Microsoft Changes Its Stance on Virtualization
Huge News in the virtualization world. I'm a little late getting to it, but better late than never. Microsoft has changed the official stance on virtualized environments. One of the questions I get quite often is, "Can I virtualize X?" My answer was typically the same. You can probably do it, though it may be unsupported. Until recently, the official position on virtualization was, in many cases, errors in a virtual environment must be reproduced in a physical environment in order to be "supported" by Microsoft. I'm happy to report this is no longer the case. In this KB article, you can clearly see the products Microsoft will now support in a virtualized environment, providing that environment meets the requirements laid out in the KB article. (Specifically, the environment needs to be virtualized using Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, or a hypervisor which has been certified under the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program.)
Here's the list of products now supported in a virtual environment (as outlined above).
Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)
Microsoft BizTalk Server
Microsoft Commerce Server
Microsoft Dynamics AX
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft Forefront Client Security
Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG)
Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange (FSE)
Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint (FSP)
Microsoft Host Integration Server
Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server
Microsoft Office Groove Server
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server
Microsoft Office Project Server
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services
Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005
Microsoft Search Server
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
Microsoft System Center Essentials
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS)
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
Windows Web Server 2008
Some caveats apply to specific products (such as Exchange), so make sure you look at the article for any specific requirements for the products you plan to virtualize.
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