Microsoft Taking on Big Iron, Clustering With Server 2008

Server 2008 is the first, real fruit based on the controversial collaboration agreement between Microsoft and Novell, and it's also Microsoft's boldest move yet into virtualization. It also appears to be Microsoft's most aggressive move to date into an area that was once the province of companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard: clustering.

Robert Larson, an architect on Microsoft's TechNet blog network, has written a detailed, step-by-step guide to building a host cluster using Microsoft's Hyper-V Beta 1 technology:

He then provides a ten-step checklist for building out a virtual cluster using the software. The software management console provides "create a cluster" and "manage a cluster" options along the way. Microsoft provides features like "node failover" along with Hyper-V. Could that mean the Blue Screen's days are numbered, at least on the server side? (Imagine if we all had "failover" capabilities going back to Windows 95.)

Keith Combs, an IT evangelist and a Microsoft colleague of Larson, writes that "if you are the heavy metal sort and get your jollies by building clustered server configurations, then we have new tools for your tool belt." Availability of Server 2008, though, would appear aimed now at bringing those sorts of clustering capabilities to the masses - - including any Mom and Pop shop with a server in the back.

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