Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Unleashed

Microsoft’s Virtualization Support Story

The support story for Microsoft products running on virtualization hardware is long and complicated. Until several years ago, Microsoft offered limited support for its flagship server products, such as SQL Server, Exchange Server, and SharePoint. Microsoft even left open the option that a support problem might need to be duplicated on physical hardware if support technicians couldn’t determine the nature of the problem in a virtual environment. Adding to Microsoft’s weak support story was the fact that Virtual Server 2005 R2 was its virtualization product during the early days of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Virtual Server 2005 R2 wasn’t a hypervisor-based product and couldn’t virtualize ...