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This article will provide you with information on Popular| Best Virtual Machine Software, Virtualization, and Virtual Machine Concepts.
Virtualization and Virtual machine are trending topics in the technology field and knowing them are necessary.
Table of Contents
So, at first, let's discuss Virtualization and Virtual Machine in short.
What is Virtualization?
Virtualization, in general, is a mechanism for running multiple virtual machines on a single physical hardware machine. It is beneficial to use the software to create multiple simulated environments on a single physical hardware machine.
Virtualization comes in many forms, including network virtualization, storage virtualization, server virtualization, and software virtualization. We will primarily discuss software virtualization here.
Virtualization is the use of multiple operating systems on a single piece of hardware without having to reboot. Cloud applications are another common use of virtualization.
What is a Virtual Machine?
The basic concept behind a virtual machine is to abstract one computer's hardware(CPU, memory, disk drives, network interface cards ...) into several different execution environments, generating the illusion of a private machine for each individual execution environment.
General UseCase of Virtual Machine
- In the software development environment, for testing an application
- Running Old or Incompatible Application
- Trying to access software which is not present in the HOST Operating system
- Testing and Trying a new Operating System
- Developing software for other platforms
- Hardware considerations: Virtual Machines reduce hardware and electricity costs by allowing multiple OS to run on one single hardware.
Best | Popular Virtual Machine Software
Here is the list of the best and most popular Virtual Machine software. It includes both open-source software(free) and paid software(paid).
- VMWare WorkStation Player
- Oracle Virtual Box
- SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
- Parallel Desktop
- V2Cloud
- Hyper V
- Parallels
- QEMU
- GNOME Box
Also Read: Secret of CPU Hyperthreading
VMware Workstation Player
VMWare Workstation Player is a free and powerful virtualization software provided by VMware for x64-based Guest Operating Systems such as Microsoft Windows OS or 64-bit Linux distribution OS. It provides the industry standard for virtual machine applications. It is free to use for personal purposes. However, for commercial use, you must purchase Pro licenses.
Note: 💡 VMware Workstation Player is a free version of VMware Workstation Product and VMware Workstation Pro is a paid version of VMware workstation product.VMware Workstation Pro can be used for 30 days for evaluating products.
| First Released on | 1999 AD |
| Written in | C, C++ |
| Platform | x86-64 only |
| Operating System | 64 bit Windows and Linux, Solaris 10 and 11, VMware ESXi, FreeBSD, MS-DOS, Nowell NetWare |
| Websites | www.vmware.com |
General requirements of VMware WorkStation Product are :
- 64-bit x86//AMD64 Processor launched in 2011 or later.
- 1.3 GHz or faster core speed
- 4GB RAM is recommended, but 2GB is minimum
For more click here.
🤔 The host Operating System must have a 64-bit processor, with any 32 bit or 64 bit OS installed. But VM OS must have a 64-bit processor. If you installed VM OS in 32 bit OS then your VM OS cannot utilize more than 4 GB RAM in general. So it's better to install VM OS (64-bit processor) in a 64-bit processor and 64 bit OS.
Features of VMWare Workstation Player
- It can be run on 64 bit Linux or Windows PC as Virtual Machine.
- Easy to use and can run multiple OS on one system without much PC skills.
- Supports GPU virtualisation
- Has a convenient GUI and command line supports
- Free for educational purposes.
- Host/Guest File Sharing.
- Can run VMs in many different view modes.
- 4K display supports
- Multi-Language Keyboard Supports
- It is highly versatile and has high speed.
- A bare-metal hypervisor for Windows computers is also produced by VMware, called VMware vSphere.
- USB devices can be accessible even USB 3.0 so that you can easily connect USB hard drives, web cameras, and WIFI adapters support.
- Smart Card Reader Supports
- Third-party programs can be easily integrated.
- Support of Linked Clone.
Features of VMware Workstation Pro:
- All features of VMware Workstation Player
- It can run multiple VM OS simultaneously. You can run multiple VM OS at the same time. You can switch the tab for using VM OS.
- VMware Workstation Supports snapshots. So, can take, restore, and delete snapshots.
💡 Snapshot: With the help of snapshots, you can save any state of a virtual machine so that in the future if any problem occurs then you can revert back to that state. Also after saving you can continue to VM further.
