VMware Workstation 6 now available

VMware has announced the general availability of VMware Workstation 6, the sixth generation of its desktop virtualization software product. VMware Workstation 6 delivers groundbreaking advances in virtualization technology while offering numerous new features such as Windows Vista support, as well as industry-first support for multiple display monitors and USB 2.0 devices, making it highly appealing to IT administrators, developers, testers and other technical professionals.

Introduced more than eight years ago, VMware Workstation enables pre-production testing of desktops and servers in virtual machines, rehosting of legacy applications, rapid provisioning and resetting of multi-tier environments and accelerated software development and testing. With an advanced feature set and broad support for x86 operating systems, VMware Workstation continues to be the ‘gold standard’ virtualization product for desktop and laptop computers.

New features in VMware Workstation include:

* Windows Vista support: Users can deploy Windows Vista as a guest or host operating system, facilitating re-hosting of legacy systems, enabling upgrade and migration projects with minimal end-user disruption and simplifying Windows Vista evaluations.

* Multiple monitor display: Users can configure one virtual machine to span multiple monitors or multiple virtual machines to each display on separate monitors with this industry-first capability, enhancing desktop productivity.

* USB 2.0 support: Users can take advantage of high-performance peripherals such as Apple iPods and fast storage devices.

* ACE authoring capabilities: As a companion to VMware Workstation 6, VMware now offers a VMware ACE Option Pack, which enables VMware Workstation 6 users to create secure, centrally manageable virtual machines. Mobility is one of the primary benefits of this Option Pack, as it allows users to securely transport virtual machines on portable media devices such as USB memory sticks.

* Integrated Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) functionality: Users can create a virtual machine in minutes by ‘cloning’ an existing physical computer.

* Integrated virtual debugger: Users can deploy, run and debug programs inside a virtual machine directly from their preferred integrated development environments (IDEs), accelerating debugging with this industry-first integration with Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio.

* Background virtual machine execution: Users can run virtual machines in the background without the VMware Workstation user interface for an uncluttered user experience.

* Automation APIs: Users can write scripts and programs that automate and help quicken virtual machine testing with support for VIX API 2.0.

In addition, VMware Workstation 6 advances the state of the art in virtualization technology with groundbreaking new capabilities including:

* Continuous virtual machine record and replay (experimental): Users can record the execution of a virtual machine, including all inputs, outputs and decisions made along the way. On demand, the user can go ‘back in time’ to the start of the recording and replay execution, guaranteeing that the virtual machine will perform exactly the same operations every time and ensuring bugs can be reproduced and resolved.

* Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) support (experimental): VMware Workstation 6 is the first virtualization platform to allow execution of paravirtualized guest operating systems that implement the VMI interface.

Pricing and Availability
VMware Workstation 6 for both Windows and Linux host operating systems has a list price of $189 and is available for electronic download at www.vmware.com/products/ws/

•Date: 11th May 2007 • Region: World •Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
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