Virtual PC 2007 shipped so go download it now!
So what’s so special about it? Well, I decided that the information available on our web site wasn’t very detailed so I wrote up some of the many reasons why Virtual PC 2007 rules and why you should use it as your virtualization technology of choice.
(To the "haters": I’ve gotten the chance to personally talk to our virtualization technology group and I have to say, Microsoft is really at the forefront of virtualization – the world just hasn’t gotten the chance to see what we’re coming with. There are close to a dozen reasons why I feel confident enough to make that claim, however at the end of this article, I’ll write 3 of those reasons down, with a promise that once we make some announcements, I’ll write more.)
- UNIFIED VM FORMAT (VS2005, Windows Vista, Longhron Server, Xen)
VPC leverages the same VM file format as Virtual Server R2 and prior revisions of Virtual PC. It is also the same format as the files that are created by Windows Vista Backups and as such are accessible by "mounting them" to a local workstation file system. Additionally, the file format ".VHD" is the same format that will be leveraged in the upcoming Windows Virtualizaiton Hypervisor in Windows Server "Longhorn", which promises to be the fastest, most versatile virtualization engine on the market in 2007.
…and even Open Source projects like Xen have licensed the .VHD format for use. - DESKTOP INTEGRATION
VPC enables end users to copy, paste, drag & drop between the host desktop and that of any guest virtual machine, making it easy to transfer content, clipboard information, and files between systems for testing. Dynamically resizing the desktop by changing the size of the virtual machine window is also very convenient when comparing multiple screens
Anyone that uses virtual machine technology knows how important this ease of configuration is - WINDOWS VISTA SUPPORT
VPC is fully supported on Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, and Ultimate host machines, and Microsoft products are supported within VPC guest machines.. The lay person might disregard this as a bunch of hub bub, but ask any business user: This is a very serious point.
Why? Software within virtual machines needs to be supported otherwise what’s the point in testing? The fact is that Windows and all Microsoft products in general are NOT SUPPORTED within other virtual machine technologies such as VMWare, making Virtual PC all the more important for production application testing, desktop compatibility, and simulation work. - 64-BIT HOST SUPPORT
Windows Vista 64-bit can be used as a host system to run VPC 2007. The benefit of using x64 computing architecture in this manner is three-fold: Greater computational performance per clock cycle & high addressable memory limits, and more expansive instruction sets for faster overall throughput.
CPU PERFORMANCE: Virtual PC 2007 takes advantage of all of these. We all know that virtual machines are some of the most CPU intensive applications of personal computers today and having twice the number of register data makes Virtual PC 2007 fly.
MEMORY ADDRESSABILITY: And unlike multi-user kernels like that used in Terminal Services for Windows Server or the "fast user switching" feature of Windows XP, each virtual machine requires its own dedicated memory space: With 64-bit addressable memory, each workstation can natively address at least 128GB of RAM. This has the benefit of not only making it possible to run all virtual machines in real memory instead of virtualized (disk swapped) memory, but it also means that memory addressing for any machine is done as rapidly as possible without any complex addressing schemes to accommodate higher memory limits.
x64 SERVICES & KERNEL: But the hidden benefit of 64 bit architectures for Virtual PC 2007 is the fact that the PLATFORM that VPC2007 runs on – Windows Vista – is designed for and runs on x64 instructions. Remember that the underlying kernel, services, and I/O subsystems are all x64 operating system functions that are designed to take advantage of the x64 architecture, thus providing faster disk writes, quicker networking functions, more rapid multiprocessing for multicore chipsets, etc. The fact that the operating system that Virtual PC 2007 runs on is x64 oriented makes Virtual PC 2007 faster. - IMPROVED PERFORMANCE
VPC now runs faster than it’s predecessor, Virtual PC 2004, in no small part to Virtual PC 2007’s newest support for Intel Vanderpool/"VT" technology and its rival, AMD’s Pacifica/"-V" technology.
Each respective technology is built into the latest processors and provides a new instruction set specifically to facilitate & accelerate hardware virtualization technologies such as Virtual PC 2007. These "virtualization instructions" provide a sub-ring of operations below Ring 1, but above Ring 0. (Half rings?)
The idea of these rings is to make it possible for hardware to manage memory management between virtual machines at the lowest level, maximizing performance for the virtual machine operations themselves and minimizing any overhead involved with sustaining these virtual environments. In previous revisions of Virtual PC (2004) and other virtualization products, memory management between virtual machines (the swapping of information in the CPU cache) had to be handled by the software itself creating a significant drag on performance, however Intel VT/AMD-V technologies made it possible to do all of this through hardware.
(Note: Your CPU must support Intel VT/AMD-V technologies and have it enabled in BIOS for Virtual PC 2007 to see the most substantial performance benefits, otherwise, the increase in performance will not be as significant.)
DOWNLOAD: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx
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A note on Microsoft’s leadership in virtualization:
I am quite aware that our competition has a technlogical edge when it comes to released products: This is true however in just 4-6 months, you can anticipate seeing that edge drastically diminish and with a little more time, disappear. Things like SMP CPU affinity, P2V support, and even littler bits like USB support are all of course covered – and surpassed!
Here are 3 things to keep in mind with regard to virtualization and Microsoft’s role in the marketplace:
- Symmetric Multiprocessing, Hot plug memory/CPU/storage support, Failover Cluster Management, etc.
At VMWorld this past year, Microsoft demonstrated several technologies that it’s competition had no answer for, nor is there any apparent roadmap for some of these functions. Hot pluggability is one of these: The ability to hot-add more CPU or memory on the fly with no downtime is simply something only our researchers have been able to put together. - Windows Virtualization Hypervisor
At the lowest level possible to minimize overhead, "Viridian" or the Windows Virtualization Hypervisor slated for Windows Server Longhorn, will be the fastest virtualization platform available on the market, while still supporting every Windows-supported hardware platform on the market today: Commodity Windows drivers will work with the Hypervisor just as they do with normal OS functions. And the Hypervisor will allow for the live management of resources, allocating up to 8 CPUs per VM, more than 32GB RAM for VM, and have more than 64 virtual machines running on a single host server at the same time.
Additionally, all cross-service administrative & operational needs will be respected. For example, "remote access & management" of virtual machines will be secured using Windows’ Active Directory users & groups. "Service levels & round-the-clock metering" will be monitored using Windows’ Performance Monitor. "Access loggin & events" will be logged through the Windows Event logs. "Automation & Orchestrated Management" will be done using WMI & PowerShell scripting.
And to top it all off, the hypervisor will be a free technology incorporated into the operating system as a value to Windows Server customers, ensuring both worldwide adoption as well as a monstrous market for 3rd party partner solutions driven by the Hypervisor SDK Microsoft has developed. - Virtual Machine Manager
Want a single console for the entire Enterprise Farm for virtual machines?
Want to move or provide "live migration" of virtual machines from server-to-server?
Want to provide Physical-to-Virtual conversions to migrate your existing servers to the new virtualization paradigm?
Want utilization counters & synthetic resource managers to provide strict service level agreements to business units?
Want clear reporting systems to demonstrate usage & accountability?
Want the ability to manipulate virtual machine hard drives offline?
Want the ability to provide "checkpoints" for any VM to revert back to like a "system restore"?
If this is interesting to you, check out this presentation for a quick briefing on just SOME of the features Microsoft Virtualization is bringing in 2007. (Note that this is a SUBSET. Much of what is coming has not been publicly announced yet.)
WEBCAST: Transitioning to Windows Virtualization
http://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032298427%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e
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