Microsoft To Support CentOS Linux In Hyper-V

jbrodkin writes "Long the enemy of Linux users, Microsoft is apparently seeing dollar signs in the Linux-dominated Web server market. Microsoft's virtualization software, Hyper-V, will immediately add support for CentOS Linux, a community version of Red Hat that even Microsoft notes is a 'popular Linux distribution for hosters.' 'This enables our Hosting partners to consolidate their mixed Windows + Linux infrastructure on Windows Server Hyper-V,' Microsoft said. In addition to Web hosting, this targets another area where Microsoft is stuck in second place: the virtualization market dominated by VMware."

Comments

Re:does anybody really use hyper-V?

[slazzy]

Yes, I believe there are almost as many hyper-V servers as zune music players.

As seen in another Slashdot sig...

[GameboyRMH]

Running Linux in a VM on Windows is like strapping yourself to the outside of a car with a seatbelt.

Worst of both worlds?

[ron_ivi]

So all the stability and security of Microsoft running on the bare metal; combined with the user-friendliness and ease of use of Linux. :)

Hyper-V isn't second. It doesn't even place

[Jailbrekr]

KVM and Xen are both fully featured enterprise class hypervisors with the ability to live migrate. Hyper-V only *just* got live migration and only when you're using clustering (translation: large wads of cash are required). VMWare is undoubtedly the leader, but KVM and Xen are defaintely fighting for 2nd.

Re:does anybody really use hyper-V?

[mcrbids]

Well that is the answer to his question. Windows is actually quite stable now, on par with Linux.

Well, believe what you wish, I suppose. Over this last weekend, I set up my wife's laptop with Windows 7/64. The number of reboots I had to go through after the O/S install in order to get everything updated was no less than 10 or so, over a few hours. Mind you, this wasn't when setting up drivers, this was *after* I'd loaded the O/S and the drivers. This was just to apply security updates.

I have quite a number of Linux/RedHat/CentOS servers that I maintain, and when I build a new server, I have to reboot exactly one time after loading the O/S to apply updates. Literally, I type a single line as:

yum -y update && shutdown -r now;

That's it. That's the entire sum of the update process, after which I have a fully working, fully updated server with all updates updated.

Why would you even do it?

[hackus]

Honestly I cannot understand why you would virtualize anything but commercial software. It is a pain to manage without virtualization, it suffers from legacy problems due to all of the very big risks you take when you buy the license. You really have no benefits at all I can think of running commercial software.

Thanks to KVM, the commercial software I do have to buy, I can virtualize it, freeze the hardware requirements in time so it will always work forever and ever. Never need to reinstall it and it isn't if, but when the company goes tits up I am protected. I can dump the software on my terms.

I can even make a copy of it in case the hardware virtualizing the commercial software breaks.

Deploy it to a disaster recovery site and I don't have to have a huge checklist to go through to make sure it is configured right during recovery.

No stupid specific backup agents for commercial software's little proprietary databases they all like to create to make things even more expensive to use.

I left with the opinion that Hyper-V is a solution in search of a problem.

I would be using Cent OS with KVM to virtualize Microsoft's OS, where it is safely under the flipper of my penguin, where it can't make my life hell.

-Hack

Re:does anybody really use hyper-V?

[houghi]

If Hyper-V is the only thing running on Windows, just so you can run Linux, why would you run Windows in the first place? Just run XEN, KVM or even VirtualBox on Linux and have several Linux sessions run on that.

ANYBODY WHO KNOWS MICROSOFT

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Understands this is not a concession or olive branch.

It is a way to damage the RedHat business model. Trust me - Redmond will get to the point they offer Premiere support for CentOS on HyperV, starving RedHat of oxygen.

Even if it made them no money at all, Redmond has people who'd love this outcome, and set MBOs for this.