Virtual machines, containers, functions. Market knowledge for IT decision makers since 2003
Gilles Vollant released WinImage 8.0.
The utility software create an exact copy of various physical media formats (floppy, CD-ROM, hard disk, USB, etc.) or editing and extracting previous created images.
With 8.0 version WinImage introduces now read/write support for Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (vHD) format, used by Virtual PC and Virtual Server, since Microsoft now discloses format details under a royalty-free license.
Quoting from TechWorld:
With the arrival of Russian software company Parallels, the virtualisation marketplace is maturing rapidly.
There’s a clear leader in VMware, the 800lb gorilla that’s setting the pace in a number of areas. But can it stay ahead? Naturally, the company’s president Diane Greene thinks so, but there’s a number of challenges ahead.The establishment
VMware offers products at the desktop, server and data centre levels, with its Workstation, GSX and ESX product offerings. And it recently branched out into services, with the announcement of what the company’s official screed called “a set of focused server consolidation assessment services that assess the capacity utilisation of an organisation’s IT infrastructure, identify opportunities for consolidation and help deliver a virtualisation roadmap for effective server containment and consolidation.” It’s a way of helping users get more out its products, in other words.In addition, VMware has released a range of tools that allows complex server configurations running across multiple pieces of hardware to manage themselves. This means that, for example, when utilisation approaches saturation point, the system recognises this and can move virtual machines to a less heavily utilised piece of hardware.
VMware has also trumpeted a wide range of support for its products from third parties, raising the barriers to entry for newcomers — a standard manoeuvre for established market players. In fact, this was key to its achieving its pre-eminence, as its existence has meant that major server vendors such as IBM and HP did not need to develop their own virtualisation systems — even though they had already developed such systems for their Unix boxes.
But with hardware support from AMD and Intel just around the corner, the demand for virtualisation tools is likely to suck in even more vendors and the market will fragment — the demand for management tools seems especially likely to explode — so VMware will have to work hard to stay at the top.
The upstarts
Parallels is one whose competition stems not so much from deeply differentiated products but more from their price. According to marketing manager Benjamin Rudolph, Parallels’ product, Parallels Workstation, is half the price of the VMware equivalent, offers better legacy OS support and majors on ease of use — all good ploys to occupy a market niche for those starting along the virtualisation path, especially since VMware’s focus is primarily higher up the food chain.Xen, an open source competitor, already supports Linux and it already supports Intel’s virtualisation technology (VT) and will support similar extensions from AMD, codenamed Pacifica, early in 2006. According to developer XenSource, it also boasts support from most major vendors — Microsoft aside of course — and will be producing and selling XenOptimizer SE, a VM management package later this year. XenSource has also demonstrated a hypervisor with embedded security capabilities, while the upcoming Xen version 3.0 will support 64-bit processors, and SMP guest operating systems. However, the developer has yet to announce a single large customer. In contrast, VMware has thousands — and Xen still struggles to support Windows, although XenSource claims that this problem is being addressed.
The threat from Redmond
Meanwhile, Microsoft lurks in the wings and is VMware’s greatest threat. The current version of Microsoft Virtual Server, based on the technology Microsoft acquired when it bought Connectix in 2003, will run only on Windows and, although it’ll run pretty much any x86-based system as a guest OS, Microsoft will only offer support for its own products. Microsoft has promised though that its Virtual PC that will support OSes other than Windows, and we can expect that version by the end of 2005.In the longer term, Virtual Server is likely to disappear as the server version of Microsoft’s upcoming OS Vista will include hypervisor capabilities, replacing the OS itself. “In the future, we’re going to build the hypervisor and the virtualization stack into Windows,” confirmed Microsoft’s server product manager Bob Muglia.
Microsoft shouldn’t be written off in the service and management space either, as Muglia points out, when talking about future developments: “There are some new features that are very important from the management perspective, like moving virtualized sessions from one machine to another. We don’t have a product that does that today. And so we do think that’s the potential opportunity to build a new product in that space… System Center something. Maybe it’s [called] Virtualization Management. I don’t know.”
While Microsoft doesn’t have the depth of OEM agreements with hardware vendors in the virtualisation space, it does have contracts relating to its other products that could act as levers, using bundling and other incentives, to persuade the likes of HP, IBM and especially Dell to prefer its virtualisation products over VMware’s. It doesn’t, however, yet have the depth of product offering to make that stick.
For the moment then, VMware is the clear leader — and needs to use this opportunity to widen the gap as far as possible. Given the announcements VMware has made recently, this clearly is its strategy — which also implies that the others are likely to remain also-rans or niche players as the market coalesces around two main players.
Something in the corporate policy changed at VMware headquarter immediately before the launch of VMTN Blog.