It is a type-2 hypervisor so it must be installed on the host OS as an application.
💡 Type-2 Hypervisor vs Type-1 Hypervisor: Type-1 Hypervisor doesn't require to be installed as software in the host OS. But Type-2 Hypervisor must be installed as software in the host OS. Type-1 Hypervisor can run on hardware directly.
Oracle Virtual Box
Oracle VM Virtual BOX is an open-source hosted hypervisor for x86 computers developed by Oracle Corporation. Hosted Hypervisor means that you run it as an application on your operating system and use it to create virtual machines.
It is a type-2 hypervisor so it must be installed on the host OS as an application.
Some of the important features are :
- Cross-Platform Virtualization
- High Speed and Versatile
- Has a user-friendly GUI and command line supports.
- Snapshot Features: Can Take, restore, and delete snapshots.
- Screen resizing is possible.
- Support multi-screen resolutions.
- Cloning Virtual Machine
- Basic support for 3D graphics but this does not help to play the latest 3D games but helps for properly rendering images and videos.
- 4K display supports
- USB devises support
- Multi-Language Keyboard Supports
- Support of Linked Clone.
- Supported in multiple platforms: Windows, Linux and Mac
Also read: What is grid computing with example
It also has some enterprise features which is free for educational purpose but required a license for commercial purpose.
Parallel Desktop
Parallel Desktop is the virtualization software for Mac OS. It allows Windows OS to run in Mac OS so that we can access windows powerful applications like Office Packages (Excel, PowerPoint, word) can be accessed easily.
Features:
- Allow to Quickly and Easily move as well as drag files, folders, apps, and other stuff from a Windows PC to a Mac
- Allow accessing windows powerful applications like Office Packages.
- Run windows fast as VM without slowing down Mac.
It is not open source and has only a paid version. It only gives a trial for evaluation purposes.
V2Cloud
V2Cloud is a desktop virtualization solution. It is a fully integrated DaaS(Desktop-as-a-Service) Solution that provides hardware infrastructure via the cloud. Its core feature is the "Cloud Workspace" Remote Desktop Service, which simulates a Windows workstation using Windows servers. It is only available in the paid version. But they will provide you with a trial version for evaluation purposes.
So, the general use-case of V2Cloud is: If you have set up a cloud computer in V2Cloud then you can access your computer from anywhere on any device. And provides auto backup of workspace every day. And also multiuser can access the same workspace as well so it is good for the team.
Features of V2 Cloud
- Do not require any technical skills to use it.
- Superfast DaaS Solution
- Suitable for small and midsize businesses for using a fast cloud desktop.
- Provide connection to up to 250 concurrent users.
- Within a workspace, all users can share applications and files.
- Has Complete auto backup of workspace facilities every day.
- No problem in disaster as well because it provides a second instance of your workspace in another geolocation.
- V2 Cloud is available everywhere and can be accessed from a web browser and mobile app(ios, android), anywhere and it provides a full-blown desktop experience on all devices.
- You just pay for what you use and can upgrade your Cloud WorkSpaces' performance and storage in seconds.
- Office365 & AzureAD Integration
- Network Visualization and Malware Protection.
- Virtual Machine Migration and Monitoring
- Provides GUI
- Has high-quality technical supports
Hyper V
It is Microsoft developed hypervisor-based virtualization technology. Hyper V helps to create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running windows only. So we can say Hyper-V uses Windows hypervisor only. It can be used as hardware virtualization(from windows 8) and software virtualization(from start). It was first released with windows server 2008.
Also read : Google Technology Stack
The standalone version of the hyper-v server with a command-line interface is available for free.
fig. Using HyperV (source Microsoft Official Site)
General Features:
- Nested Virtualization features are available.
- Has snapshot(checkpoint) features with Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) in the latest HyperV. Useful for disaster recovery and backup.
- Can send PowerShell command from host OS to VM OS with not much configuration.
- Safe and secure booting and shielding of virtual machines help protect a virtual machine and its data from malware and other unauthorized access.
- Hyper-V features available on windows server 2019 is virtual network encryption which allows encryption of virtual network traffic between VMs.
- Latest windows server ie. Windows Server 2019 supports both Windows as well as Linux containers, which can run on the same container host.
