Microsoft Hyper-V Leaves Linux Out In The Cold

whitehartstag writes to mention that Microsoft has announced their new Hyper-V as feature-complete. Unfortunately the list of supported systems is disappointingly short. "No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing. Sure, if you are a Microsoft only shop, Hyper-V will be an option for virtualization. But so will VMware and XenServer. But if you run a mixed shop, Hyper-V won't solve your problems alone — you'll have to also add VMware or Xen to your virtualized data center portfolio. Or just go with VMware and Xen and forego Hyper-V."

Comments

WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[mwilliamson]

Microsoft so totally missed the virtualization boat that came by a decade or so ago... I'd liken buying a virtualization product from Microsoft about with buying a vehicle from Merrill Lynch.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[TheRaven64]

They own Connectix, which was one of two companies offering a decent desktop virtualisation package a few years ago. They also got a good x86 emulator in the deal.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[moderatorrater]

It also shows they're out of sync with the current server setups that people have. The number of Microsoft-only shops are dwindling, and they're purposely leaving themselves out of the mixed market.

Aren't they supposed to dominate a market before cutting off interoperability (like IE for mac)?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[meregistered]

Hey mwilliamson

They bought a company... That's what they know about virtualization. And it's taken them about 5 to 6 years to re-work it into something they can really market.

My main concern is that, right now, Microsoft is making their virtualization software very cheap and easy to get for Microsoft shops. In the company I work for VMware is out, for that one simple reason.

Even though we will get limited benefit from M$s version and VMWare is a much better solution...

Marketing wins every time. That's the one thing M$ does well....

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[recoiledsnake]

Stop letting off hot air on the dumbass article. See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it. But Linux distributions work just fine. This is just MS's way of telling people that they're on their own if they try other distributions(this is usually true for Linux servers anyway).

Misinformed blogger makes a flamebait article that reads like ex-lover's childish rant complete with doomsday threats and with a inflammatory headline, the 'editor' doesn't do any editorial work and the hundreds of misguided comments below will just bash on MS and earn insightful, informative and interesting mod points. Also, this will be repeated in the comments in other articles as the gospel truth because most people don't even RTFA, forget about actually seeing if there is a grain of truth in it. In other words, just another day on Slashdot.

If you really want to know about Hyper V, go here .

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Blakey Rat]

Stop letting off hot air on the dumbass article. See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it. But Linux distributions work just fine. This is just MS's way of telling people that they're on their own if they try other distributions(this is usually true for Linux servers anyway).

In the Microsoft world, "unsupported" means literally "we do not support this." i.e. "if you call us for support on this, we won't answer your question." There are a million things that Microsoft doesn't support, but still work perfectly-- Microsoft doesn't support typing in an IP address to Windows Remote Desktop Client, to use a particularly strange example I came across a few years ago, and yet it works fine and always has.

I don't know what Linux people think "unsupported" means, but they have the wrong idea whatever it is.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[afidel]

It doesn't matter. When we talked to MS about Hyper-V they flat out told us we weren't their target market (we're a smaller Fortune 500 company). They basically are targeting Hyper-V at the SMB shop that's outgrown the everything and the kitchen sink model of Windows SMB Server. They don't have the tools to manage large deployments efficiently and so they aren't that worried about the large shop that wants to run Solaris x86 and Linux on the same box. For large virtualization projects you're still looking at VMWare or Xen with the Xen stack looking to make a LOT of progress over the next year or two once the Citrix initiatives kick in.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[OnlineAlias]

While I agree with you that most of this is FUD, the fact that the other distros "work just fine" is irrelevant. "Not supported" means, to the enterprise world, not doable. Meaning, Microsoft VM ain't gonna happen in the big shops.

I think that there is a valid overall point to this submission, regardless of its hyperbole. It is that Microsoft's arrogance to think that they don't have to support other distros is exactly a fall back to their old ways. And this time, giving it away for free or making it a part of the Windows operating system isn't going to save Hyper-V like it did to save so many of their other products. For this fight of the hypervisor (essentially the new OS of the data center), VMWare has all the market share and lock in.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[nuknuk]

Hewlett Packard only supports Red Hat Enterprise linux on their DL lines of server hardware. Does this mean that other versions of linux don't work on them? No. It just means that if you want to run something other than that, they do not have on-site tech support that can assist you. They have to pick their battles, and they chose Red Hat (in the case of HP) or they picked SUSE (in the case of Microsoft). Nothing unusual about this, you see this all the time at the enterprise level.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[recoiledsnake]

"Not supported" means, to the enterprise world, not doable. What about the millions of Gentoo, Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu, FreeBSD etc. servers out there running about 60% of all websites? Are all of them hobby sites with full on-call technical support from the distributions or OSS developers ?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[subzero_ice]

Two things.

A. Not supported means they won't provide tech support.

B. SUSE and other flavors use the kernel from kernel.org

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[dougr650]

Sorry, but although the original article does exhibit some characteristics of an overblown rant, the main point is still valid. Most companies bigger than a mom-and-pop operation simply cannot use something that is "unsupported," regardless of whether it anecdotally "works just fine" or not.

If a user cannot call the Hyper-V tech support regarding an issue they are having running RHEL on Hyper-V and receive a proper response other than "we don't support that," then it is effectively useless and cannot form any part of that company's virtualization strategy. It may work just fine, but there are many companies with specific corporate policies prohibiting use of unsupported software, and in some cases, running into a serious problem with unsupported software can be seen as a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley and may be construed as negligence.

Whether it works OK or not with other linux distributions is irrelevant. Without real support, it's a non-starter for most businesses. That's not MS-bashing or Linux-fanboyism, it's just plain fiscal responsibility.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[init100]

I'm just curious, but isn't virtualization basically the interpretation of assembly instruction from one architecture to another

No it isn't, that's CPU emulation. Virtualization doesn't enable running software for different architectures than the native one.

so that it can be run in near-native or native formats (meaning little to no translation) to the CPU of the physical hardware?

Interpretation meaning little to no translation? I'm sorry, but that does not make sense. Interpretation basically is translation.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[popmaker]

I on the other hand would like to buy a virtualzation product from Microsoft about buying a vehicle from Merrill Lynch.

Please make that happen.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[dhavleak]

It is that Microsoft's arrogance to think that they don't have to support other distros is exactly a fall back to their old ways. Arrogance?

Supporting a platform is a two-way street y'know. If RHEL works smoothly on Hyper-V it's because of the effort Novell and MS have put in.

There will still be corner cases where things don't work. It's impossible to nail them without having Red Hat on board working with MS to do that -- they know their own OS better than MS, they have the test automation etc., and know their scenarios. But Red Hat won't work with MS on this, because even if they wanted to they'd get crucified by the Open Source community (and especially by /.)

For this fight of the hypervisor (essentially the new OS of the data center), VMWare has all the market share and lock in. Is this a good thing?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sorry, but although the original article does exhibit some characteristics of an overblown rant, the main point is still valid. Most companies bigger than a mom-and-pop operation simply cannot use something that is "unsupported," regardless of whether it anecdotally "works just fine" or not. "

Right, but the only other option available to Microsoft is to 'support' all those Linux and who-knows-what-else distributions at an enormous price, when it brings very little benefit to 99% of their customers. It simply isn't worth it, and 'supporting' other OS'es isn't really Microsoft's responsibility anyway. This article is purely pigswill for the Slashbots to wallow in.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[dhavleak]

If a user cannot call the Hyper-V tech support regarding an issue they are having running RHEL on Hyper-V and receive a proper response other than "we don't support that," then it is effectively useless and cannot form any part of that company's virtualization strategy. It may work just fine, but there are many companies with specific corporate policies prohibiting use of unsupported software, and in some cases, running into a serious problem with unsupported software can be seen as a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley and may be construed as negligence. You're correct that for most companies, not supported = cannot use.

