VMware launches free mid-range virtualisation suite

Complimentary tool could appeal to enterprises

Server virtualisation specialist VMware has announced that the next version of its mid-range GSX Server virtualisation product will be offered free of charge and will be named VMware Server. The news was welcomed by users.

The free product should encourage adoption of the firm's server virtualisation tools in business and local government, and help to counter competition from low-cost alternatives such as Microsoft Virtual Server. VMware will offer support contracts for the new product and expects some users to upgrade to its ESX Server tool for hosting mission-critical applications.

Microsoft Virtual Server is expected to be bundled free of charge in the next major update to Windows Server, codenamed Longhorn and due in two years.

Richard Garsthagen, VMware technical marketing manager, said, "In some ways VMware Server is superior to GSX Server – it supports Solaris and Intel VT [virtualisation technology], for example." However, a few features have been stripped away. "We support two-way SMP, and you can do one snapshot, but there's no advanced networking features, such as bandwidth throttling or VM [virtual machine] teaming. The beta release cannot use VirtualCentre, but we are looking at providing this feature in the final product."

One poster to an online forum said, "We're moving some of our development and most of our testing to virtual machines. We gave Microsoft Virtual PC a spin, but compared to VMware it's lacking in features, so we ended up going with VMware Workstation [because of its] advanced networking features, broad platform support, and snapshot capability. We had been planning to use Microsoft's Virtual PC/Server product for collaborative development efforts because we get licences with our MSDN subscriptions, whereas GSX was really damn pricey. Now, we won't need to do that."

A second observer suggested many firms using VMware Server would still want to buy VMware's management console. "VMware's real 'killer app' is VirtualCenter. The management tool is better than anything else I've seen for managing virtual infrastructure."

Another seemed to think the move was inevitable given the increased competition in this market. "Intel's Virtualisation Technology makes what was previously very hard fairly simple. It also doesn't require the guest operating systems to be hacked, like Xen. I suspect we will see a huge swathe of hypervisors being released over the next few months."

The move has also led some to question the value of VMware's desktop Workstation virtualisation tool, which costs $189 (£110). However, Workstation works only with desktop operating systems while VMware Server requires a server operating system such as Linux or Windows 2000 or 2003 Server.