The release of Windows Server 2008 made possible for many web hosting providers to take advantage of the new features that offered. One of them is it allowed them to to offer VPS Hosting based on Windows Server 2008 powered servers. This type of virtual private servers are based on the new Hyper-V virtualization technology platform.

Hyper-V is a very serious competitor of Virtuozzo for Windows that has been used for Windows powered VPS for years. Now with the release of new Hyper-V many web hosts may decide to switch from Virtuozzo to the new Microsoft virtualization technology in order to cut costs. The Windows makes offers Hyper-V for "free" with Windows OS license.

This means that Windows Server 2008 provides vps hosting providers with something more than virtualization technology. Microsoft claims to provide a reliable platform that enables data storage companies easy to create and manage virtual private servers. and to offer features such as IIS.

Many hosting industry analysts expect Windows VPS hosting providers to lower prices after the deployment of Hyper-V with the new Windows Server 2008.

How to use Hyper-V?

As we mentioned above, Hyper-V makes possible for web hosts to offer a new VPS hosting platform. Hyper-V supports for many Windows OS and this allows hosting companies to offer VPS based on both Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Hyper-V is a very new and up-to-date software application which means that it is more likely to work with the more recent versions of certain OS. This means that that web hosts can use of Windows Server 2008.

To learn more about Hyper-V's advantages and disadvantages visit eUKhost's blog about Hyper-V hosting.

With a number of searches in 2004 close to zero, the word virtualization has become one of the fast growing search term within the last 4 years. Its peak is in the 3rd quarter of this year. The top search markets where Internet users search on keyword "virtualization" are: India, Singapore, United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom.

"Virtualization" is a very broad search term which is not necessarily to refer to VPS hosting.The search term "VPS Hosting" itself also attracted consumers attention in the beginning of the 3rd quarter of 2005. The markets where consumers are mot interested of "VPS Hosting" are: Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, India, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada.

Unlike key phrase "VPS Hosting" that is used mostly in developing markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, India, etc., the search term "virtualization" is used mainly from users on the world's most competitive IT markets - Singapore, United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom. India naturally tops the chart as it has a very fast growing IT sector.

Search term "paravirtualization" appears as important in search trends. "Paravirtualization" is a virtualization method that presents a software interface to Virtual Machines which is similar but not identical to that of the physical server or personal computer.

"OS Virtualization" has also become a relatively popular keyword since 2nd quarter of 2006.

Virtualization - Fast Growing Market

Industry analysts predict that the web hosting industry is moving to cloud-based services and this is one of the key factors to boost the development of virtualization technologies. As efficiency is a key to success on todays web hosting market, most web hosting service providers need to best automate their IT infrastructure.

VMWare To Dominate The Virtualization and VPS Market

According to Parallels Chairman and SEO Serguei Beloussov as the virtualization market matures, "VMware will be positioned as an OS vendor and may release more general OS APIs". He expects VMware to compete Microsoft, and the Windows producer would respond by spending more to develop virtualization technologies.

Hyper-V To Grow, But Slowly

The Windows Server Virtualization known as Hyper-V will grow with slower than many expect. According to industry analysts Microsoft must find solutions on issues such as the lack of core features, incomplete tools, as well as something that most Open source software developers and Linux fans say - "Hyper-V is about Windows, but Windows is not that solid when it comes to enterprise hosting and data storage solutions.

The Popularity Of OS Virtualization Solutions To Increase

OS virtualization solutions such as OpenVZ and Virtuozzo will be widely used from web hosts and IT companies because they provide scalability and lower costs for virtualization. Another reason IT companies to prefer OS virtualization solutions include the fact that they impose little or no overhead.

Of course OS Virtualization method is not that flexible as other virtualization techniques because it does not allow the physical server to host a guest OS different from the one that runs on the main host. But companies like Parallels provide both Windows and Linux based virtualization solutions and this makes their products very attracting for businesses.

We can expect that more IT companies and data storage providers will be either involved and will move to virtualization market. Web hosts will increase their portfolio of VPS customers.

It is however important to mark that the virtualization technologies are still in their baby age. This means that areas of their application will expand.