Microsoft today announced support for virtualising OCS 2007 R2. This covers both a “both a fully distributed virtualized topology across several hypervisors and for a single server virtualized topology”. They go on to say:
“The following server roles can be deployed:
- Front-End Servers
- Back-End SQL Server 2008 64 bits
- Group Chat Channel Servers
- Group Chat Compliance Servers
- Archiving Servers
- Monitoring (CDR only) Servers
- Edge Access Servers
The virtual machines must be running on Windows Server 2008 64 bits. Archiving Server and Monitoring Server can be connected to a virtualized Enterprise pool, but they must run on a physical server.
The fully virtualized distributed topology has been tested to handle up to 40,000 users, including 10,000 group chat users.
Virtualization of the other workloads is not supported because of possible quality issues with real-time media. Specifically, voice, video, live meeting and desktop sharing workloads cannot be part of the virtualized deployment”.
Ah yes and oh by the way. NO R2..! How can this not be supported on Server 2008 R2 ?
I just checked the official support site for virtualising MS applications. There’s no mention of OCS so I guess it’s not that well maintained. However, the linked article does say “and any Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) certified partner solution”. That would make me think MS was thinking ahead and is OK with the supported OCS components running on Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. Post on the TechNet forums for OCS and you’ll get an answer that is as official as you can get.