Some people like the smell of new cars, and although I think that's fine and dandy, I like the smell of new computer hardware. With new hardware comes choices. I chose to use Windows 2008 64-bit, and I'm looking at doing a little server consolidation.

Now I have to choose a server Virtualization product. I never played much with Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMWare Server is OK, but I need something else.

Since I'm going with Server 2008, I can choose to use Hyper-V. Doing a little research, I came across these reviews and opinions of Hyper-V, and I thought I would share them with you.

ZDNET: Microsoft Finally Launches Hyper-V This is more of a negative review, and has a nice quote from Reza Malekzadeh, the director of Products and Marketing for Europe at VMWare.

Microsoft is now finally delivering a hypervisor product, albeit one which is considerably pared-down functionality-wise from that [which was] originally promised. Key features have been pulled from this first release, many of which analysts and customers view as the key features for a reliable virtualization platform

ZDNET: Review: Microsoft's Hyper-V puts VMWare and Linux on notice This comes from Mary-Joe Foley posts a review of Hyper-V from Jason Perlow, a self proclaimed Virtualization junkie. Hyper-V comes off in a very positive light in this review. From the article:

I think Microsoft has done a bang-up job with its hypervisor, and it may just turn this Linux freak into a Windows 2008 junkie for running his own personal virtualization needs.

The review also has a great deal of good information about the different types of Virtualization technologies that there are.

IntelliAdmin: Microsoft Hyper-V (I'm Impressed!) This is another positive review from someone who has played around a lot with VMWare, and couldn't stand Microsoft Virtual Server.

DABCC: Five Reasons Why VMware Virtualization is Better than Microsoft Hyper-V Just like it sounds, a really negative point by point about Hyper-V. If you read this, then make sure you check out the link below too.

4SysOps: Five wrong reasons to prefer VMware ESX over Hyper-V You got it, Michael at 4SysOps goes over the 5 reasons in the post above, and kind of debunks them.

I'm still researching it, but I think I'm going to at least give Hyper-V a try. You can read the above links and form your own opinion. Of course, if you have any opinions, feel free to post a comment.