Virtualisation (the Americans spell it Virtualization) is one of the most exciting recent developments
opening up many opportunities in the server field. Often good innovations are out of reach of most people.
Not so with virtualisation. There is strong competition in this field. VMware, one of the front runners in this field, has made some of its products freely available to retain its market share. Do not for a moment entertain the thought that because it
is free it is somehow second grade software - not in the least. They are the market leaders but they are not the only players. Microsoft has included free virtualisation in Microsoft Server 2008 and there are a number of other vendors as well.
Because it is a relatively new development, many people do not
understand it. We are used to Operating Systems and teach that nothing
can run
on a computer without an Operating System. Operating systems are
programs such
as Windows, Linux, Unix etc. Well that is now old hat. All of these and
many
more than you can dream of can be hosted on a VMware server.
Well, technically speaking, any software that interacts with the
hardware is an Operating System, but this makes us to think of Operating
Systems in a new way. With virtualisation you can run many Operating
Systems on one computer where each functions completely separate from
the others. You can even join many physical servers, each with a number
of Operating Systems into one cluster and have a
whole cloud of computers to share and manage resources amongst them.
Look at what you can do with one of the free products of VMware called
VMware ESXi:
"VMware ESXi is the easiest way to get started with
virtualization-and it's free. Consolidate your applications onto fewer
servers and start saving money through reduced hardware, power, cooling
and administration costs. VMware ESXi has been optimized and tested to
run even your most resource intensive applications and databases with
minimal
performance overhead. With VMware ESXi you can:
You do not need to load VMware's server software on a
computer with an operating system such as Windows or Linux. Then again
you may,
if you want to. See the table below that sets out this difference.
"How does VMware Server differ from VMware's other free
virtualization solution, VMware ESXi?"
The table below
highlights key differences between VMware Server and VMware ESXi.
That is just the beginning. Add some of the other VMware
products and your imagination is the limit. See the image below.
[From VMware Infrastructure Primer]
There are also some free virtualisation (virtualization) products
available for desktop computers as well. Why don't you do a search on
that and try it out. Then load a free Linux desktop version next to your
current Windows version. You'll have the best of both worlds. What can
you lose? On the other hand you can gain some valuable insight into a
field that is going to change the landscape of computers in the near
future.
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