Virtual Server Free, Linux Guests Supported

The battle between Microsoft and EMC’s VMware subsidiary to dominate the market for server virtualization is escalating quickly. In response to VMware’s announcement in Feb. 2006 that its upcoming VMware Server product will be free, Microsoft announced in Apr. 2006 that Virtual Server 2005 R2, a comparable product already shipping, would immediately be offered for free as well. At the same time, Microsoft announced that support for running Linux on a guest virtual machine is available, and it clarified its interim plans for Virtual Server prior to virtualization becoming a core part of Windows Longhorn Server.

Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition Now Free

Machine virtualization refers to a method of abstracting and decoupling a computer’s physical hardware from a conventional OS (such as Windows or Linux), thereby allowing multiple OSs to run on the same computer at the same time without requiring special high-end hardware that allows administrators to subdivide the physical hardware resources into separate, isolated partitions.