During the Bill Gates keynote at WinHEC 2006 Microsoft demonstrated the new Windows Hypervisor (codename Viridian), definitively called Windows Server Virtualization.
Jeff Woolsey, Window Virtualization Program Manager, showed:
- a migrated Virtual Server 2005 virtual machine inside the Windows Server Virtualization
- a running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 guest OS
- a running 64bit Windows Server 2003 guest OS powered with 2 virtual CPUs
- how to add or modifiy virtual hardware to a powered on virtual machine without downtime (in particular they added a virtual NIC and changed memory assignement from 4GBs to 5GBs)
- a running 64bit Windows Server codename Longhorn guest OS powered with 4 virtual CPUs
All of this from a dedicated Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.
Microsoft also announced that Windows Server Virtualization will be able to live add storage to virtual machines and support up to 8 virtual CPUs.
Note that live modification of virtual hardware are features not provided by any virtualization vendor while more than 2 virtual SMP is offered just by Xen.
Later, during the Bob Muglia keynote the new System Center Virtual Machine Manager (codename Carmine) was demonstrated as well.
Eric Winner, Virtual Machine Manager Lead Program Manager, showed:
- how to perform a physical to virtual (P2V) migration
- how to provision new virtual machines from a masters’ library in an automatic way (through the Self Service Portal)
- how to redistribute virtual machines on physical hosts depending on workload
In his keynote Muglia also mentioned application virtualization (obviously referring to ongoing Softricity acquisition) and OS partitioning, mentioned by Microsoft itself 1 month before WinHEC.
The sneaking message is that Microsoft is going to provide all three major virtualization tecnologies in the Longhorn wave: server (or hardware) virtualization, OS partitioning and application virtualization.
Watch the Bill Gates keynote (Windows Server Virtualization is at minute 27:00) or read the transcript (Jeff Woolsey’s part).
Watch the Bob Muglia keynote (Virtualization and Virtual Machine Manager are at minute 33:00) or read the transcript (Eric Winner’s part).
Hear a Silicon Valley Sleuth podcast with Jim Ni, Windows Server Marketing Group Product Manager, about Microsoft virtualization strategy.
The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.