Very good article from TechRepublic related to Microsoft Hyper-V
Hyper-V is getting good reviews, even from some Microsoft critics, and the release of the standalone version has made it even more attractive. Deb Shinder looks at the most important aspects of the Hyper-V platform.
Hypervisor technology is software on which multiple virtual machines can run, with the hypervisor layer controlling the hardware and allocating resources to each VM operating system. Hyper-V is the virtualization platform that is included in Windows Server 2008. Microsoft also recently released a standalone version, called Hyper-V Server 2008, that’s available as a free download from the Microsoft Web site.
As server virtualization becomes more important to businesses as a cost-saving and security solution, and as Hyper-V becomes a major player in the virtualization space, it’s important for IT pros to understand how the technology works and what they can and can’t do with it.
In this article, we address 10 things you need to know about Hyper-V if you’re considering deploying a virtualization solution in your network environment.
Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.
#1: To host or not to host?
Hyper-V is a “type 1″ or “native” hypervisor. That means it has direct access to the physical machine’s hardware. It differs from Virtual Server 2005, which is a “type 2″ or “hosted” virtualization product that has to run on top of a host operating system (e.g., Windows Server 2003) and doesn’t have direct access to the hardware.

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