In the present time, there are many powerful software technologies and solutions that are highly capable of changing the way we look at IT landscape. Of all the new technologies available in the market, virtualization has enhanced productivity and flexibility. Primarily, it is really important to understand what exactly virtualization is and how it works. Once you get an idea of the theory behind this, you will easily understand the functions and features of the virtualization solutions.
The term 'virtualization' refers to something that is virtual or not physically existing. It implements hardware virtualization, often called 'full platform virtualization'. It uses the available resources of the system, divides them without interfering, and so sets a virtual machine that is emulated and abstracted. You can run an operating system on this virtual machine.
VMware is a market leader in virtualization. VMware has a wide variety of these types of solutions including some free solutions that run both on Linux and Microsoft platforms. Here, we will discuss two VMware products which are free, namely VMware Player and VMware Server.
VMware Player:
You can download it directly from the official website. This application allows you to run guest virtual machines which are compatible with the products manufactured by VMware. It is one of those applications designed specifically for beginners. One of its main advantages is its size. There are occasions where you have to create virtual machine images; however, using this you can just play with the existing images. For such occasions, VMware is a perfect option. However, if you want to create new virtual images and distort those new images then you can make use of third party free utilities like Easy VMX.
VMware Server:
Another product called VMware Server is free and easily available jam-packed with several more features as compared to the player. This version has made it possible to play, edit and create virtual machines in the format compatible with VMware.
VMware Server has few known and widely publicized limitations. Some of these include no support for Fire Wire, lack of 3D hardware alteration support and support of only three mouse buttons. Although, there is no support for Windows Vista 64-bit, however the installation will not fail.
VMware products are one of the best virtualization products available for the effective functioning of your company.
