Since Microsoft announced that the next version of SharePoint would require a 64-bit operating system, I have been on the hunt for a virtualization product to enable the creation of virtual machines. I will state that I am a big VMWare proponent because of it’s flexibility and consistency, but recently tried Sun’s VirtualBox product because of a customer’s need and found the performance and ability to spin up VMs to be very easy and noticed some of the robust features which I paid for when I bought VM Workstation.
First, the setup process after the install was intuitive and offered a bunch of options that I had with VMWare’s product. I quickly setup my VMs and started installing the bits required for my guest OS. I provided the same amount of RAM that I usually do for VMWare or VirtualPC and then fired up my first VirtualBox VM.
One name that I just mentioned, but is surprisingly out of the mix, is Microsoft’s VirtualPC and their lack of 64-bit guest OS will bring this competition down to two vendors at this point. Now for the point of clarity, you can boot a VHD from Windows 7 or use Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 to accomplish your virtual needs, but there are pros and cons for these approaches that I will let you explore.
One feature that I really thought was an excellent addition was the “Snapshot” feature, which allow you to capture the current state of the VM if you choose to roll-back after changes that go awry.
When you start to create a VM, you have the following flavors of operating systems…
With more options under each major OS…
The “File” options are as follows:
Virtual Manager: Allows you to view all your created VMs.
Import/Export Appliance: Import or Export pre-configured appliances.
Preferences: Adjust or add options to your specific VM
Exit: Stops execution of VirtualBox
Under the “Machine” options, the following straight-forward functions are available:
New: Create a new VM
Settings: Adjust the options for the current VM
Delete: Removes the VM from the console and hard drive.
Start: Fires up the VM.
Some of the options include the ability to enable more than 1 CPU for your machine…
Or adjust your RAM assigned to the VM…
Finally, I will say that I was biased against the product before I installed it, but the more I use it, the more I like it and can recommend the product to others. I think developers, small- and mid-sized companies can take of advantage of the product. Some large corporations could be apprehensive to adopt this product because it’s open source, but others might embrace it with open arms, depends on the corporate culture. I think it’s worth a try.