Microsoft's Windows operating system is simply a hit when it comes down to the integration with virtualization technology. The Windows near-monopoly on the operating system market has deep repercussions, reverberating throughout virtualized environments. A recent survey, published by Sage/CMB market Pulse and sponsored by Sage Research, revealed that Windows was the predominant operating system in use on virtual servers. While virtualization is still a young technology, its debut is synonymous with a high rate of adoption due to the consistent reduction of hardware resources and the adjacent costs it provides to users that have to run mixed source environments.

According to Sage Research, via InformationWeek, in excess of 96% of the respondents in the survey, including service providers and technology users, informed that they were running Windows in their virtual machines. The percentage is roughly equivalent to the Redmond company's lion share on the operating system market, however, businesses are not shy about running alternative platforms. No less than 52% of the participants also integrated Linux in their virtual servers.

And while the open source operating system was the runner up, UNIX and Solaris also have strong presences with 30% and respectively 29% of respondents running the two platforms. Preferences are less contoured for Mac OS X, run by just 12% of respondents. But although Sage Research failed to provide information on the exact number of copies of each platform being virtualized, it does deliver an insight into the flexibility provided by virtualization technology. Proof to this is the scenario illustrated by the percentages that add up to more than 100%, as the same user has deployed a variety of solutions on the underlying virtualization technology.

Microsoft is currently cooking its own offering as a reaction to the explosion of the virtualization marketplace, based on Windows Server 2008. Starting in December 2007, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Beta became available for download. Hyper-V, formerly codenamed Viridian, is a hypervisor-based virtualization role in Windows Server 2008. While Microsoft's last 32-bit server operating system will be made available on February 27th, 2008, Hyper-V will follow in the second half of this year.