Windows 2008 R2 SP1, more happy news for VDI

Windows 2008 R2 Sp1 is almost ready for RTM and day after day it get more happy news for VDI fans.

Windows 2008 R2 SP1 comes with two new features. The first and most important is called Dynamic Memory, and as the name suggests, this is a feature of Hyper-V R2 SP1 that will allow for memory on virtual machines to be dynamically scaled up and down as workloads dictate. Right now, memory is allocated statically and a Hyper-V virtual machine – and all of the software running inside of it – has to be rebooted if more memory is needed for that VM’s software stack.

The other new feature coming out with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is called RemoteFX, which is virtualized graphics and media-processing capability that Microsoft picked up with its acquisition of Calista Technologies more than two years ago. What Calista was peddling when Microsoft bought it for an undisclosed sum was software that allowed server-based VDI to give end users sitting at fat or thin clients at the other end of the LAN a visual and audio experience that seemed like it was being rendered locally on a PC with a certain amount of muscle (even if it wasn’t).

Microsoft expects 40% increase in VDI User Density using Dynamic Memory & Hyper-V, but today I saw some tweets about more to come.

“RT @hyperv_r2 "Big news! Hyper-V SP1 increases VMs/logical proc  support to 12VMs/LP up from 8VMs/LP! http://bit.ly/9aG6nZ" by #hyperv”

The ratio of Virtual processors per logical processor increased to 12 with Windows 7 VMs

A ratio of 12:1 is supported on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 when all guest operating systems on the server run Windows 7. Otherwise, the supported ratio is 8:1.

 

That means more and more conciliation for the VMs more added significant density to all workloads. This would help more customers and push VDI on Hyper-V more and more

More information

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/18/microsoft_win2008r2sp1_citrix_vdi/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/r2-virtualization.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405267%28WS.10%29.aspx