Before the session ever started, they put out the disclaimer to not hold us to any timelines or features. With that being said, they have some really cool stuff that they are working on in the labs.
VMware wants to provide us with the ability to export a virtual machine (VM) to a removable disk with VMware Workstation. Basically, the idea is that you can plugin any USB device and have a standalone vm boot. All storage and networking are handled on the USB device; it would allow you to always run around with a vm in you pocket. Simply plug it in to any device and you are off running. It still in infancy but I think this feature would be outstanding. With USB 3.0 around the corner and SSD flash drives, performance of USB virtual machines sounds promising.
As as the future of VMware Workstation and the cloud is concerned. VMware would like you to have the ability to run local clouds on your local computer for testing before you deploy them and have to pay cloud computing providers for you DEV/QA time.
A welcomed enhancement is the ability to run an ESX machine in VMware Workstation and manage its resources. In the demo, they added the IP address of an ESX server, entered credentials, and connected to it and ran a virtual machine.
They took it a step further by showing us how you can take a local virtual machine and simply drag-and-drop it to an ESX machine. In VMware Workstation, you can develop a vm and then when you are ready to deploy or get the performance enhancements, simply drag it to the applicable ESX server and an upload progress bar appears and the vm is now available as an enterprise level vm.
The last feature they showed us is the ability of vCenter to manage your virtual machines from within Workstation. Basically, the theme is how can we move beyond just the local virtual box using Workstation.
What do you think of these features? Do any of them sound good to you?
I’ll check in later; I am off to lunch.
Discussion
No comments or trackbacks for “The Future of VMware Workstation and Cloud Development”Post a comment