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Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2 is a stand-alone product that provides a reliable and optimized virtualization solution enabling organizations to improve server utilization and reduce costs. Since Hyper-V Server is a dedicated stand-alone product, which contains only the Windows Hypervisor, Windows Server driver model and virtualization components, it provides a small footprint and minimal overhead. It easily plugs into customers’ existing IT environments, leveraging their existing patching, provisioning, management, support tools, processes, and skills. Some of the new key new features that are available in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 are live migration, cluster shared volume support and expanded processor and memory support for host systems.

IT Pros can easily to leverage their existing knowledge and skills with Microsoft virtualization products, as well as the collective knowledge of the community, minimizing any learning curve. In addition, with Microsoft providing comprehensive support for Microsoft applications and heterogeneous guest operating systems, customers can virtualize with confidence and peace of mind.

Key Benefits

  • Improved server utilization

  • Small footprint

  • Minimal overhead

When to Use Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Customers can use Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 for the following scenarios:

  • Test and Development

  • Server Consolidation

  • Branch Office Consolidation

  • Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

Customers should use Windows Server 2008 R2 to get application failover capabilities or flexible and cost-effective virtualization rights (one free virtual instance for Standard Edition, four free virtual instances for Enterprise Editions, and unlimited virtual instances for Datacenter Edition with the purchase of a license of Windows Server 2008), and flexible and cost-effective virtualization rights.

Here is a list of the features in Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.

Host clustering

Free

Live Migration

Free

Large Memory support (Host OS) =1TB

Free

Support for up to 8 Processors (Host OS)

Free

The following table showcases specific scenarios where Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 should be used:

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Now Available

Assessment Tool

Check to see if your servers are good candidates for Hyper-V virtualization.

Design Guides

Learn how to design a virtualized infrastructure for the first time.