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Introduction
| Test
methodology | Scorecard | Slideshow
Six-part
series on virtualization | Performance
results | Test
archive
Desktop hypervisors offer companies a way to run multiple operating systems, and the applications tied to them, on a single client machine.
Common use cases would be support staff, help desk and software development in a multi-operating system environment, or users with a specific business requirement to run a foreign operating system application.
We tested desktop hypervisors from Parallels, VMware, Oracle/Sun and Microsoft on both Windows and Mac hosts. Our guest operating systems were Ubuntu Desktop 8.10 and Windows XP SP3.
Parallels won our overall performance tests on both Mac and Windows platforms. And Parallels Desktop is our Clear Choice Test winner for Mac desktop virtualization. However, Parallels Workstation for Windows is a less evolved product, particularly when it comes to application sharing and guest virtual machine (VM) integration.
VMware's products are strong on both platforms. VMware Fusion (Mac) came in second by a whisker to Parallels, and VMware Workstation wins our Clear Choice Test for best desktop hypervisor for Windows machines.
Oracle/Sun's open source VirtualBox had decent performance numbers, but is more limited in its application execution capabilities between host and guest VMs, and is more difficult to use overall.
Microsoft's VirtualPC for Mac is no longer supported so we didn't test it. Virtual PC is destined to be the hypervisor that will enable Windows 7 to support Windows XP guests, but Microsoft doesn't seem interested in supporting non-Microsoft guests on Windows machines.
We installed a desktop virtualization application on the host operating system, and then installed a legally licensed copy of either XP or Ubuntu Desktop. For convenience, you can use a disk image file (we did) or a vendor's CD/DVD of the operating system.
Some of the desktop hypervisor products "recognized" that the guest to be installed was XP or Ubuntu and made automatic adjustments to accommodate various features between host and guest VM. This allowed us to make rapid default choices, such as how the guest operating system's disk storage would be made (and/or emulated), and how the native and guest operating systems might interact.
These interactions might be something as simple as shared folders among native and guest operating systems, or as sophisticated as being able to present applications as though they were "native" (while actually resident on the 'other' operating system).
To match our business cases, we tested each hypervisor with Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit) because of its popularity with Mac users. We also tested with Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (32-bit and 64-bit) to check support for Linux in general and to also have a 64-bit test to add to the mix.
We tested each hypervisor to compare features such as mirrored host/guest folders, application sharing, seamless presentation of guest/host applications and importing VMs from other hypervisors.
We discovered that the installation of each of the hypervisors was simple, and options for subsequent use plentiful.
VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop include some extra applications to work with Windows XP or Vista VMs, and each include
optional antivirus software (McAfee VirusScan Plus for Fusion and Parallels Internet Security powered Kaspersky for Parallels).
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Comments (10)
that's it?By Anonymous on July 14, 2009, 12:37 pmNo mention that Virtual PC doesn't do 64 bit? No mention of which hypervisors support which other VM images? No hard numbers or graphs? How close was Virtual Box?
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This is a very deciptive artical By Anonymous on July 14, 2009, 4:11 pmIf you look at the numbers in the spreadsheet Virtual box consistently beat Parallels hosting both Ubuntu and XP in SPECjbb2005 but also leaves out that Parallels...
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There goes 10 minutes of my life I will never see back !!!!By Anonymous on July 14, 2009, 4:38 pmDon't lose your time !!! Do not read this article. It is a huge pile of "feces", to put it in polite terms.
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Useless articleBy eliashan on July 14, 2009, 5:22 pmThis is one of the worst articles I've ever read on Network World. Looks more like a Cosmopolitan presentation of products writen by a secretary based on brochures,...
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Hey guys, there is more toBy Anon on July 14, 2009, 11:23 pmHey guys, there is more to this article than just this introduction. The individual articles are listed under "Product-by-Product summary" popup list towards the...
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Try again, pleaseBy Tom Henderson on July 15, 2009, 9:30 pmTo those that didn't read the entire article, please try again-- and look at the tabs and read those, too. And to the individual that cites that VirtualPC doesn't...
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