You're not correct in assuming that MS can take the lead in supporting RHEL (and other linuxes) on Hyper-V.

To support something, you need to test it thoroughtly and be sure yourself that it works. Then at least when a customer calls with an issue, you know that their scenario is supposed to work.

Now Novell has been partnering with MS for about 2 years now. One of the things they will have done, is to run the gamut of their test automation on Hyper-V virtualized instances of SUSE. Based on this they will give MS the 'green-light' saying 'you are ok to support SuSE on Hyper-V'.

RH has no such working relationship with MS. They may want to (I have no idea), but based on the community reaction to Novell's partnership, I doubt they would enter into one even if they wanted to. Without that, how is MS supposed to validate RHEL?

That's not MS-bashing or Linux-fanboyism, it's just plain fiscal responsibility. I understand. And I'll point out that this isn't MS-fanboyism either (since I'll probably get crucified if I don't). It's just reality -- to support s/w you need to test it first. RH is in the best position to test RHEL.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[BigDish]

As I see it, this is unsupported in the same way that running Windows on VMWare (or any non-MS virtualization) is - best effort. MS doesn't technically support running Windows in VMWare but many companies do it, so MS not supporting something is by no means a dead-end for companies.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[ldj]

I don't know what Linux people think "unsupported" means, but they have the wrong idea whatever it is.

Hey, that's funny, because I consider myself a "Linux person", and I think my definition of "supported" matches yours very closely.

So maybe it's time to rethink your definition of "Linux people" or stop making such generalized statements. ;)

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Ox0065]

Does it means that if you are using Hyper V to run Red Hat (don't ask me why you'd put yourself in that 'position'), and you have a top level service contract with both, and one Patch Tuesday it all goes terribly wrong... ...they (Microsoft) will hand you your top level service contract & tell you where you can stick it..

..oh & you can stick it there outside in the cold. You'll then have to wander over the Red Hat ask them to fix Microsoft's problem around their heath. I imagine that would involve the words "Xen or VMware"

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Microsoft so totally missed the virtualization boat that came by a decade or so ago... "

Everyone knows virtualization is just a fad!

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[jamstar7]

I've always found the definition of 'unsupported by Microsoft' to mean 'we won't fix your problems when we release our next service pack that's designed to break your 3rd party software. You're SOL, so why not call your Microsoft salesclone and go totally Microsoft today so you don't have to worry about these trivial things?'

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Misinformed blogger makes a flamebait article that reads like ex-lover's childish rant complete with doomsday threats and with a inflammatory headline, the 'editor' doesn't do any editorial work and the hundreds of misguided comments below will just bash on MS and earn insightful, informative and interesting mod points. Also, this will be repeated in the comments in other articles as the gospel truth because most people don't even RTFA, forget about actually seeing if there is a grain of truth in it. In other words, just another day on Slashdot. Phew. Bitter much?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[LinuxLuver]

IBM made the same mistake 20 years ago....and paid a high price. They lost PCs and PC software completely......and only partially regained the servers when they were able to virtualise them on mainframes.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Insanity Defense]

Now Novell has been partnering with MS for about 2 years now. One of the things they will have done, is to run the gamut of their test automation on Hyper-V virtualized instances of SUSE. Based on this they will give MS the 'green-light' saying 'you are ok to support SuSE on Hyper-V'. RH has no such working relationship with MS. They may want to (I have no idea), but based on the community reaction to Novell's partnership, I doubt they would enter into one even if they wanted to. Without that, how is MS supposed to validate RHEL?

Redhat won't establish such a "working relationship" with Microsoft because to do so Microsoft will insist on signing a patent agreement like they did with Novel/SUSE. Redhat won't sign such an agreement because it is a virtual admission that they have been violating Microsofts (unspecified) patents.

If Microsoft would establish a deal which is not designed to be totally biased against their prospective partner and the Linux community there would be a chance to make a partnership for virtualization or other such limited objectives. With Microsofts history of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish no company can be blamed for avoiding the Embrace that begins it all.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[laptop006]

Oh really?

What's this then?

(For the lazy "HP provides diverse support services for the Debian GNU/Linux operating system on selected HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers")

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[kenh]

WTF is the big deal - "unsupported" means MS won't support it, didn't test it, and makes no claims toward suitability to task. Here's an example - Firefox is not supported for use on Windows by Microsoft - millions of people run it, but MS has no obligation to make sure Firefox runs properly on Windows (2K, XP, Vista, Server 2000, 2003 or 2008).

Why does MSFT have to "support" every distribution of Linux to demonstrate they "get" virtualization? Isn't providing a standard PC architecture with "legacy" network adapters enough? Any user sophisticated to install and run Server 2008 in a production environment would (IMHO) simply boot the .iso in Hyper-V and see what happens, maybe google-ing a bit first to see if it works or not (not if MSFT "supports" his particular "flavor" of Linux)...

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Bert64]

What good is an x86 emulator these days?
Emulation is slow, why would you buy expensive non x86 hardware and use it to emulate a slow x86, when a real fast x86 system would cost a fraction of the price?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[TheRaven64]

What good is CPU emulation? Ask Microsoft, who want to run x86 XBox games on the PowerPC XBox 360. Ask Apple, who want to run PowerPC apps on x86. Ask Sun, who want to let people run legacy SPARC Solaris apps on x86-64 Solaris. CPU emulation with dynamic recompilation now runs at well over 50% of the original speed, and a modern emulator allows you to call native libraries, making emulated code not much slower than native overall.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Bert64]

Being able to call native libraries is hardly a modern feature, alpha's x86 emulation could do that many years ago, it also did dynamic recompilation and was fairly quick for what it was...

Sparc is also hardly a legacy product, new sparc chips are still being produced and selling quite well (see the ultrasparc-t1 line).

But to clarify, although it would be possible to buy a high end power6 based ibm server, and run multiple emulated x86 machines on it, that would be a stupid thing to do, emulation is not much use in the virtualization arena.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[TheRaven64]

Think about consolidation. If you want to consolidate a dozen UNIX servers onto one machine, you can create a virtual machine for each. Most of your existing programs have been ported to the new architecture, but you have one bit of legacy software that hasn't. You can either consolidate everything except that, or you can consolidate everything and emulate the legacy architecture for that one program. Guess which is likely to be cheaper?

Emulation is still big business.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Jynx77]

running into a serious problem with unsupported software can be seen as a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley and may be construed as negligence. Not only that, but it's a major cause of global warming and stops poor children from getting health care too. Seriously, does anyone even remember the original purpose of SOX?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[GWBasic]

Stop letting off hot air on the dumbass article. See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it. But Linux distributions work just fine. This is just MS's way of telling people that they're on their own if they try other distributions(this is usually true for Linux servers anyway).

That might be true, but...

In the virtualization world, sometimes a less-popular Linux distro does something a little different or is missing a driver needed to interface with a well-known video card, NIC, hard drive controller, ect. (VMs work by emulating well-known and well-supported hardware.)

The old arrogance.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

So, it looks like the old "We don't have to interoperate" arrogance is still going strong at Microsoft. Let's see if they still think that way in another ten years.

Re:The old arrogance.

[the_humeister]

Interesting. That's what people said 10 years ago...

Re:The old arrogance.

[canuck57]

So, it looks like the old "We don't have to interoperate" arrogance is still going strong at Microsoft. Let's see if they still think that way in another ten years.

