Download Linux Integration Services 2.1 RTM for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2

Microsoft has finalized version 2.1 of the Linux Integration Services it is offering to customers running Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 and also leveraging the Linux open source operating system in their virtual machines. Linux Integration Services 2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 are now available via the Microsoft Download Center, free of charge, as was the case with previous releases of the components.

“This release marks yet another milestone in providing a comprehensive virtualization platform to our customers. Customers who have a heterogeneous operating system environment desire their virtualization platform to provide support for all operating systems that they have in their datacenters. We have supported Linux as a guest operating system on our virtualization platform from the days of Virtual Server and continue to enhance our support in that regard,” revealed a member of the Microsoft Virtualization team.

The Redmond company offered customers plenty of time to test drive version 2.1 of the Linux Integration Services. The Release Candidate (RC) of the services was made available for download on Microsoft Connect at the start of May 2010. According to the software giant, Linux Integration Services 2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 come with support for the following operating systems: Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 / 5.3 / 5.4 / 5.5.

The Microsoft Virtualization team member also enumerated the features “included in the 2.1 release:

- Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
- Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
- Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
- Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be gracefully shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
- Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.
- Heartbeat: Allows the host to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.
- Pluggable Time Source: A pluggable clock source module is included to provide a more accurate time source to the guest.”

Linux Integration Services 2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 are available for download here.

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