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In addition, the company on Monday said that it has now made Virtual Server 2005 R2 a free download. The company had charged either $99 for up to four physical processors or $199 for an unlimited number of processors. The announcements were made in conjunction with the LinuxWorld conference in Boston this week.
Virtualization, an emerging technology that is garnering growing interest from corporate customers, allows a server to run multiple instances of an operating system. This makes it easier for corporations to consolidate many applications on a single hardware server and provides a level of reliability.
At the LinuxWorld conference, virtualization is an important theme. Start-ups Virtual Iron and XenSource, which sells support for open-source software Xen, this week are expected to discuss their strategies to go after market leader VMWare.
Similarly, Microsoft's decision to offer a free download of its Virtual Server 2005 R2--which cost as much as $999 in December--reflects the heated competition among virtualization software providers.
"What choice did (Microsoft) have? People can now download VMware's competing hosted virtualization product, VMware Server, for free. That leaves little place for a less mature Microsoft product that also costs more," said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata.
"That upcoming versions of Xen will support Windows guests on x86 processors with VT (from Intel) and Pacifica technology (from Advanced Micro Devices) adds an exclamation point," he said.
In addition to facing off against EMC subsidiary VMWare, Microsoft is increasingly seeing competition from Xen, which is being built into forthcoming versions of Suse Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Microsoft said that it has developed software to simplify the installation of Linux distributions from Red Hat and Novell Suse, so they will run on Virtual Server 2005 R2 on Windows. In addition, Microsoft will provide technical support to customers running Windows and Linux side by side.
The company said it has written "add-in" software for nine recent versions of Red Hat's server and Novell's Suse Linux.
Zane Adam, director of Windows Server product marketing, said Monday that Microsoft intends to deepen its investments in virtualization. Windows Hypervisor, which he said will be released in the "Longhorn server wave," will allow multiple operating systems to run on a single machine.
"We've said that our Hypervisor will be part of the operating system. If you take that view, we signaled the ability for virtualization to be free," Adam said.
Longhorn Server is slated to be completed in 2007, and the company is expected to have a follow-on service pack and then a more substantial update, called "R2." Adam said Windows Hypervisor would be included in one of those three releases.
He added that Microsoft has changed its licensing practices to better address several instances of an operating system on one machine. And Microsoft has published, royalty-free, a specification called Virtual Hard Disk to let third parties write management and security products for all of its virtualization software.
To provide support for customers running Linux and Windows on the same machine Microsoft has contracted with Indian service company Wipro Technologies, which will handle calls, Adam said.
See more CNET content tagged:
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, Microsoft Virtual Server, virtualization, hypervisor, Xen
runing all your Linux stuff, and then in 5 years MS discontinues the
virtualisation sw, leaving you with no choice but to switch over to
Windows only or purchase new hardware to run Linux. Very very
clever Balmer. When are you going to resign?
technologies or one of the two open-source projects, which will
(by then) built into most Linux distributions. Wheras your OS-X
server will be technically able to do the same, but without
support from Apple (at least so fat).
(Or as you say, get some new hardware. A Mac Mini would
probably do).
I'm typing this on a Mac - Mac users could do themselves a BIG
favour by not feeling the need to bash EVERYTHING Microsoft
does.
Like politics, you need to see when your 'enemy' has some good
ideas and give them credit - you cannot simply define yourself
as the opposite. MS understand this lesson well.
Each virtualization vendor generally has 'physical to virtual' conversion tools, its just a matter of using those same tools to convert 'virtual to virtual' should any one vendor drop out.
EMC's VMWare GSX Server is already moving to free (the free edition in beta now, but it appears will stay free after beta), and there is Xen project which is also free. So its not that there was much choice on setting a price.
Microsoft has no incentive to get rid of virtualization -- ever. It's a feature every other vendor provides, there are third party virtualization packages that run under Windows (and based on features, still far ahead), and, frankly it adds value to their OS product where there's compartively little (and less each day).
As for Linux... Why would you buy new hardware to run Linux? Just convert the Windows box to run Linux. IT supports the same hardware, typically better (particularly for servers) and, if you have legacy Windows apps, you can run them in a VM under Linux (or use the Windows version of the app; and some Windows apps will run directly on top of Linux without Windows).
This is one situation where I don't think there's any looming threat of lock-in.
You give MAC users a bad name.. :-)
runing all your Linux stuff, and then in 5 years MS discontinues the
virtualisation sw, leaving you with no choice but to switch over to
Windows only or purchase new hardware to run Linux. Very very
clever Balmer. When are you going to resign?
technologies or one of the two open-source projects, which will
(by then) built into most Linux distributions. Wheras your OS-X
server will be technically able to do the same, but without
support from Apple (at least so fat).
