Microsoft Ships Hyper-V Beta for Windows 2008

hmm....no comments on this one yet??

well anyway....

with server CPU's coming down in price, and lower power chips meeting software requirements just fine, virtualization seems like a band-aid fix for a problem that's already happened - IT departments have bought too many computers with too much power!

maybe IT departments should really look at the system requirements for software a bit more closely. honestly, if something says the minimum requirements are an x.xGHz processor, and recommended specs aren't much higher, maybe they should trust the software developers more.

i've seen some real bonehead deployments where a simple website is hosted on a 2x2 (2 cpu, each dual-core) Xeon server, while a small business with only 8 employees had a 200MB SQL database was running on quad-core with 4 hard drives consisting of over 800GB in total storage space.

i see it happen quite a lot.

server computers don't have to cost a lot. virtualization just seems like an answer to the problem of companies spending too much on their initial IT investment, and trying to recoup portions of it by selling off underutilized hardware.

i have major issues with keeping too many eggs in one basket. virtualization seems like a good idea on paper, but keeping multiple simultaneous operating systems on the same hardware shouldn't really be used where high-availability is a necessity.

maybe it's just crooked IT consultants and salespeople selling over spec'd hardware, but virtualization just looks like a solution to a problem caused by a previous "solution".

next time you want to deploy several key operating systems, spread it out across separate machines, but be a little more conservative on your hardware purchases.

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Waethorn December 16, 2007 (Article Rating: )

need a cheap server for fewer than 15 workstations? ever thought of using a Celeron?

you can build a fairly low-end (by today's standards) small business server for file, print, email, and update services for very little money. try Intel's fanless D201GLY2 motherboard with integrated Core-based Celeron 1.2GHz and Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Standard. you can even add more systems as member servers with Windows Server 2003 **x64** (yes you read that right - it's Intel 64 compatible).

the motherboard only supports 1GB of RAM, but they also retail for about only $70....that's WITH the processor. they're Mini-ITX form-factor with 1 PCI slot. my suggestions are to add a cheap PCI gigabit Ethernet card as the on-board LAN is only 10/100. 2x SATA I ports and 1 IDE port are also provided.

it's a cheap answer. Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2's recommended system requirements are only a 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of hard drive space, 2 WHQL cert'd ethernet cards from the Windows Server Catalog and a CD or DVD-ROM drive. pretty low-end. you could take one of those motherboards and easily add a dual-port gigabit ethernet card (although not necessary) and it'd meet every single spec there.

that's a server with a seriously low power profile for "green" environments, takes up very little space (try Antec's NSK1380 for a decent SFF case) and costs less than $1000 (including SBS 2003 R2 Standard for nearly $600 of that).

no virtualization technology here. but who really cares? at this price, you can add dedicated member server hardware for very little extra money.

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Waethorn December 16, 2007 (Article Rating: )