Release: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 released!
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
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Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now RTM. The official website is updated and the Evaluation Kit (aka the download) is coming on the download page.
Microsoft also announced at IT Forum 2005:
As part of its broad strategy to help customers realize the benefits of virtualization and progress toward self-managing dynamic systems, Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTM) Virtual Server 2005 R2, which will be available in volume licensing and retail the first week of December. Virtual Server 2005 R2 delivers improved performance, availability and scalability for server consolidation, legacy application migration, disaster recovery, and software testing and development. Microsoft will be offering Virtual Server R2 Standard Edition for $99 (U.S.) estimated retail price and Virtual Server R2 Enterprise Edition for $199 (U.S.) estimated retail price. This new pricing represents Microsoft’s commitment to making server virtualization more accessible to customers at the lowest price point.I'll update this page as soon as the bits are available. Meanwhile you can read the two whitepapers Microsoft released for this new product:
- Using iSCSI with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
- Virtual Server Host Clustering Step-by-Step Guide for Virtual Server 2005 R2
2 Comments
Robert Aitchison
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 5:17:00 PM
Of course it will likely be at least a month before we can download the final code via the volume licening downloads site (SQL Server 2005 still isn't available to give you an indication).
Really what I'm interested in is a way to speed up performance for the number of Windows 2003 SP1 virtual machines we have. The performance for Windows 2003 SP1 on Vartual Server 2005 with the VS 2005 virtual machine additions is so bad it's like you don't even have virtual machine additions installed.
You can "work around" these issues using the VM additions from either the VS 2005 SP1 ß or the VM additions from Virtual PC 2004 SP1 but that's obviously not ideal.
I'm wondering how the VS 2005 R2 VM additions work with a guest machine to a VS 2005 gold host. I suspect they work, and of course I'll find out.
Also as an aside, IMO Microsoft did a serious disservice to it's customers when it decided to turn VS 2005 SP1 into VS 2005 R2. If you are a smaller company and can't justify a volume licensing deal you actually have to pay for this upgrade to address major functionality gaps in VS 2005 gold (chiefly lack of Windows 2003 SP1 support) though admittedly that probably impacts less than 10% of VS 2005 customers as most have some sort of volume license with software assurance or something like it. But even for people who don't have to worry about the cost of the change from SP1 to R2 there was a sveral month delay that resulted from the change. Microsoft should have at least released (supported) updated VM additions to address the Windows 2003 SP1 issue. In fact they still should for those customers who bought VS 2005 gold and can't afford to pay to upgrade to R2.
Really what I'm interested in is a way to speed up performance for the number of Windows 2003 SP1 virtual machines we have. The performance for Windows 2003 SP1 on Vartual Server 2005 with the VS 2005 virtual machine additions is so bad it's like you don't even have virtual machine additions installed.
You can "work around" these issues using the VM additions from either the VS 2005 SP1 ß or the VM additions from Virtual PC 2004 SP1 but that's obviously not ideal.
I'm wondering how the VS 2005 R2 VM additions work with a guest machine to a VS 2005 gold host. I suspect they work, and of course I'll find out.
Also as an aside, IMO Microsoft did a serious disservice to it's customers when it decided to turn VS 2005 SP1 into VS 2005 R2. If you are a smaller company and can't justify a volume licensing deal you actually have to pay for this upgrade to address major functionality gaps in VS 2005 gold (chiefly lack of Windows 2003 SP1 support) though admittedly that probably impacts less than 10% of VS 2005 customers as most have some sort of volume license with software assurance or something like it. But even for people who don't have to worry about the cost of the change from SP1 to R2 there was a sveral month delay that resulted from the change. Microsoft should have at least released (supported) updated VM additions to address the Windows 2003 SP1 issue. In fact they still should for those customers who bought VS 2005 gold and can't afford to pay to upgrade to R2.
Brian A. Randell
Wednesday, November 16, 2005 12:21:00 AM
Robert,
The VM additions in R2 will work fine with Virtual PC 2004, Virtual Server 2005 RTM and R2 equally well. In fact, IMO, the SP1 beta additions worked well.
Also, there is a hotfix that anyone can request (for free) to address the Windows Server 2003 SP1 issues with Virtual Server 2005 RTM. The KB is 900076. The KB is out dated; just contact PSS for the newer additions.
The VM additions in R2 will work fine with Virtual PC 2004, Virtual Server 2005 RTM and R2 equally well. In fact, IMO, the SP1 beta additions worked well.
Also, there is a hotfix that anyone can request (for free) to address the Windows Server 2003 SP1 issues with Virtual Server 2005 RTM. The KB is 900076. The KB is out dated; just contact PSS for the newer additions.
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