VMware Virtual Platform
Manutacturer VMware Inc
E-mail.' [email protected]
URL: http://www.VMware.corn/
Price: $299 US
Reviewer: Brian Walters
Not too long ago, I lookcd across my desk and won dered, '~How many
POs are too many for one consul tanp.' I regularly work with Windows, Linux and SCO
operating systcms and usually need to test interaction between different systems. I
counted five PCs, including the company wcb server sitting on my desk Coming up with the
magic num ber four was fairly simple, since niy keyboard switcher had enough 510k: for
only four systems., and I didn't feel like spring ing for another box I tossed the web
server under the desk with out a monitor or keyboard This solution results in loading
difter ent operating systems when I~m working on ditferent projects certainly not very
efficient. Finally, I found the solution- VMware Vinual Platform from VMware, Inc.
In mid-February, a colleague sent mc an e-mail message describing a
virtual machine for PCs. This sparked my interest could it bc real? With a virtual machine
such as the one my friend described, the possibilities seemed endless. Virtual machines
ran on old IBM mainframes; surely you would need special hardware and not just your
average '~njn of the mill" IC sold today A few clicks of the mouse took me to the
VMware web site, where mention was made of an upcoming beta pro gram. I signed up and
waited patiently for the beta release date oflvllarch 15.
According to the web site, VMware for Linux allows your PC to act as a
host openiting system for virtual machines which I call VMs. The virtual machine presents
a complete image of a standard PC to the guest operating system. The VM also has its own
BIOS (see Figure I) that can be adjusted just like
your ma computer. Many components are virtualized, such as the network card, sound card,
hard drive and mouse However, the processor is not; it is more like a serial multiplexer
where instructions are multiplexed from the different VMs and host Os. This gives the user
much better performance, since the instructions are executed without any translahon.
Unfortunately. this fantastic performance does come at a cost~you can't
step through a program and you can't test SMP (symmetrical multi-processing) applications
on your VMs. The stepping problem should be fixed by the time this article is pub lished,
but the SMP issue will take longer SMP systems are sup- ported in the host OS, so you can
actually have multiple VMs running on different processors. Virtualization of the hard
drive also adds a wonderful feature for developers-rollbacks. A VM hard drive can be
configured read-only to allow the guest OS to make changes in a log file. If something
goes wrong, 41' st restart the VM and everything is back to its original state Imagine how
easy this makes testing install scripts.
Finally, the day arrived when I was able to download the beta to test
whcther it was all it was cracked up to be. On the morning of the beta release, the web
site received so many hits the company was forced to quickly put up mirror sites I was
pleased with the amount of documentation available, including ample infor mation on
the errors you might get and how to fix them
I rebooted my primary machine from Windows to Linux and followed the
installation instructions. VMware installed easily and seemed a perfect fit with Red Hat 5.2
and the 2.0.36 kernel. I then installed the
license file received via e-mail. I started Vllware and went through the configuration
wizard, which made
it easy to setup a ready-to-use configura tion for Windows 98 (see Figure 2) Next, I popped in my Windows OEM preboot
floppy and clicked the "power" button. In the window, a normal BIOS screen
appeared with the VMware logo on the right. Fifteen minutes later, I was done. Just like a
regular PC installation, the new vintual disk was partitioned and for- matted following a
virtual reboot and installation of the OS. There was abso lutely no difference between my
test installation and a normal Windows 9, OEM system load.
Next, I loaded Caldera, SuSE, Windows 95 and even Windows NT Terminal
Servet All of these operating Systems loaded without any problem, and I used the wondefful
documentation to get the virtual sound and network cards working. Finally, I moved my
installations over to a better-equipped PC! a dual Celeron 300a clocked at 450MHz with
256MB of RAM and a 13GB hard drive. Since the VMs appear the same on all hosts, I was able
to copy my previous installs over to the bigger PC. With the addition of power and memory,
I was able to run most of these operating Systems simultaneously with ample performance in
each (which was good, since Windows NT Terminal Server is a resource hog). Probably the
best example of perfor mance was when I started compiling the 2.2.5 Linux kernel on my
host PC, started another kernel compile on a VM running SuSE, and viewed a RealVideo clip
play ing in Windows 95 on a VM. The sound and video never skipped a beat. (see Figure 3)
Now those four PCs on my desk have become many more. Suppon for
FreeBSD, Solaris and Windows 2000 Beta are currently underway and should be available by
the time you read this. However, some operating systems are not on the immediate horizon:
SCO OpenServer, UNixware and NetBSD are not planned as supported platforms for the
official 1.0 release. VMware allows mc to test many versions of Windows and Linux
workstations all at the same time, lam hoping to learn more about FreeBSD and Solaris once
they are supported Thanks to the virtu alization of the network card, I can assign each VM
its own IP address and actually test how multiple workstations will interact with each
other from one PC. I have found it is even possible to have a VM respond to a DHCP server
when your host Os does not have an address on the LAN.
How much does an incredible appli cation like this cost? Considering
the cost of a decent PC today is at least $1000 or more, I think $999 would be a fantastic
price, since it will save you so much space The folks at VMware think differently
tbough~for just $299 US, you can give your computer a mul tiple PC disorden A student
discount of 67%, i.e, to $99, is available. While I wouldn't recommend this to all the
garners, if you're developing applica dons for Linux or Windows this is trnly a tool you
should not be without. VMware is also great for testing the new distributions of Linux
with their many new fratures.
Brian Walters (Brian@ Texascomputers.conn) has worked with computers since the early 80's.
In 1996, he formed R & B Consulting to specialize in providing unique solutions for
small and medium businesses using both Linux and Windows. He enjoys hunt~ng in his Jeep,
but doesn!t like to get too far from societ~ as he cannot live without the Internet.
