February 25, 2006
VMware Server free as in beer
Nowadays, VMware has become an essential tool for ApSIC’s localization and internationalization testing team, effectively phasing out the former arrangements based on disk images.
So now it’s good news that the entry product for VWware server-grade line-up, VMware Server, will be available for free to entice businesses to start deploying server virtualization, with a view that they get some conversions to their currently pricey high-end server virtualization solutions.
I first learn about VMware, back in 1999 when I read a press release about a start-up that had released a product which would allow running Linux and Windows virtual machines on a Linux or Windows host operating system.
At that time we were frequently dual booting Windows NT Workstation and OS/2, so I wrote them to ask if they were planning to add OS/2 as either a guest or a host operating system, and they replied almost instantly saying that due to certain technical particularities, support for OS/2 was not feasible. (Fortunatelly, weeks later we deployed a solution to avoid frequent dual booting with a combination of Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 and OS/2 client machines.)
We forgot about VMware for a while, and the main driver to revisit VMware in our testing process was a couple years ago, because when we expanded the testing lab with newer machines the only way to test Windows NT was on a virtual machine, due to the lack of drivers for new machines.
Ironically, lack of NT support for newer hardware was a good show-stopper to run into, because VMware has since become instrumental in our testing efforts!
posted by Josep Condal
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