What do you guys think about VMware? everything i've heard thus far about its functionality and ease of use has been extremely positive.

would like to have your opinions on it.

thanks!

7/10/2007 2:03:00 PM

we use the hell out of it in my office, it can be a life saver

7/10/2007 2:08:49 PM

it's used heavily in the business education world - i've used it to both take classes and create a course - in that respect it's extremely useful - especially for things that new users can really screw up or that screws up your system if you mess something up - easy to reload

7/10/2007 2:12:56 PM

I've played with both VMWare and VirtualBox. They both work great.

7/10/2007 2:20:25 PM

It's great when you need a dozen different environments set up to simulate a different customers' setups. Instead of having to configure a dozen boxes you can have a dozen vmware images stored on your local machine. They are also nice to have when you royally screw something up and just want to start over. Much easier to copy a vmware over then reconfigure the entire machine. Are you getting ready for the ipo?

7/10/2007 2:35:56 PM

its awesome, but its in a very very competitive space. There are a lot of alternatives that are cheaper/free and work almost/just as well.

7/10/2007 2:37:55 PM

^^ yes, i wanted user reactions

^ that's also important to know. i wonder if this IPO will act like all the Linux companies IPOs

7/10/2007 2:57:42 PM

they are the equivalent to a RedHat / Microsoft.

They were the first with an enterprise capable offering and have continued to offer the best commercially balanced product.

I think it will be a pretty good ipo, but not nearly to the level of the linux ipos, mostly because its not the same hype engine and people have become much more wary of tech. Should be a solid investment from a user point of view. They have a stable product, good market share and a solid company.

7/10/2007 3:11:34 PM

I use VMWare Workstation on a daily basis to test multiple Windows VMs. It is easy to run 3 VMs and set up a multi-tier application between them without having to use the physical hardware

We also use VMWare Server as a build system to host various VMs of different Operating Systems to build code

7/10/2007 4:17:45 PM

Quote :

"not the same hype engine "

that part may be true, as this does not have mass appeal the way Linux seemed to at the time

but

Quote :

"people have become much more wary of tech"

tell it to BIDU for starters.

it took 5 years for wounds to heal, but people are finding value in tech again.

7/10/2007 11:44:39 PM

is a lifesaver when writing drivers; bluescreens on a vmware image are MUCH easier to recover from than on your dev box

7/11/2007 12:49:43 AM

^^The market has recovered for hardware tech. And for most B2B sectors, but software and services are still a gamble. Google made out like bandits though, and I dont know of any technical reason why VMWare shouldn't be fine.

Definitely want to dive into their financial data though, because I don't think any of us have a clue how profitable they actually are, I know I sure don't.

7/11/2007 1:12:28 AM

From my exposure at work, it is by far the most popular virtualization platform out there. Many large companies I deal with are running multiple instances on one physical box to save on hardware cost. It's very popular in the storage world and seems to be becoming more and more common. We have teams of people dedicated to the product and making sure that our stuff is fully integrated and functional with VMWare.

Ever since they were purchased by EMC, their growth seems to have skyrocketed. EMC has made a ton of shitty acquisitions but buying VMWare may have been one of their smartest moves.

7/11/2007 7:21:25 AM

i know they spend a good amount of money hosting lunches at Sullivans Steakhouse... They also work closely with a few other companies in similar fields

7/11/2007 8:10:13 AM

So who is getting in on the VMware IPO?

7/11/2007 10:12:51 AM

I'm debating it, although I hate purchasing individual stocks.

7/11/2007 10:20:45 AM

i'm definitely going to have a go at the IPO.

if i monetize the same day as it IPO's, i may even put some of the house money back in as a longer term investment as opposed to just a trade.

7/11/2007 11:10:49 AM

what?

7/11/2007 11:13:14 AM

say i buy a $1000 worth of shares, and by the end of the day my investments worth $1500...
i'll take the $1000 worth of shares out, and let the remaining $500 worth of shares ride.
or i'll take the whole $1500 out, and repurchase shares when they go lower.


...back to the technological aspects of it. enough talk of the stock. there's a thread in the Lounge for it



[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 11:59 AM. Reason : didn't mean to stray the thread]

7/11/2007 11:45:44 AM

vmware > *

i mean just the fact that it can transition a physical machine to a virtual one is sweet..... plus you can translate your virtual machine back to a physical one too. it always seems to just work.

