VMware: Turning Intel PCs into virtual mainframes

For what seems like forever, the terms "virtual machine" and "mainframe" have been synonymous..

The ability to carve up an IBM mainframe into distinctly separate systems probably gave birth to the notion of server consolidation. It just took the client/server revolution of the 90’s and the decentralized DNA that drove it to twist the spotlight away from virtues of the glass house. The result, according to Gartner analyst John Phelps, is uncontrolled server sprawl. Worse yet, departmental managers who run off and set up their own servers are now probably clamoring for support from the same IT department that originally discouraged the practice. Most of them bit off more than they could chew, and now they're swallowing their pride and admitting that something more centralized might be a better alternative.

Suddenly, mainframe class system running virtual machines is back in vogue. But something has changed in the last twenty years: PCs have become mainframe-class systems. If you believe Michael Mullany, VMware's director of product management, running multiple operating systems simultaneously on a PC--once unthinkable--is now not only thinkable, but possible and realistically doable.

I caught up with Mullany at VMware's booth at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo where he described how his company took a tool traditionally used on mainframe systems and delivered it for Intel-based systems--a platform that's a fraction of the cost of mainframes.

ESX Server--VMware's new virtual machine designed for consolidating and partitioning servers--uses the same sort of hypervisor technology that IBM uses to carve its zSeries mainframes into separate virtual machines. ESX Server makes it possible to divide an Intel server into distinctly separate Intel-based systems, each of which runs simultaneously with the others. And each virtual server can run a different operating system, such as Windows or Linux.

To the rest of the network (as well as to each other), each virtual machine appears as a separate entity, each with its own network addresses, DNS entries, and so on. The virtual machines that run on top of VMware's hypervisor are so "virtual" that each commands its own memory, CPU, network, and storage resources--all of which, according to Mullany, can be assigned on a percentage-of-aggregate resource basis. Aside from its ability to address server consolidation projects, ESX Server can also save the complete state of any one of the virtual machines under its supervision. Why is this useful? It can export them, too--for example, to be used in another virtual machine within the same (or another) physical box.

VMware's ESX Server also has two siblings: The workgroup-targeted GSX Server ($2500), which, compared to ESX, offers less robust set of resource allocation and isolation features; and Workstation, a desktop-class version that lets users who like working with both Linux and Windows dispense with the dual-boot and run the two operating systems side by side. Pricing on ESX Server is unpublished and Mullany refused to discuss it, so my assumption is that it's determined on a case-by-case basis.

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