Microsoft Breaks Limitations for Server Farm Application Virtualization

Microsoft is continuing to ensure the evolution of its vision of pervasive and mainstream virtualization, and in this regard, announced new, more relaxed licensing rules for its products. The move is nothing short of an invitation to "Get Virtual Now" from the Redmond company. The fact of the matter is that customers, with the focus on the business environment, will be able to enjoy additional flexibility when it will come down to virtualizing Microsoft server applications.

"Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy," said Zane Adam, senior director of integrated virtualization in the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "Microsoft recognizes this and is innovating its licensing policies, product support and a wide range of IT solutions to help customers get virtual now."

Starting on September 1, 2008, customers will be able to transition no less than 41 Microsoft server applications between the machines in the same server farm without any restrictions. However, even more importantly, no additional licensing fees will be charged by Microsoft for the migration process.

Among the 41 solutions for which the more relaxed virtualization licensing options will kick in come next month, the Redmond company enumerated: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Standard and Enterprise, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Enterprise and Professional, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft System Center. Before September 1, Microsoft customers had to abide by a previous 90-day reassignment rule for all the technology mentioned above, before licenses could be transferred among servers in the same server farm.

"IDC research is finding that the use of server virtualization is moving past the early adopter stage and is quickly becoming a mainstream solution," commented Al Gillen, research vice president for system software at IDC. "As IT professionals update their standard server images for new installations, they are increasingly integrating virtualization to simplify deployments, to increase the system flexibility, boost usage rates and increase portability of the applications. With this latest update to its licensing rules, Microsoft is knocking down barriers to virtualized deployments, which should help further accelerate the adoption rates."