Virtualisation: Discover the real-time benefits of a virtual world - reduced costs, improved performance and increased ROI.

Explore this webpage to learn more about the benefits of Virtualisation, answer your FAQs and find out why you should virtualise with Microsoft.

From data center to desktop, Microsoft Virtualisation delivers.

What can Virtualisation do for you?

Save time, maximise resources, access dynamic, multi-server, multi-platform functionality through the full power of x64 computing.

Improve Performance
Virtualisation with Microsoft Hyper-V will help you maximise the power of Windows Server 2008 R2 for dramatic cost savings and performance improvements.

Capitalise on Legacy Hardware
Increase the ROI of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles, as separate virtual machines, running on an existing single physical machine.

Free Your World
And you can even run multiple, different operating systems - Windows, Linux, and others - efficiently, in parallel, on the same server.

Reduce Costs
With Hyper-V, the Microsoft hypervisor based server virtualisation technology, and Microsoft flexible licensing policies; it's now easier than ever to take advantage of the cost saving of virtualisation through Windows Server 2008 R2.

Why Switch to Microsoft Virtualisation?

Microsoft offers more value for less money than VMware

Microsoft offers its virtualisation and management solutions at lower cost and higher value for customers. Microsoft's server solution costs approximately one-sixth the cost of a comparable solution from VMware*.

Microsoft offers more features for your money than VMware

Microsoft provides many capabilities that VMware does not and cannot offer.

This chart compares VMware Enterprise core features with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center Management core features. As you can see, Microsoft is ahead in many of the areas required for a robust desktop to datacenter virtualization and management solution.

For customers who need a hypervisor, the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 has all the features you need

You get live migration and clustering for free with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. These features are available at no additional charge and provide the following benefits for customers:

• Support for live migration for "zero downtime" planned migrations
  
• Support for host clustering for unplanned downtime protection
  
• Lower total cost of ownership compared to VMware ESX 3i
  
• Improved scalability with support for 1 TB host memory and up to 8 sockets

*Based on a server virtualization comparison of Microsoft® System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter with VMware's vSphere Enterprise Plus with VMware vCenter Server. Cost comparisons assumes a five host configuration, 2 processors on each host, 2 years support costs for both products, and no operating system costs included. The Microsoft solution can use either the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 hypervisor or an existing Windows Server 2008 R2 hypervisor. Based on Microsoft estimated retail prices and published VMware prices as of 08/04/2009 for US purchases

FAQs

WHAT IS HYPER-V?

Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008, provides a scalable, reliable, and highly available virtualisation platform.

SO, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR MY BUSINESS?

Hyper-V will give you an ideal platform for key virtualisation scenarios, such as production server consolidation, business continuity management, software test and development, and development of a dynamic datacenter. Hyper-V provides key functionality, which an ideal virtualisation platform should provide - scalability, high performance, reliability, security, flexibility, and manageability.

It provides scalability and high performance by supporting features like guest multi-processing support and 64-bit guest and host support; reliability and security through its hypervisor architecture; flexibility and manageability by supporting features like quick migration of virtual machines from one physical host to another, and integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

WHERE WILL VIRTUAL MACHINE TECHNOLOGY HELP ME?

Virtual machine technology serves many purposes. It enables hardware consolidation, as multiple operating systems can run on one computer. Key applications include cross-platform integration as well as the following:

• Server consolidation. If several servers consume only a fraction of the available resources, virtual machine technology can be used to enable applications to run side by side on a single server, even running different operating systems.
• Consolidation for development & testing environments. Each virtual machine acts as a separate environment, reducing risk and helping developers recreate different operating system configurations or compare versions of applications designed for different operating systems. Developers can test early development versions of an application in a virtual machine without fear of destabilising the system for other users.
• Legacy application re-hosting. Legacy operating systems and applications can run on new hardware along with more recent operating systems and applications.
• Simplify business continuity & disaster recovery. Virtual machine technology can be used as part of a disaster and recovery plan that requires application portability and flexibility across hardware platforms.
• Moving to a dynamic datacenter. Hyper-V, along with systems management solutions, helps you to now create a dynamic IT environment that not only enables you to react to problems more efficiently but also to create a proactive and self-managing IT management solution.

Contact us to learn how you can get Virtualisation for your business.