As Sun Microsystems tries to move past the IBM acquisition talk, the company just announced the release of Sun VirtualBox 2.2, its free and open source virtualization software. The latest release incorporates support for the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), a standard created by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMFT) initiative. OVF enables virtual machines or virtual appliances to easily be imported and exported. Support for OVF also helps to ensure VirtualBox 2.2 software is interoperable with other technologies that follow the standard.
[ Find out more about how the DMTF is meeting virtualization management challenges | And learn more about the latest DMTF OVF 1.0 standard ]
Sun touted the growth of the use of VirtualBox, stating it has had more than 11 million downloads worldwide since October 2007. And during that time, there were also 3.5 million registrations, which provided over 25,000 downloads of the product per day. Impressive numbers, but will Sun have a difficult time translating those numbers into production, enterprise environments? How many of these downloads are end-users only? According to Sun, the tool has been greatly accepted in the developer world.
"VirtualBox has always been a fantastic tool for developers to create multiple virtual machines, network them together and deploy them using nearly any operating system," said Jim McHugh, vice president for datacenter software marketing at Sun. "Now, with the new import and export features of the VirtualBox 2.2 release, users can quickly and easily put their development environments into production -- on the desktop, the server or even in the cloud."
Some of the new features found in this release include optimizations for the software, which makes it the fastest version of the product to date, and Sun also increased 3-D graphics acceleration for Linux and Solaris applications by using the OpenGL standard. To help with guest performance, it increased the maximum memory size available for guest operating systems to 16GB.
In addition, VirtualBox 2.2 now supports Apple's upcoming 64-bit Snow Leopard platform. Also new is a new host-interface networking mode, which should make it easier to run server applications within a virtual machine.
Sun VirtualBox 2.2 is going to be compared with and find itself going up against products like VMware Workstation and Parallels Workstation. And while you can't beat the fact that it is free and open source, it could be missing some of the key features needed in today's enterprise environment -- specifically speaking, VMware's use of Linked Clones. As storage space continues to climb, features like Linked Clones and differencing disks off of base VMDKs will continue to prove itself a high-value offering.
Again, for personal use, the software is free of charge. For larger deployments within a business, subscriptions are being made available starting at $30 per user per year, and that includes support from Sun's technical team.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive InfoWorld Resource Alerts
24 Recommendations
