Recently Microsoft has release Virtual PC 2007. This is their lightweight virtualization platform. Why do I qualify it as “lightweight”?
Because I have created the categories for virtualization software. I have decided on three classes of virtualization software: Lightweight, Server, and Enterprise.
Lightweight runs on top of a standard operating system, and only allows 1 virtual machine per executable.
Server runs on top of a standard operating system but can concurrently run multiple virtual machines.
Enterprise this requires either a customization of the kernel (such as OpenVZ), unique hardware requirements including Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V™) hardware assist or a bare metal system with a custom operating system installed on it.
These qualifications may change, but they do a nice job of laying out the major features and differences between virtualization technology.
Here is my initial map of virtualization software:
Lightweight
VMware Player
VMware Fusion
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
Parallels Desktop
Parallels Workstation
Server
VMware Server
VMware Workstation (moved from lightweight, due to misunderstanding)
Microsoft Virtual Server 2k5 RC1
Enterprise
SWsoft Virtuozzo
OpenVZ
VMware ESX server
Xensource Xen Enterprise
Xensource Xen Server
Xensource Xen Express
Virtual Iron
If you have any thoughts, suggestions or feedback please post a comment. I will reply to any feedback and look forward to adding more software to this list as the industry grows.
Qemu has been removed, and listed as “Emulation Software”
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February 23rd, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Don’t forget Linux-Vserver (linux-vserver.org). It is not a virtual machine per se, rather kernel level isolation, but it’s very efficient.
In the same category, there is BSD jails, and Solaris containers.
Also, you could add Bochs, Plex86, KVM, etc.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_virtualization_software
February 26th, 2007 at 10:48 am
1. Qemu is an emulation software, NOT a virtualizaton software. There is a difference. Also, Bochs (as mentioned in the above comment) is an emulator.
2. I’m not sure why you classified VMware Workstation as “Lightweight”, as you can run many guests at the same time in the same GUI. Yes, each guest runs in its own vmware-vmx.exe executable, but it’s the same with VMware Server. Player does restrict you to 1 VM per instance of the Player GUI; but you can launch multiple instances.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Даа… Достаточно спорно, поспорила бы с автором…