(Or as you say, get some new hardware. A Mac Mini would
probably do).
I'm typing this on a Mac - Mac users could do themselves a BIG
favour by not feeling the need to bash EVERYTHING Microsoft
does.
Like politics, you need to see when your 'enemy' has some good
ideas and give them credit - you cannot simply define yourself
as the opposite. MS understand this lesson well.
Each virtualization vendor generally has 'physical to virtual' conversion tools, its just a matter of using those same tools to convert 'virtual to virtual' should any one vendor drop out.
EMC's VMWare GSX Server is already moving to free (the free edition in beta now, but it appears will stay free after beta), and there is Xen project which is also free. So its not that there was much choice on setting a price.
Microsoft has no incentive to get rid of virtualization -- ever. It's a feature every other vendor provides, there are third party virtualization packages that run under Windows (and based on features, still far ahead), and, frankly it adds value to their OS product where there's compartively little (and less each day).
As for Linux... Why would you buy new hardware to run Linux? Just convert the Windows box to run Linux. IT supports the same hardware, typically better (particularly for servers) and, if you have legacy Windows apps, you can run them in a VM under Linux (or use the Windows version of the app; and some Windows apps will run directly on top of Linux without Windows).
This is one situation where I don't think there's any looming threat of lock-in.
You give MAC users a bad name.. :-)
It's a good idea though. For some Windows shops, it will provide an simple way to test Linux. One would hope that they'll realize the performance penalty the VM and Windows host OS will incur, but it's a start.
If you knew you were going to be running both, I'd presume that you'd either use Linux as the host and Windows as the guest or have two machines, however.
One more thing that the article said is that it is being offered as a free download. I cannot find a free version anywhere on their site.
They purchased Suse in order to push their way into the consummer and small server market. The Xen Program is now bundled into the new release of Suse. And under the Open Source License it must be offered for free. But that doesn't stop them from selling some of their software that runs on Linux to these same Suse people or building in and developing the Novell quality into their Suse product.
Contrary to What you Say:
The typical IT shop would actually prefer Novell. Who've been in this server market for many years longer than Redhat. So it depends on whether you can afford Novell (or Redhat for that matter), or you're a small operation and maybe a Non-Profit one, with little cash to fork over for the others.
They purchased Suse in order to push their way into the consummer and small server market. The Xen Program is now bundled into the new release of Suse. And under the Open Source License it must be offered for free. But that doesn't stop them from selling some of their software that runs on Linux to these same Suse people or building in and developing the Novell quality into their Suse product.
Contrary to What you Say:
The typical IT shop would actually prefer Novell. Who've been in this server market for many years longer than Redhat. So it depends on whether you can afford Novell (or Redhat for that matter), or you're a small operation and maybe a Non-Profit one, with little cash to fork over for the others.
It's a good idea though. For some Windows shops, it will provide an simple way to test Linux. One would hope that they'll realize the performance penalty the VM and Windows host OS will incur, but it's a start.
If you knew you were going to be running both, I'd presume that you'd either use Linux as the host and Windows as the guest or have two machines, however.
One more thing that the article said is that it is being offered as a free download. I cannot find a free version anywhere on their site.
They purchased Suse in order to push their way into the consummer and small server market. The Xen Program is now bundled into the new release of Suse. And under the Open Source License it must be offered for free. But that doesn't stop them from selling some of their software that runs on Linux to these same Suse people or building in and developing the Novell quality into their Suse product.
Contrary to What you Say:
The typical IT shop would actually prefer Novell. Who've been in this server market for many years longer than Redhat. So it depends on whether you can afford Novell (or Redhat for that matter), or you're a small operation and maybe a Non-Profit one, with little cash to fork over for the others.
They purchased Suse in order to push their way into the consummer and small server market. The Xen Program is now bundled into the new release of Suse. And under the Open Source License it must be offered for free. But that doesn't stop them from selling some of their software that runs on Linux to these same Suse people or building in and developing the Novell quality into their Suse product.
Contrary to What you Say:
The typical IT shop would actually prefer Novell. Who've been in this server market for many years longer than Redhat. So it depends on whether you can afford Novell (or Redhat for that matter), or you're a small operation and maybe a Non-Profit one, with little cash to fork over for the others.
Only the CPU/box must come from Apple. As long as Apple remains price competitive (when comparing similar levels of software, features, and quality), I experience no downside to that.
