Phil's Diary: World's End

Tuesday April 4, 2006

World’s End

Is the world about to end? No? Since when has Microsoft started supporting Linux?

Yup, not only has Microsoft decided to give Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition away for free (well, it is facing some stiff competition from Hypervisor based virtualization like Xen, and the not so free VMWare), but it’s also offering support for Linux running within it.

Here’s the Virtual Server page, and here’s the support page listing. In Microsoft’s words: “Today Microsoft announced that Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now available as a free download. This also will apply to the forthcoming service pack 1 of Virtual Server 2005 R2. In addition, Microsoft announced the availability of virtual machine add-ins for Linux and a technical product support model for Linux guest operating systems running on Virtual Server 2005 R2.”

You have to wonder if Microsoft woke up yesterday morning, looked out the window and recoiled in horror, swearing as they realised that all this Xen, VMWare, Hypervisor, Intel VT, AMD Pacifica malarkey means the imminent end for them in the really near future, as opposed to just “soon”.

Well, I’m not sure it’s actually that much doom and gloom, but I guess they’re taking the tack that as Virtualisation gets more widespread (and with hardware support on chip, there’s every reason it will), people will be able to choose more and more operating systems. And with that choice is the requirement for licenses.

So I guess that’s why they seem to be, not only starting to support Linux within their Virtual Server, but also licensing their virtual disk technology to Xen, who have recently started demonstrating Windows running on Intel VT chips too.

This choice of hitching up with Xen may be because they have a hypervisor already, and the performance benefits that gains are going to be missing from Microsoft’s own offering for a while yet (Longhorn Server, perhaps 2008?).

All this of course could lead to lots of choice for us consumers, and I guess that’s why Microsoft are getting in on the party, as I guess they want to sell a few virtual licenses too.

Anyway, I’m just starting a virtual install of Fedora Core 5 (not one on the supported list however), as I type this.

Posted by Phil on April 04, 2006 08:42 PM | Categories: Technology , Technology | TrackBack