Then I guess our decision to use VMWare is going to be a good one.

Re:The old arrogance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, but 1998 called and they would like their comment back.

Re:The old arrogance.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Sorry, but I wasn't in this business ten years ago. Ten years ago, I was cleaning toilets so I could pay for college.

Let's not jump the gun...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Are they only supporting SUSE E.S. as an ongoing policy? Or is it just the only one they've certified as of the first release?

Shouldn't any distribution based on a kernel build that doesn't require anything more or significantly different from the underlying hardware, relative to SUSE E.S. work just as well?

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Shouldn't any distribution based on a kernel build that doesn't require anything more or significantly different from the underlying hardware, relative to SUSE E.S. work just as well?

Put another way:

If you have a problem with another distribution under Hyper-V, and Microsoft is refractory about support, shouldn't you be able to replicate the problem under SUSE and make them fix THAT?

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[bguthro]

SuSe posted their patches to the Xen-devel list mid-feb. If other distros want to take their patches, they would be able to run paravirtualized in Windows. The patches met with some resistance from the Xen developers - so if they get into upstream development remains to be seen..

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[nxtw]

Are they only supporting SUSE E.S. as an ongoing policy? Or is it just the only one they've certified as of the first release?

Shouldn't any distribution based on a kernel build that doesn't require anything more or significantly different from the underlying hardware, relative to SUSE E.S. work just as well?

SuSe is currently the only supported Linux distribution, but support for Red Hat is coming in the future (according to the readme for the Linux integration components).

The Integration Components are part binary, part code. They do not appear to be tied to a specific SuSe kernel.

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[Secrity]

There is an agreement between MS and Novell that probably covers this sort of favoritism.

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[10scjed]

Novell bought a hypercall patent license from MS as part of their famous deal, this exclusivity is likely related to that license, imo.

As with anything patent- and MS-related, your guess is as good as mine as to implementability...

So?

[filesiteguy]

Microsoft can choose to support whichever companies that they want. AFAIK, only Novell has signed the Munich Agreement with Microsoft, so it makes sense for Microsoft to exclude the others. At a recent Launch event for Windows Workstation 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008, I saw only Novell was present (with a large booth) showing off Linux products and virtualized Windows environments. (Though it was funny listening to Steve B. try and pronounce SUSE.)

Re:So?

[sniperu]

Is virtualisation such a big thing for SMBs ? I think not. And big shops have separate stuff for Windows and *nix, so the *nix team will choose whatever suites them (Xen, VMWare) and the Windows team is going to do the same. But when you have Hyper-V as free with the SO and VMWare costing a s*it load of money it's going to be really hard to justify VMWare in the budget.... And this my friends is why Hyper-V will be a hit.

Re:So?

[sltd]

AFAIK, only Novell has signed the Munich Agreement with Microsoft, so it makes sense for Microsoft to exclude the others.

I'm pretty sure Turbolinux also signed a similar agreement. I'm guessing SLES is the only Server distro that's covered.

(Though it was funny listening to Steve B. try and pronounce SUSE.)

I take it SUSE isn't pronounced with throwing a chair?

Re:So?

[filesiteguy]

And we can choose to point out how limited their products are as a result. So? Well, that was actually my point. The article kind of spelled out the obvious. It wasn't as if there were any Earth-shattering news in the article. Maybe my sarcasm was lost in translation...

Re:So?

[masdog]

Except most VMware products don't cost "a shitload" of money. A VMware Infrastructure license for a two-processor machine can be had for between $1500 and $3000 depending on the level of support you want. Server 2008 licenses are $999 for standard (w/ five cals) or $3999 for Enterprise (w/ 25 cals). Both of these prices include Hyper-V, which Microsoft's pricing page says is included in the cost and offers reduced price CALs for customers who do not wish to purchase that technology. These are also retail prices and do not reflect license agreement pricing.

If you're running a Windows-only shop and have x64 hardware, then Hyper-V might be the lower-cost option if you want a dedicated server for virtualization. If you're a mixed shop and want official support from Microsoft, then Hyper-V isn't going to be considered because many businesses won't just uproot their infrastructure over $1500 worth of software.

Re:So?

[Lars T.]

Errm, sorry I must have missed your postings where you complained that hundreds of programs were only supported under Red Hat but not SUSE - isn't it great you can hide your Red Hat fanboism under the guise of a honest anti-Microsoft stance?

Overblown

[Ed Avis]

What a storm in a teacup. Will anyone except Microsoft shops want to run Microsoft's virtualization product? Will they care that Debian isn't a 'supported platform', whatever that means? It's not as if other Linux versions won't run; just you won't be able to get Microsoft's famously good technical support to help with setting them up.

Re:Overblown

[gbjbaanb]

It kinda depends how much it'll cost. At the moment we run Linux servers as VM hosts, simply because buying Windows 2003 to run VMware on would cost us £500 a pop. Linux has proven to be stable, and works well.

As for other OS guests on Hyper-V, that depends too... sometimes MS finds 'unsupported options' that basically mean your favourite OS doesn't work, similar to how Vista wouldn;t run on VMware for some really obscure reason. (until VMware worked around the issue, that is).

Re:Overblown

[moderatorrater]

Will anyone except Microsoft shops want to run Microsoft's virtualization product A lot of companies have a mixed environment for whatever reason. A company I used to work for had 90% of its production servers as CentOS, but one of the servers used Windows Server with SQL Server. Having a uniform environment is great if you can manage it, but a lot can't. If they want to use virtualization for some of those lesser used servers, they're going to have to turn to another platform. Releasing enterprise-level software that doesn't serve most enterprises doesn't seem like a smart move on Microsoft's part.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

My company is a MS Gold Certified Partner, and we could care less about 90% of the crap they make.

MS doesn't even care about their partners. They are not making software for us. Or for the consumer. They only make it for their marketing department.

We get every piece of software they make for free. We run Server, SQL, XP, and Office. And even Office is optional given Thunderbird and Open Office.

My 3 year old single core laptop with 1gb of RAM runs far faster on Ubuntu than my DX10 overclocked dual core box with 4gb of ram runs XP. And we won't even go into the Vista debacle here.

The faster their market share goes down, the happier I am.

Re:Overblown

[lukas84]

Why are you working with products you dislike?

Re:Overblown

[PitaBred]

I'd wager that it's something like we run into... "It's what our customers run". That said, I am running 64bit Kubuntu on a screamin' laptop, and it's faster than Windows could ever hope to be with our software. I don't even think that 64bit XP would run on this machine, the drivers don't exist, so Vista would be yet another detriment.

Re:Overblown

[lukas84]

Yeah, but my point is why would anyone force himself to work with products he doesn't like or even hates?

There are lots of jobs out there and it doesn't make much sense to me to be working with products that you WANT to fail. The quality of your work will suffer and such your company as a whole.

funny tag

[SCHecklerX]

not knowing what hyper-v is, wtfishyperv came to mind as a tag. Fishy Pervert?

Re:funny tag

[Anonymous Coward]

>not knowing what hyper-v is, wtfishyperv came to mind as a tag. Fishy Pervert?

That's Pervect

Re:funny tag

[QuietObserver]

That's probably because Hyper-V is a really stupid name.

Little early

[prockcore]

Isn't it a little early to be condemning the software? It's still in beta, we don't know whether more supported OSes are coming.

Re:Little early

[andreyw]

The article is FUD. Clearly, "Linux" is supported. It just says that the only distro officially supported is SUSE. Everything else is in the "hey, I got it to work" domain. And seriously... it not their job to make sure it works with every distro. Their job is to make sure the linux kernel can run efficiently in it. That's it.

shooting selves in foot

[SCHecklerX]

If they won't virtualize other OS's, then they are not an option to be the main os in places that make use of virtualization.

