Articles about Virtualization

Today, Parallels updated its Mac virtualization client to support installation of Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Parallels Desktop 7 also supports OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" Developer Preview. Microsoft released its test OS last week and Apple last month. Mountain Lion is expected to release in late summer and Windows 8 a month or so later.

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac also offers a utility for downloading, as well as installing, Windows 8 CP. The virtualization software released in September, followed by several feature-enhancing updates, including support for new operating systems.

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a very interesting look at where the operating system is going next, in particular with features like the new Windows app store, but of course it’s also a beta and needs to be treated with caution. Especially as it can’t be uninstalled should things go wrong.

If you only want a quick look round at the Windows 8 highlights, then, the safest approach is to install it on a VirtualBox virtual machine. You won’t have to spend time freeing up a laptop or creating a new partition, and can browse the new Metro interface in a window on your desktop: far more convenient.

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VMWare has updated its range of virtualization products for Mac, Windows and Linux. The biggest update is VMWare Fusion 4.1 for Mac, which addresses a number of issues raised by users, including poor performance and the loss of certain features such as being able to automatically load virtual machines on application launch.

Also updated are VMWare Workstation 8.0.1 and the free VMWare Player 4.0.1 tool for Windows and Linux.

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Virtualization is one of the hottest IT topics today. Everyone's talking about it, but few are really doing it -- and there's a big gulf between enterprise and small business adoption, even though many of the benefits are the same. Small business is one of my favorite technology segments, because of its diversity, unique needs, large size, yet small IT footprint. When working as an analyst during the mid-Noughties I launched JupiterResearch's SMB practice. I've been remiss by not writing more about small business tech at BetaNews.

There is much confusion about what is a small business -- how official statisticians and high-tech vendors segment sizes. Small businesses account for 97 percent of employee firms, according to US government agencies. But that segmentation counts firms with fewer than 500 employees as small business -- large by my measure -- and ignores the enormous number of operations with non-payroll employees. This segment is often overlooked by high-tech vendors, many of which count them as consumers. By the US Census Bureau's reckoning, there are nearly 27.3 million small businesses, but only 5.9 million have payrolls and 3.62 million employ fewer than five people. So there are 21.4 million businesses employing less than 5 people -- that's 78 percent of them.

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Virtual environments on a Mac are often used for running alternative operating systems like Windows or Linux. Most often this is to run software that simply won’t work under OS X no matter how hard you try to persuade it.

Sometimes, however, it’s desirable to run a Mac inside a Mac, which is where free Paragon Virtualization Manager for Mac OS X comes in. This may be handy for testing new software in an isolated environment to avoid damaging your Mac or you might want to clone your system to a removable disk for backup purposes.

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VMware has released a major update to its free virtualization tool. VMware Player 4.0 enables you to create virtual computers within your existing PC, allowing you to try out new operating systems or other software in a safe environment without messing up your main computer.

The main improvements in version 4.0 center around the virtual hardware provided. This is the specification of the basic computer created within the program into which you can install an operating system and other test apps. In VMWare Player 4.0, the display capabilities have been upped so that they support multiple monitors.

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For small and medium businesses (SMB), the cost of IT can be sometimes prohibitive. Budgets are small and resources are thin: virtualization may be an attractive alternative to the server farm as it is easy to set up and less time consuming to maintain. Through virtualization, SMB IT deployments can be much more expansive and comprehensive due to cost savings typically realized as a result.

A recent survey by VMWare validates this. Of the 309 SMB IT managers surveyed using virtualization, nearly 73 percent saw a significant decrease in the amount of time spent on routine IT tasks. Over two-thirds also were better equipped to adapt to the changing needs of their businesses, and nearly the same number were able to significantly reduce their hardware costs.

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Virtualization specialist VMware has announced the release of VMware Workstation 8 for PC and VMware Fusion 4 for Mac. Both tools allow users to run different operating systems in virtual windows through one computer.

Both releases include a number of new features, additional hardware support and are updated to take advantage of the latest operating systems (VMWare Fusion 4 has been optimized for Lion). VMware Workstation 8 also introduces a new system requirement: it will only run on PCs with 64-bit processors.

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