One of the most active companies in the Hyper-V ecosystem, 5nine (link to the radar) announced the release of a local management tool for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V Manager, also available in a free version.
While the Microsoft virtualization solution provides a command line tool (SCONFIG) for the basic configuration tasks, it provides no local GUI for its management: this is a space well suited for third party solution providers.
Built by leveraging the public Hyper-V WMI APIs, 5Nine Hyper-V Manager provides yet another way of managing your Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. It supports even the latest features of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1, Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX, missing little of the full fledged command line tool.
For a GUI access, administrators without any third party software have to rely on remote management through Windows Server 2008, System Center Virtual Machine Manager or Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7.
Manager enables an easier configuration of the the new features in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1, which are “key factors that you should consider when making a decision for VDI”, as Microsoft spokesman Jeff Woolsey points out.