Microsoft Hyper-V will manage multiple snapshots, operational roles and WMI calls

Since the beginning of the Hyper-V public beta, Microsoft is slowly releasing details about which features its new hypervisor will offer.

Three of them have been recently detailed:

  • Multiple snapshots
    Hyper-V introduces the concept of virtual machine snapshots – which is to say point in time images of a virtual machine that you can return to at any stage. These snapshots are implemented in the virtualization layer – and can be taken at any time with any guest operating system (even during an operating system installation). Snapshots can be taken whether the virtual machine is running or stopped. If the virtual machine is running when the snapshot is taken there is no downtime involved to create the snapshot.
  • Operational roles
    By default Hyper-V is configured such that only members of the administrators group can create and control virtual machines.
    Hyper-V uses the new authorization management framework in Windows to allow you to configure what users can and cannot do with virtual machines.
  • WMI calls
    The WMI provider for virtualization and the hypervisor API enable developers, and scripters, to quickly build custom tools, utilities, and enhancements for the virtualization platform. The WMI interfaces can manage all aspects of the virtualization services.

Thanks to Ben Armstrong for the news.