IBM reveals virtualization hardware appliance

The long rumored servers which pre-loads hypervisors are finally unveiled. First company to announce is IBM:

IBM previewed today the fourth generation of its chipset technology, X4, to be available in a high-end, scalable server leveraging the latest in quad-core processing technology from Intel. The System x3950 M2 server will debut a new embedded hypervisor capability, enabling clients to easily deploy virtualized server applications right out of the box.

The new system will be ready for virtualization right out of the box by eliminating software setup and installation time. An internal USB interface will accommodate chip-based or “embedded” virtualization software preloaded on a 4GB USB flash storage device.

The new system offers double the memory slot capacity. Four times the amount of memory can be hosted on a single chassis compared to the previous system, enabling more virtualization workloads…

Citrix/XenSource is the first company to announce support for this new class of servers, with its just announced XenExpress 4.0 OEM Edition. VMware is expected to follow announcing ESX Server 3.5i at VMworld next week.