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VMWare Refreshes Virtual Machine Offering for Servers

• By Scott Bekker
• February 06, 2003

VMWare this week released a new version of its virtual machine offering for servers, adding support for Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server and 32-processor, Intel-based servers from Unisys.

The new version is called GSX Server 2.5. The base product is designed for consolidation and partitioning servers to increase resource utilization and server management efficiencies. GSX Server allows IT organizations to deploy virtual machine "guest" operating systems on "host" operating systems such as Windows or Linux. The product is optimized for hosting multiple, concurrent virtual machine environments on a single machine. High-profile distributors include Dell, NEC, Stratus and Unisys.

The 2.5 version is expanded to support up to 64 GB of host RAM, up to 32 host processors and up to 64 active virtual machines.

Supported Windows platforms have been updated to include Windows Server 2000 Service Pack 3, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, Windows XP Service Pack 1 and all editions of Windows Server 2003. VMWare also added support for Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.

Pricing starts at $3,025 for two-processor systems and $6,050 for four-processor systems.