Microsoft Hyper-V for Free
Hyper-V is Microsoft’s virtualization technology. It comes available in two forms; as part of Windows Server 2008 R2 and as a free download. In previous versions, the free version had limited capabilities compared to its bigger brother. However; now the difference has been greatly reduced. Hyper-V server now supports > 32 GB of RAM and > 4 processors. The disadvantage? No graphical user interface (GUI) and host management. That means installation is very simple but lacks the GUI of a full Windows installation. To actually deploy virtual servers you have to install Hyper-V management tools on a local desktop...
Migrate Disks to VHD for Free
Sysinternals has released another great utility for free. Disk2vhd can create VHD images from a physical disk. You can check it out and download it at Technet. ...
Microsoft Server Next Gen Virtualization for Free
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is a free release of Hyper-V server. It does not contain a GUI, but free remote management tools are readily available. The new R2 release contains features previously only found in the higher priced Windows Server 2008 R2. These features include Live Migration, 8 physical processor support, 24 processor cores, 1 TB of RAM, and up to 384 running virtual machines (now that would be a heck of a host server!). You can read more about it at the Windows Supersite and download your free copy at Microsoft. Stay tuned for more on virtualization and...