This post was written by Denise Ross
Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 offers developers and administrators an inexpensive option for satisfying their testing, support and application compatibility needs through the magic of virtualization. The most notable addition to the product, which is a follow-on to Microsofts Virtual PC 2004, is support for Windows Vista as a host or guest operating system. Probably our favorite feature of VPC 2007 is its support for creating Differencing Virtual Hard Discs. During installation mouse and display may not work well. PC 2007 lags VMware Workstation in overall functionality.
VMware Workstation 6.5 is an outstanding tool for creating and running a wide variety of virtual machines on a stand-alone PC or laptop. It is an excellent tool for developers, multiplatform power users and anyone who needs to emulate a network of computers on a single machine. Workstation proves to be a top-notch hypervisor for running guest operating systems. It is a Type 2 hypervisor, which means it is software that installs on top of the operating system installed on the physical host system. The Easy Install feature is surprisingly, well, easy to use.
VKernel’s Capacity Analyzer 2.0 can use VMware VirtualCenter statistics to offer clarity in virtualization deployments. However, the virtualization tool is not a cross-platform product; it doesn’t address Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization technology. But in VMware environments, the virtualization tool will help IT administrators get the most out of their ESX installations. The biggest difference between VKernel’s Capacity Analyzer and VMware’s Capacity Planner is that VKernel uses added technology to make predictions about when and where capacity problems will occur. Capacity Analyzer is best suited for small to midsize enterprises that have moderately sized data centers.