Date Published: January 2009.

Author: Claudio Vacalebre.

Soundtrack: GuitJamBass, Author: Claudio Vacalebre.

Windows Server 2008 is almost ready and IIS 7.0 with it.

Being IIS7 the Microsoft most ambitious Web server to date there are a lot of expectations on it. And indeed it is not surprising how many new features have been built on it including those that directly benefit the hosting community.

IIS7 will indeed reduce total cost of ownership, improve manageability and create new business opportunities.

On 16 January The Microsoft Windows Virtualization Product Team Blog posted the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta announcement.

I see this as an important step to support Hosters in delivering higher quality services to their customers.

The Beta version can be obtained here.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta contains the same virtualization feature-set as Hyper-V that is part of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 now includes:

Failover Clustering: The initial release of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 did not include support for failover clustering. However, with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta, host clustering technology is included to enable support for unplanned downtime. Live migration: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes support for live migration. Live migration enables customers to move running applications between servers without service interruptions. With live migration and failover clustering, customers receive high availability and dynamic migration capabilities for both planned and unplanned downtime.

Processor and memory support: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta now supports up to 8-socket physical systems and provides support for up to 32-cores. In addition, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta supports up to 1TB of RAM on a physical system.

Updated Hyper-V Configuration Utility: The Hyper-V Configuration utility is designed to simplify the most common initial configuration tasks. It helps you configure the initial configuration settings without having to type long command-line strings. New configuration options have been added for R2 Beta including:

Remote Management Configuration

Failover Clustering Configuration

Additional options for Updates

I really think Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 adds critical features for the hosters.

Support for high availability and scalability are two of the many features hosters can enjoy with this version of Hyper-V and I strongly suggest every hoster to run a test lab to see this great technology in action and benefit from it.