VMWare to offer free "VMWare Server" product! Sandboxes just got a whole lot cheaper
In a very interesting move, VMWare have
announced that they are releasing their VMWare server product, for free. This is the next edition of their "entry level" server virtualisation product and is the one that competes most directly with Microsoft's Virtual Server.
All I can say is... you can't go wrong at that price... so give it a go!
Reproducing some of their comments here, VMWare server certainly seems to be fully featured:
- Support for any standard x86 hardware
- Support for a wide variety of Linux and Windows host operating systems, including 64-bit operating systems
- Support
for a wide variety of Linux, NetWare, Solaris x86 and Windows guest
operating systems, including 64-bit operating systems
- Support for Virtual SMP, enabling a single virtual machine to span multiple physical processors
- Quick and easy, wizard-driven installation similar to any desktop software
- Quick and easy virtual machine creation with a virtual machine wizard
- Virtual machine monitoring and management with an intuitive, user friendly remote console
Almost everything you need if you're curious about virtualised servers and want to trial them.
This falls hot on the heels of their release of
VMWare Player, also as a free too, and raises the possibility of VMWare users being able to create virtual machines on VMWare Server to distribute to their workstations for free with VMWare Player.
I can't decide if this pricing approach is a stroke of genius on the part of VMWare, or a sign of madness. Are they running scared of Intel and AMD putting virtualisation on the processor, or are they trying to kill
MS Virtual Server before it becomes too popular?
At the moment, if you decide you need to buy
VMWare GSX (the current release of VMWare server) you might look at
VMWare ESX and think "You know what, i'm already spending on GSX, lets go the whole hog and get the 'Rolls Royce' solution". But when you can get VMWare server for free, people will begin to think "You know what? I think I'll make do with that and keep the balance sheet clean"
Some good news for security researchers from this news though - creating sandboxes to do secure tests just got a whole lot cheaper.