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Windows: LABS GALLERY: Windows Server 2008 R2 Stands Out Most for Hyper-V, Win 7 Features


Windows Server 2008 R2 is a modest upgrade to Microsofts server operating system line that stands out most for its improvements to Hyper-V virtualization and for new features targeted at Windows 7 clients.
 
  • LABS GALLERY: Windows Server 2008 R2 Stands Out Most for Hyper-V, Win 7 Features
    by Jason Brooks
  • Multiple Management Points
    In contrast with virtualization-only products such as VMware's ESX Server, Hyper-V is baked into Windows Server, which means visiting various separate Windows configuration tools to perform Hyper-V operations such as shared storage management.
  • Validation Wizard
    R2's Failover Cluster Validation wizard proved invaluable for rooting out the handful of configuration wrinkles I encountered during my tests of this feature.
  • Create a New VM
    Once I'd configured my Failover Cluster, I could create new virtual machines from the Failover Cluster management console, as well as from the Hyper-V management consoles for each of my nodes.
  • Legacy Peripherals
    Microsoft has released compatibility drivers for Linux machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, but I had to start out with a "legacy" network device to complete a network installation of my Linux VM.
  • Live Migration
    Moving running VMs from one node to another was fast and easy using the Failover Clustering console.
  • Enlightened Drivers
    Installing the so-called "enlightened" drivers for Linux machines required a bit of dependency hunting. I'd love to see Microsoft smooth this process with a package repository for the drivers.
  • RemoteApp
    I used R2's Remote Desktop Services to make Word 2010 available as a RemoteApp, complete with a Windows installer for integrating the hosted application with client machines.
  • Running RemoteApps
    After installing my Word RemoteApp on a client system, I could launch it from the machine's Start menu.
  • High Availability for VMs
    An entry for "virtual machine" appears in the list of applications and services that may be enabled for high availability.
  • Convert to High Availability
    I set out to cluster one of the VMs I'd created on a single node, but I ended up having to copy and paste my virtual hard drive and recreate a VM using that disk to complete the node-to-cluster migration.
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