Oracle launches VM VirtualBox 4.0

Oracle has said that the latest iteration of its virtualisation software VM VirtualBox will deliver improved overall capacity, ease of use and scalability in comparison to earlier versions.

Oracle's VM VirtualBox allows users to run multiple operating systems on one machine by hosting it in a virtual environment. The new release is available for Windows, Mac OS X and a variety of Linux operating systems including the Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris platforms.

Oracle said on Wednesday that it has improved the usability of the product by adding a virtual display scaling mode that allows more virtual environments to be shown on screen at one time as well as adding new customisation options.

"[Oracle VM VirtualBox4.0] adds to the many new product releases across the Oracle Virtualisation product line, illustrating the investment and importance that Oracle places on providing a comprehensive desktop to datacentre virtualisation solution," said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president, Linux and virtualisation engineering at Oracle.

The software has extended support for Open Virtualisation Format-compliant (OVF) descriptors and added support for OVA descriptors. OVF consists of several files located in a single directory, whereas OVA is a single-file alternative containing the OVF directory, meaning that users can directly share between virtual machines more easily.

Oracle said that VirtualBox 4.0 allows developers to create extensions to customise the VirtualBox, adding new functionality.

The increased capacity means that VirtualBox 4.0 can handle greater workloads and is as a result of a new asynchronous transfer (I/O) model for local and networked (iSCSI) storage, the company said.