Ever since Microsoft launched the release candidate for their first new virtualization tool, Hyper-V, many people have been studying the features and its potential impact on the business community.  Microsoft’s first attempt at a virtualization platform was certainly an interesting one, but is it the right choice for you?  Hyper-V seems to do an effective job of reducing time, energy, and resources needed to manage your virtual server.

Live Migration!?  For any of you that have had experience with VMware or its Linux competitor Virtuozzo might find this as hard to comprehend as I did.  This means that while a virtual machine is in use, it can be moved from its original location to a whole different machine and have its memory allocation changed without disrupting the performance of the virtual machine.  This will make the lives of your system administrator much easier.  Instead of tracking down the user and having them fully power down their VM before making the changes, the system administrator simply needs to make the changes as though the machine was already powered down.

Hyper-V Management Console is a new management tool designed to make managing this new virtualization service very easy to use.  This manager runs natively on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista (SP1). However by using an RSAT tools package you can use remote console sessions from a machine on Windows XP and even Linux to access the console.  Also being that this console is native to Windows, there won’t be any need to teach anyone to use Linux in order to manage the service.  Part of the console is its ability to automate management tasks by using PowerShell cmdlets, further reducing time spent managing your service.

VM Chimney is a feature that is designed to optimize your virtual network.  This feature allows your virtual machine to dump some of its network traffic off to the physical machine’s NIC.  This is not a new concept however it is new to the virtualization world with Hyper-V, and it will increase CPU performance as well as overall network performance.  Note: This feature is disabled by default because there are short term compatibility issues with a few pieces of hardware. However this is definitely something you want to enable as soon as drivers are put out for your hardware that will allow you to use this feature!

The bottom line here is that Hyper-V reduces time, effort, and capital used to manage your server.  This leads to increased efficiency throughout your corporation, and who doesn’t want that!?

Go here if you are interested in purchasing a Hyper-V Windows Server or a Single Hyper-V VPS.