You'd think they'd WANT to support everything, and do it well, so that people would actually *want* to choose them as the host os.

Stupid.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[KevMar]

Not supported does not mean that it will not run it.

Microsoft does not support the piracy of its software, but people still do it with out microsoft's support.

The fact taht they mention one distibution speaks wonders for them. At the same time they are saying you can run linux, but you didn't hear it from us.

If your running linux, support is something you do yourself most of the time anyway.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[ArsonSmith]

And looking at VMWare's new beta 3i product it gets rid of the host OS completely and loads nothing but the vmware hypervisor. It's designed to be only 16M and fit in a flash chip.

Have a VMWare cluster setup with vmotion and you want to upgrade hosts. Slap in another 3i box, pre-configured, turn it on and let VMWare rebalance the hosts.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[Todd Knarr]

MS sees anything but Windows as a threat to their existence. But they can't figure out how to fight a community. They do know how to fight and beat a company, though. So their plan is to reduce Linux to a single company, then deal with that company.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[miknix]

So their plan is to reduce Linux to a single company, then deal with that company Good point! Although it is very difficult to resume Linux, GNU and all the community as a single atom.
So we should all be cool with that since Micro$oft will go nowhere thinking in that manner.

But.. Am I the only one thinking that this is another step of Micro$oft to divide the Linux community?

Re:shooting selves in foot

[molarmass192]

Not supported does not mean that it will not run it.

True ... but 99.999% of IT shops in companies with more than 10 employees have policies in place that say unsupported == we won't run it. It's the reality of IT in anything but mom-and-pop envs.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[lukas84]

Does Vmware support Ubuntu or Debian, or other non-commercial Distributions?

I've found this link:
http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm

But i don't know what the VMware lingo "supported" actually means.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[Firehed]

Not supported indeed doesn't mean "won't work". However, when the competition DOES support what you're looking to do, which are you going to pick? Corporate policies and such be damned - if you have two options, one of which WILL work and the other MAY work, you'd have to be pretty daft to go with the latter.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[Locutus]

I was going to stay out of this but alas, I can not. My take on this is that many Microsoft shops will use this Microsoft technology and will hesitate to load anything listed or mentioned as unsupported. They are left with only trying or using Suse because they are a Microsoft shop and they will use this Microsoft product. That includes the mental exercises related to having two virtual machine engines running just to try out some Linux based open source product.

This game here is to play on the virtual machine court and only let a puppet such as Novell on the court. The market is dictating they play the virtual machine game and in the Linux game but they must protect their position with Windows. So here we are, nothing new, nothing unexpected and when they pull the trigger on Novell, we'll have more gasps from the crowd asking how or why they would do such a thing.

BTW, did they ever say they would support other Linux versions on Microsoft Virtual PC or was that one of those, it will likely work but we're not supporting thing? VirtualPC had multiple supported OSes until Microsoft purchased it.

LoB

Ummm... Yeah? And?

[pla]

Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology.

My GOD! The sky... It's gone all... BLUE !



Seriously... It surprises me far more that they included SuSe, than the rest that they left out.

Maybe the will work.

[LWATCDR]

Notice that these are supported systems. That doesn't mean that other OS's will not work.
Novell probably agreed to help Microsoft support Suse Enterprise. Redhat isn't playing nicley with Microsoft so Microsoft isn't going to play nice with Redhat.
Fedora? Not a chance. Fedora is cutting edge code. I have no idea why people use this for servers when there are better distros to use on a server.
CentOS? Well this is a better distro to use on server than Fedora but it is Redhat without the support and price tag.
Finally BSD? BSD is dieing..... Just kidding. I just don't think Microsoft feels that it is worth the time.
What I didn't see is if Solaris is on the list.

So buy VMWare or use Xen folks.
Really if you want to be a Microsoft shop and run Linux then you now have an option of a Microsoft blessed Linux. If you are not a "Microsoft" shop then you can use VMWare, Xen, or VirtuaBox and have a lot more options.
I guess on the bright side they are supporting a Linux distro. It could have been a Windows only vm system.

Hyper-V is what now?

[Matt Perry]

And just what is Hyper-V? The summary doesn't explain it. I even went against the grain here read the article (gasp!) and the article doesn't explain it. It implies that it might have something to do with virtualization but doesn't really explain itself. The "article" appeared to be more of a comment than news.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[ArsonSmith]

It's a conglomeration of tech from Xen's Hypervisor and work done by citrix and Novell to make windows the DomU in Xen.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[Loconut1389]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx

"
Introducing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the next-generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. With Hyper-V, you can also efficiently run multiple different operating systems--Windows, Linux, and others--in parallel, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

Key Features of Hyper-V:

        * New and Improved Architecture. New 64-bit micro-kernelized hypervisor architecture enables Hyper-V to provide a broad array of device support methods and improved performance and security.
        * Broad OS Support. Broad support for simultaneously running different types of operating systems, including 32-bit and 64-bit systems across different server platforms, such as Windows, Linux, and others.
        * Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP) Support. Ability to support up to four multiple processors in a virtual machine environment enables you to take full advantage of multi-threaded applications in a virtual machine.
        * Network Load Balancing. Hyper-V includes new virtual switch capabilities. This means virtual machines can be easily configured to run with Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service to balance load across virtual machines on different servers.
        * Hardware Sharing Architecture. With the new virtual service provider/virtual service client (VSP/VSC) architecture, Hyper-V provides improved access and utilization of core resources, such as disk, networking, and video.
        * Quick Migration. Hyper-V enables you to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from one physical host system to another with minimal downtime, leveraging familiar high-availability capabilities of Windows Server and System Center management tools.
        * Virtual Machine Snapshot. Hyper-V provides the ability to take snapshots of a running virtual machine so you can easily revert to a previous state, and improve the overall backup and recoverability solution.
        * Scalability. With support for multiple processors and cores at the host level and improved memory access within virtual machines, you can now vertically scale your virtualization environment to support a large number of virtual machines within a given host and continue to leverage quick migration for scalability across multiple hosts.
        * Extensible. Standards-based Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interfaces and APIs in Hyper-V enable independent software vendors and developers to quickly build custom tools, utilities, and enhancements for the virtualization platform.
"

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[hcmtnbiker]

It seems to be a special hypervisor with an API linking the "root" and "child" systems. Look at the wikipedia article for more info I guess.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[recoiledsnake]

The "article" appeared to be more of a comment than news. You must be new here. The article was not posted because of content but because of the headline(which basically implies that Suse Enterprise Linux is not Linux, WTF?). Microsoft says in their pitch that Hyper-V supports Linux, and a random bloggers says they don't, at all. Both are wrong in their own way :(

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[Matt Perry]

It's a conglomeration of tech from Xen's Hypervisor and work done by citrix and Novell to make windows the DomU in Xen.

Thanks. I wish the original submitter could have said that. Your one line response had more information in it (and was more interesting) than the entire non-article and summary.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[ArsonSmith]

At least that was my understanding. Citrix bought Xensource and then worked with Microsoft to make windows the DomU on that Hypervisor.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true--the hyper-v hypervisor is totally new, rather than being a cut down linux kernel (like Xen). It's written entirely by Microsoft. It does use Windows as the primary service/ hardware interface OS (not sure what MS calls it), serving the same purpose as the DomU in Xen. Looks like it also provides Xen APIs to guest operating systems. Not sure if the supported Windows operating systems use them or something else, although I imagine documentation is available somewhere.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[andreyw]

Wow. You couldn't be any more wrong.

