Sun And HP Make It A Big Week For VirtualizationSun And HP Make It A Big Week For Virtualization

Sun has unveiled new desktop virtualization software, and Hewlett-Packard has announced several new or enhanced products that promote the use of virtualization, including a bade server designed to work in that environment. But more announcements are needed.Sun announced its xVM VirtualBox 2.0 free, open source desktop virtualization software along with a 24-7 premium support service for enterprise virtualization users, called the xVM VirtualBox Software Enterprise Subscription. The software can be downloaded gratis, and is touted as being the first major open-source hypervisor supporting Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Solaris, and OpenSolaris. Support subscriptions start at $30 per year per user.

The HP announcement included the new HP ProLiant BL495c, described as the first server blade designed for the purpose of hosting virtual machines. HP also announced enhancements to a list of system management software products to make them virtualization-friendly, and (like Sun) a new support service for virtualization users.

HP also announced the results of a survey showing that 86% of technology decision makers have implemented virtualization projects, but they seem to have made little progressthey expect to have virtualized only 25% of their environments by 2010.

Undoubtedly, the complexity of the task accounts for the anemic results so far. Despite the advantages it can offer, virtualization will not make serious inroads in the SMB arena until it is as straightforward to install as word processing software. At least this week's announcements show that there is movement in that direction.

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