Virtualization Features Delayed

Key features in the planned Windows Server virtualization service (code-named Viridian) will be cut from the initial release in order to ship within 180 days of the release of Windows Server 2008 (formerly code-named Longhorn). The announcement means that customers might have to turn to competitive virtualization technologies to get key features that Microsoft will not deliver for a year or more. Also delayed to the second quarter of 2007 is Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, which will exploit new processor features to improve virtualization performance.

The changes were announced in a carefully worded blog entry which appeared just before the start of the 2007 Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). Microsoft likely wanted to get the bad news out of the way so that it would not overshadow the company’s WinHEC announcements.

Viridian Cut for First Release

Virtualization technology allows multiple, different OSs to run simultaneously on a single device-each OS runs in its own virtual machine (VM, or computer created in software) on the hardware of a single physical computer. In 2004, Microsoft decided to make virtualization an integral capability of the Windows OS rather than letting it remain a separate product. Furthermore, while Microsoft undoubtedly had learned a great deal from its Connectix acquisition, from which it gained Virtual PC and Virtual Server, it decided not to use the Virtual Server architecture and code base it inherited from Connectix but to instead start over with a clean slate for the virtualization services included in Windows.