Apparently new version of linux integration services for Hyper-V v.2.0
The Microsoft Virtualization Team blog published version 2.1 of Linux Integration Services. This version is for Hyper-V v.2.0. The Linux integration components include support for both the synthetic network controller and synthetic storage controller that have been developed specifically for Hyper-V.
Well, even if Microsoft seems to do some efforts for supporting few Linux distributions, still it's nothing to compare with VMware which has much larger support. A quick search on this page gave me 528 results. VMware Workstation 7.1 supports more than 600 different OS….
Nevertheless, it's good to see that more and more Linux distros are finally supported as a guests with Microsoft's Hypervisor.
The functionalities:
Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be gracefully shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.
Heartbeat: Allows the host to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.
Pluggable Time Source: A pluggable clock source module is included to provide a more accurate time source to the guest.
This version of the integration services for Hyper-V supports
- Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3,
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, and
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 / 5.3 / 5.4 / 5.5.
To see and learn more and to download the above file, please visit: Linux Integration Services v2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2
