MS Announces Date for VMM2 beta

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has said it will ship a beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2 this summer, according to a report in The Hypervisor. Observers says this means that the new beta will be unveiled at the Tech Ed show to be held in America in June. According to the article, the new beta will be able to manage VMs running on VMware and XenSource hypervisors, and will also support Microsoft's forthcoming Hyper-V hypervisor. The finished version of VMM2 should follow before the end of the year."

Late, as usual...

[AndGodSed]

From This site [thehypervisor.com]

It appears the product is scheduled for a public Beta 1 release sometime during the summer of 2006, followed by a Beta 2 release around Q1 of 2007, and finally, an RTM of the product sometime in the second half of 2007.

How long before the real deal ships?

Re:

[empaler]

Don't know about the actual release schedule, but in eight years' time, the "employees working on the project" will make a teaser trailer completely void of any content that could hint at features, usability, or actual chance of delivery.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The real deal shipped already. The announcement is for the beta of version 2.0 of this product. You're confusing the two. Version 1.0 only manages Virtual Server and Hyper-V, Version 2.0 will also manage VMWare and Xen.

Yeah but

[huckamania]

Are they going to allow all windows users to go virtual or is it only going to be the uber users with their fancy schmancy pro licenses?

It's not going to matter to me how good their virt is if I have to upgrade to use it.

Re:

[afidel]

Uh, the virtualization is for Server 2008 where unless you choose to get a ~$10/cpu discount you get a license to run 1 virtual machine for Standard Edition, 4 for Enterprise and unlimited for Datacenter. This is the same rights as 2003R2 with the exception of there are no rights included with 2003R2 Standard.

Re:Bad for VMWare

[koh]

Once MS release VM tools by default with their OS, VMWare has a-lot to lose. I think they'll do it soon, and VMWare will lose a share of the market.

By the way, since Linux kernel 2.6.19-21 (i'm not sure), Linux comes with KVM which is Kernel based Virtual Machine, so If MS do the same, no-one can say that they use their Monopole in the OS market to gain advantage (like in Explorer vs. Netscape issue) since it had been done on Linux before.

KVM is not an hypervisor. KVM is a kernel interface that provides user-mode access to CPU specific virtualization features. From the mandatory wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]:

By itself, KVM does not perform any emulation. Instead, a user-space program uses the /dev/kvm interface to set up the guest VM's address space, feed it simulated I/O and map its video display back onto the host's. Currently, the only such program that does this is a modified version of QEMU.

So VMWare would only need to compete with a free product. Since, last time I checked, VMWare Server [vmware.com] was also free, it would become something like Firefox. If it doesn't lose its way, it won't necessarily fail.

Re:

[lmfr]

KVM is not an hypervisor. KVM is a kernel interface that provides user-mode access to CPU specific virtualization features. From the mandatory wikipedia entry: "By itself, KVM does not perform any emulation..."

An hypervisor isn't an emulator. Xen, until recently, didn't support unmodified guests nor hardware emulation.

Only since the new processor features, Intel VT and AMD Pacifica (IIRC), did it start supporting running unmodified guests, and the emulation is also performed using a modified version of QEMU.

However, I agree that kvm isn't an hypervisor, as it runs under the host os, not above.

Re:

[empaler]

Once MS release VM tools by default with their OS, VMWare has a-lot to lose. I think they'll do it soon, and VMWare will lose a share of the market.
By the way, since Linux kernel 2.6.19-21 (i'm not sure), Linux comes with KVM which is Kernel based Virtual Machine, so If MS do the same, no-one can say that they use their Monopole in the OS market to gain advantage (like in Explorer vs. Netscape issue) since it had been done on Linux before.

You misunderstand what that issue was about. The issue wasn't that Microsoft did it exclusively, it was that they leveraged their monopoly to offer their product to the enormous user base. Microsoft still has an insanely large market share, no matter how many Ubuntu fanatics there seem to be. Even though both Linuxes and Mac OS packs media players in standard installations, the EU is still forcing MS to offer Windows without Media Player. (This is just for shows, AFAICT, MS isn't really crying over it)

Re:

[Pope]

More like they excluded OEM's and partners from offering anything BUT their web browser/media player/etc. in a default installation. That is by definition anti-competitive.

The real question is...

[Arkus]

Can I virtualize their virtualization manager?

But will it be any good?

[obeythefist]

Will it manage VMs better than VirtualCenter? I am somehow thinking that it won't. VMWare really has a solid product, it will be very difficult for them to compete with such a heavily entrenched company.

VirtualBox

[debatem1]

I'm surprised at no comparisons to VirtualBox here. It strikes me that Xen and VMWare are much more likely to be used in the enterprise sphere, whereas this and VirtualBox are more targeted towards the consumer crowd.