Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Sort of? Here's how it works. InnoTek, a software company in Stuttgart, Germany, has released both a proprietary and a GPLv2 open-source version of the program. The VirtualBox OSE (open-source edition) has a subset of the features of the proprietary version. VirtualBox OSE is not crippleware. It's as full-powered a virtualization program as you'll find today. What it's missing are additional features, not basic functionality. You can also use the proprietary version, without charge for personal and educational use and to evaluate it for possible business purchase. The free, but proprietary, edition gives you a built-in RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) server and USB port support. It also offers, to the best of my knowledge, the unique ability to use RDP to access remote USB devices from a local VM (virtual machine) and use local USB devices on a remote VM. It also supports the use of iSCSI network drives for use as virtual hard drives. VirtualBox works on any PC with an x8...

We did cover virtual box in the past and will be using this posts to give VirtualBox some coverage: VirtualBox 1.4.0 was realised on June 5, 2007 for Windows and Linux. It now contains support for 64bit Linux Hosts, as well as better networking and storage solutions, (for full details please see: Changelog.) I have tried a earlier version of VirtualBox, but had limited success installing it. The new version installed perfectly. I used Automatix in Ubuntu 7.04 (”Feisty Fawn”) to install it. Yet there are many other binary versions, including a beta version for OS X, (Intel Macs only). For downloads please see: VirtualBox Downloads. So far I’m very impressed with VirtualBox. In my opinion it’s the best virtualization software I have tried to date. I’ve found it professional, and easy to use. I feel like the programmers have really thought about how to make this a good product from a user standpoint. Also it is OpenSource, what a wonderful bonus. I am watching VirtualBox closely (like all...

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John posts this on his blog. The best bit was yet to follow…the performance. Now, I’ve never used xen before, but compared to vmware, this thing flew. Honestly, I’ve never seen virtualisation so fast. Windows installed in no time at all on my Celeron 1.4ghz 768MB ram. Very impressive. So I thought I’d put it to the test. I loaded up a high def xvid video (960×528 w/5.1 sound).. it played flawlessly. This was stunning. I’d say it’s probably somewhere between 5-10% off native speed, and closer to the 5% than the 10%. By the way, the Innotek guys were the one's who wrote and sold VirtualPC to Microsoft. Check it out...