Intel and Microsoft: Leading Innovation, Lasting AdvantageIntel and Microsoft have collaborated for more than 20 years across engineering, sales, and services to create and deliver leading business and IT solutions, driving the deployments of a more dynamic and efficient data center. Based on our joint roadmaps and customer input we identify key IT requirements, co-develop support for key integrated features, and validate and optimize these features for Intel platforms to deliver innovations in hardware and software that make deployments more powerful, efficient, and flexible.

Complementary Virtualization Technologies

Today’s businesses are striving to be more agile. In that quest,

virtualization has emerged as a solid architectural foundation upon

which to achieve greater efficiency, reliability, and robustness. One

facet of the shared Intel and Microsoft vision of faster performance

and greater efficiency is a joint commitment focused on delivering

complementary virtualization-related technologies to meet the

challenges posed by virtualization initiatives, in addition to fully

unlocking the business potential of virtualization solutions from the

desktop to the data center.

Server Virtualization with Windows Server* 2008 Hyper-V*

and the Intel® Xeon® Processor-Based Server

As virtualization becomes more widely adopted in IT organizations,

the performance and reliability of the server platform are increasingly

under scrutiny. In any virtualization usage scenario it is critical that

the server provide scalable power to virtual machine (VM) workloads

that demand increasingly more computing resources. The server

must also be reliable and robust, ensuring the availability of all guest

VMs. The Intel® Xeon® processor–based server offers a leading set of

features that meets these critical needs.

Leveraging the built-in virtualization technologies of Windows

Server* 2008 and the Intel Xeon processor-based server creates

a fully integrated virtualization solution on the world’s most widely

deployed hardware and software architecture. The multi-core Intel

Xeon processor 5000 sequence server provides leading price

and performance per watt, which is an ideal solution for smaller

IT virtualization projects that typically involve infrastructure

consolidation. The Intel Xeon processor 7000 sequence offers

leading scalable performance and best-in-class virtualization for

enterprise-scale environments. Generally, the Intel Xeon processor

7000 sequence is an excellent foundation for virtualization of

resource-intensive applications or environments requiring increased

memory support, intensive I/O, and high levels of server reliability.

Powering a Range of Virtualization Solution Scenarios

The most common deployment model today for virtualization

remains test and development, and server consolidation. Server

consolidation helps businesses optimize the IT infrastructure, lower

total costs of ownership, and improve flexibility. Windows Server

Hyper-V, powered by an Intel Xeon processor-based server, helps

deliver these time- and cost-saving benefits. To best optimize the IT

infrastructure, businesses need to be able to increase server density

(or run as many server workloads—VMs—as possible on a single

physical server) without sacrificing performance. Windows Server

Hyper-V can help realize this goal by supporting a wider range of

guest operating systems, including both 32-bit and 64-bit.

Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Core, Intel vPro and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.Copyright © 2008 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. 0808/KGI/MESH/KIN/1.5K 320392-001US

The Intel Xeon processor–based server built on Intel® Core™

microarchitecture offers an optimized platform for virtualization by

providing more instructions per clock cycle and reduced latency to

cache. This enables virtual machines to realize greater performance

and multitasking abilities. The Intel Xeon processor-based server

delivers native performance leadership and helps reach greater

responsiveness for unpredictable VM workloads. When combined

with the near-native performance benefits of Intel® Virtualization

Technology and a balanced subsystem, the Intel Xeon processor–

based server delivers the leading platform for reliably powering

server consolidation implementations.

Another virtualization scenario that is emerging quickly is business

continuity, in which customers are striving to minimize scheduled and

unscheduled downtime. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V provides

several features to update and manage VMs without the downtime

that a physical machine requires. Also, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

includes clustering, network load balancing, and minimal server core

installation to help build a foundation for business continuity. The

enhanced RAS features of the Intel Xeon processor-based server

platform further reduce the cost and complexity of high-availability

solutions while improving recovery speed and reliability.

Application Virtualization with Microsoft Application

Virtualization and Clients with Intel® vPro™ Technology

Microsoft Application Virtualization, part of the Microsoft Desktop

Optimization Pack for Software Assurance, puts applications

into virtual services that are managed and hosted centrally but

run on demand locally. As such, application virtualization reduces

the complexity and IT labor involved in deploying, updating, and

managing applications. The Intel® Core™2 processor with vPro™

technology provides a platform for application virtualization

environments that will offer enhanced security, remote

manageability, energy efficiency, and performance. When customers

couple Intel Core 2 processor-based clients and Microsoft Application

Virtualization with System Center, they will be able to manage their

environment from a single console. Together, Intel Core 2 processor-

based clients, and Microsoft Application Virtualization and System

Center can help companies increase user productivity and improve

service levels, while decreasing their total cost of ownership.

Summary

Virtualization plays an increasingly critical role at all levels of IT,

from the desktop through the data center. With Windows Server

2008 Hyper-V running on the Intel Xeon processor-based server

and Microsoft Application Virtualization running on clients with

Intel vPro technology, customers can deploy virtualization solutions

to reduce operating costs, improve application manageability,

increase utilization, and realize a more dynamic data center while

achieving a better return on investment.

FoR MoRe InFoRMATIon:

About Intel® Xeon® processors, visit: www.intel.com/products/server/processors/index.htm

About the Intel and Microsoft solutions, visit: www.intelalliance.com/microsoft

About Windows Server* 2008 Hyper-V*, visit: www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx

About Microsoft Virtualization Solutions, visit: www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx