blog.scottlowe.org

Welcome to another installation of Virtualization Short Takes!

• For you Quicksilver lovers out there that also run VMware Fusion, here’s a handy trick to allow you to launch Windows apps to run under Fusion via Quicksilver.
• Duncan of Yellow Bricks points out this VMware Communities Forums thread discussing how to determine which host has a lock on a LUN. This thread also makes brief mention of the new VMFS version, version 3.31, that was released with ESX 3.5, which does a better job of handling SCSI reservations than previous versions. Good find, Duncan!
• Speaking of the new VMFS version, a summary of the information shared in the VMware Communities Forums threads can be found here.
• While we are on a bit of a storage kick, VMware has launched a new VMware Storage blog, and one of the early posts deals with VMFS. The post primarily attacks the notion of VMFS as a “proprietary” file system (which it is) by describing the advantages that VMFS provides. I’m hoping that the new storage blog will get more technical than marketing in the future, but the information is useful nevertheless.
• This link falls more into the “ironic” category than anything else. Do you suppose he got into trouble with Citrix for blogging about how to use a competitor’s product to test ICA performance?
• John Howard gives us an in-depth look at Hyper-V’s handling of virtual NICs in this article. This is particularly important for users who are interested in cloning VMs hosted on Hyper-V; I would assume that SCVMM 2008 will handle this correctly.
• This news emerged several weeks ago via VMblog.com. It’s good to see Leostream getting some recognition; their broker is actually quite good in many respects.
• Sven over at Virtualfuture.info recently blogged about XenServer’s HA functionality and how Marathon’s EverRun products play into that functionality. I actually had a conference call with the folks from Marathon several months ago about EverRun, but never got around to blogging about it. I do like the fact that you can control HA functionality on a per-VM basis, whereas VMware HA is applied to all VMs. (Well, I suppose you could disable HA for the VMs that you don’t want restarted, but it’s not quite the same.) I do agree with both Sven and PeterB’s comments regarding “Continuous Availability”; the sooner that VMware gets this functionality out door, the more of a leg up they’ll have on the competition.
• As has been reported elsewhere as well, Reflex Security has released the Reflex Virtual Security Center (VSC). The full press release is here. Based on what I’ve read thus far, it appears that the idea behind the VSC is to combine the information from multiple instances of their Virtual Security Appliance (VSA) so that users get the “full view” of what’s occurring across the virtual infrastructure. In this regard, it is remarkably similar to Altor Networks’ Virtual Network Security Analyzer (VNSA), which is also designed to provide visibility across the entire virtual infrastructure.

As always, feel free to share other interesting links and news in the comments below. Thank you!

VMware has released Beta 1 of VMware Fusion 2.0, the next major upgrade to VMware’s desktop virtualization product for Mac OS X. Even more exciting, VMware has announced that version 2.0 of VMware Fusion will be a free upgrade for existing Fusion 1.x owners, as a “thank you” to their early adopters. Sweet!

The list of new features is far too long to reproduce here, but a few stick out as notable:

• Multi-monitor support: Guest operating systems will see multiple monitors attached to the Mac, and when in Unity mode you’ll be able to drag Unity windows between monitors.
• Improved 3D support: Fusion 2.0 now supports DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2, allowing even more 3D applications to run as a VM under Fusion.
• Easier Windows printing: Windows VMs will pick up printers attached to your Mac without any additional setup.
• Various networking improvements: Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 also includes a number of networking improvements, such as the ability for bridged VMs to detect changes to the Mac’s network connection and refresh their network address automatically.

Be sure to visit the Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 landing page for the complete list of features and more complete information.

Personally, it’s interesting to me to see how the VMware Fusion team has really capitalized and focused on the user interaction side of desktop virtualization. Much more so than with VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion is really bringing to life the idea of application agnosticism (great idea, not so great name, but I coined it so I guess I’m stuck with it) or personal computing as a collection of VMs. As virtualization becomes more pervasive, it also needs to become more transparent, and as its transparency increases its adoption—at least among consumers—will also increase.

VMware has released an update to VMware Fusion, their Mac OS X-based virtualization product. Version 1.1.2 includes a number of fixes and new features. More information is available here.

If you’re a Fusion user, go grab the free update.

