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VMWare Rolls Out Their Largest Product Release

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the virutally-a-full-blown-release dept.

opieum writes "VMware has launched Virtual Infrastructure 3.0 today which includes ESX 3.0 and a number of management utilities." Relatedly Jane Walker writes "SearchOpenSource has two authors that try to show why VMware ESX Server is miles ahead of Xen and Virtual Server. Discover what to watch out for when running ESX Server and how to avoid sprawl in your virtual data center."

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. by Keaster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It was thier GSX server product rebranded.

    WORD

  2. Excellent support of late by pdbaby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We've started to use more and more virtualisation systems at work -- the vmware solution is by far the most sophisticated and performant we've encountered - and the upgrade path to ESX server is always handy. Clusters are a virtual (a-ha!) doddle to work with once you pretty much virtualise everything (and the performance isn't bad either!).

    Roll on more vmware products to make my life a happier one!

    --
    Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
  3. You're right, you don't. Stop thinking 1 box. by CFD339 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, first the obvious stuff you know. It may have no value to you, but for doing live demos and development environments its sweet.

    vmware workstation - for $$ you get an amazing desktop virtualization environment perfect for people who write drivers and core operating system software. Snapshots and things, complete control over memory, "frozen in state" debugging from outside the vm.

    vmware server - free. On the desktop, it lets you run more than one pc at a time. Also can run on a server -- even headless. It can start with the operating system and automatically load the vm's at boot time. A conside side app lets you manage your headless server platform remotely.

    Then you get into their Data Center environment.

    Don't think 1 machine. Thinking 10 machines. You deploy your vm's across them, using your EMC storage arrays. You don't even have to know which hardware is running your vm. They can be moved around at will. Add a machine to the pack and you increase overall power. A machine goes down? So what? Migrate the vm. The VM's all run with the same "drivers" which are virtual.

    Have you ever kept a server longer than you wanted because you didn't want to deal with reinstalling an entire operating system and all the software just to take advantage of the new hardware?

    --
    The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
  4. Parallels and VTx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is VMWare shipping with VTx support yet, like Parallels.com? I've got WinXP, Linux and OpenBSD running under Parallels, and the performance seems far superior to VMWare.

  5. Benchmarks you've seen by TimMann · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since our EULA didn't allow benchmarks to be published, most likely the only benchmarks you've seen are some that the Xen folks did for their SOSP paper, taken on a version of VMware Workstation from several years ago before the EULA was changed to forbid publishing benchmarks.

    I understand that recently we changed the EULA back to allow benchmarking again. Let's see if the Xen folks redo their benchmarks or keep making hay by comparing with the old VMware Workstation 3.1 benchmarks...

    [Standard disclaimer: I work for VMware, but I'm not speaking officially.]

    1. Re:Benchmarks you've seen by Bigmilt8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You are correct. VMWare does not allow it's products' benchmarks to be published. This is probably the most dishonest thing I've seen. They claim it's better but you have to take their word for it. That's a laugh. I am a Database Administrator and I fought the battle with the Systems Administrators over using VMWare. I had used it before in a previous job and it wasn't ready for the datacenter. My assessment is that it is still not ready for the datacenter. The performance is not up to par and I dare VMWare to prove that it is by allowing a 3rd party to benchmark it against native.