Dell promises Windows Server 2008 R2 support

Dell has pledged support for the new Windows Server 2008 R2

Dell has announced that it is throwing its support behind the recently unveiled Windows Server 2008 (WS2008) R2, promising customers an easy deployment of the new enterprise operating system.

The new version offers a range of enhanced and – in some cases – totally new features. The most keenly awaited of these has to be Hyper-V 2.0, with Dell's support including the release of Dell drivers, systems management capability and supporting documents to help customers get up and running faster.

Sally Stevens, vice president of platform marketing at Dell, said: "Dell is committed to helping companies make a smooth transition to the new Microsoft WS2008 R2 operating system to help save time and money with new features.

"We are pleased to be the one of the first companies to offer full access, support and drivers to our customers to make this transition."

Dell claims it has already put hours of testing and validation into R2 and is offering a range of associated services as part of its Dell ProConsult, ProSupport and ProManaged suites.

With the enhancements made in R2 to Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualisation platform, Dell says its 11th generation PowerEdge servers will now offer better virtualisation performance and utilisation and consolidation, thanks to its enhanced memory and I/O capacity.

Dell will offer Standard, Enterprise, Web, Datacenter and Academic editions of WS2008 R2 on the full family of Dell PowerEdge servers, and it will be factory installed on all of these from the third quarter of 2009.

Smaller businesses with up to 15 users will also have the option of getting WS2008 Foundation R2 on certain PowerEdge systems.