Steve,

I couldn't agree more, but have a couple of questions...

1. When were you working with this DB2 system -- I'm not particularly versed in that flavor, but have worked with a couple of other [acquired] IBM systems in my time. Just curious -- I'm not that familiar with virtualization prior to about the last 5 years.

2. Regardless of the "Hot-Add" MS, already, in my opinion has this basic feature built into Win2008. We use their servers _almost_ exclusively, and we love them -- have tried others, but stuck with MS virtualization. You can create and shutdown/pause servers easily. For some more $$ you can move them off to another machine, but you can do the basics, as I understand what you're describing, with nothing more than a kick-a$$ machine.

We have two of those and migrate virtual servers between them over a virtual SAN with [pardon language] virtually no issues. Worst issues we've had are drive failures. Hardware on servers and OS have been so solid we've moved more servers to this model than we had originally planned. LOVE IT!

D.