Daniel Petri: Hyper-V, as you probably know by now, is being introduced more and more as a virtualization host (a "host" is a physical computer/server that runs a virtualization product, and which is used to run multiple virtual machines, also called "guests"). Because Hyper-V is based on a Windows 2008/R2 operating system, we need to pay close attention to the patches, bug fixes, security fixes and critical updates that are released by Microsoft. Also remember that patches and updates can come from any number of software products (and not just Microsoft), software products such as backup agents, drivers and firmware, as well as management, monitoring and anti-virus software.

Jeff Woolsey, Principal Group Program Manager: In my last blog, we covered some follow-up questions about Page Sharing. Today, we'll discuss Second Level paging. To discuss the implications of using Second Level Paging, let's put virtualization aside, take a step back and level set and start by discussing Virtual Memory and Paging.

Hyper-V versus VMware. Which is the right server virtualization option?

That question is more than academic to VARs with virtualization skills. Businesses of all sizes are asking it and their curiosity gives these VARs an opportunity to discuss IT needs with a lot of potential customers -- many of which might be considering a VMware upgrade. That conversation, in turn, often leads to profitable engagements for the VARs that touch on hardware, software and services implementations.

Brien M. Posey: Rather than providing you with a generic set of instructions for performing an in place upgrade, I decided to upgrade a server that I use as a virtualization host for a number of lab machines. Before I began the upgrade process, there was a little bit of prep work that I had to do.

The first thing that I did was to make sure that I had the correct version of Windows Server 2008 R2. My server started out running the X64 version of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, so I made sure that I had the 64-bit Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Interesting new performance article released from Intel. Covers the choice around VHD and streaming OS deployment on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. When you think of streaming the OS on to Hyper-V, think how Citrix’s Provisioning Server does it.

It also again reinforces something we have said for awhile – Windows 7 runs better than Windows XP in a virtual environment!

See it here: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/partner-profile-intel.aspx#Resources

Microsoft Hyper-V holds the promise of consolidation and better utilization, but how do you know if certain servers belong on a Hyper-V host? In many companies, Hyper-V starts in the lab, so it's hard to get a real-world understanding of how production systems will react when running on a shared host.

There are plenty of opinions out there, largely from database administrators and developers concerned about available resources to their applications. There are also several stories involving substandard performance of virtualized applications, but that is usually because the process wasn't fully assessed.