Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is RTM!

Great news,
40 days after Hyper-V R2 Microsoft released the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 RTM. A 180-day evaluation version is now available at Microsoft Download site. You can access it here. Volume licensing is set for October 1.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Host Management
- VMM 2008 R2 creates and manages virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V hosts. When you add a host that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 that does not have Hyper-V enabled, VMM 2008 R2 automatically enables the Hyper-V role on the host.

- VMM 2008 R2 supports the following new features of Windows Server 2008 R2:

1. Live migration between Windows Server 2008 R2 clustered hosts.
2. Network optimization detection during virtual machine placement. VMM 2008 R2 supports both Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and TCP Chimney, which are Windows Server 2008 R2 features that improve network performance for virtual machines.
3. Network adapters that support the VMQ feature are able to create a unique network queue for each virtual network adapter and then connect that queue directly to the virtual machine’s memory. This connection routes packets directly from the hypervisor to the virtual machine, bypassing much of the processing in the virtualization stack.
4. Network adapters that support the TCP Chimney feature are able to offload the processing of network traffic from the networking stack. Both of these features increase network performance and reduce CPU utilization.
5. Hot addition and removal of virtual hard disks (VHDs). In Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V allows users to add and remove VHDs from a virtual machine while it is running.

Feature Bullet Summary:

• Live migration
• Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) support that enables multiple Highly Available Virtual Machines (HAVM) per LUN.
• Hot add of storage
• Support for VMware vSphere 4 (VMware VI3 feature parity only)
• SAN Migration into and out of clustered hosts
• Processor flexibility
• Network optimization
• Quick storage migration
• Maintenance mode for hosts
• Support for third party cluster file system, Sanbolic Melio FS
• Support for third party storage class resource, Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows
• Expanded support for iSCSI SANs
• Support for VMware port groups for virtual switches
• Support for Virtual Machine permissions assigned in Hyper-V
• Dynamic policy based load balancing

SCVMM R2 RC Features in detail here.
TechNet Library on VMM2008 R2
What's New in Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

To learn more on the new features and capabilities of VMM2008 R2, please try to attend MS upcoming TechNet session "Technical Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2". Presented by Ms Technical Product Manager Kenon Owens, it will be chocked full of new and cool VMM 2008 R2 items. Go here to register for this Wednesday, September 09, 2009 (10:00 AM Pacific) event.