As expected, Microsoft announces today the sign off of the Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM, which includes Hyper-V R2.
The finalized feature list is known since June, when Microsoft released the Release Candidate:
- support for virtual machines live migration (expect Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition)
- support for virtual disks hot plug
- support for up to 64 logical processors (8 cores for up to 8 physical processors)
- support for up to 1TB physical RAM (Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition only supports 32GB)
- support for up to 384 1-way virtual machines (8 vCPUs per logical processor)
- support for Processor Compatibility Mode (migrate the virtual machines across different generations of the same CPU vendor)
- support for Core Parking and CPU power consumption control
- support for Second Level Address Translation (SLAT, formerly called nested page tables or NPT – specifically AMD RVI and Intel EPT)
- support for TCP/IP Offload Engines (TOEs)
- support for Jumbo Frames
- support for Intel Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq)
Additionally, it’s worth to mention that Hyper-V R2 is now declared ready for VDI, as the new Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services (RDS, formerly Terminal Services) include a basic connection broker component: Remote Desktop Connection Broker.
The company is now promoting the adoption of VDI through more friendly licensing terms and the effort of partners like Citrix and Quest.
Nothing changes about the licensing terms: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition allows to have only one “free” virtual machine, the Enterprise Edition allows up to 4 virtual machines and the Datacenter Edition allows unlimited VMs.
The new hypervisor will be available to worldwide customers October 22, but the Microsoft partners can download it today from the MSDN and TechNet websites.
Some of the other products in the Microsoft virtualization portfolio already support Hyper-V R2: Microsoft Assessment & Planning (MAP) Toolkit 4.0, released last week, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, currently in Release Candidate and soon to be released as well.
In the the coming weeks virtualization.info will release a new edition of its Buyer’s Guide to include VMware vSphere 4.0, XenServer 5.5 and this new Hyper-V R2.