It was hard to miss the fact that Microsoft released Virtual Machine Manager 2008, the successor to VMM 2007. In this post I will summarize the new features, add a few thoughts about the VMware-Microsoft showdown, and share my experiences when I updated the beta version.

Let’s start with the new key features:

Hyper-V support: VMM 2007 only supported Virtual Server. Of course you still can manage Virtual Server 2005 R2 with VMM 2007.

VMware ESX support: Actually, you can manage VMware Infrastructure 3 with VMM 2008. There is no doubt about it: This is the best way to convince VMware customers to move slowly to Hyper-V.

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• Understanding and Using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Snapshots. http://snurl.com/34dkc Good article.
• With DNS flaw now public, attack code imminent. What about your DNS server?
• SaaS vendor quits browser to boost sales http://snurl.com/34dfv In my view, the hype of browser-based apps will be over soon.
• Price for Microsoft’s Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008): $1,100. Release date could be Sept. 1. http://snurl.com/33rmh
• Update for the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) User’s Guide for Windows Vista. http://snurl.com/33rnv
• Hyper-V RAM Calculator. This is an Excel sheet that helps you to plan the Hyper-V deployment. http://snurl.com/33rq6
• VMware is doing fine: http://snurl.com/33rqy even though their shares fall. ESXi embedded hypervisor will be free. http://snurl.com/33rs5

Rakesh, who runs the program management team for System Center Virtual Machine Manager, (VMM) outlines in his blog why Microsoft decided to support VMware’s virtualization products in the next version of VMM and what this “support” actually means.

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I wrote a review about VMRCPlus a while ago. It is a nifty free tool from Microsoft that can replace the Web interface of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. VMRCPlus has a graphical user interface that allows you to manage Virtual Server in a much more convenient way than with the original Web-based user interface. Version 1.6 has some new interesting features.

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I have spent some more time with Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), Microsoft’s new Virtual Server2005 management tool. My somewhat positive impression which I expressed in two earlier posts about VMM has been dampened a little since then. This is mostly due to the fact that VMM seems to be a bit unreliable.

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Some weeks ago, I blogged about my first impression of Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). I had some time now to have a closer look at Microsoft’s new management tool for Virtual Server. I must admit that VMM made me see Virtual Server with different eyes. A good user interface completely changes the perception of a product.

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I already reported some days ago that a complete installation of VMM is available as VHD file. Just to remind you, System Center Virtual Machine Manager is Microsoft’s new management tool for centralized deployment and management for Virtual Server machines. Now, you can also download a 180-day trial version. The compressed setup file has 1.5 GB. I installed and played a little with SCVMM today.

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Chris Sirrat from the Windows Virtualization Team Blog announced the release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Microsoft’s new centralized management tool for Virtual Server. As I write this, there only is a complete installation as a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) available for download. A 120-day trial version is probably coming soon.

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