Sun xVM VirtualBox
Finally, I have the time to confirm one of the releases I've been waiting for: VirtualBox, a desktop virtualization by Sun Microsystems, turned 2.0 last week and you can download VirtualBox 2.0 right now!
Major update: VirtualBox 2.0
Being a major release, VirtualBox 2.0 brings a host of improvements to its already popular platform. I personally find the following most important:
- 64 bits guest support – if you're running a 64-bit host OS, your guests VMs don't have to be limited to 32bit anymore
- Support for AMD-V Nested Pages – this is going to give you a major performance boost if you're lucky enough to be using recent quad-core CPUs from AMD
- Framework for collecting performance and resource usage data (metrics)– VboxManage command now allows setting polling interval and specify data metrics you're interested in for internal performance data collection. Once enabled, such information can be accessed at any time – both host and guest systems are monitored.
- SATA asynchronous IO (NCQ: Native Command Queuing) – another performance win when using raw disk partitions
- Microsoft's VHD disk images support – it seems that VirtualBox is one of the most compatible desktop virtualization solutions now, allowing you to simply use virtual disks created by other systems as oppose to converting them using additional software tools
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