What is Digg?84 Comments
- lane.montgomery, on 10/12/2007, -3/+48digg for offering a direct link and only two exclamation points (and not even next to each other)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+46i like your name. im digging for that sole reason.
- bluemech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Iy's satirical. Most diggs link to some stupidass blog link you have to wade through to get to any paydirt.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18the hell it is. id rather read something that makes me laugh than have to click 3 extra times to GET to the article.
- nxusername, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21Interesting news. I'd like to take this time to welcome the x86 world to the mainframe level of operation.
I'll still use VMWare's new free product because it will run on Linux and I wont have to pay the MS tax to run the host OS.
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/ - Mike.ohara, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15You are fired. Get out.
- WhidbeyGeek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Totally! I'd love to hear "This next story was submitted by Kevin Smokes Po.....um some user" on the next Diggnation.
Makes me laugh just thinking about it. - Kuipo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13I second that. I don't care so much about the news itself so much. But props for linking directly to the source!
- thewrenchpilot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The download seems to hang at around 97-98%
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=63997 32bit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=63998 64bit - stubby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6alterself :
If you're going to flame microsoft at least do it without making yourself look completely retarded. On that page there is one link for x86 one link for 64 bit, and a link to the PDF. Don't say bad about microsoft because you won't take the time to look at a webpage and actually read it contents. - TheSolomon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Is anyone else reminded of Microsoft's response to Netscape by releasing Internet Explorer for free? Hmmm. ;-)
- MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7necessary, no
nice, yes - MrDan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ah, don't bother, there is a white paper explaining it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/techinfo/vsvsvpc.mspx - megadork, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5True, but if they had released it for free before anyone else had done so-- they would have another IE anti-trust lawsuit on their hands with people complaining about illegal practices. No? Seems like MS just can't win.
- Zolt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Could you please post a link stating that this is a Release Candidate?
In their FAQ they state:
Q. What is Virtual Server 2005 R2?
A. Virtual Server 2005 R2 is the next version of Virtual Server 2005, which was released October 1, 2004. Virtual Server 2005 R2 is the current shipping product and is now available as a free download. Virtual Server R2 provides customer improved performance, availability, and scalability in order to increase operational efficiency in server consolidation, application re-hosting, disaster recovery, and software test and development. - count_z, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Actually it runs pretty well (i've been running it since it was first released). I find that it's much easier to setup clustering on Virtual Server than on VMWare GSX. Virtual Server is great in a lab and it's also great for disaster recovery (just lost your exchange box... setup a temporary virtual exchanger server - or multiple servers - until you get the defective box replaced). Of course you can do that with any VMWare too.
Neither VMWare GSX nor Virtual Server are adequate for serious enterprise or mission critical work because they don't let you allocate a percentage of the CPU(s) to the virtual machines... (so one misbehaving machine can lock-up your entire physical machine and all VMs therein).
For serious stuff Microsoft doesn't really offer a solution. You'd have to use either VMWare ESX or Xen.
Still free is good. You can't argue with free. If you don't like it use VMWare server (which is a pain right now because it's still in Beta and expires after a while, requiring you to download the new beta) or Xen (which is more difficult to configure/use, but is very powerful). - TheWorkz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I really believe this announcement would have meant more if Microsoft would have made this move prior to others opening up their products to the public. I gotta give props to Microsoft for following suite with this product, but they really should be leading the way. Personally, I am a VMware user and probably will be for a while.
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Tough luck for the XP Home and 2000 users out there.
- Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Can't really compare it to Virtuozzo, that isn't the same kind of product. Virtuozzo is more like an advanced chroot jail, it can't run different guest OSes or anything.
- dingletec, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6In other words, yes, they are doing this in response to VMware/Xen/etc. They would love to charge for it, but VMware is already giving away a server vm platform for free, and Xen is to be included in nearly every Linux distro and BSD.
They will only be a player in this market because of their ability to bundle it with their OS, same as they do with everything else. I wish for a day they could do away with the patronizing market speak and just say they are doing something because of competitive pressure. If they don't include their own solution immediately, they will lose out on the market altogether. Plain, simple, true.
I am very excited about virtualization. I've been able to combine multiple virtual servers running different operating systems on one stripped down host using VMware on Ubuntu for free. Awesome for small companies such as mine. I can finally have servers dedicated to the one task I built them for, and simply create a new server when I have a new task come up.
I've already been using Xen and VMware for months, so I imagine when I do get that new Microsoft Server OS, it will end up being yet another virtual server. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I read the news on Ben Armstrong's blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/default.aspx) and considered linking to his article; the problem is that blog spamming is getting out of hand here. So rather than link to Ben's blog (a nice blog where he posts about how to get old school games to run on VPC -- cool), I just linked to the actual homepage of VS.
- zootm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Other than the fact that the only supported operating systems in the release are Microsoft ones?"
Virtual Server 2005 supports Linux as well as MS operating systems as a guest operating system, allegedly. - miketrin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Don't waste your time on Virtual Server, it's very poorly optimized compared to vmware. Good luck Microsoft.
