SCVMM

After more than a year in development, Microsoft's System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 has been released to manufacturing. Along with the recent release of Hyper-V, the arrival of VMM 2008 completes Microsoft's near-term virtualization strategy. VMware is undoubtedly ahead when it comes to a point-by-point comparison of virtualization features: Many of the IT pros we spoke with at VMworld 2008 pointed to the lack of a Microsoft equivalent to VMware's VMotion functionality-which allows virtual machines to be easily moved without stopping them-as a deal-breaker for them. Microsoft has indicated that similar functionality will arrive with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, which is slated for a late 2009 or 2010 release.