Nested Virtualization: Nested virtualization allows us to run one hyper-v VM inside another Hyper-V VM
Hyper-V Guest Operating System (VM OS) Compatibility
1 Supported on Microsoft Client OS like Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 10, windows 7 professional, enterprise, ultimate Windows Vista Professional with SP3, Windows XP Professional with SP3, Windows XP Professional (x64) with SP2
2 Supported Linux OS like CentOS, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise, FreeBSD, etc.
Windows Virtual PC
Windows Virtual PC is a free virtualization program for Microsoft Windows initially released on September 19, 2009. It is the successor of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. This latest product of virtual machine does not work before Windows 7 OS host(all editions except Starter)
Like VirtualBox, you cannot create Linux as a Host. Virtual PC locks you into a windows Host only. You can only run windows os as guests inside the windows os host. So, you can prefer a Virtual PC when you need to use an older version of windows.
You can access a USB drive on a virtual PC, Support multi virtual machines to run concurrently each in its own thread, and smart card redirection facilities manage all VMs from a single folder.
Main System Requirement:
- Computer running Windows 7 (all editions except Starter).
- 15 GB of hard disk space per virtual Windows environment.
QEMU
QEMU is a popular open-source emulator and virtualizer that can virtualize hardware.
It is written in C language developed by QEMU Team and can be installed on Linux, Windows, macOS, and some UNIX versions on the desktop platforms and also in the cloud.
Pros:
- Easy to Use
- Free and can be used in any OS
- Gives nearly native performance when used as a virtualizer.
- Can provide hardware virtualization
- Virtual Machine Encryption
GNOME Boxes
GNOME Boxes is less well-known VM software but it is an easy way to create, view and manage virtual machines for learning and development purposes. It is lightweight, simple to set up, and has faster virtual management software. If you have a Linux machine as a host and want to test other different OS as a guest machine then using GNOME is the best choice. It is one of the best virtualization managers for Linux machines.
Because Gnome Boxes, a front-end tool for Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), is created inside Gnome Desktop Environment, no additional software is needed to be installed. So, Boxes has no problem with virtualization as KVM is directly integrated into the Linux Kernel. So, Boxes' task is to simply provide VM using technologies like libvirt and QEMU built into the Linux kernel.
Pros:
- create, view, access, and manage remote virtual machines using SPICE, VNC, RDP, or Secure Shell connections
- create, view, access, and manage local virtual machines
- create, view, access, and manage removable media
- Upload / publish virtual machines
- Sharing files is as easy as dropping them in your virtual machine and will appear in your download folder
- With boxes, you don't have to download an operating system for the purpose of building a virtual machine. Boxes will download it for you automatically.
Website: click here
RedHat Virtualization
Red Hat Virtualization (formerly Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization) is a free and open-source virtual machine software that provides virtualization for Windows and Linux.
It is also a hosted hypervisor that runs within another operating system. They are for an enterprise-level server and desktop virtualization solution.
Features:
- Easy to set up, use and manage, upgrade.
- Offers a high level of performance to Kubernetes, Linux and Cloud environments.
- Promote a high level of Scalability and can create large virtual machines to support huge enterprises.
- Because they are free and open-source, no one can monopolize them. There's no need to worry about vendor lock challenges.
It offers a 60-day free trial, so you can give this a try. If you want to buy then you can do so on a subscription basis. Premium Price is available in two variants:$999/hypervisor/year and $1,499/hypervisor/year.
Official Site: click here
IBM PowerVM
IBM PowerVM is a low-cost, high-security virtualization server platform for Linux, IBM, and AIX. It was developed by IBM to run IBM I AIX and Linux applications on IBM Power Systems.
Features: -
1 Provides cluster-wide access to shared storage pools.
2 There is an option to migrate AIX, IBM I and Linux logical partitions between systems using Live Partition Mobility.
3 Select logical partitions can share memory from the same pool of physical memory thanks to PowerVM Active Memory Sharing technology.
4 The PowerVM Active Memory Sharing technology provides Active Memory Deduplication, which helps to consolidate memory pages with identical material in physical memory.
5 This robust virtualization software, PowerVM Nowvalinke, allows for the administration and deployment of critical enterprise workloads in a modern cloud environment that is both extremely scalable and elastic.(source)
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