Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now RTM. The official website is updated and the Evaluation Kit (aka the download) is coming on the download page.
Microsoft also announced at IT Forum 2005:
As part of its broad strategy to help customers realize the benefits of virtualization and progress toward self-managing dynamic systems, Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTM) Virtual Server 2005 R2, which will be available in volume licensing and retail the first week of December. Virtual Server 2005 R2 delivers improved performance, availability and scalability for server consolidation, legacy application migration, disaster recovery, and software testing and development. Microsoft will be offering Virtual Server R2 Standard Edition for $99 (U.S.) estimated retail price and Virtual Server R2 Enterprise Edition for $199 (U.S.) estimated retail price. This new pricing represents Microsoft’s commitment to making server virtualization more accessible to customers at the lowest price point.
I’ll update this page as soon as the bits are available. Meanwhile you can read the two whitepapers Microsoft released for this new product:
- Using iSCSI with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
- Virtual Server Host Clustering Step-by-Step Guide for Virtual Server 2005 R2
With this pricing Microsoft could seriously impact on VMware GSX Server sells, which is not updated since a while.