hyper-v

Windows 8 will let you open and view ISO and VHD files all on its own, according to the latest "Building Windows 8" blog from Microsoft.

Posted yesterday by Microsoft engineer Rajeev Nagar, the new blog post, titled "Accessing data in ISO and VHD files," revealed that native support for ISO and VHD files was one feature often requested by users, prompting the company to add it to its upcoming OS.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) files are image files that hold the contents of a CD or DVD. Large programs available for download through the … Read more

Microsoft today announced several enhancements to its Windows Server platform, aimed at giving IT buyers hardware and software configurations ready for use as part of a private cloud.

The new platform additions, which were announced as part of Microsoft's annual TechEd event going on this week, are dubbed Hyper-V Cloud. This is essentially a blueprint for the software and hardware configurations that Microsoft's customers and partners can use to get a private cloud set up quickly and without changing hardware buying habits.

These configurations are highlighted in a new program called Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track, which sets each … Read more

Yesterday, I heard a story about a CIO of one of the big NYC-based financial services firms explaining to his audience what was delaying further virtualization of the firm's application environment. The reason wasn't related to hardware or software.

The problem was staffing. Given the current state of virtual server management practices, the number of virtual machines was outrunning the number of people needed to effectively manage them.

IT has traditionally been about automating things. But automated IT management, and particularly automated management of the storage environment, has traditionally been approached cautiously at best by IT administrators. Nevertheless, … Read more

Old dogs may struggle with new tricks, but they seem to be able to figure out new licenses.

In a shocking move, Microsoft announced Monday the release of Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC).

The news reflects Microsoft's continued interest in lobotomizing its virtualization competition through low prices, but also the recognition that it must open up if it wants to fend off insurgent virtualization strategies from Red Hat, Novell, and others in the open-source camp.

But the truly startling news is that LinuxIC is being released under the GNU General Public License (version 2). Microsoft once called GPL anti-American. … Read more

Could VMware be the next Novell? That's the question Gartner managing vice president and chief of research for Infrastructure David Cappuccio asks in a provocative post, one that bears further discussion. While VMware is at the top of its game, there are several historical analogs between VMware and Novell.

I'll let you read Cappuccio's excellent post for his full argument, but the crux of it is that in the face of dominant but pricey technology, many buyers will turn to "good enough" to fill their needs. For Novell, that competition to its 90 percent market … Read more

ESG virtualization guru Mark Bowker is keeping me abreast of the goings-on at VMworld Europe in Cannes. In between the merlot and brie, Microsoft and Citrix announced an interesting and potentially lucrative partnership for server virtualization and virtualization management dubbed "Project Encore."

Here's the deal. In spite of its recent release of Hyper-V, Microsoft remains behind VMware in terms of enterprise management features. To bridge this gap, Microsoft is teaming with Citrix to offer advanced server virtualization management through Citrix Essentials. Citrix Essentials builds on Hyper-V with management capabilities for storage management, physical/virtual server provisioning, and … Read more

Virtualization company VMware has publicly disputed the way in which key research into the virtualization market was undertaken by analysts IDC, and disputed figures that appear to show a rapid growth by a competitive product from Microsoft.

According to the IDC research published last week, Microsoft has done well in virtualization since the launch of its hypervisor, Hyper-V.

In "its first quarter of general availability Microsoft Hyper-V delivered a strong showing, and when combined with Virtual Server 2005, Microsoft's market share is 23 percent of new shipments," according to the IDC research note.

Then in a blog posting … Read more

One of the nice advantages of server virtualization is the ability to run Linux and Windows on the same server. One of the headaches, though, is getting help when something goes wrong.

Microsoft and Novell on Thursday said they are going to try to make things a little easier. The pair announced that they will jointly support a virtualization scenario in which Suse Linux is running as a guest operating system under Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization.

The companies said partners such as Dell will test the setup at the joint lab the two companies have in Cambridge, Mass. It's … Read more

Mr. Virtualization (aka ESG analyst Mark Bowker) called me Monday from the big Microsoft virtualization gala. From his description it was vintage Microsoft: company senior managers, partners, demos, and multimedia presentations. I kind of wish I was there for the demonstration of Buddy Guy's virtual guitar playing on a Gibson Flying V. (You had to be there.)

Microsoft's Bobs (Kelly and Muglia) kicked off the day with keynote presentations around customer case studies and Microsoft's technology vision. But what's most interesting to me is what Microsoft didn't say. According to Bowker, Microsoft hardly mentioned its recently released hypervisor (Hyper-V). … Read more