- jrocklin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It's nice that they're releasing it for free - following the industry for this market. Does it run on Mac? Does it run on Linux? Nope, and Nope. Not that I'm surprised really, but the Virtual PC for mac doesn't do all that much for me, especially when it wouldn't mount a dvd iso... Anyone know of a good VM solution for OS X?
- AlmostEvil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This isn't true for VMWare ESX Server, which uses a hypervisor.
And i'd love to get my hands on it. - rhyno2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Remember, the Virtual Server software is free, but you still need a licensed Operating System running on it, with the proper CALs... technically...
- ThatsUnpossible, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3R2 is the name of the release. Release 2. If it was a Release Candidate, it would be RC2.
This is real product, not a candidate.
I see you realized that. No offense. - badnewsblair, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Not a huge fan of Microsoft. Don't really care about the product myself, but I give it a digg because it isn't blog spam!
- jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3the actual download link is about halfway down the page.. i usually find reading words to be of some use.
incidentally, regarding the "VMWare ESX or XEN Source are better than Virtual Server because..." argument. I picked this up from the "Licensing Microsoft Server Products with Virtual Machine Technologies Whitepaper" ( http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/9/68964284-864d-4a6d-aed9-f2c1f8f23e14/virtualization_whitepaper.doc ) document...
"Upcoming technologies from Microsoft and other vendors provide virtualization services directly in the OS and rely on a hypervisor to allocate resources to individual OS environments on a server (Figure 2 %u2013 C). Processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will include technology starting in 2006 to improve the performance of VM technologies on x86 and x64 hardware platforms"
so whilst virtual server does not currently run on a hypervisor, it will do.. soon (hopefully). - jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6or of course, if you want to run virtualised machines on a proper product you'd use something like vmware ESX, or Xen. But 'welcoming x86 to the world of mainframe computing' is a bit snide, methinks. This, as you well know, isn't something new and shiny! :-)
- lonnieh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You really should say "tough luck to anyone who hasn't figured bittorent out" :P
- Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Microsoft Virtual PC used to be a lot slower than VM ware and other solutions. Is this still the case, or have they improved it?
Regardless, a hypervisor like Xen is going to get much better performance than a full virtualizer like VMware or Virtual PC/Virtual Server. - joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2re: mac user questions:
Virtualization might be coming soon, as Parallels has announced a product:
http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/04/04/virtualization.software/
There's also rumours that Apple, themselves, might support virtualization in the next OSX.
And then there's the Q-project, which while emulations software, is apparently heading toward virtualization.
Mrdan...I'm making an assumption, but I think VPC is EMULATION software while VS is virtualization software. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+264.
- MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good post: Digg, but still like VMWare better. I dont have any goofy verification to run it. :-)
- dawgma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2edit: never mind. VMWare also offers a free virtual server http://www.vmware.com/products/server/
It is free, isn't it? - sidhighwind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Awesome Direct Link!!
- stubby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4awesome job on flaming microsoft and their CEO for absolutely no reason. really great to see the fanboyness shine through
- ChicagoDan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ AlmostEvil
From TFA:
Microsoft Announces New Price, and Availability of Linux Support, for Virtual Server 2005 R2
April 3, 2006: Today Microsoft announced that Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now available as a free download. Microsoft also announced the availability of virtual machine add-ins for Linux and a technical product support model for Linux guest operating systems running on Virtual Server 2005 R2. - sspooner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why oh why do we have to register with a stupid passport account (something I will not create) to get this ?
Do these people not know that every barrier you put between a customer and a product will decrease it's usage by 50% ?
Anyway, I think I'll get VMWare instead. - Denver80203, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Microsoft NEVER gives away free software it just won't happen as long as Ballmer is CEO.."
May I suggest you READ the page before commenting?
Yes, it's free. - jrocklin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Virtual PC does run on OS X as well as Windows - just not all that well in my experiences, which has been somewhat limited. Hopefully they will port this to OS X as well, though I find that highly unlikely since the underlying architecture of the machines (PPC vs x86) is completely different. I could see that they might port to intel based macs.
@Denver80203
Did I actually read the page? Yes, which is where I found the system requirements about running on XP Pro and above. READ my post, I never asked did it _run_ linux, I asked if it ran _on_ linux or OS X. - jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1of course, the p2v software for virtual pc is free, also. For people seriously looking at reducing overheads associated with physical hardware vmware's p2v assistant can be quite pricey. If you're looking at reducing legacy hardware microsoft's solution is ideal.
yay that you don't need lots of win2003r2 licenses for virtualisation these days too. microsoft finally helping out their customers, can't be bad. - Tezgno, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I'm interested to see how well this performs against Xen, VMWare, and Virtuozzo.
- ChicagoDan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I thought you meant would Microsoft provided support for the configuration. You know, a supported Operating System.
Unless your hardware configuration requires it, you don't even need the additions.
The fact that MS will provide tech support for Linux installations under Virtual Server is huge... If Microsoft provides support for Linux on any other product, I can't think of it. - swaxhog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From the way it was explained to me, you can have up to 4 virtual Windows licenses per running VS2005 install.
- DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Waiting for the hypervisor in Win Server 2007...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mine was okay
- Rayke8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How about NO exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- MrDan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can somebody please explain to me the difference between Virtual Server and Virtual PC ?
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