Overview
As you may or may not know Longhorn Server Beta 3 is available to the public. One of the exciting elements of Longhorn will be the virtualisation advancements. Virtualisation is a trend that is set to continue with the benefits of hosting multiple logical servers on a physical box, enabling reduced power consumption, sandboxing of operating systems for protection and reducing space required for server storage.
The trend back to virtualisation and hypervisors (40 year old technology – initially used by IBM in its Model 67 System/360 Mainframes) can be attributed to improved server hardware in particular multiple core processors and virtualisation technologies by processor manufacturers Intel and AMD.
So What Do You Look For In A Processor?
When buying a processor look for the Intel VT or AMD-V capabilities this will ensure that Longhorn Server will run Windows Server Virtualization (formerly Windows Hypervisor). Windows Server Virtualization uses the features in Intel VT and AMD V interface to provide guest operating systems with near native performance.
Microsoft currently has said that within 180 days of the release of Longhorn Server, Windows Server Virtualization will be released. The expected date for Longhorn RTM is late this year. For a beginners introduction see the Technet webcast: Understaning Windows Hypervisor and Virtualisation in Windows Codename “Longhorn”
