Skip to main content

VirtualBox: Another contender around the bend?


Some of the features of VirtualBox are:

* Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don't have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.

* Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.

* Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has special software that can be installed inside Windows and Linux virtual machines to improve performance and make integration much more seamless. Among the features provided by these Guest Additions are mouse pointer integration and arbitrary screen solutions (e.g. by resizing the guest window).

A number of extra features are available with the full VirtualBox release only (see the "Editions" page for details):

* Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on the host.

* Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlike any other virtualization software, VirtualBox fully supports the standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual machine can act as an RDP server, allowing you to "run" the virtual machine remotely on some thin client that merely displays the RDP data.

* USB over RDP. With this unique feature, a virtual machine that acts as an RDP server can still access arbitrary USB devices that are connected on the RDP client. This way, a powerful server machine can virtualize a lot of thin clients that merely need to display RDP data and have USB devices plugged in.

* Shared folders. Like many other virtualization solutions, for easy data exchange between hosts and guests, VirtualBox allows for declaring certain host directories as "shared folders", which can then be accessed from within virtual machines.


I just hope I have time to test this "YAVV" (Yet Another Virtualization Vendor) folkss' software.

If you don't have time (like me) then check out these screenies...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get Vyatta Virtual Appliance, now VMware certified!

We all know Vyatta, don't we?

Vyatta, the leader in Linux-based networking, today announced that its open-source networking software has received VMware Virtual Appliance Certification, thereby providing customers with a solution that has been optimized for a production-ready VMware environment. The company also announced it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) Program. As a member of TAP, Vyatta will offer its solutions via the TAP program website. With the Vyatta virtual appliance for VMware environments, organizations can now include Vyatta’s router, firewall and VPN functions as part of their virtualized infrastructure.

Vyatta combines enterprise-class routing and security capabilities into an integrated, reliable and commercially supported software solution, delivering twice the performance of proprietary network solutions at half the price. Running Vyatta software as virtual appliances gives customers many more options for scaling their data centers and cons…
Post a Comment
Read more

3PAR adds native LDAP support to simplify administration

3PAR®, the leading global provider of utility storage, announced today native support for lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP). Support for LDAP enables centralized user authentication and authorization using a standard protocol for managing access to IT resources. With 3PAR’s support for LDAP, customers are able to now integrate 3PAR Utility Storage--a simple, cost-efficient, and massively scalable storage platform—with standard, open enterprise directory services. The result is simplified security administration with centralized access control and identity management.

“3PAR Utility Storage already provides us with a reliable, shared, and easy-to-use consolidated storage platform,” said Burzin Engineer, Vice President of Infrastructure Services at Shopzilla. "Now, with 3PAR support for LDAP, managing security commonly--across all our resources, including storage--is also simple and efficient.”

Press Release
Post a Comment
Read more

DeepLearningTrucker Part 1

Post a Comment
Read more