Microsoft Releases Virtualisation Beta Early

By Greg McNevin

December 20, 2007: In another break from tradition following the early release of Office 2007 SP1 last week, Microsoft has squeaked out the first public beta of its virtualisation technology well in advance of the early 2008 data originally planned.

The firm’s Hyper-V virtualisation beta, its answer to VMware’s market-leading solutions, was originally scheduled for release with Windows Server 2008 at the end of February next year, and is expected to bring Microsoft’s platform much closer to integration with Linux operating systems.

Built on the Xen source code, Hyper-V will support interoperability with Linux distros such as SUSE Enterprise 10, with more to come as the software matures. Next to this, Hyper-V comes in two versions: standalone and an integrated service in Windows Server 2008.

This gives Microsoft a leg up on VMware as it can essentially offer two products for the price of one – a big plus, and one that could help it gain some ground on VMware’s commanding market lead.

Users downloading Windows Server 2008 RC1 Enterprise for x64 will receive the Hyper-V beta, Microsoft plans to have Hyper-V complete within six moths of Windows Server 2008’s release.

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