Microsoft introduces in Microsoft VirtualServer R2, support to some Linux as Guest.

To better the performance in this scenarios, is recommend install Virtual Server Additions on Guest machines.

To get the VirtualServer Additions to Linux, access this url :

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/linuxguestsupport/default.mspx

Important, the following Enterprise/Standart distributions are supported to install additions :

• Enterprise distributions:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (update 6)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 (update 6)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0
• SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0
 
 
• Standard distributions:
• Red Hat Linux 7.3
• Red Hat Linux 9.0
• SuSE Linux 9.2
• SuSE Linux 9.3
• SuSE Linux 10.0
 
 

If you want to download the free version, access the following link :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6DBA2278-B022-4F56-AF96-7B95975DB13B&displaylang=en

Attention to the requerid operational systems and hardwares below.

Requirements for x86 version
Supported Operating Systems
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
• Windows XP Professional Edition
• Windows XP Service Pack 2
 

Requirements for Use
• Computer with a 550 MHz or faster processor; 1.0 GHz or faster recommended
• Requires an Intel Celeron, Pentium III, Pentium 4, or Xeon processor; or AMD Opteron, Athlon, Athlon 64, Athlon X2, Sempron, or Duron processor
• All physical processors supported by the host operating system
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Datacenter Edition or later
• Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition or Premium Edition
• Windows XP Professional (for non-production use only)
• 256 MB of RAM minimum (additional memory needed for each guest operating system)
• 2 GB of available hard-disk space (additional disk space needed for each guest operating system)
• Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher-resolution monitor recommended
 

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Beta Program is avaliable, try this, and lear how you can use this for your organization increase operational efficiency in software test and development, application migration, and server consolidation scenarios. R2 provides support for 64-bit host operating systems including 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP, performance enhancements, built-in support for network installations of guest operating systems, and several other features. We look forward to the participation of a large group of beta testers as we complete the development of this product.

The instructions to join in Beta Program are avaliable in:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/sp1beta.mspx

Its avaliable now, SP1 for VS 2005. You can download from:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/sp1beta.mspx

Whats New in VS2005 SP1 ?

Support for 64-bit host operating systems

SP1 runs on the x64 editions of Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 and Microsoft Windows XP Professional. 

PXE support

PXE boot support has been added to the virtual machine network adapter. This means that when the appropriate network infrastructure is in place, you can perform a network installation of a guest operating system without needing a PXE boot floppy disk.

Performance improvements

Changes have been made to the way that Virtual Server allocates physical memory to guest operating systems. In some scenarios, this could result in significant performance improvements.

Support for additional hosts and guests

SP1 adds support for additional host and guest operating systems.

Other improvements

Inclusion of the SCSI Shunt Driver and Virtual Disk Precompactor.
Support for hyperthreading. You can now leave hyperthreading enabled without impacting virtual machine performance. Correction of virtual machine time drift. When Virtual Machine Additions are not installed, time should drift minimally, or about 0.1 seconds per minute, depending on load. With Virtual Machine Additions installed and Time Synchronization enabled, time should remain accurate to approximately 0.01 seconds per minute. Also, virtual machines now can be in different time zones and still sync correctly.

Longhorn is very slow on real machines; and also in Virtual Server. 

Longhorn has been designed for very high end hardware (for today’s standards) and requires a 3D card for the basic functionality of the new features. The VS team are aware of this and working on a way forward to make this a much better experience.

One thing interesting to do is turning off some services and other features in Longhorn to speed it up the machine.

Some of the items disable features for the OS, and can cause problems so don't disable features without understanding.

 Some of these optimisations have decreased the CPU usage of longhorn in a virtual machine from 100% to 15% percent of CPU usage, simply by disabling (or changing from automatic start to manual start) some services such as software licensing service !

Can I cluster Virtual Server 2005 ?
Answer: No. Virtual Server is not a cluster aware application.

Can I create a clustered virtual machine in VS 2005 ?
Answer: Yes Cluster support is defined as the following:

• Virtual Server will support simple two node failover from one vs to oher.
•  The shared cluster volume must be a fixed size .vhd. Dynamic drives will not be supported
•  Both virtual machines nodes of the cluster must be on the same physical hardware.
•  Clustering VM-VM is supported in test and dev environments only

Virtual Server migration Tool Kit, is one tool, that permits you migrate your real machines to virtual (virtualization), so with this you can easly create test enviroments, of your production enviroments.

 To use Virtual Server migration tool kit, you need have one server running Microsoft VirtualServer 2005, ADS (Automated Deployment Services). The supported operations systems to migrate is : NT4 (SP6), Windows 2000 (SP4 or later), Windows 2003 Standart or Enterprise.

 For more details about VSMT you can read the whitepaper at : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/overview/vsmtwhitepaper.mspx 

 I will publish here one howto article to you install and use the VSMT in your enviroment.