The highly anticipated release to manufacturing of Microsoft’s hypervisor system called Hyper-V finally happened two days ago on June 26 and it will be used for the 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008.

Even though the company announced that based on their calculations, the development process will demand as much as six months from the release of Windows Server 2008, the work seems to have gone pretty good, as the Hyper-V is already available two months ahead of the company’s self imposed deadline.

"The testing program was smooth enough and went quickly enough that we were able to add [support for] a whole series of guest operating systems that weren't on the list for the initial release," said Jeff Woolsey, senior program manager, according to PCWorld.

Microsoft’s software runs only on the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, Windows Server 2008 Standard or Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. There is also a feature that allows guest operating systems, 32-bit or 64-bit, such as Windows Server 2003, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000 Server SP4, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP Professional SP3. 

In order for its clients and customers to fully understand the benefits of virtualization, the company also released the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 3.1 Beta, offering information on the best tools available and also on the proper processes needed.

Even though some consider Microsoft’s product as unreliable, offering slow performance and instability, the company’s officials are confident that their release will prove its benefits in time, as it managed to pass with flying colors the numerous testing sessions.