Free version of Hyper-V released

No surprise here, after VMWare release ESXi for free download, you can now get a free version of Hyper-V - which one to use - decisions, decisions, decisions

http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/how-to-get.mspx

Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 is a stand-alone product that provides a simplified, reliable, cost-effective and optimised visualisation solution enabling organisations to improve server utilisation and reduce costs. It allows organisations to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server and is a good solution for organisations who want a basic and simplified visualisation solution for consolidating servers as well as for development and test environments. Low utilisation infrastructure workloads, departmental applications and simple branch office workloads are also candidates to virtualise using Hyper-V Server 2008.

Hyper-V Server 2008 is a cost-effective solution that is convenient because it plugs into existing IT infrastructures enabling companies to reduce costs, improve utilisation and provision new servers. It allows IT professionals to leverage existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools and processes. IT Professionals can continue to leverage their individual skills and the collective knowledge of Microsoft tools, minimising the learning curve to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. In addition, with Microsoft providing comprehensive support for Microsoft applications and heterogeneous guest operating systems support, customers can virtualise with confidence and peace of mind.