Of course, I'm not a gamer, so I don't care about the ability to buy this month's hot video card. For those folks (who would need to buy a G5 tower), the Mac is more expensive, sine Apple doesn't sell low-end towers.
"Get the free, 180-day trial version of Virtual Server 2005 R2"
That's not FREE...
Joel
www.joeldare.com
"Get the free, 180-day trial version of Virtual Server 2005 R2"
That's not FREE...
Joel
www.joeldare.com
Go all Linux and you can get your support cheaper from others... including the (probably) most expensive Linux support company... Red Hat themselves
their conferences and support contracts are still cheaper than paying through unmentionable orifices to micro$oft
Who in their right mind would use the least stable operation system as the host?
Linux is fine/great/whatever, but if your Windows server installation isn't stable (sans security patching reboot aka scheduled downtimes) I'd look at the sysadmin or 3rd party software vendor. Most instabilities on our servers I've realized are the 3rd parties who write crappy applications.
Not to say MS doesn't have their problems, I certainly get frustrated with them quite often, but out of all the Windows servers I admin, I would consider each and every one "stable".
giving IE away free in order to destroy
Netscape, and unfortunately it worked.
However, this time around, there is more
compettition, and the compettition is largely
using free/open source software, so the need for
money isn't as great for a lot of them. VMWare
is one of the few proprietary companies, and
they might feel the pressure, but I think due to
their methods of supporting the FOSS community
(even if they don't participate), I think they
will survive. Though they may have to join the
FOSS community to do so.
So, in this instance, the consumer wins on this
point, and MS won't see this kill their
compettition, as that is probably their intent.
The reason Netscape died is because their browser code stank. It made IE look like a paragon of stability and security which means they code was truly awful. The Netscape management realized that but they kept changing their plan on how they were going to deal with it (rewrite the code, no lets build a new browser in Java, nope lets make it open-source and spin off a group to rewrite it after all but lets not fund that group very well since they've got a daunting task ahead of them).
Ultimately we got Firefox as a result of all that (which is a good thing) but the timeframes involved became so long that IE had several years of obviously being a much better browser than the unchanging Netscape browser that most people migrated to IE.
Yes, I know there's a lot of people who would claim that the old Netscape browser was better that IE but from a web developer's perspective IE 4.0 had a much more complete and correct implementation of html and css plus a better planned DOM. BTW, those are the same reasons I'm still hoping Firefox continues to keep growing it's market share :).
giving IE away free in order to destroy
Netscape, and unfortunately it worked.
However, this time around, there is more
compettition, and the compettition is largely
using free/open source software, so the need for
money isn't as great for a lot of them. VMWare
is one of the few proprietary companies, and
they might feel the pressure, but I think due to
their methods of supporting the FOSS community
(even if they don't participate), I think they
will survive. Though they may have to join the
FOSS community to do so.
So, in this instance, the consumer wins on this
point, and MS won't see this kill their
compettition, as that is probably their intent.
The reason Netscape died is because their browser code stank. It made IE look like a paragon of stability and security which means they code was truly awful. The Netscape management realized that but they kept changing their plan on how they were going to deal with it (rewrite the code, no lets build a new browser in Java, nope lets make it open-source and spin off a group to rewrite it after all but lets not fund that group very well since they've got a daunting task ahead of them).
Ultimately we got Firefox as a result of all that (which is a good thing) but the timeframes involved became so long that IE had several years of obviously being a much better browser than the unchanging Netscape browser that most people migrated to IE.
Yes, I know there's a lot of people who would claim that the old Netscape browser was better that IE but from a web developer's perspective IE 4.0 had a much more complete and correct implementation of html and css plus a better planned DOM. BTW, those are the same reasons I'm still hoping Firefox continues to keep growing it's market share :).
unless you were already using Windows servers.
What Microsoft is thinking is that if you are
tempted to use Linux, they can permit you to do
so while still selling you Windows. Frankly,
they don't really care if you use a Linux in a
VM. It's better that you do that than simply
download a copy and replace a Windows server
with it.
The idea is that, yeah, you're running Linux,
but at least your paying them to do it. That's
still better than you using Linux and not paying
them to do it. I'm sure that they are hoping
that you will satisfied with it enough to keep
Linux on Windows rather than running Linux
natively. And one could only hope that by using
the VM, if you do switch to Linux, you'll
remember that you can run Windows under Linux
and still pay them a license (maybe even more
than one) for running Windows under Linux.