Define 'Suppported'

[kneecap]

Could it be that only SUSE is 'officialy' supported and that other Operating Sytems will work anyway? It seems that the major requirement for Linux (including SUSE) is a 'Xen-Enabled' kernel.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx

the shift.

[Neuropol]

eventually, life as we know it will shift to the other side. kind of like all the excess crap in the boat, weighing down on side and then some thing happens: and it all shifts to the other side, rocking the boat, making every one uneasy. Get used to it. It's coming.

Just like the financial shakedown, the OS market will filter itself out. If a company does not want to comply with global standards, and instead pave their own road, then they'll be happy knowing they're the only ones driving on it a few years from now. Microsoft: enjoy your open road.

Actually, this *could* be a good thing

[fragMasterFlash]

The biggest bone I have I to pick with existing virtualization solutions is the lack of hardware accelerated graphics support. If this lock-in allows Hyper-V to share access to GPU accelerated rendering in a virtualized environment then I will be all over this like a fat kid on a donut. But then again, since when has M$ ever been innovative?

bullet vs foot

[zappepcs]

No, it's not a little early. When you make an announcement, the lid is open and Pandora's legend is all over your shoes. The announcement did not say Suse is the first to be supported, it simply only listed it as supported. AND when you drink the coolaid, do you ever feel guilty? MS has a reputation that spoils any mis-step that the marketing droids might make. In fact this is so prevalent that not many people actually believe MS unless it is in writing and PJ has signed off on it. No matter how unfair that might be, one only has to look at the circus that OOXML has become to know that MS are not to be trusted... sigh

Re:bullet vs foot

[zappepcs]

Well, first, it's not doughnuts, it's Octoberfest. Second, I've been around since before windows version 1.0. You can tell me what you think of my attitudes but they are based on the reality of having to deal with Microsoft. I have witnessed all that MS has done to pervert the course of normal business, never mind what they have done to pervert the course of fairness. So easily you spill your insults, so poorly you express yourself. Get a grip, some of us DO know more than you.

Why oh why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would one want to run a proper OS inside virtualisation software on top of an insecure, unstable operating system?

Makes no sense to me.

Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[erroneus]

...well it's relatively new for them anyway.

For people who understand and appreciate the value of virtualization, I cannot imagine why someone would want to run a server on a Microsoft host of any kind whether it's VMWare on Windows or Hyper-V. If Microsoft would like people to trust that this platform would be reliable, they should build it on an entirely new kernel or at least one that's very stripped down that will support ONLY the purpose of running VMs. A Hyper-V host doesn't need Solitaire running on it. Ordinarily, I might suggest a Linux or BSD kernel and minimal environment, but we know they'd sooner die.

Re:Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[ArsonSmith]

Actually it's based on the Xen Hypervisor, which is a stripped down micro kernel. Windows is just vertualized and becomes the primary control host, or DomU in Xen terminology.

Re:Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[VampireByte]

"A Hyper-V host doesn't need Solitaire running on it."

Well put, I installed Win2008 Server last week to start doing some testing for a client and was surprised that the installation process puts games on the machine and has folders like My Pictures and My Music. I mean really, is this supposed to be a serious server operating system? If "yes" then why would you have such things installed? It makes no sense to me at all.

Re:Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[GiMP]

Yes, but no. Its a hypervisor *like* Xen, which supports Xen guest kernels, but the hypervisor is completely rewritten from the ground up. This will allow a migration path to, or from, Xen for those interested. Its surprisingly open of Microsoft, because it really gives their customers a good option to migrate away from their platform. On the other hand, it might not be entirely bad news for Xen users, because if Citrix really mucks stuff up, you've always got the choice to move to a Microsoft solution. A Microsoft solution might not be ideal, but its better than being left stranded without any solution if, for some reason, Citrix drops the ball.

Overall, though, I'm not that sure these developments are good for Linux -- because Citrix is very much in the Microsoft camp. Xen users have found themselves now reliant on Citrix and/or Microsoft. This is concerning, and I for one am following it closely.

Re:Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[lukas84]

That's why Microsoft introduced Windows Server Core. It's a core without most of the UI Framework and most of the Windows Shell.

Windows Server Core is the recommended way to deploy Hyper-V. If you do not know Server Core yet, look into it.

It's a very nice way to deploy basic infrastructure like domain controllers, DHCP / DNS / WINS, etc. servers with a reduced attack and maintenance surface.

Re:Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[nxtw]

Well put, I installed Win2008 Server last week to start doing some testing for a client and was surprised that the installation process puts games on the machine and has folders like My Pictures and My Music.

The installation process does not install games and picture/music playing software by default. You need to select the "Desktop Experience", which does install this kind of software.

I mean really, is this supposed to be a serious server operating system? If "yes" then why would you have such things installed? It makes no sense to me at all.

If the system is designed to be used as a terminal server, for example.

The point, I think, is thus...

[Oxy the moron]

... Microsoft doesn't need to corner the "we've already got a brazillion servers and we need virtualization technology now!" group. I think Microsoft can still very successfully leverage this against small Microsoft-only shops. Small business with 50 employees and 8 servers? Cut your IT admin staff down to two or maybe even one! Pay us $x,xxx once and stop paying those lackey's $xx,xxx per year plus benefits!

In my experience, most small business *don't* have more than Microsoft products, and if they do, it's just the occasional Linux server. And putting that on SUSE, with promises of bells and whistles from the mighty Microsoft, shouldn't be too hard of a sale.

Re:The point, I think, is thus...

[genmax]

But why would a Microsoft only shop want/need virtualization ? I imagine that a vast majority of hyper-v's customers will be those who want to run two OS-es on one system, and lets face it - the OS they're most likely to want to virtualize on a windows machine will be Linux.

I still don't understand what they mean by "supported" though. How can this *only* work for SuSe ? Are there going to be proprietary programs running on the SuSe guest - and if so, what really prevents me from running them on my Gentoo box. Or do they mean that they only guarantee that SuSe will work - anything else may work, but you're on your own.

Re:The point, I think, is thus...

[lukas84]

Supported means just that: You can call MS PSS and tell them that their Shit doesn't work. That doesn't mean that it won't work. There is a lot of stuff that is not supported for a variety of reasons:

e.G. Exchange 2007 Version is not supported in ANY virtualized Environment - it works perfectly fine though and hundreds of people, even Microsoft uses that for testing and demo purposes. It just means that if you have a critical problem and call up PSS, you will not get help.

Think of "forcibly recommended" :)

Re:The point, I think, is thus...

[nxtw]

Hyper-V only costs $28 more as part of a Windows Server 2008 license (that is, if the price for one license was $999 with Hyper-V, the price without Hyper-V would be $973). This is a pretty insigificant cost if you're already going to buy Windows Server 2008. When Hyper-V is done (it's currently a Release Candidate), supposedly MS will release it as a standalone product and sell it for $28.

Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V licenses allow you to run a certain number of guest instances of Windows using that same license (more details). The amount of guests you can run on a Hyper-V server is not limited by the license (only technical limits apply).

But why would a Microsoft only shop want/need virtualization ?

To run multiple instances of Windows Server on one piece of hardware...

I imagine that a vast majority of hyper-v's customers will be those who want to run two OS-es on one system, and lets face it - the OS they're most likely to want to virtualize on a windows machine will be Linux.

Not quite. People already use VMware products to run virtual Windows instances.

