I spent the last 2 weeks traveling in Europe and I can tell you that you can’t put enough emphasis on your companions.  When you are on the road with someone 24/7, you appreciate a good fit.  Whether it is the appetite for a good Schweinshaxe in Munich or the appreciation of a football game in London (sorry Liverpool, Fulham was on a roll), having good companions makes being thousands of miles from home tolerable.  With 3 others on this trip, it was clear that we had the right fit.

Windows Server® 2008 R2 is also the perfect companion to the Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor. With its emphasis on multi-threading and efficiency, how can you argue that this new state-of-the-art OS should deserve anything else.

And as AMD moves from the six-core world of today to the 12-core world planned for 2010, we expect Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 to work seamlessly.  Whether it is virtualizing file, print or email services, or managing and analyzing your business critical data, the new OS is designed to tie in well with the features that we have integrated into our processors.

Microsoft has also integrated some new power management drivers to help take advantage of the new power management features in the AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processor (currently codenamed “Magny-Cours”). We expect the new C1E power state to bring a new level of power efficiency, allowing the processor to power down the memory controller and HyperTransport™ technology links when not in use, and helping drive down idle power consumption.

 If you are looking to consolidate hardware, the support of AMD Virtualization™ (AMD-V™) technology provides more flexibility to customers running virtual machines.  For instance, moving an active virtual machine between two servers can be seamless with Microsoft’s Hyper-V; even if you are running between different versions of the Windows® OS on different generations of AMD processors. As a matter of fact, we have even demonstrated a live virtual machine running between one of our current generation of Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers and a server based on the upcoming next-generation AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor to show how seamless the live migration can be for customers. Check out the video on the virtualization blog here.

Just like running a team of people through multiple countries, you need some policies to keep everyone in line. For us, it is the new rule that the hotel safe (and not your laptop bag) is where your passport needs to stay.  For Windows Server 2008 R2, the policies can revolve around power savings and not around passports. Utilizing the AMD PowerNow!™ technology, group policies can be set for clients using Windows 7 (Windows 7 capable PC required), enabling clients to enter a “sleep” mode when not in use.

So, if you have to travel, make sure that your traveling partners are compatible, and when you are building out your data center, make sure that your hardware and software is compatible. If you are using Windows Server 2008 R2, there is no better platform, in my opinion, than an AMD Opteron processor-based server.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.