Book excerpt: Presenting practical guidelines and examples, Advanced Server Virtualization emphasizes design, implementation, and management from both a technical and consultative point of view. It features step-by-step guidelines for planning, deployment, installing, configuring, and creating virtual servers. Covering Microsoft Virtual Server and VMware, it addresses platform-specific virtualization features such as virtual machines, hard drives, networking, and resource management. It offers best practices that allow users to avoid common pitfalls and achieve success faster during server virtualization implementations. It also discusses software licensing issues and the cost-benefits of deploying virtual servers.