Microsoft is to release an OEM Preinstallation Kit to allow OEM’s build a boot-from-flash version of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. That’s according to Jeff Woolsey who said today:
“One thing our customers and partners requested was the ability to boot from flash. Customers told us they would like to purchase a server from their hardware partner of choice with Hyper-V included and they wanted the ability to choose whether it was on traditional spinning media or flash media.
You got it.
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes the unique ability (compared to Windows Server Hyper-V) to boot from flash. We’re making the documentation available to our OEM partners as part of the OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK). Boot from flash is specifically designed for our OEM partners who want to ship an embedded Hyper-V hypervisor and thus will be supported via our OEM partners”.
You’ll also find on that post where Jeff compares the cost of running VMotion against the cost of Live Migration. Many thousands of dollars/euros per server versus free. That’ll make for a short discussion at the IT steering committee 😉
Related to that discussion is the mention of Microsoft openly welcoming Veeam to the partner family. Jeff mentions that Veeam are making a solution for the free Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Of course, we know how VMware bullied Veeam for producing a solution for the free ESXi because VMware wanted people to buy ESX instead.