You've no doubt heard about Hyper-V, the virtualization platform built into Windows Server 2008. But what about the new features built into R2? What does Hyper-V offer now that it didn't before?

Over at Windows IT Pro, John Savill profiles Windows Server 2008 R2's new Hyper-V features and explains what they mean to enterprises. Here's an excerpt:

In Windows Server 2008 R2, both Hyper-V and Failover Clustering have undergone changes that help to support improved high availability in a virtual environment. The goal with Server 2008 R2 is to provide a zero-downtime planned failover. However, in the event of a node crash, the VM will still start in a crash-consistent state on the new owning node with a period of downtime.

Suffice it to say, this is some fairly hardcore stuff, but invaluable for IT pros who want to gain a better understanding of what's new and improved in R2 Hyper-V.

In case you missed it, Computerworld recently cited Hyper-V as one of the reasons Windows Server 2008 ranks as Microsoft's "best-ever server OS."

And if you want to learn the basics about setting up virtual machines in WS08, we've got you covered there as well.

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