I installed the update first thing this morning. I wasn’t suffering from any of the problems that were fixed in this version, so I can’t attest to that, but I can say that resuming and suspending VMs seems quicker. Perhaps it’s just my imagination…

VMware recently announced their “Switch to Fusion” contest, inviting users who have switched to VMware Fusion to run other operating systems on their Macs to create a video documenting their conversion.

Unfortunately, I can’t participate; I don’t really have a “switch to Fusion” story. Why? Because I started out with VMware Fusion, back in the pre-public beta days before VMworld 2006. Well, I guess that’s not entirely accurate. I did use Microsoft Virtual PC for the Mac on my old PowerBook G4 in order to run (slowly) the occasional Windows application.

About the time that rumors were surfacing of VMware Fusion—this would have been early- to mid-October of 2006, perhaps just a bit earlier—I had hoped I would be selected to participate in the private beta program. I had signed up and requested to participate. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an Intel-based Mac yet, and I wanted to wait until Apple revised the MacBook Pro with the newer Core 2 Duo processors before buying one.

For weeks I watched the Apple rumor sites, waiting for word that the MacBook Pros were going to be revised. Then comes the e-mail from VMware, inviting me to participate in the private beta for their new Mac virtualization product, code-named “Fusion”. But I still didn’t have an Intel-based Mac! I was still waiting on the revised MacBook Pros. So, here I was, on the beta participant list and signed up to leave for VMworld 2006 in Los Angeles, and still no Intel-based Mac.

Finally, near the end of October, Apple announced the Core 2 Duo-based MacBook Pros. At last! But now I had to wait for retail availability. I called the local Apple retail store, and the manager there put my name on the waiting list for a 15″ 2.33GHz matte screen model. Days passed. Still no word. Time was literally running out—I would be getting on a plane to go to LA in just a couple of days.

The phone rings at my office. “May I speak with Scott Lowe, please?” It was the manager from the Apple store! I left my office that day, went straight to Crabtree Valley Mall, and picked up my brand new MacBook Pro. That night I had the Friends and Family release of VMware Fusion running on it, and I’ve never looked back since then. Two days later, my wife and I were off to Los Angeles for VMworld 2006, my trusty new VMware Fusion-toting MacBook Pro with us.

OK, so I guess I did have a Switch to Fusion story after all! Maybe this will qualify me to compete for the iPod touch…

Some of you may have noticed the new “I Recommend VMware Workstation” and “I Recommend VMware Fusion” icons at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.  I hadn’t written specifically about these, but thought it might be a good idea to mention them.  This is part of a new referral program that VMware is testing.  If you are at all interested in using either of these programs and haven’t already purchased them, please consider using the links from this site.  Thanks!

Today VMware released version 1.1 of VMware Fusion, their desktop virtualization product for Intel-based Macs.  I’ve been using Fusion since the very earliest days and have been really pleased with the product, so I had no hesitation in upgrading to the latest release.  Although there’s nothing terribly revolutionary here, what I’ve seen so far shows me that it is a solid update to an already solid product.  Sure, they’ve extended some of the DirectX support, and added a UI feature here or there, but these are evolutionary changes as the product matures.  If you’re running Fusion and haven’t yet upgraded, I recommend doing so.  Just keep in mind that you’ll need to update the VMware Tools, which generally means a reboot of your virtual machine.

Now, what would be exciting to see from the Fusion team would be more feature parity with Workstation 6.0.  Namely, a UI for advanced networking configurations, linked clones, multiple snapshots, etc.  In particular, the multiple snapshot feature would be very useful, and is pretty much in-line with the product’s consumer-oriented focus.  How about it, Regis and team?

The release of VMware Fusion today (there was a launch event hosted this afternoon for various bloggers, including yours truly) marked the official entry of VMware into the Mac virtualization space, taking on current market leader Parallels.

Overall, the product is very polished and the user interface (which VMware is very proud of) is superb.  They’ve done a great job of making the product a well-behaved Mac “citizen,” something that many Mac users are very particular about.  One of the most significant improvements since Beta 4 surrounds Unity, VMware Fusion’s answer to Parallels’ Coherence mode.  Unity takes your Windows applications and runs them seamlessly on the Mac desktop.  In previous builds where I had tried this functionality, the Windows desktop background would show up when I minimized a window in Unity mode.  Now, the operation is truly seamless.  Only the different window controls really set things apart.

