What are the benefits of virtualization? This was a question asked over on Lockergnome Q&A recently, and I thought the answers may just benefit several of you out there. Now, we know that many of you already use virtual machines. Why not leave a GOOD comment on the video, explaining to those who don’t why it is they might want to look into doing so? See how that works? We all help each other! Remember – YOU were a n00b at one time, too!
Virtualization isn’t emulation: it’s using the computer hardware to run an operating system within an operating system. You can run umpteen dozen operating systems at the same time – all doing something different if you so choose. I run Windows 7 in a virtual machine on my Mac so that I can quickly and easily do anything I might need to do within Windows.
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In my mind, the largest benefit to a virtual machine is when you’re trying something new. Take a snapshot of your current VM… try out whatever it is you have your eye on. If it doesn’t work – no big deal! Just revert your VM to the snapshot and you’re good to go. That’s a beautiful thing, in my mind. You can instantly go right back to where you started without having to back everything up, reinstall your operating system and adding your programs/documents back.
Which VM software do you recommend – and why? Keep in mind that I have coupons for Parallels, VMWare and even more!
In my experience, Windows is always more stable when virtualized, both desktop and server/enterprise.
I use VMware on servers and VirtualBox on desktops (all linux).
Hi, I recommend VMware for IT Professionals.
With Fusion you can run VMs from other VMware Systems and even install a VMware ESX in a VM to educate yourself or others.
With VMware you get also a lot of virtual appliances you can download and test without install it yourself.
For non IT Professionals with Macs I recommend Virtual Box for that it is really free and has everything you need to build a VM.
Regards,
Ralf
I use VMWare on W2K3, HyperV on W2K8 and Virtualbox on mac. All stable, easily setup and flexible enough to run various OS’s.
And you can get them all for free in the right incarnation.
Cheers
Harry
VMWare Fusion and Parallel both work well on my iMac i7. I have owned both since their early versions, and over the various upgrades my preference for one over the other has shifted, drifted and generally become totally confused. I’m using Parallels at the moment, but I cannot recall why.
I keep Parallels or VMWare on the iMac for those few Windows or even DOS programs that I need or like from time to time: For years the PlusTech Opticbook book scanner only had a Windows driver. Even now the Mac driver is pretty rough. Sekonic has a program for creating custom profiles that works in Windows but is broken in the Mac version. Qimage is a wonderful Windows-only image printing program. Oscar’s Renamer is my favorite utility for cleaning up and editing file names, and its a Windows-only freeby. For some time now Finder has refused to burn CD’s for me… but Windows7 running under Parallels will.
So sometimes a virtual machine gives me two kicks at the can (…if it doesn’t work properly as a Mac app, maybe the Windows version will be okay…) and sometimes it gives me more cans to kick (…the Windows-only drivers or programs).
Every version of these programs has gotten better, faster and more integrated with the Mac. None of the free equivalents is obviously better, and they all require a degree of computer sophistication that many of us may not have.
Because of the number of files involved, it is difficult to compare the resources used by VMWare and Parallels. Even though I recently went up to 16 gb of RAM, I have a distinct preference for tightly coded programs that use as little RAM and CPU time as possible.