Of course, they can already do this with VMware ESX (expensive) or VMware Server (free, but not as good as a hypervisor-based system like VMware ESX or Hyper-V). Hyper-V provides virtualization similar to Xen - one guest is the "host" and is used for management and hardware access. Most x86 operating systems will run without modifications It's not as advanced as VMware ESX Server, but it's closer than VMware ESX in functionality than VMware Server or Virtual PC.

I still don't understand what they mean by "supported" though. How can this *only* work for SuSe ?

Microsoft provides drivers for SuSe for use with a SuSe Xen domU kernel. You can run any other Linux OS, but it will run in a virtualized environment instead. The readme for the integration components state that RHEL 5 will be supported in the future.

The code does not appear to be a binary-only module for a specific kernel. It appears to be part code, part binary, so it may be possible to compile the code for other kernels besides SuSe's.

Decades of experience is not jumping the gun.

[Mactrope]

Why would you go to the trouble when other solutions just work? Trusting Microsoft to run Linux ... there is no propper analogy for such a stupid thing.

Re:Decades of experience is not jumping the gun.

[Thaelon]

You mean like the fox guarding the hen house?

Re:Decades of experience is not jumping the gun.

[xdotx]

You mean like the fox guarding the hen house? or maybe, hens guarding the fox house?

Re:Decades of experience is not jumping the gun.

[smellsofbikes]

>Trusting Microsoft to run Linux ... there is no propper analogy for such a stupid thing. Sure there is, and it is, of course, a car analogy: it's like trusting the keys to your best friend's father's Ferrari 250 GT to two parking attendants.

Troll article

[recoiledsnake]

Hyper-V is not a full fledged cpu/hardware emulator like VMWare and is more of a hypervisor which needs support from the client operating system (like Xen which they have a licencing deal with). This is because there are some hardware x86 instructions which conflict each other when run on two operating systems at the same time. So, there actually needs to be some client side code that needs to plug into the Linux kernel code. Right now, I guess only Novell has it in as they are MS's partner.

There could be several licensing problems with third party patents and licenses before releasing it as GPL. Or, it might not have been released now because Hyper-V has already been delayed a lot and the team must be in a hurry to push out the beta instead of testing it against every distribution of Linux in the wild.

Last of all, the headline. Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 isn't Linux? The headline should've said only SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was supported. Instead, we have a inflammatory headline designed to rake in the hits from angry visitors. And it worked.

Re:Troll article

[pythas]

Shitty article with a misleading headline posted on Slashdot about Microsoft? I'M SHOCKED.

I've been running Ubuntu Server using Hyper-V since 2008 came out without any problems.

Re:Troll article

[nxtw]

Hyper-V is not a full fledged cpu/hardware emulator like VMWare and is more of a hypervisor which needs support from the client operating system

False. Hyper-V works with arbitrary guest operating systems (that is, it provides eumlated hardware to run most x86 operating systems). However, it operates better with hypervisor-aware OSes - much like Xen.

Re:Troll article

[recoiledsnake]

Shitty article with a misleading headline posted on Slashdot about Microsoft? I'M SHOCKED. I've been running Ubuntu Server using Hyper-V since 2008 came out without any problems. Didn't a Microsoft representative come and strap that computer outside into the snow? I think that's what the headline is talking about and it happened to the guy who wrote it.

Re:Troll article

[sjwest]

Real bofh's run Debian*.

* humour

Re:Troll article

[pythas]

True, I was just lazy and bored. :)

So?

[Rix]

If it works with SuSe, I'm sure it will work with any other flavour.

Besides, if you're anything but a pure MS shop, you're not going to be using windows as the host OS anyway.

Par for the course.

[Mactrope]

Buy something that works and screw it up while breaking everything else.

Re:Par for the course.

[robertjw]

Buy something that works and screw it up while breaking everything else.

Hell of a business model, isn't it?

Re:Par for the course.

[Mactrope]

Hell's business model has blown through $40 billion in three years. Looks like a loser to me.

Re:Par for the course.

[robertjw]

Hell's business model has blown through $40 billion in three years. Looks like a loser to me.

Maybe, but it's made Gates a LOT more money than that over the years - and it's always been the same.

Re:Par for the course.

[PitaBred]

You realize that Microsoft BOUGHT the Virtual Server product from Connectix? They didn't actually make it. The quality of Virtual Server has no bearing on the quality of Hyper V, since they were developed by completely different companies, let alone teams.

Given that Hyper-V doesn't actually support virtualization except under Microsoft's shroud (Novell is part of it now), I see no way that it is going to actually do anything other than try to lock people into yet more Microsoft proprietary incompatible bullshit.

Re:Par for the course.

[Ex-MislTech]

Proprietary IS the Microsoft business model.

Lock-in is the thin thread the cling to, as the
sound of inevitability rushes toward them in the
form of a global mind writing all the code it needs
for all things for free and open source.

We may not be as nimble, or elegant in all aspect,
but open source is like slow moving lava on Hawaii
and the house of Microsoft is going down ... eventually.

Its not a matter of if, but when.

Re:Par for the course.

[shokk]

And somehow they managed to mess it the product when they effectively had a good start.
For not embracing openness, Microsoft completely cripples their product and makes sure that serious virtualization implementers will avoid that solution at all costs.

Re:Par for the course.

[Bert64]

Microsoft products have almost always been inferior, they don't operate by making better products, they operate by marketing and leveraging monopolies in other areas.
A few years from now, what are the odds that all the better virtualization tech has been eliminated or relegated to niche markets, and microsoft's half assed implementation is widely deployed and completely stagnant, having not been improved since they attained a dominant position.

Microsoft VPC a Big POS

[flahwho]

If the article refers to MS VirtualPC, then I concur that it is one big POS and not worth the price tag of free! VMware has consistently stayed ahead of the curve for many years in the virtualization game and will probably continue to.

Re:Microsoft VPC a Big POS

[pak9rabid]

If the article refers to MS VirtualPC, then I concur that it is one big POS and not worth the price tag of free! VMware has consistently stayed ahead of the curve for many years in the virtualization game and will probably continue to. Hyper-V = Microsoft's upcoming virtualization technology
VirtualPC = Microsoft's old, crappy virtualization software

Hyper-V != VirtualPC

Re:Why is this surprising?

[ArsonSmith]

MS Actually sees VMWare as a huge threat. That is why they are rushing Hyper-V to market with little to no real features and offering one license to cover all VMs in the host.

wtfishyperv?

[kinthalas]

I don't think I want to know anything about a "fishy perv."

Re:wtfishyperv?

[xtracto]

you could go ask at ExpertSexChange.com if you are curious...

virtual mess

[flahwho]

Unfortunately, SB's with 8-50 employees like the one i work for had idoits running their IT internally and outsourced from a tech place. now they're gone and I'm currently working through all the idiotic mess the prior employees and service companies did. Id like to be paid $xxx,xxx for what im doing, but try tellin that to them. What I'm doing is saving thier asse(t)s! Virtualization is the key, but only because they chose to run legacy for so friggin long! BTW I use VMware and nothing else for a reason.

It Could Be Desperation...

[NeverVotedBush]

I don't see why the parent was modded as flamebait. I think it is a valid observation or else Microsoft would have done better at interoperability.

Maybe it isn't arrogance that caused Microsoft to go this current route. It could be they are trying to force Linux out of their (presumed) territory. It could be an act of desperation as Microsoft watches the world move to open source operating systems and applications. These new Eee PC platforms that cost only a hundred bucks or so will be pulling the rug out from under Microsoft as they have to forgo profit just to stay in the game. And as finances in the USA tighten up, there will be even more pressure to leave the expensive proprietary closed source world behind in favor of the open and free siren song of Linux.

