Microsoft Details Plan to Put Virtualization in OS

Computerworld - SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. last week fleshed out the details of a plan to build virtualization capabilities directly into Windows as part of its effort to catch up to virtualization software market leader VMware Inc.

Microsoft plans to adopt an architecture similar to the one VMware uses—a point that VMware seized upon as a validation of its technical direction. But Microsoft said vendors won't be able to differentiate themselves on virtualization alone once the technology is supported in operating systems and chips.

The virtualization road map that Microsoft laid out at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here includes a lightweight "hypervisor" layer of code that will be built into the next major version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, to support the creation of virtual machines.

Microsoft is even "leaning" toward eliminating future versions of its Virtual Server and Virtual PC products, said Mark Kieffer, group program manager of Windows virtualization. But Kieffer added that a decision hasn't been finalized.

More immediately, Microsoft plans to work with unidentified industry partners to expand the support of third-party guest operating systems, including versions of Linux, in the first service pack update for Virtual Server 2005. The update is due by year's end and will also include 64-bit compatibility and improved performance, Microsoft said.

The plans weren't enough to sway Jason Agee, a lead infrastructure systems analyst at the Nebraska Health and Human Services System, from his commitment to VMware.

"Too little, too late," Agee said, adding that VMware's more mature virtualization software performs better on less-powerful hardware and is helping the agency to improve its server utilization rates.

But Tom Bittman, an analyst at Gartner Inc., said that the integration of virtualization technology with operating systems should spur broader adoption. Novell Inc. and Red Hat Inc. also plan to support virtualization technology in their Linux distributions.

Microsoft bought its way into the virtualization market two years ago through its acquisition of Connectix Corp., and it released Virtual Server 2005 last fall. Analysts said Microsoft entered the market primarily to give users of older Windows versions an upgrade path to new hardware.

But consolidating Windows NT servers with Virtual Server requires users to run a copy of Windows Server 2003 as the host operating system. The performance overhead inherent in that approach will be reduced when Microsoft moves to its hypervisor architecture, said Ben Werther, a senior product manager for Windows Server.

In contrast, VMware's rival ESX Server, first released in 2001, doesn't require a host operating system. Instead, it uses a hypervisor layer that runs directly on the hardware.