The Amazing VM Record/Replay Feature in VMware Workstation 6

VMware Workstation 6 is coming shortly, and we’re quite excited about its many new features: support for paravirtualized Linux kernels, integration with Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse, high-speed USB support, multiple monitor support, and the new VIX 1.1 VM scripting API to name a few.

One other new feature that we’re extra excited about is “VM Record/Replay” (shown enabled below). The idea behind Record/Replay is relatively straightforward. When executing software within a virtual machine (VM), our virtualization layer can record the complete execution behavior. Having saved this behavioral information, the user can go back in time (from the VM’s point of view) and replay that exact and complete behavior over and over again. The keywords here are exact and complete, and that’s where both the implementation challenge and the power come from.

Read more of the original article, Virtually There: Steve Herrod's Blog