Microsoft Virtual Server – Features & Benefits
Microsoft Virtual Server is a virtualization technology that enables creation of virtual machines on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Virtual server increases hardware utilization and enables configuration and deployment of new servers.
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 is the current version of Microsoft Virtual Server. It includes support for both Intel VT (IVT) and AMD Virtualization (AMD-V)
R2 SP1 is provided with following important features
Linux guest operating system support
Virtual Disk Precompactor
Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP)
x86-64 (x64) Host OS support (but not Guest OS support)
Ability to mount virtual hard drives on the host OS
Ability to add additional operating systems including Windows Vista. 1
In addition to these, R2 SP1 provides a Volume Shadow Copy writer to enable live backups of the Guest OS on a Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 Host. It is also provided with a utility to mount virtual hard disk images.
Important benefits of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 are the following.
Virtual Server 2005 R2 supports virtual networking. It provides administrators with complete scripted control of portable, connected virtual machines and enables easy automation of deployment, and ongoing change and configuration.
The Add-ins included in Virtual Server 2005 R2 provide greater CPU and IO performance for Windows Server guest operating systems and certain third-party x86 operating systems.
Microsoft Virtual Server R2 SP1 supports a large variety of existing Microsoft and third-party management tools.