Various VMware employees started blogging about their work around company products. Every blogger has already written very interesting posts providing further details to what will be written on VMTN Blog.
Here the actual list:
When an IT company become really famous and its products are very appreciated, people start looking for a deeper contact with the people producing the beloved software. I think it’s like actors fans wanting to know more and more about their preferred software.
Companies catching this feeling can start a corporate blog: this provide a chance to give their supporters a great insight of how development goes and an indirect marketing tool for all prospects out there wanting to jump sales brochures blablabla.
VMware is one of this kind of companies and, with perfect timing, just launched its VMTN Blog.
John Troyer, the Senior Product Manager of VMTN Online, inaugurated the blog and adviced other VMware employees will post on it:
We will be talking about virtualization technology in general: how people are using it, what is happening in the industry, and what is coming next as the virtualization revolution continues to change fundamentally how we use computers. Of course, we will also be covering VMware, its products, and the ecosystem that surrounds VMware’s virtual infrastructure solutions.
…
I’ll be the main contributor here to start, but you can expect others from around VMTN and the company to drop by and tell a story or two. As always with a blog, the views expressed on this blog are the views of each individual poster and do not reflect official statements, policies, or strategies of VMware.
I wish John a really good work, hoping to read on the corporate blog something very special about what’s there now and what’s going to be in the near future.
Quoting from SearchWin2000:
When new hardware that supports virtualization technology comes on the market next year, IT managers will have more to choose from than popular software from VMware Inc. and Microsoft.
Windows shops will likely be looking over the Xen 3.0 hypervisor and commercial products built on this release, such as software from XenSource Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif. Xen is an open source alternative for x86 computers that can execute multiple virtual machines, each with its own operating system (OS), on a physical system. The latest release, Xen 3.0, is expected out in early November.
“I plan to download it and install it and run some applications on it in testing mode,” said Jamey Vester, an administrator at Subaru of Indiana, Lafayette, Ind., who runs a Windows shop and uses VMware’s ESX software.
Virtualization software gains interest
Server virtualization software lets administrators place multiple virtual servers on a single physical device. By doing this, IT administrators can consolidate their servers and therefore get more for their hardware investments.It’s an emerging technology being watched with great interest by administrators and IT executives alike. In a poll of 603 infrastructure decision makers taken by Forrester Research Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., in early 2004, only 22% were aware of or interested in this technology.
By the middle of 2005, 29% of IT executives polled said they were interested in using virtualization and another 29% were interested in testing or using the technology within the next year. About 61% planned to increase the scope of their installations, the report said.
And the number of Windows shops interested in virtualization may multiply faster now that Microsoft has changed the way it licenses virtual machines. In December, customers running premium versions of Windows will no longer have to pay per physical server.
The competition is fierce
Today, for virtualization that needs to be done on the x86 platform, the choice is between VMware software and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, said Richard Fichera, a Forrester analyst.But the combination of Xen 3.0-based technology coupled with the release of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Pacifica and Intel Corp.’s VT hardware will make it possible for Xen to vitualize Windows in a high-performing and efficient manner. Xen already supports Linux.
The next release of Xen also includes support for symmetric multiprocessing and up to 32 virtual processors. It also supports both 32-bit and 64-bit addressing and has a live relocation feature, which means an administrator can move a running virtual machine from one PC to another.
Other Xen 3.0 features include support for physical address extension, better copy-on-write file system support, better cluster transparency and some improvements to its quality of service features, such as real-time scheduling capability. There is also a set of debugging tools.
Making virtualization work
When there are multiple OSes virtualized on a server, each one thinks it is in control of the whole machine. But the virtualization software can cut the performance of the server if the virtualized OS attempts to do tasks as if it really were the only OS on the machine, such as put pixels on display or write to the disk. There is a performance drain created from the overhead that occurs when virtualization software has to patch the OS on the fly.To avoid this problem today, Xen uses para-virtual device drivers. They allow the guest OS to be “aware” it is being virtualized, said Simon Crosby, vice president of strategy and corporate development at XenSource.
The x86 conundrum
It is the nature of an x86 device to be hard to virtualize because of the way that the system assigns privilege. To run an unmodified operating system in an efficient manner, as you would want to run Windows, requires the use of VT and Pacifica, Crosby explained.Once the hardware support from Intel and AMD is in place, Xen and Windows will then be able to run unmodified, thereby receiving this needed performance boost.
For Windows customers to get similar virtualization features from Microsoft, they have to wait a few years. The software vendor said it would offer a hypervisor for the R2 release of Longhorn Server, which itself isn’t due until sometime in 2007.
