VMware could make more hot add of virtual hardware available before Microsoft:

DHP (Dynamic Hardware Partitioning) features that are coming with Windows Server 2008 (formerly known as Longhorn) allow hot add of hardware without any downtime. It works with Processors, memory, and some PCI express cards. It does not allow removal of hardware without downtime.

An interesting point made at virtualization.info is that VMware could offer these features before Widnows Server 2008 hypervisor is available since it is a part of the base Server OS product.

A video presentation from WINHEC is available that discusses this feature.

And more good info is available at virtualization.info.

VMware Workstation 6 Performance Tuning/Benchmark Whitepaper:

Just weeks after the release of VMware Workstation 6, I have learned from Virtualization.info that a whitepaper has been repleased with benchmarking and tuning tips.

See the full virtulization.info article or download the whitepaper directly from VMWware.

Hypervisor Harmony: paravirt_ops-first common API between the major Hypervisors:

"The bottom line: Future Linux kernels will have a common hypervisor interface called paravirt_ops that will allow Linux to run on either Xen or VMware with high performance. Through XenSource’s relationship with Microsoft, it’s reasonable to expect that these Linux kernels will have the ability to run as first-class “enlightened” guests on the future Windows Hypervisor. Of course, all of this is only relevant to the market when the next major enterprise Linux distributions take new kernels to market that include paravirt_ops, but overall it is good to see harmony emerging in this particular piece of the virtualization landscape."

Read the entire article here.

Microsoft takes on the free world: Linux violates 235 of it's patents:

Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users. Users like you, maybe.

But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google, Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.

The conflict pits Microsoft and its dogged CEO, Steve Ballmer, against the "free world" - people who believe software is pure knowledge. The leader of that faction is Richard Matthew Stallman, a computer visionary with the look and the intransigence of an Old Testament prophet.

Read the entire story at http://money.cnn.com

VMware Paravirt-ops Stirs Some Controversy:

Paravirtualization is a software technique developed by XenSource and implemented so far by Novell, Red Hat, and other open-source Linux OS providers. It's designed to improve the performance of virtual environments by recompiling parts of the guest operating system to create shortcuts that eliminate otherwise complex translations between OS and underlying hardware. (See Insider Eyes Virtual Desktops.)

Paravirt-ops is an interface VMware claims enables "transparent paravirtualization" by streamlining virtualization processes specifically for the Linux kernel. XenSource, VMware, IBM, and RedHat got paravirt-ops included in the latest release of the Linux kernel, version 2.6.20, which is only just starting to become available for developers.

So far, VMware is the first of the paravirt-ops proponents to offer support for the interface in a commercial product, though XenSource is said to be close to providing one, too.

Read the full story here.

Windows Server Virtualization: some features postponed:

Microsoft is postponing some features to a future release of Windows Server Virtualization (WSV):

• No live migration
• No hot-add resources (storage, networking, memory, processor)
• Support limit of 16 cores/logical CPUs

You should note that you will be able to move virtual machines between WSV hosts if those hosts are part of a Longhorn cluster. Doing so will give you a downtime depending on the configured memory of the virtual machine and the speed of the storage system. This could be several seconds.

This news makes WSV less compelling than originally thought and we will have to wait a bit more (Longhorn RTM + 0..180 days + x days) for the really interesting stuff.

The above information came from: blog.baeke.info

I find it extremely amusing reading the "Windows Server Division Weblog". They make it sound like people are not already using virtualization in the real world and that they have developed virtualization. Guess they missed the 7,000 plus that attended VMworld last year... or ignore those that have been doing virtualization with VMware for years with Vmotion and Virtual Center and the creator of this x86 technology.

Nice comparison of VMware Server 1.0 to VMware Workstation 6.0:

Virtualization.info has update a very nice comparision between the two versions of software.

Read the entire comparision here.

VMware Workstation 6 Offically Released!

Workstation 6 has been released today and you can find out more at the official site.

A nice list of the many new features are listed at virtualization.info.
Another list of the many new features is here.

Read the entire searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com article on features that may show up in ESX Server!