Bare metal Hyper-V Server is here!

Yesterday we announced the availability of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 for free download.  This is our bare metal HyperV-Svr08_2_bL Hyper-V only version.  It’s not the Server Core option in Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V as it only has the Hyper-V component and not all the other roles that Server Core has like DNS, DHCP etc.  Hyper-V server contains a subset of components that make up the server core option in Windows Server 2008 and has a similar look and feel.  Yes the command prompt.  But once you have it setup you can use the Hyper-V manager just like you would normally.

The big question that’s going to be on people’s minds is when would you use Hyper-V Server and when would you use Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role added.  Hyper-V Server is designed for customers who want a basic and simplified virtualization option.  It’s ideal for test and development environments, basic server consolidation, branch office scenarios and hosted desktop virtualization.  But if you need some of the more advanced features like quick migration, larger memory support (greater than 32GB) or more than 4 processors on the host then you should be looking at Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role added.

Along with this announcement we have also announced a new virtualization training and certification program.  There is a complete set of training options and certification paths to help you get trained and certified on Windows Server 2008 virtualization technologies.

We’ve also put up some technical resources to get you started.  Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Hyper-V,Virtualization