They risk for them is, of course, that people
that wouldn't otherwise try Linux would do, find
it superior, and switch. That's not likely to
happen. Those same people typically don't have
skills transposable to Linux or experience with
it (by definition, they are still using Windows
mostly), the VM performance will be
substantially lower than a native installation,
and the VM stability will be considerably lower
than a native install as well (pct uptime Linux
in VM = pct uptime Linux * pct uptime VM * pct
uptime Windows). Put together, it's a low risk
for precipitating a wholesale migration.
I hope to see more of this. Remeber Xenix???
I hope to see more of this. Remeber Xenix???
unless you were already using Windows servers.
What Microsoft is thinking is that if you are
tempted to use Linux, they can permit you to do
so while still selling you Windows. Frankly,
they don't really care if you use a Linux in a
VM. It's better that you do that than simply
download a copy and replace a Windows server
with it.
The idea is that, yeah, you're running Linux,
but at least your paying them to do it. That's
still better than you using Linux and not paying
them to do it. I'm sure that they are hoping
that you will satisfied with it enough to keep
Linux on Windows rather than running Linux
natively. And one could only hope that by using
the VM, if you do switch to Linux, you'll
remember that you can run Windows under Linux
and still pay them a license (maybe even more
than one) for running Windows under Linux.
They risk for them is, of course, that people
that wouldn't otherwise try Linux would do, find
it superior, and switch. That's not likely to
happen. Those same people typically don't have
skills transposable to Linux or experience with
it (by definition, they are still using Windows
mostly), the VM performance will be
substantially lower than a native installation,
and the VM stability will be considerably lower
than a native install as well (pct uptime Linux
in VM = pct uptime Linux * pct uptime VM * pct
uptime Windows). Put together, it's a low risk
for precipitating a wholesale migration.
Citizen Gates & Big Brother Baldy are circling the Penquin while
acting as a "friend" to keep the customers from jumping ship &
make the "appearance" of being a good neighbor for the US DOJ
& EU Judges anti-trust monopoly cases...
" See, we can play nice nice with others, don't fine us millions of
dollars..." DOJ is watching & EU is pending penalties very shortly.
AstalaVista has tanked AGAIN on it's features & delivery date, so
snuggle up to Linux Penquin just before the Linux event to keep
the MS Drones from switching to Unix / Linux / Mac OSX Unix.
micro-soft needs viagra & Darth Gates will do anything to
maintain his Microsith Empire.
kind of crap.
Citizen Gates & Big Brother Baldy are circling the Penquin while
acting as a "friend" to keep the customers from jumping ship &
make the "appearance" of being a good neighbor for the US DOJ
& EU Judges anti-trust monopoly cases...
" See, we can play nice nice with others, don't fine us millions of
dollars..." DOJ is watching & EU is pending penalties very shortly.
AstalaVista has tanked AGAIN on it's features & delivery date, so
snuggle up to Linux Penquin just before the Linux event to keep
the MS Drones from switching to Unix / Linux / Mac OSX Unix.
micro-soft needs viagra & Darth Gates will do anything to
maintain his Microsith Empire.
kind of crap.
- Microsoft Is Still Wearing Virtual Diapers!
- by eye2fun April 4, 2006 2:58 AM PDT
- What is not mentioned here is that Microsoft has granted support to XenSoft VM in order for them to run Windows as a Virtual Machine. This is because VMWare already has built-in support for Windows VM , Linux, Unix, OS-X, etc. If your still in diapers you best team up with the older kid to try to knock the Big Guy out of the driver's seat. XenSoft is in a better position to do some damage in this field than Microsoft. And as with everything coming out of Redmond, WA. these days, their newest Revision has been pushed back till next year. So since they can't get in the fight just yet, they're goating XenSoft into the ring to do some damage against VMWare.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (82 Comments)VMWare owns this field, through years of having the most stable virtual machines in ComputerLand (including the server market). But in the past they have had no competion until more recently with the likes of XenSoft (Open Source) and Microsoft's 2005 Rev2 setups. XenSoft is what pushed VMWare to offer their base product for free. Microsoft has been forced to offer their product (which is behind in features and still wet behind the ears) for free as well.
What is Virtualization?
Well it is a program that allows many different installations of operating systems to run on one computer "At the Same Time"! For servers this is very important. It means you can isolate server tasks to a dedicated portion of the processor and memory use. Like having many servers using just one machine. For home use you can do your tax's on a Linux VM (virtual machine) install, switch back to Windows to play a game without rebooting or using another machine, plus running a media ripping Linux installation. For security it great as one Virtual Machine may crash, but it won't crash the computer or server.