VMware Releases Server 1.0

epit writes "VMware has released v1.0 of their VMware Server product for free (as in beer) as planned. Up until now, it had been a beta download. You can download your copy via the VMware website. Release notes are also available."

Re:When are they going to add

[BiteTheHand]

Right now it's in an experimental stage. Check out more info here: Experimental Support for Direct3D [vmware.com]

Re:Virtual PC

[killjoe]

Probably not because virtual PC is so inferior to VMware. They are not even in the same league really.

Re:Free download... sweet!

[VAXcat]

The popularity of VM solutions is a damning indictment of the OS environment, scheduling and multi user memory protection capabilitie of Windows. If it was really a serious OS (say, like VMS) it would be possible to routinely host dozens of different applications and thousands of users on a single box, instead of the "1 app/1 server" mentality that permeates the Windows world...

Re:Free download... sweet!

[nuzak]

> The popularity of VM solutions is a damning indictment of the OS environment, scheduling and multi user memory protection capabilitie of Windows.

Just have to get your digs in on Windows, don't you? So what about those people that like to virtualize Linux? Does Linux automatically suck too?

Or just maybe there's reasons that go beyond stability.

Re:Browsing in a sandbox to escape spyware

[Valdrax]

Google Browser Sync - $0

Polishing up your own rsync scripts - $0
Not having all your browser history and cookies handed over to a company's who's entire revenue steam is targetted advertising - priceless

Re:This comes at a good time

[smash]

You've been able to run windows as a guest O/S on linux using vmware since about 1997-1998...

Re:Browsing in a sandbox to escape spyware

[poulbailey]

I like the idea of virtual appliances in theory, but what's to stop the anonymous guys who uploaded the files from filling them with all sorts of nasty stuff? Do VMware audit the submissions? Can they realistically audit the submissions?

Re:Oh Damn

[jbplou]

I can buy capable dual-core servers for $500 Capable of what? Capable of not running raid or having memory installed.

Re:Free download... sweet!

[someone300]

You know, if you're running some fully Xen compatible OS like Linux then it's likely that Xen would be the better option in terms of speed and system resources. It supports VMotion like things too I believe.

Re:Oh Damn

[IANAAC]

I can buy capable dual-core servers for $500

That's not a server. That's a desktop system. Contrary to what Dell want you to think with their entry-level servers, servers really do need redundancy, not to mention more than 512M of RAM.

Re:Free download... sweet!

[rikkards]

Where I work servers get replaced every couple of years when the warranty runs out. There are apps and databases owned by specific groups that have existed since the 400Mhz was the bleeding edge in server processor speed. Because of politics and the replacement process, the current servers are running at minimal processor capacity when these applications could be sitting on a virtual server rather than using real hardware.

Re:Free download... sweet!

[wasabii]

Heh. I think this is funny.

At work, we use vmware-server, running on Linux hosts, to run the Windows guests. We don't ever actually have any Linux guests. All of the services we use on Linux are perfectly capable of being installed parallel to other Linux apps... even installed or run multiple times on the same box. Nothing prevents you from launching two copies of Apache, two copies of some Java server, etc. Your limit is really RAM and CPU.

On Windows however it's a different situtation. You can only have one copy of IIS per each OS. One copy of IE. One copy of most server software, as it registers itself in places in the registry that can't really be duplicated. One copy of most software on user instances because it purposely detects itself running twice and just brings the current instance to the front.

It's just an aspect of the platform.

Even our test servers are just two copies of Apache running seperatly on the same boxes. Or somebody running a per-user Apache to test his own code. Or somebody running a complete instance of postgresql, twice.

The ideas enshrined in Unix have made most of this possible. Basically just having the ability to chroot alone does most of the work... but most of the time you dont' even need that. Most Unix programs can take a prefix you specify. Or aren't hard coded to read from absolute paths... or don't store in "absolute" storage bases, such as the registry.

Well, anyways, it just speaks to our environment. We have a very mixed environment. We have lots of WIndows servers, active directory, MS SQL, IIS... and we also have Linux boxes. And the Windows ones we have found a business requirement to VM, the Linux ones, we haven't.