Specifications

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Reviewer’s Guide 31
Figure 10. The self-service Web portal includes a mini-setup dialog
Management of Microsoft and VMware Virtual Machines
Managing ESX Server and Hyper-V VMM provides a centralized management platform for enterprise
virtualization of both Microsoft virtualization products as well as VMware virtualization products. Many
organizations are running both virtualization platforms, but before VMM 2008 they needed to manage
each different product using separate and distinct management tools. VMM 2008 provides best-of-
breed virtualization management in a single tool.
With VMM, you can manage Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Hyper-V virtualization products as
well as VMware’s ESX Server via VMware vCenter Server. For example, VMM enables you to use
features like VMware’s VMotion technology to transfer VMs between different ESX Servers with no
downtime.
Likewise, VMM allows you to take advantage of Microsoft’s Live Migration to move a VM quickly
between Microsoft Hyper-V hosts. In the following figure, you can see VMM 2008 managing both
Microsoft Hyper-V servers as well as VMware ESX servers.