VMware's Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge

Natales writes "VMware has announced that they will be supplying $200,000 in prizes for what they call The Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge. Big industry names such as Tim O'Reilly and Mark Shuttleworth are among the judges." From the article: "Using open source or freely distributable components and/or your own code, create the most inventive and useful virtual appliance and win the $100,000 first prize! The Challenge is open to anyone worldwide and will be judged by a panel of industry experts with input from the community."

Comments

In search of the next paradigm shift.

[keilinw]

I applaud the application of "incentives" to promote enhancements in society. As the prize money is intended, the result should be a change in the way society works, or at least a change in perception. To date such prizes as the X-Prize and the DARPA grand challenge serve quite a compelling purpose... to enhance technolgy.

Examining Open Source Software's track record we see that it has made quite an impact on society; even producing a few "kill apps." But, what I am waiting for is the next paradigm shift or revolution. When will it come? What will it be? Will it involve Open Source Software? Nobody knows the answer to such questions, but I have high hopes that such prize money / incentives are capable of producing the next revolution in technology advancements. If not, lets hope so!

--Matthew Wong
http://www.themindofmatthew.com

VMWare-aware virus.

[CCFreak2K]

After observing that W32.Mytob didn't run under Windows 95, I read up Symantec's page on it. Appearently, it can figure out if it's running in VMWare, and terminates if it does. I consider that inventive on the writer's part.

Re:So send in something that runs under Xen

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry perhaps this is not the place for my question, but I am just curious how I can get this Xen. I am a real newbie running Suse 10.something, and I was trying to run windows using this Xen (I need it to run things like Origin and EndNote). I got so far as realizing that I need Xen-enabled kernel, but I really cannot find any step-by-step howtoos. Most of the stuff on google is either generic chat, or snippets of code I am not able to comprehend?

Anybody knows of a good guide? Preferably not asking me to guess the interrups, or disk cyllinders, or symbol loading locations, and stuff like that?

Thanks much.

Appliances

[Keruo]

Well, after using vmware for some time, networking infrastructure could use more work.
The one built-in to vmware is awful.

Few things comes in mind straight off:

1. Virtual switch device for connecting workstations(think managed ports)
2. Virtual router for creating networks
3. Virtual cable to simulate line delay and perhaps errors between hosts
4. Virtual PBX to simulate phones and modems (modified asterisk?)

Also, the install scripts in linux version could use some work..
Sometimes you might want to reconfigure devices without recompiling the network modules.