VMware revs up for VMworld; launches new software

VMware launched VMware ESX Server 3i, a “thin hypervisor” that’s integrated in server hardware sans an operating system; Virtual Desktop Manager, a connection broker for virtual desktops; and Site Recovery Manager, an automation system for recovering from data center outages.

These products will be talked up as VMware kicks off its VMWorld 2007 conference this week in San Francisco. George Ou will be on site for ZDNet and Dan Kusnetzky will also have virtualization coverage.

Among the VMware announcements, the ESX Server 3i thin hypervisor is the most interesting. Why? VMware competitors–Novell, Microsoft and Red Hat–increasingly see virtualization as part of a bundle with the operating system. VMware is apparently running in the opposite direction.

"Based
on VMware ESX Server which has set the standard for a production
proven, stable and mature hypervisor, VMware ESX Server 3i is a 'bare
metal' hypervisor that partitions a physical server into multiple
secure and portable virtual machines," VMware said. "VMware ESX Server
3i would be the only hypervisor on the market today that does not
incorporate a general-purpose operating system, which frees it from the
many challenges involved in maintaining a general purpose operating
system."

The use of "would" there seems to indicate that
Server 3i is imaginary. But that's not the case if you read the rest of
VMware's statement. The company promises to ship the software by the
end of this year and to make it the core of VMware's product strategy.

"VMware
ESX Server 3i is the new architectural foundation for VMware
Infrastructure 3 . . . VMware customers will be able to easily
implement the entire suite of VMware Infrastructure 3 products on top
of this foundation, including VirtualCenter, VMotion, Distributed
Resource Scheduler (DRS), High Availability (HA) and VMware
Consolidated Backup (VCB)."