Priced Microsoft products recently? It's unbelievable -- especially when you can get most all functionality for free. And Linux is now much friendlier than it was before. While I am a Linux fan-boy, the facts are what they are and Microsoft is just as capable of seeing it as we are.

And any business setting that wants/needs to maintain some MS compatibility ought to look at Codeweaver's Crossover Office. I use it here and it lets me run Microsoft Office apps under Linux with no virtualization needed. They install and run fine. Same for a lot of other software that supposedly is Windows-only.

Re:It Could Be Desperation...

[ehrichweiss]

Is there a new version of Crossover Office? I don't remember the last version I used but it wouldn't install any versions of Dreamweaver past version 8, IIRC. If they've worked past this then I might give them a go, again. I have to use DW so I'm a mixed shop until they either get CO working, *or* they port DW to Linux(which I hear Adobe is becoming more open to that idea but not quite yet ready to take the plunge).

Re:It Could Be Desperation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, the Linux "siren song".

You must not have ever read The Odyssey, you'd know that the sirens sang their irresistable song to lure sailors to their doom....

The old saw

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it looks like the old "We don't have to interoperate" arrogance is still going strong at Microsoft. Let's see if they still think that way in another ten years.

You guys said the same exact thing ten years ago... and MS still doesn't need to interoperate.

Care to make a wager you will repeat the same statement ten years from now?

From the OP:

"No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing. Sure, if you are a Microsoft only shop, Hyper-V will be an option for virtualization. But so will VMware and XenServer. But if you run a mixed shop, Hyper-V won't solve your problems alone -- you'll have to also add VMware or Xen to your virtualized data center portfolio. Or just go with VMware and Xen and forego Hyper-V."

Yes... because it's all about choice... so having MS be one of the choices is SO FREAKING HORRIBLE!!! OMG!!!

As usual, the "all about choice" crowd proves that they really mean all about choice, so long as none of your choices dares to be Microsoft. IMO, you guys should be happy they provided official support for anything at all.

Re:The old saw

[PitaBred]

Sure, go ahead and choose Microsoft. The problem is that Microsoft has proven again and again that if you choose them, you can choose nothing else, ever. If you're fine with tying all your company's infrastructure to the whims of a convicted monopolist, feel free to do so, but sane people aren't ok with that. If Microsoft says your bug isn't important enough (if they even deem you worthy of acknowledgment), you are fucked, period. You can't switch to a competitor, you have too much invested in your infrastructure and if you have to change one thing, you get to change everything.

I'm not against having Microsoft as a choice. I just think people should realize WHAT they're choosing when they choose Microsoft, which is basically becoming their bitch and paying for the privilege.

Re:The old saw

[PitaBred]

How much are they paying you to be a shill?

Hey, it is kinda fun doing these ad hominem attacks! They're completely baseless!

By the way, they were convicted by the EU, and that was NOT overturned. But hey, go ahead and think the US is the center of the world. Even though I live here, I realize it isn't.

wtf indeed

[DJCouchyCouch]

I parsed the "wtfishyperv" tag as "wtf I shy perv"

wtfishyperv

[patternmatch]

This story is tagged "wtfishyperv", which I first read not as "wtf is hyper v", but "wt fishy perv"...soo confused.

Hook Patches

[tinkerghost]

According to some digging, it seems that SUSE has tweaked some XEN code to properly work with the MS Hypervisor. The patch isn't well accepted in the Xen-dev group & may not make it to the reference build.
So, anyone using the SuSE patch can run under this, but at the cost of loosing their supplied kernel.

Tags, no spaces no caps

[Alsee]

I really like the wtfishyperv tag on this story.
This story is seriously What The Fishy Perv!

-

Fine with me!

[Ari Rahikkala]

I always thought Scatter Pack Vs were better after all.

Re:Try it before you whine

[nxtw]

1) If they're officially supporting SUSE then give them props for at least that much.

They will also officially support RHEL 5 in the future according to the "Integration Components for Linux Read Me". This should (at least) provide support for CentOS.

Re:installed Hyper-V and soon uninstalled Hyper-V

[lukas84]

Is WS2008 supported on that Machine? I know that IBM took it's sweet time on adding WS08 support on their current machines - HP supported a variety of Betas and RCs, and IBM didn't support anything.

Why should they support linux?

[nurb432]

its not their product, they don't make money off it.. so why should they spend the development dollars ?

Its not like we don't have other choices that do, like VMware, Xen, Qemu....

Re:Why should they support linux?

[peektwice]

its not their product, they don't make money off it.. so why should they spend the development dollars ? Because the PC is not their product either, and if they weren't simply trying to further their monopoly position, they could easily build support for additional OSes. Imagine if they were a much smaller company and they were only selling Hyper-V. They'd certainly build the support in then wouldn't they? But they're not small, they're a near monopoly that's artificially holding on to that position.
On a side note, would you tolerate a TV that only got NBC? What if it supported only NBC affiliated channels? See my point? Computer and software manufacturers should strive to interact, not build silos.

Guess WHAT?

[killmofasta]

"More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking."

and:

THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY.

Were you expecting they would release it open source?

it's worked well so far

[sentientbrendan]

>So, it looks like the old "We don't have to interoperate"
>arrogance is still going strong at Microsoft.

Really, why would Microsoft spend money on Linux integration with companies that they don't have a relationship with, like redhat? Why are you getting pissed at them for doing exactly what is in their own business interests?

>Let's see if they still think that way in another ten years.

Well, they thought that way 10 years ago, and then 10 years before that, and every business on the planet thinks that way, so by using logical induction to generalize *yes* Microsoft will think that way 10 years from now.

I'm always surprised when people get angry because Microsoft doesn't just choose to roll over and die.

It should be noted that the article misses the point of this new product, which is that it provides hypervisor support (like xen) as opposed to their old virtualization products which did not. Aside from that they seem to support Suse now.

Actually, presumably if Suse works, so will most other Linux distributions, after all the kernel is the same, and that is the piece of software which matters.

BSD

[Prototerm]

Microsoft will change their tune, you just wait and see. When Windows 8 comes out as a GUI layer on top of BSD, they'll take it seriously.

I figure it this way: Microsoft steals every other idea that comes out of Apple, what's one more?

Of course, they'll have to screw up BSD's guts so it's compatible with the vulnerabilities ... er ... I mean features ... in older Windows software, but, hey, that's how it goes, you know? You can't make a chicken without breaking a few eggs.

Or something like that.

Re:BSD

[LWATCDR]

I know it is a joke but they could emulate the old Windows API aka WINE and come up with a new clean API. Just like Apple did with OS/X.

Compatible != Supported

[xWakawaka]

This entire article and thread are based on word games that have rendered it value-less.

The word "supported" has a very specific meaning for Microsoft. It means tested/documented/optimized/escalation support paths staffed/etc/etc.

Hyper-V is a hypervisor based virutaization solution that presents a generic x86 or x64 platform to guest OSes, just like most virtualization solutions. Therefore just about any x86 or x64 operating system will work on it, just like with most virtualization solutions.

The misunderstanding here is around the word "supported." VMWare, for example uses the word "supported" to mean "compatible", so VMWare will say that they "support" just about any x86 OS, when really there is no backing or active support behind that, they're just saying it "should work". Microsoft would use the word "compatible" to describe the same concept and in that sense just about any x86 OS is "compatible" with Hyper-V. "Supported" for Microsoft is an entirely diffent animal (again, meaning testing/optimization/active support/hiring people/contracts signed/etc), and for obvious reasons the "supported" list is short.

