I am not sure how many people will end up being hurt but it affects not only SharePoint customers but also development shops like iTechnology. First of all, here are preliminary system requirements:
- SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
- SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
- SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.
While removing support of IE6 won’t cause many issues, switching to full 64bit environment may be tricky.
Here I would like to focus on two questions that happened to occur in my mind:
1. How to migrate our virtual server environment to support 64bit SharePoint 2010?
2. How to migrate local remote SharePoint development environment?
Currently, we use Virtual Server 2005 R2 to support development efforts. The trick part is that Virtual Server 2005R2 does not support 64 bit Guess OS. It means we will have to move either to Windows 2008 with Hyper V or to free version of VMWare ESXi. Either Hyper-V or VMWare ESXi will address virtualization framework need necessary to have development servers for upcoming SharePoint 2010.
It is much trickier with offsite development process. Some of consultants use their laptops with Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 R2 to host SharePoint servers. Such environment supports remote development within depending on internet connectivity to head office network. For example, a laptop with 64bit and 8GB of RAM serves pretty well for offsite SharePoint development. Obviously, installing Windows 2008 on the laptop won’t give you any benefits as laptop processors and BIOS usually do not support Hyper V by default. But running Windows 2008 on laptops can be prohibiting due to licensing cost as well. Installing VMWare ESXi is not a viable option either.
At this point we have to just wait and see what Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 will bring for developers.
In addition it is interesting if 90x of K2 (next release of K2[blackpearl]) will move to 64bit (only) route…
Regards,
Dima Ivahno
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