Microsoft Exchange Virtualization and Licensing Announcements

Microsoft announced some significant changes to its licensing and support policies for applications in hardware virtualization environments. There are two key parts of the announcement worth highlighting for Exchange customers:

• Microsoft now supports Exchange Server 2007 SP1 running Hyper-V or hypervisors validated under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP).
• Microsoft is waiving its 90-day license reassignment policy to enable customers who virtualize Exchange to move their licenses between servers within a data farm as often as necessary.

Microsoft has published a new whitepaper, Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments, which includes Microsoft's support policy and recommendations for running Exchange Server 2003 in a Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 environment. This article is a must-read for anyone considering a virtualized Exchange environment.

See this article on the Exchange Team blog for more details.