A very flashy hypervisor: Hyper-V Server R2

USB flash drive - perfect for installing VMware ESXiThe Microsoft Virtualization team put out a big ALL CAPS “me too!” announcement recently that Hyper-V Server R2 has the unique ability to boot from flash.  Please note that “unique” means when compared to regular Hyper-V — VMware ESXi has offered this for years.

Oh, by the way, flash boot will be supported only by Microsoft OEM partners — not by Microsoft Product Support.  Where have we heard that before?  Sounds a lot like NIC teaming — yes, it is not unsupported.  I can’t wait to read the KB article on this one.

It’s great to see Jeff Woolsey acknowledge the value of a small-footprint hypervisor, despite the fact that he really seemed to enjoy his latest three-part series on why Hyper-V is better than ESXi in every way.  At least that is what I assume the series is about — between the crazy formatting and the ridiculous patch download metric he concocted, I just couldn’t get into it.

As it turns out, Jeff Woolsey also fills an important role at Microsoft as a part-time user interface QA tester for Windows Live Writer.  You’ll notice in his posts that he exercises every conceivable text-formatting function offered by that blog editing tool — yes, the large, CAP, bold, underscore, and colored fonts all appear correctly.  Tests passed!

If you are ready for a truly thin hypervisor that can boot from flash today, grab yourself a copy of VMware ESXi.  You’ll like it.

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10 Responses to A very flashy hypervisor: Hyper-V Server R2

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  3. tonyr says:

    is this kinda like the downloadable version of esxi does not support san boot?

    • Eric Gray says:

      Yes, exactly — in order to have ESXi boot from SAN you need to purchase a storage array from an OEM partner on which they have already created a 1 GB LUN and preinstalled VMware ESXi. Simply uncrate it in your datacenter, connect Fibre Channel to your server and you are ready to go. Not quite as easy as just installing to an inexpensive USB flash drive, but close.

  4. NiTRo says:

    I can’t even imagine put “Hyper-V”, “thin footprint” and “embedded” in the same sentence… ever 😀

  5. tonyr08 says:

    also hyper-v r2 is thin and does embed just fine!

  6. tonyr08 says:

    also why must I buy a oem partner san device just to boot from san, this is not a requirement to san boot for hyper-v r2.

  7. Pingback: HP supports running VMware ESXi 4 on approved SD and USB flash media | VCritical

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