Re:Compatible != Supported

[AnyLoveIsGoodLove]

check this out... i think you are talking out of your arse

http://vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf

Best of both worlds

[OrangeTide]

Sell Windows Server licenses on machines that will be running Linux VMs. Customers that want Linux can use it, yet still pay Microsoft money.
I kind of assume that SuSE was partnering for the Hyper-V support, and that it's really SuSE's job to push the support to the rest of the community. Seeing as it is SuSE's distro and not Microsoft's, and that SuSE is the one bound by the GPL and the touchy feely morality of the Linux community.

(disclaimer: didn't RTFA)

Compatibility and support

[LLcj]

there's a difference. folks, the listed OS's are supported by MSFT...ie, you can call them up for support. there's a difference. The other OS's operate just fine in many cases. They just haven't gone through qualification and you can't call MSFT for help. umm, how many folks out there run apps that currently aren't "supported" on VMware and Xen?

They support only 1 single product.

[DrYak]

See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it.

The fact is that almost any other commercial company, is offering support for at least 3 Linux platforms.
A very high number of commercial Linux application is tested and supported for at least RedHat, SuSE and Ubuntu.
(for a concrete example similar to microsoft's product, have a look at the list of platforms officially supported both as hosts and as guest. They don't even limit the list of officially supported distributions as guests, only recommand some kernel versions for linux guests)

In short the message is that :
- Either choose microsoft product, and you'll only ever get support for 1 single distro. You're on your own for anything else.
- Or choose a concurrent product which at least gives you several officially supported OSes to pick from, and get official support.

So except for some universities that have their own big support team that can handle it by themselves, no corporate setting would be interested into a product where you'll have to be on your own, because the company doesn't want to officially support more than 1 product. The only situation where this might have commercial success - that I can think of - are 100% Microsoft-only shops that might want to test a little bit of Linux virtualisation and are OK to pick up whatever distribution Microsoft recommends them.

But on the other hand, comming from Microsoft, the restiction of choices doesn't surprise me at all.

Novell should expect to have their code rejected

[Burz]

Do you think XAN and other projects like the possibility of incorporating MS patents into their codebase?

Novell have stated that their main focus is now 'interoperability' via the Microsoft patents that have been granted to them. Novell's corporate culture has no compelling reason to avoid implementing MS patents; quite the opposite in fact. Their execs are making increasingly flaky, shift statements WRT patents as well.

I don't think it odd at all that they are mistrusted.

Then why not support the largest server distro?

[Burz]

Frankly the omission of RHEL support clearly shows that an agenda is being followed that hasn't much to do with creating a useful/desirable product.

Re:Then why not support the largest server distro?

[init100]

The omission of RHEL is probably punishment for Red Hat not signing their patent agreement.

Re:Then why not support the largest server distro?

[Zhila the Great Z]

The omission of RHEL is probably because it's not Microsoft's job to make sure every piece of software can work on its system. It's the providers of the software to make sure it can run on the system. Just as you wouldn't expect Microsoft to support running Adobe's Photoshop, Apple's iTunes, Borland's Delphi, or InterVideo's WinDVD, (or, GIMP, Songbird, Free Pascal, and mplayer, for those Free Software people), you shouldn't expect Microsoft to support anything that can run on Hyper-V either.

If your company relies specifically on RHEL, requires support, and Red Hat also won't support Red Hat on Hyper-V, then you just have to choose one of the other virtualization options.

supported != usable but....

[leuk_he]

The article mentions only the latest OS that are supported.

If i look at the release notes, even fewer OS are supported:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3ED582F0-F844-40BA-B692-230845AF1149&displaylang=en

What you often see is that virtualisation is used to put old application that are only reliable on old but unsupported OS (like windows 2000 or NT 4.0) run on virtualized hardware.

So i bet they the list of operating OS will be longer. ( win98, NT4.0, windows 2000 server, old SP1 XP1 to mention a few)

If these are not SUPPORTED however then for big corporations will take a look at the competitors for a virtialisation server that supports old OS.

Re:WTF does "/." know about support?

[jamstar7]

Will Linux people help me get Vista installed and running under WINE?

You really are a glutton for punishment. You'd be better off hitting yourself in the head with a hammer than running Vista.

Besides, WINE just allows Windows binaries to run under Linux somewhat natively. There's no full OS support in it whatsoever. Look into Xen or VMWare if you really want to run Vista under Linux.

Am I missing something?

[davolfman]

I never understood how there was a market for virtualization on the server end. It seems to me that any server apps that are actually designed properly would not have trouble coexisting on the same system, and would run more efficiently as separate threads in the same OS than given their own. Even running Linux alongside Windows makes very little sense as almost anything that runs on Linux can run on Windows as well. So, is this just a big bandaid applied over really bad programming, a form of sandboxing, or what?

further their monopoly position..

[nurb432]

And i ask again, why should they shoot themselves in the foot and waste time/money to support the competitors?

As far as your TV analogy, this wasn't about me not tolerating a single source vendor, its about a huge monopoly not supporting their competition.

MS just starting

[mark99]

Most of the posts here completely miss the reality, which is that MS is really just starting out and that Linux is not very relevant to their market.

MS is actually way behind, and many of their own products are not supported on their own virtual platforms. MS not supporting Linux is just a reflection of how much priority Linux has with them and their customers - i.e not much.

But Hyper-V has a lot of promise. I would keep my eye on it. And I would bet money that Hyper-V will eventually get around to "supporting" anything that is not too wierd.

No need to interoperate?

[jotaeleemeese]

You jest surely.

MS giving away their browser for free was the biggest acceptance that they had to interoperate.

Now they are trying to push aside technologies that have become standards (like Flash, PDF and others) and they will fail.

The simple fact that they offer virtualization for other OSes is very telling. It may be made in the idiotic MS way (there is no major obstacle to support anything in the major 3 or 4 flavours of Linux) but Linux is a reality in the market, and this is an acceptance of it.

They were not accepting this 10 years ago, which puts stop to your ludicrous assumption that nothing has changed since then.

If Red Hat is not supported Linux is not supported

[jotaeleemeese]

It is that simple really.

Nowadays I would add Ubuntu to the mix.

It is disingenuous to claim that supporting SuSe is supporting Linux.

What an idiotic statment.

[jotaeleemeese]

You are responsible to make your own software work.

Who makes Hyper-V? Answer and you will find who is responsible for it working.

It begs belief that somebody is so stupid as to claim that software has to be made to work by a company that can't possible ensure it does.

MORE MOTIVATION TO STAY AWAY FROM MICROSOFT

[lord.of.the.universe]

i'm surprised at how microsoft keeps on motivating us users, again and again to keep away from it and its technology. They remind of the "frog-in-the-well" mentality, which believes that the well is the universe. If u r from outside the well, microsoft doesn't either care or support u. it would instead, put its efforts to pull u forcefuuly, into the web, rather than build bridges and help others.

Big mistake, they just don't know it yet

[billcopc]

In over 15 years of I.T., I've yet to encounter a pure-Microsoft network of any significant size. Everyone ends up mixing Windows and Linux to some degree, even if it has to be some bastardized proprietary Unix like some unenlightened government departments. SUSE is alright, but it is a small player compared to Red Hat / Fedora / CentOS. Microsoft supporting SUSE is meaningless to the industry.

All this means is a large portion of the market will ignore Hyper-V until this feature bug is resolved. Not many people will "switch" to SUSE for the sole benefit of Microsoft interop. Most will simply use 3rd-party solutions that are both cheaper and better supported.

Re:Novell should expect to have their code rejecte

[shgarg]

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Parent is SPAMing

[Burz]

Links are promotional and offtopic.