Virtual Iron announced plans to validate its platform with the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program. As part of this program, which became operational today, Virtual Iron will test and validate the Virtual Iron platform running Windows Server 2008 operating system. Once the platform is validated, Microsoft will offer cooperative support to Virtual Iron customers running the validated configuration of Microsoft Windows Server-based guest operating systems in Virtual Iron virtual environments. As a result, mutual customers will receive improved support hand-offs between the two companies and greater access to Microsoft’s worldwide support capabilities.

"Technical support is always an important consideration for our customers when considering virtualization adoption," said Chris Barclay, director of product management at Virtual Iron. “The Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program allows our mutual customers to take full advantage of all our advanced capabilities while streamlining their access to comprehensive technical support from Microsoft and Virtual Iron.”

Today, approximately 90 percent of Virtual Iron’s 2,000 plus users are virtualizing Windows Server workloads in their data centers. The Virtual Iron platform supports most Windows operating systems, including Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

“By working with industry vendors such as Virtual Iron, Microsoft is creating a technical support model to better meet our customers’ growing demands,” said Zane Adam, senior director of virtualization strategy, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft Corp. “As more customers deploy and virtualize Windows-based solutions on Windows Server 2008, Virtual Iron or other server virtualization software, this program ensures that customers receive a cooperative technical support experience for their virtual infrastructure deployments.”

Virtual Iron provides easy-to-use and cost-effective server virtualization capabilities that reduce data center complexity and operational costs. The platform integrates comprehensive virtualization management capabilities including LiveMigrate for virtual server migration, LiveRecovery for disaster recovery and high availability, LiveCapacity for dynamic CPU resource load balancing, and Live Maintenance for offline server maintenance without downtime. Virtual Iron also takes full advantage of the latest hardware–assisted virtualization capabilities from AMD and Intel to deliver near native performance. Users leverage Virtual Iron to support a broad range of data center initiatives including server consolidation, virtual server management, dev/test optimization, business continuity and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

Virtual Iron is also part of Microsoft’s Interop Vendor Alliance and an adopter of Microsoft’s Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Image Format, which allows Virtual Iron users to easily patch, recover and manage their virtual servers across physical machines.