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Parallels Server Public Beta

Mac admins rejoice. Others may want to read, too. Trust me.
Readers know I'm one of the Mac faithful; full disclosure -- I'm typing this post on a G5. I've reviewed Leopard Server for IWeek and I run a mixed Apple/Linux/Windows shop (in that order) for my production environment. We even have an older G4 Xserve workhorse in the virtualization lab. The upshot of today's announcement: I now have a very good reason to pick up a new 8-core Xserve for testing VMs ... SWsoft (to be formally renamed Parallels any day now) has placed its new server virtualization product into public beta a week before Macworld.

PARALLELS IMAGE GALLERY

I have been a part of SWsoft's closed beta for Parallels Server. I've been itching under embargo, but as of 12:01 this morning I can share.

Bottom line -- it works. I've been running a canned version of Leopard Server 10.5 as a guest OS under Parallels beta1 code on a dual-Xeon Xserve and a Core 2 Duo MacBook with no major issues.

I'll be frank -- this was an early beta. The hypervisor does not run on bare metal yet. Parallels Server currently runs as a "lightweight" hypervisor on top of Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5; the Parallels folks are promising a fully-fledged, headless hypervisor solution in the production version, capable of running on both Apple and mainstream Intel platforms.

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