Virtual Machine Manager Virtually Here

The first version of Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), a tool to help customers manage Virtual Server 2005—based hardware virtualization, may be useful for customers using Virtual Server 2005, but the majority of organizations using hardware virtualization may want to wait for the next version, which will support Windows Server 2008 virtualization (the Windows Server 2008 hypervisor previously code-named Viridian), as well as virtual machines (VMs) based on VMware and XenSource technology.

(VMM is part of Microsoft’s System Center systems management product line, and so its full name is Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007.)

Managing Large-Scale Virtual Server Installations

VMM, now generally available, is a new software tool for managing hardware virtualization with Virtual Server 2005. Virtual Server enables multiple OS instances to run simultaneously on a single host computer. Each such “guest” OS instance runs in a VM that emulates a complete computer in software, including the processor, memory, graphics card, network interface, and storage devices (such as disk and CD-ROM drives), giving the guest what appears to be sole access to the hardware, while in reality it is shared with other OSs.