The first product released by VMware was VMware 1. This first product was presented at DEMO This was the first application that allowed you to run multiple operating systems on a single x86 machine. The VMware Virtual Platform technology added a thin software layer that allowed multiple guest operating systems to run concurrently on a single standard PC. The requirements for this capability were reasonable even in requiring a Pentium II Mhz processor and 64MB of memory.
This meant that this software was not out of the reach of normal users. Virtual machines with up to 2GB memory were supported. VMware 1. What we need to remember is that this product was a type 2 hypervisor meaning that it needed to run on either Windows or Linux - so you would have an operating system that you log onto and then load up the software to start the virtual machines.
This is how Workstation and Fusion work today. The downside of this software was that it was slow Throughout , VMware released various updates for VMware 1. The obvious next development of the software was to release an updated version and this came in the form of VMware 2. Admittedly, most people don't like to adopt a piece of software with a version number of 1. The new functionality in question was the capability to support "suspend and instant restore".
This was the technology which allowed for you to suspend the virtual machine to disk and to instantly restore the state of the virtual machine without having to reboot.
Also in VMware 2. If you are interested in knowing the build numbers, then VMware 2. Again, throughout and early , subsequent patches were released for VMware 2. VMware realised the potential that server virtualisation could bring to the world and was already working on developing a type 1 hypervisor. The difference with a type 1 hypervisor would be that it can be installed on bare metal, no longer requiring another operating system to run on.
This could be seen to provide a number of benefits, especially with the resource overhead reduction caused by not having another operating system running in the background such as Windows.
Anyone who knows anything about the history of VMware knows about the crazy names that were assigned to some of their earlier products and then shortened into the names that we know today. Well the most famous of the names is ESX. A marketing firm hired by VMware were tasked with creating a product name for the new software. They believed that Elastic Sky would be a good name, shortened to ES. The VMware engineers didn't like the sound of that and thought that adding an X to the end would make it sound more technical and cool.
VMware employees later started a band called Elastic Sky with John Arrasjid being the most well known member. ESX was targeted at enterprises to encourage them to virtualise their physical servers and better utilise their hardware. Unfortunately, there weren't any migration pieces of software around at the time, so enterprises would need to rebuild their machines as VMs.
Following on the naming standards, a new type 2 hypervisor was created aimed at running server operating systems on a Windows Operating System. So here we have it, the culmination of a busy software release year for VMware and the first version of VMware Workstation to hold the name "VMware Workstation".
This was version 3. This was another major release for the product bringing new features such as the "Repeatable Resume Feature", which allowed for a VM to be resumed from a specific point at which it had been suspended, multiple times.
This feature developed into the fully functional Snapshot feature used by millions of people every day. Remote Desktop support was added to the product allowing to connect to the host to remotely manage VMs. ESX reached version 3. By this time, the larger market got wind of this whole hardware virtualization trend and more and more companies started to experiment with it to see what it could do for them.
Many started with their testing and development environment, but a couple of brave souls went forward and virtualized their production environment too. With the release of ESX 3. ESXi had no traditional console, no linux OS parts and basically had just enough to set a network address to manage it remotely.
The advantage was that it had an extremely small footprint of just 32 megabytes, which meant you could install it on an Compact Flash card or a USB thumbdrive and run it from there, something that was not seen before for a server operating system.
In January of , the VMware Server product was discontinued. In Redmond, a certain other software company started to see that virtualization was eating into their territory and decided to create its own version of hardware virtualization.
Until then, VMware was the only company with an enterprise ready hypervisor. Fortunately for VMware, the released product was far from feature comparable.
Nonetheless it was a sign that the market is waking up. VMware View introduced a new way to look at desktops. Until then, a desktop was equivalent to Windows and run on a physical machine like a workstation or a laptop or in a server-based computing environment like Microsoft Terminal Server or Citrix. With vSphere 5, ESXi was the new standard. The in released version of vSphere, v5. Fast forward to today. Currently vSphere 6. Recently the support for 6. Version 5.
VMware currently employs over VMware support is available 24 hours a day. More than Concluding, you might say that VMware has been quite successful over the years.
If you look at the product portfolio, VMware has extended into so many directions, it can be hard to keep track. A full list of all the products currently in support would fill a few pages. One might say that VMware is all over the place and not selecting a direction.
But there is a clear vision. He explaines extensively the vision of VMware. Currently, VMware is not only engaged in virtualizing servers and desktops. Recently Cloud Foundation was introduced. This should become the bridge for every enterprise based on four topics: the modern SDDC, Integration with public and hybrid cloud, be intrinsigly secure and offer end users access with any device at any time and any place.
Where Cloud Foundation might be the near future for many organizations out there, this is not the only area VMware focusses on. Containers are going to shape the future of apps. We can be quite sure it will become a major force. But containers need to live somewhere. The data they will generate needs to live somewhere. Edge computing will become more and more important in the future. Where the Internet of Things, or IoT, p laces sensors in anything and everything, the raw data needs to be processed before it can be send on.
These sensors and their data need to be managed. If you want trustwurthy data, you have to make sure the devices are secured and well managed. A while back, VMware introduced Pulse. Pulse is an IoT management solution to make sure you stay in control of your devices and the data they generate. Check Pulse out here.
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