Microsoft is aiming its products at VMware’s ESX and GSX products. GSX compares most closely with Virtual Server, as it runs on top of a host operating system. VMware’s ESX is a hypervisor that runs directly on server hardware and therefore performs faster. VMware also offers VMotion, which lets users move a live server from one virtual machine host to another without interrupting the service.
Virtualization can be pricey
If customers want VMware, they can expect to pay more. Virtual Server 2005 is $999 for up to 32 processors. GSX sells for $2,800 for up to 32 CPUs. And ESX sells for $3,750 for a two-CPU server. But pricing aside, VMware has a seven-year market advantage and a good reputation with enterprise customers.“VMware isn’t very expensive compared to a few minutes of downtime on my server,” Subaru’s Vester said.
VMware recently made its source code accessible to its partners with the hope of developing more collaborative relationships with them. The relationship may also lead to the exploitation of the properties of virtualization in other network elements, such as switches or network cards.
XenSource hasn’t revealed its product line yet but the company is expected to offer Xen technology with management features.
The Microsoft question
Once Microsoft builds virtualization technology into its OS, it remains to be seen whether customers will feel they need other products. XenSource’s Crosby said it depends on whether an IT shop wants to reap the benefits of virtualization now or later. There is a window of time to take advantage of an inexpensive way to do this. Xen, after all, is free, he said.
After exploring how to launch ISOs from an empty virtual machine with VMware Player, we can trying something harder: create a brand new virtual machine with the Player.
This shouldn’t be possible since VMware Player only permits you to run precreated VMs, mainly because we miss an empty virtual HD (something .vmdk) where to install things. We just need to find one of them and the trick is done.
What I’m going to detail below isn’t something extraordinary and maybe many readers of the previous post (or any moderately skilled VMware user) already tried.
The same results can be achieved by simply downloading VMware Workstation trial and creating a test virtual machine.
How to create new virtual machines
With the launch of VMware Player VMware also started distributing a free downloadable virtual machine called Browser Appliance.
Download it from VMware site and unpack it on your HD.
Then prepare ISOs for the operating system you are going to install inside our recycled VM.
Note: if you plan to produce an ISO from a physical CDrom (with tools like UltraISO or WinImage) be sure to dump the boot sector too.
Now follow my previous post about launching ISOs from VMware Player and produce your own .vmx configuration file mapping the prepared ISO on the virtual CDrom.
Finally grab the VMware Browser Appliance virtual machine configuration file (Browser-Appliance.vmx) and replace similar lines with ones from your .vmx configuration file.
You’ll have a resulting .vmx file that maps an 800MB virtual HD (Browser-Appliance.vmdk) where you can install the operating system booting from your mapped ISO.
If this virtual HD is too small try to grab another freely available virtual machine at VMware Virtual Machine Center and repeat the process.
Update 1: Many readers reports me that a QEMU utility, called qemu-img, is able to create VMware .vmdk disks from scratch.
I tried and it works but I’m not sure if the tool breaks any VMware EULAs. If any VMware employee is reading please send me some details.
Update 2: After VMware Player release a huge amount of users created web and binary applications for automated production of virtual machines, circumventing Player limitations.
I found the best one is EasyVMX!
Final note
VMware Workstation really worth the money it costs. And if you read my blog you really know how this is true.
Use this procedure just to experiment and then buy the product.
CA just released an important minor update for its great enterprise backup solution: BrightStor ARCserve.
I stated many times that is possible to achieve virtual machines hot backup on Windows Server 2003 host platforms when the backup solution supports the Microsoft Volume Shadow Service technology.
By VSS-snapshoting the physical drive where VMs reside you can have a full backup anytime without downtime. This method isn’t wide used anyway cause VSS-snapshoting VMs is like shutting down them unplugging virtual power cord: at restore time you risk to have a corrupted operating system.
Anyway I found this a reliable enough (and cheap) solution for the non mission critical VMs, working with it since two years.
I choosed CA BrightStor ARCserve 11.0 to achieve this task after one month of intensive lab comparisons with others enteprise backup solutions. I choosed it cause I found it the only really reliable with VSS technology and with all features I was looking for.
Today CA releases ARCserve release 11.5 and introduces official support for VMware and Microsoft virtual machines backup from host OS, as stated in the Release Notes.
There aren’t detailed technical explainations about this so I’ll update this post as soon as I get more documentation. Meanwhile if someone from CA is reading can contact me to provide details.
Update: The documentation included in the 11.5 trial package reports just Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server support as new feature. And there’s no mention about backup support from host OS.
I’ll try to contact CA support staff to have an explaination about this discrepancy.
