Sorry for the long delay, in my own efforts to write this series I have done a bunch more research recently, so hopefully the usefulness of these posts is about to jump.
Ok, first let me say that this series is not intended to be an comprehensive conversation or even a step by step on how to actually go virtual, but rather it is an overview of the key factors that relate to making the decision to go virtual. Much more specific evaluation should be done in each of these areas before choosing the right technology for your environment.
So what is a hypervisor? The hypervisor has been come to be known as the software that sits on the host hardware between the hardware and the Virtual machines. The hypervisor is the smarts that abstracts the hardware for the operating systems.
In some cases its very lean and very purpose driven like ESXi from VMWare (which is free and you can now order pre-loaded on a Dell server) or Virtual Iron's Single Server Edition which is free for up to 4 virtual machines with local storage.
I have first hand with VMWare and Virtual Iron, and just a little with Microsoft's Hyper-V and of the 3 I like the performance and feature set of VMWare best, but Virtual Iron and Microsoft's pricing are such much better that in smaller environments where price is always a factor, they win.
