Hyper-V          ACT 1, ACT 2, ACT 3

ACT 2 begins… But before that…

In ACT 1 (2007), Microsoft announced its new “hypervisor” based virtualization architecture (code name Viridian) and the commitment to make the technology a standard part of Server 2008. When Server 2008 was released in February 2008, Hyper-V was included, but not in the final form. In late June, 2008 (ahead of schedule) the upgrade (KB 950050) - the “official Hyper-V” became a standard part of Server 2008 upgrades/patches (Microsoft Update).

Now - ACT 2 begins…

Microsoft uses a Parent/Child partition architecture for Hyper-V. This is not the older Host/Guest model with the Guest sitting on top of the Host and its overhead/performance issues. The Parent and Child are side by side and uses a high performance “VMbus” (Synthetic devices) model. But it does start with a Parent being needed before the first “Virtual Machine” (VM) Child is deployed.

In some ways this is convenient - makes the installation simple. After the Parent install, it’s a simple - Add the Hyper-V “Role” with Server Manager. Also with the Parent and Child, there are 2 O/S licenses involved, but with Server 2008, the Standard edition includes the extra license - one for the physical and one for the virtual servers. Having the full O/S in the Parent can be useful, but does consume resources (memory). Server Core can address this problem, but better…

Microsoft has announced the new “Hyper-V Server” - engineered specifically for the Parent partition.
All of the extra code/roles have been removed. The one (only) Role that we can and need to add is the Hyper-V role. Microsoft had hinted at this new “Hyper-V Server” option for a couple of months (a new Server edition) and had indicated that it would only cost $28. “$28″?? No this was not a typo.

September 8th, Microsoft announced that within 30 days, Hyper-V Server would be a free (no cost) download - yes 0$… And at the same announcement, SC/VMM 2008, the missing piece, the impressive Virtual Machine manager will also release within 30 days.

Microsoft also shared a preview of the future ACT 3 -

The future Server 2008 R2 and its Hyper-V R2 should be able to finish the wish list (missing features). Microsoft showed a demo of the future “Live Migration”, a migration (moving a VM while running) feature that improves on the current “Quick Migration” suspend/resume option.

There will be a quite a few new features that Microsoft will talk about both at the upcoming PDC (Professional Developer’s Conference) in late October, as well as at WinHEC which is the first week of November. Microsoft will go into a lot of detail on Server 2008 R2 at that time.