Around a week ago we shipped RC0 of Windows Server 2008. With this came the first public build which contained the Windows Server Virtualization bits ( aka Viridian ). It has took the community a little while to digest and review the bits, but the feedback has been pretty positive for the initial bits.

If you do not know about this technology, Viridian is the new virtualization technology which is being linked into Windows Server 2008 and rather than other technologies such as Virtual PC or Virtual Server R2, provides virtualization at the hardware level rather than through software emulation, meaning that a host OS is not required to run a virtual environment, therefor reducing memory and many other resource requirements. This will require a supported chipset from AMD or Intel, but these are available on the market today.

To get a great intro, Keith Combs has put together an excellent screen cast which gives you the first tour of Windows Server Virtualization. Pease go to the following location and get this 7 min intro. mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/inetpub/keithcombs/ws2008/WSvTour.wmv. The other great source is a webcast which goes into more technical details. You can signup at the following location and see the whole thing....  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032351234&CountryCode=US.

Second, the reviews of the technology have been pretty positive. Here is a really deep review from Massimo(p) in Italy http://it20.info/blogs/main/archive/2007/09/30/55.aspx about Viridian ( good and bad ). He goes through the installation process, hardware settings and then a conclusion on this "first look" at the technology bits.

eweek also did a quick review of the technology and while they said it had some "wrinkles", they were impressed with what has been done. See the review here http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2189866,00.asp

For sure, this technology is not going to have all the features we were expecting to have in V1, but this is going to be huge in the SMB space where it is most needed.

To get the bits....

Download Windows Server 2008 RC0 at the following locations: :

For documentation please visit the following page:  

You can also register for and download Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 with a license code here, Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate Evaluation