7/11/2007 2:52:24 PM

Long term their stock will drop like a brick.

Good way to make quick cash off people, though, as long as you bail the fuck out quick.

[Edited on July 12, 2007 at 10:10 AM. Reason : ]

7/12/2007 10:09:52 AM

Quote :

"Long term their stock will drop like a brick. Good way to make quick cash off people, though, as long as you bail the fuck out quick."

What are you basing that off of...?

7/12/2007 11:48:54 AM

just wait and see

7/12/2007 12:15:07 PM

It's creeping into the manufacturing world too where SANs and other architectures are starting to become less and less attractive.

been around for dev systems for a while.

many software providers don't explicitly allow for use of VMs in their contractual support agreements.... yet..... so for full production areas there is little visibility.

the customer is demanding it all over the place and these software houses are going to be forced to support it.



I use it widely in development enviornments, and would love to move to production units, but cannot.

7/12/2007 1:24:40 PM

fyi

VMWare IPO on Aug 14

http://tinyurl.com/3c3xjy

and

http://www.crn.com/it-channel/201201631

7/31/2007 9:33:32 AM

I've found it to be very useful for testing purposes. As for ^^ comment, i don't see where you get VMware replacing SANs/other architectures. In the end VMs are still just host/server boxes (although versatile and beefy in most cases).

[Edited on July 31, 2007 at 10:31 AM. Reason : a]

7/31/2007 10:31:33 AM

http://www.ipohome.com/common/ipoprofile.asp?ticker=VMW

8/13/2007 11:10:08 AM

Don't listen to Cramer when he says that it's gonna be as big as the Google IPO. I, personally, feel that this is nothing like the Google IPO. There're just too many variables not in favor of VMWare right now.

I wouldn't be surprised if no one other than the first institutional investors make more than 5% the first year.

8/13/2007 11:40:49 AM

citing Cramer with regards to the VMWare IPO is arriving a little late to the table

8/14/2007 9:48:20 AM

Well, I figured most people on here would better recognize him seeing he's the pop star of CNBC.

8/14/2007 9:52:07 AM

i'm looking up this IPO stuff today, we'll see how this plays out

8/14/2007 10:20:53 AM

http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/16/vmware_derived_from_linux/

uh oh

8/16/2007 6:21:22 PM

^ Yeah I read that...although VMWare won't go anywhere because of that, it's just one of the variables against it

8/16/2007 9:50:28 PM

sold most of my shares for decent $. letting about 1/3 ride.

8/22/2007 10:17:10 AM

Anyone used VMWare Fusion for the Mac? There's a $39 education version compared to the $79 for parallels. Wondering if it's any good.

8/22/2007 8:07:07 PM

I was thinking of getting it, but from most forum posts, it appears that it still has a few quirks. Of course, not saying Parallels doesn't, but the latter has been around longer and has a better Coherence mode than Fusion's Unity.

Performance-wise, if you play games/render real time graphics, Fusion is CURRENTLY better because of multi-core support. It also CURRENTLY supports more RAM in VMs than Parallels.

That said, they have basically copied all the Parallels features and released them in 1.0. Parallels just started a new public beta 2 weeks ago, and after using it I can say that it's gonna be a whole lot better than Fusion.

8/22/2007 8:13:28 PM

Does windows on vmware running on linux run at near native speed for everything?

8/22/2007 8:13:55 PM

With the Intel VT-x extensions it nearly should...which is another good thing about Parallels. It has the best VT-x support as of now.

8/22/2007 8:15:24 PM

Well at 39 bucks I may give the VMWare offering a try though. Meh it'll be a while before it shows up at the bookstore anyways so I guess I'll wait to see more reviews/opinions on it.

8/22/2007 8:19:53 PM

i'm the administrator for all of our VMware stuff where i work (we run ESX server)

we have 2 pools, each with 14 servers

each server has 4 dual-core 3.0ghz opterons with 8gb ram on each processor card, so 32gb ram.

we run anywhere from 6-10 VMs on each server

VMotion is one of the coolest things ever.

but yeah. it makes my life infinitely easier, instead of hundreds of servers to be responsible for, i now have 28.

8/23/2007 1:00:09 AM

^^ What's the policy on buying it from the bookstore?

8/23/2007 10:06:13 AM

Psh, I don't freaking know. It changes every month. Since that's education priced you probably have to show some kind of UNC System ID. I think they'll take wake tech too.

8/23/2007 12:14:11 PM