Vista - Virtualization options - which should I use.

My boss wants me to look into virtualization. I'm confused - been using
Virtual PC (running it on a server to test server machines). What is the
virtual Server for then?

Also, I see VMWARE has a free edition, as well as the 'pay for' versions.
Is this a better way to go (free)?

Sorry - just confused by all the options.........

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:14:02 -0700, TheITDude
<TheITDude@xxxxxx> wrote:
Well, what do you want to do? That's the first thing we need to know.

Virtual PC and Virtual Server are targeted at different markets and
different strengths and weaknesses. VPC has a much more user friendly
interface, and features that make it useful when you're working
directly with the VM a lot. Virtual Server is designed more for
server applications, i.e. you set it up and it just runs, it runs as a
service and there's no need to log in. Also, Virtual Server lends
itself very well to automation, it has a full COM library and
integrates with Visual Studio.

VM Ware has it's strengths (USB and non-Windows support) and
weaknesses (huge app, lots of services, tabbed interface, etc) also.
If you're doing a lot of Linux based VMs, it's definitely something
you need to look at.

Sun also has a free VM product, VirtualBox.

For enterprise level solutions, there is MS Hyper-V, VM Ware ESX, Xen,
and so on.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/
I do not work for Microsoft.