Microsoft Hyper-V Server is NOW Available

Microsoft have now released their Hyper-V Server platform (not to be confused with Hyper-V running on Windows Server 2008). This product has been on the horizon for a little while but Microsoft have been fairly quite about it until the recent Technet Edge announcement.

The Good News

Microsoft Hyper-V Server (notice the Microsoft branding not Windows) is the smallest OS footprint product today. The best way to look at this product is Windows 2008 Server Core with a single pre-installed role, this role being Hyper-V. The product is free of charge and can be downloaded today from Microsoft (about 930MB). It can then be installed and used as a virtualization platform leveraging Hyper-V as the underlying architecture. The product does not have a GUI so it will need to be managed from a computer that has the Hyper-V manager installed (either Windows Server 2008 or Vista SP1 with the Remote Server Administration Tools, RSAT installed). Microsoft have supplied a Hyper-V configuration applet (HVConfig.vbs, see picture above) that allows the basic configuration settings to be adjusted rather than having to get to grips with NETSH, NETDOM and all the other tools.

The Not So Good News

The product comes with a number of restrictions which might limit some of the deployment options that it might be used in. The main restrictions are:-

• No High Availability Support
  
• No Quick Migration Support
  
• Host limited to 4CPU's and 32GB Memory
  
• No Guest Virtualization Rights (all OS's require a license)

Conclusion

This product is designed to be used in a number of areas but it has been designed to be the most basic version of the Hyper-V platform from Microsoft. The Virtual Disk format is the standard VHD format from Microsoft and therefore means these files can easily be move to the full Hyper-V platforms to provide the advance features that might be required.

Hyper-V Server

Microsoft have recently announced Microsoft Hyper-V Server. This product is a dedicated operating system for running Hyper-V. The best way to describe this product is a Windows Server Core system dedicated to Hyper-V. But unlike Windows Server Core the only component is Hyper-V, no AD, DNS, DHCP etc.

This product provides all the base functionality of Hyper-V from the other Windows 2008 platforms. The product still leverages the Windows driver model so all your device drivers will work. The product will be available for download from Microsoft during the second week of October 2008 and is completely free of charge. The main restriction to be aware of is this product does not support the Windows/Hyper-V high availability features but if you need those you can just purchase Windows Server 2008 Enterprise or Datacenter edition and copy over your Virtual Hard Disk files.

Paul.

Windows 2008 Server Core Setup using a GUI

During the last few months training Windows Server 2008 courses one thing has been consistent, most IT Administrators perform most tasks graphically, and generally shy away from the command prompt. This then really causes issues with Windows Server Core, this product is generally commented on as a Windows Server with no graphical user interface (GUI). Personally I do not like that description as it does have partial GUI support, some control panel applets are available, task manager can be used. Having said that most initial configuration has to be performed using the command line using tools like NETSH and SLMGR.VBS.

Fortunately there are many people in this would which try to solve problems for us to make life much easier for us, step in Guy Teverovsky. Guy is a Microsoft MVP. This tool provides a GUI interface for setting a Windows Server Core system. It allows configuration of the following settings:

• Product Activation
• Configuration of display resolution
• Clock and time zone configuration
• Remote Desktop configuration
• Management of local user accounts (creation, deletion, group membership, passwords)
• Firewall configuration
• WinRM configuration
• IP configuration
• Computer name and domain/workgroup membership
• Installation of Server Core features/roles

A great tool to get you going with Server Core nothing stopping you from implenting Server Core on your networks with ease anymore. The configuration tool can be downloaded from here.

Windows Vista SP1 RC & Windows Server 2008 RC1 Released

Microsoft have now released full Release Candidates of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008. These products were made available for download on the 4th December.

For Windows Vista you have to access to the Beta programs to get the service pack preview. For Windows Server 2008 RC1 can be downloaded from the Microsoft site as a 30-Day evaluation.
Paul

Windows Server 2008 Editions Released

Microsoft have announced that there will be EIGHT versions of the Windows Server 2008 operating system. There will be versions we know and love and some new ones. The basic breakdown is as follows :

Windows Web Server 2008 Edition
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (with and without Hyper-V)
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (with and without Hyper-V)
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (with and without Hyper-V)
Windows Server 2008 For Itanium systems

I guess the reason for supplying systems without HyperVisor (the Microsoft OS integrated virtualization technology) is to prevent them being sued by certain competitors.

Paul.