Speed appears to have improved as well; resuming a suspended VM seems especially faster than in previous builds.  The responsiveness of the VMs seems improved as well, and without undue stress on the laptop’s resources.  In particular, while chasing down a nasty rumor that Fusion had been limited to 2 VMs running concurrently (there is no such limit), I had three VMs—a VM with Windows XP Professional SP2, a VM with Windows Server 2003 R2 x64, and a VM with Solaris 10 11/06—all running at the same time.  The host seemed not to be getting hammered too bad, which is pretty impressive in my eyes.

If I had one request for Fusion, it would be to continue to expand the functionality of the product to include more of VMware Workstation’s functionality.  During the launch conference call today, I inquired about power user functionality vs. the “consumer” orientation of the product.  It’s been a while since I’ve used Workstation (so I could be mistaken about functionality), but Fusion doesn’t support multiple snapshots, linked clones, VM teams, or things like that.  Those are the kind of power user functionality I was inquiring about, and right now that functionality just doesn’t exist on the Mac platform.  As soon as VMware can make Fusion look and act more like Workstation (perhaps even phasing out the Fusion product line altogether and folding it into Workstation), the better off they’ll be, in my opinion.

Despite the lack of Workstation-level functionality, Fusion is a good “first release” for VMware on the Mac platform.  However, their competitor has quite a head start on them and isn’t sitting still.  VMware and the Fusion development team are going to need to really stay on top of things to take on Parallels.

I just finished downloading the final release version of VMware Fusion from the VMware web site, and as I type this blog posting I’m in the process of updating the VMware Tools in my Windows XP Professional VM.  Already in my limited testing of the new release I see improvements in Unity (the Windows background no longer shows up when you minimize a window).  As I’m a bit limited on time right at the moment (in the midst of a VMware deployment, imagine that!), I’ll stop there, and I’ll post more thoughts about the final version later today.

Let me reiterate again that my hat is off to VMware and the Fusion product team.  Great work!

As is being reported throughout the Internet, VMware has announced that their VMware Fusion product, which provides virtualization functionality for Intel-based Macs, will ship on August 6.  I won’t repeat the long list of features that Fusion provides (other sites have covered that very well), but I will state that I have been using Fusion since the very beginning (before the public beta, there was a “Friends and Family” release).  I met some of the developers last year at VMworld 2006, and they have done an awesome job with this product.  Regis, Ben, and the rest of the team:  Fantastic work!  Now on to Fusion 2.0!

Other sites reporting on Fusion’s release:

VMware Fusion 1.0 Launches Aug 6

VMware Releases Fusion

News: VMWare Fusion set for Monday release

VMware Fusion set for August 6th release

VMware Fusion for Mac Due Aug. 6

If you haven’t already pre-ordered, your time is running out.  I’ve already pre-ordered my copy!

Just yesterday, I was asking if Unity—the Coherence-killing feature that was soon to be added to VMware Fusion—was real or rumor.  (Of course, yesterday I was also getting updated by the Fusion developers that this is indeed not rumor and is definitely real.)  Now I’m here to tell you that I have experienced it with my own eyes.

VMware Fusion Beta 4 has been released (get it here), and with it comes Unity.  In a word: Wow!  It’s pretty disconcerting to see Windows applications (like a command prompt, Internet Explorer, or Visio) running side-by-side with Camino, Mail.app, and NetNewsWire.  Interleave windows?  Not a problem.  Drop shadows?  There.  Minimization effects?  Yep.  Aside from the window decorations, you would be hard-pressed to tell which applications were running natively in Mac OS X or in virtualization.

And that, my friends, is the heart of what I described ages ago (OK, perhaps it only seems like ages ago) as application agnosticism.  With virtualization technology and UI integration like this, who cares what OS an application is written for?  Of course, we still have a ways to go to fully realize application agnosticism, since Unity is only available for Mac OS X (not Linux or Windows), but this is a powerful step in the right direction.

My hat is off to the Fusion developers.  Well done!  A lot of people were predicting that Parallels had too much of a lead in Mac virtualization, but all of you have definitely proved them wrong.  Keep up the good work!

<aside>Boring technical question to any VMware developers, Fusion team members, etc:  Is Unity debuting on OS X because of some advantage within Mac OS X itself, or simply because of the timing and the competition?  I am a Mac fan, after all, and was curious if my favorite OS had a leg up on the competitors that made it easier to create Unity.</aside>