Quoting from the PlateSpin official announcement:
PlateSpin Ltd. today announced the general availability of the next release of its PowerConvert™ product, used in more than 500 enterprise data centers across the world. PlateSpin PowerConvert provides anywhere-to-anywhere OS Portability™ for optimizing the use of Intel-based data center resources. From most any source, to most any target in the data center, PlateSpin PowerConvert automates the migration of data, applications and operating systems to the servers that best match the service level needs of the workload, all from a single point of remote control.
“PowerConvert is being used by multi-infrastructure data centers to accelerate the adoption of virtual infrastructure by enabling rapid server consolidation (P2V), de-virtualization (V2P) capabilities for application support, streamline business continuity with flexible recovery (I2P, I2V) and to manage hardware migrations including upgrading to blade servers (P2P),” said John Stetic, Director of Product Management. “The increased functionality and broader features with this newest release further strengthens PowerConvert’s position as the de facto standard for IT managers looking for a new level of adaptability.”
New features available in PlateSpin PowerConvert 5.1 include:
- Full Windows Dynamic Disk support provides the ability to convert Windows-based source servers with dynamic disks (including software RAID) to virtual machines, other physical machines, or to image archives
- Built in support for Incremental Third party Images which lets data center managers automatically deploy the latest incremental image captured from Acronis TrueImage or Symantec LiveState, streamlining the recovery process
- A new Conversion Analyzer Tool provides detailed reports based on the inventory features of PowerConvert that result in the reduction of conversion planning times especially for server consolidation projects
- Automatic control of the startup state of Windows and Linux services for deeper application configuration during a conversion
- A revamped mechanism to improve the overall support for a broad range of source and target hardware
- Integrated Job Scheduling allows users to schedule conversions to run at a date and time most convenient and appropriate for the service requirements of their data center. When combined with the existing email notification feature, data center managers can optimize by exception reducing hands-on time during projects
- Built-in integration with IBM Director gives IBM users centralized control of server consolidation and migration projects
Arthur Amos, Head of Technology Infrastructure at Nationwide Building Society, said “PowerConvert has enabled Nationwide to automate migrations of servers across our Enterprise without having to be in physical contact with either the source or target machines, eliminating weeks if not months of labor and enabling us to realize a quicker return on our investment as we accelerate our move to a virtual infrastructure. The addition of Virtual to Physical (V2P) migration capabilities in PowerConvert helps to protect our investment. It is clear that the benefits of PowerConvert are real and measurable.”
Current PlateSpin PowerConvert customers with a valid maintenance agreement can upgrade from PowerConvert 5.0 to 5.1. PlateSpin PowerConvert 5.1 is available today for use with industry leading server technologies, image archives, and virtualization products such as VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server and Microsoft Virtual Server.
VMware Player can be used to run any precreated virtual machine by VMware Workstation, GSX Server and ESX Server (and even Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server VMs).
But how to run a LiveCD Linux (like Knoppix), BSD (like FreeSBIE) or OpenSolaris (like ShilliX) distribution?
You cannot cause you don’t have an empty virtual machine where to map your LiveCD ISO.
How-to launch ISOs
First of all you need a virtual machine configuration file (something .vmx), where every virtual hardware aspect is defined (from memory size to how many ethernet NICs are available).
You can google around and find many of them or your can grab this one from virtualization.info: livecd.vmx
Now you need to edit it (Notepad is enough) to map your LiveCD ISO on the virtual CDRom: just search for livecd.iso and replace with your ISO name.
Save the edited .vmx file and you are ready to launch it with VMware Player!
Note: to achieve better performances and compatibility you could change the guestOS = “otherlinux” (generic Linux distribution) string inside livecd.vmx accordingly to your livecd OS in this way:
To simplify and speed up the .vmx creation you could use the VMX-builder utility.
You could also want to create a brand new virtual machine with virtual disks (.vmdk) for VMware Player. If so read my How to create a new virtual machine with VMware Player post about it.
On his blog, Christian Hammond, a VMware employee, underlined how much clamor VMware Player release aroused.
The Player has the same virtualization engine of Workstation product and VMware give it away for free. Why?
Christian considers two strong upcoming opponents: post-Windows codename Longhorn, which will include an hypervisor technology, and Xen, which will eventually be included in every Linux distribution (and I think on Solaris and BSD too).
So in the near future every operating system will have a virtualization engine as standard feature.
Christian, while saying We try to be a good company, really put the lights on what’s happening: VMware is savvy facing how Microsoft Windows Hypervisor and Xen capability to run Windows virtual machines will change the server virtualization market.
Acting today, spreading virtualization everywhere at a cheap price or no cost, VMware can try to gain as much satisfied users as possible, while doing its best to provide the cutting-edge technologies as fast as possible.
The first time I heard about Windows Hypervisor I guessed VMware would give away Workstation for free at a point. The VMware Player just confirmed my thoughts.
The real competition has still to come.