News

Microsoft Rolls Out SCVMM 2008 R2 RC

The release candidate (RC) of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2 is now available for public testing, Microsoft announced on Monday.

The application can be downloaded at the Microsoft Connect portal here, using a Windows Live ID. The RC is the last test version before final product availability.

This version of SCVMM 2008 R2 contains about six new features since the beta was released in March. Those features include storage migration, live migration queuing, rapid provisioning, host compatibility checks, support for third-party clustered file systems and support for the Veritas Volume Manager, according to Microsoft's announcement.

Storage migration lets IT pros move the storage of a virtual machine (VM), even while it's running, both within the host and across hosts, according to the announcement. Users have to allocate about two minutes of downtime to make the move. It's not as quick as VMware's Storage VMotion feature, a Microsoft blog admitted. However, it will be widely available. Redmond plans to add the capability across all its SCVMM products, according to that blog.

The live migration queuing feature lets IT pros set up multiple VM migrations, which are then automatically timed. Previously, users could just move one VM at a time. Live migration is Microsoft's term for moving VMs in real time, with little to no downtime experience for the end user.

The host compatibility check feature lets users determine hardware compatibility between the host and destination machines, before moving a VM.

Rapid provisioning is a shortcut that lets users deploy a new VM without a network copy on the virtual hard disk. "You can now create a template which includes the OS answer file and which references a dummy VHD which is not used," Microsoft explained in its announcement.

SCVMM 2008 R2 is part of Microsoft's System Center family of management solutions. The product works with VMware ESX, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.

Most   Popular