SCVMM allows an organisation to get complete visibility to and manageability over all the Virtual Server host machines and all the virtual machines running in their organisation. And new virtual machines can be created as required and deployed to the right Virtual Server host machine all from a single console.
SCVMM, Windows Server 2003 (Enterprise or DataCenter editions) and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 all combine to allow organisations to build sophisticated virtualisation environments for their data centres, branch offices and test and development environments. And with the release of our next generation virtualisation technologies in Windows Server 2008, the door will open to even greater opportunities with virtualisation.
SCVMM will evolve to help organisations manage both Virtual Server and Windows Server Virtualisation hosts, and migrate virtual machines between the two.
Checkout SCVMM by downloading a trial copy at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scvmm/bb727241.aspx If you want to start playing with the new Windows Server Virtualization technologies coming in Windows Server 2008, you can access a preview copy in the release candidate of Windows Server 2008 at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx Regards
Peter Fitzsimon Technical Product Manager - Virtualization & HPC