Microsoft’s Approach to Virtualization

Some software companies address virtualization from a single direction. VMware, for example, focuses on virtualizing and managing operating-system instances. Microsoft has been more thoughtful and less myopic in its approach. Microsoft’s articulated virtualization direction is in five key areas:

• Server—Hyper-V and Virtual Server 2005 for server services
• Desktop—Virtual PC for client-centric, local operating-system instances
• Presentation—Terminal Services providing remote desktop and application access
• Application—SoftGrid/AppV for application encapsulation
• Profile—Roaming profiles for personal-experience encapsulation

All these approaches are tied together by Windows as a platform and managed by the System Center family of products to enable administration of virtual and physical resources. You can benefit from this multipronged approach to virtualization, which is unified by a common platform and management suite.


It’s All Windows
The great thing about virtualization technology from Microsoft is that it’s integrated with Windows. Windows is a platform well known to administrators and users alike. You don’t need special training to use Microsoft’s virtualization offerings because they’re already familiar. You don’t need to be a virtualization specialist to use Hyper-V, Terminal Services, or AppV (as you might with VMware). You can have virtualization as a competency, just as you might with other focus areas of Windows administration.


System Center Manages All Worlds Well
You manage and monitor each of these virtualization offerings with the same System Center tools that you may already have in your environment for physical system management. Some virtualization-management tools only provide insight into the virtualization layer and can’t dive further into running operating systems or applications (they’re essentially half blind). Using a unified, familiar tool set that can correlate data between physical, virtual, and application software can magnify the benefits of virtualization.


Mixing and Matching with Virtualization
You can use these separate directions of virtualization together with the others to provide more value. You can combine the different focuses of virtualization—server, desktop, presentation, application, and profile—to meet the needs and requirements of changing enterprises. Why not rapidly provision Hyper-V–based virtual machines for thin-client access to meet dynamic demands? How about combining AppV with Terminal Services to alleviate application coexistence issues and reduce server count?

Source of Information : Sybex Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Insiders Guide to Microsofts Hypervisor