VMware in a rat race with MS

BANGALORE: VMware Inc. is eyeing for the top slot amongst companies that will deliver 64-bit technology by launching support for 64-bit operating system for Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. Said an online report.

According to Nathan Brookwood, of Insight 64, an observer of the 64-bit processor world Microsoft may announce support for 64-bit with its much awaited Windows XP SP2.

According to the report VMware will have preliminary 64-bit support available for VMware GSX Server 3.1 and VMware Workstation 4.5.2, with support for Windows Server 2003 (Beta) for 64-bit extended systems. VMware support will also be available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 64-bit host operating systems. VMware GSX Server customers and VMware Workstation 4.x customers will be provided free updates in most instances.

The company also informed that this release marks the first milestone for VMware's 64-bit roadmap, the next step would be the ability to concurrently run 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines on AMD64 and EM64T architectures. VMware also informed that users could continue using their 32-bit guest operating system while migrating to 64-bit host operating system. It also said that its virtual infrastructure abstraction layer between computing, storage, and networking hardware and software enables installing and moving of software from one system to another without any reconfiguration.

This release will be of immense benefit for AMD, which has its 64-bit Athlon and Opteron PC models already in the market as well as Intel, which has launched its high-end Itanium processors with 64-bit capability.