Transparent page sharing and memory over commitment has always been a key differentiator between VMware and other industry leading hypervisors, including Microsoft’s Hyper-V.  Despite downplayng the significance of this feature, a number of sources have reported that Microsoft will finally introduce a “Dynamic Memory” feature for Hyper-V guests that may bring this feature set closer for Microsoft customers. However sources are uncertain if this will simply allow hot-add of memory or if this will truely allow memory over-commit as you can in VMware ESX / vSphere.

This feature was initially included in the Hyper-V 2008 R2 beta release, but was not included in the release code. It’s unclear if this will be included in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or Win 8 — hopefully we will hear a definitive answer at TechEd 2010 in June reagrding release and capabilities.

Update (3/18/10) – Microsoft has announced additional information about Dynamic Memory here.

This entry was posted Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Core Infrastructure. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.