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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