A very flashy hypervisor: Hyper-V Server R2

The 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.

Related posts:

1. Create ESXi 4 USB flash drives with Workstation
2. The VMware ESXi 4 64MB Hypervisor Challenge
3. VMware ESXi 5 Scripted Install to USB Flash
4. Hyper-V Server Hyperbole
5. VMware ESXi 4: SD Flash in BL460c G6