Those aware of the changes say the new release will be Parallels' first to make good on promise made in early January that it would enable virtualization of Mac OS X Server on Macs already running the operating system, making use of a change in licensing terms with Leopard's release late last year that permits more than one copy to run at the same time.
Such features have been frequently requested by IT administrators, who on Linux and Windows have already been able to segregate individual apps away from the main operating system in the event of a crash or a security breach.
The move is just one of the steps Parallels is taking to keep up with and potentially outrun rival VMware, which unleashed 'experimental' support for virtualization of OS X Server earlier this week as part of its Fusion 2.0 virtualization product.
Parallels will also make a bid to challenge Fusion 2.0 in performance category, those people familiar with the update claim. A tweaked virtualization engine by itself should provide a speed boost, but the new Parallels 4.0 is also expected to add long-awaited support for assigning two CPU cores and up to 8GB of RAM to one virtual machine. Support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2 graphics is also present in early betas of the software.
In addition, Parallels is also working to support full power management with ACPI, or advanced configuration and power interface, which should translate into smoother shut downs and suspensions of the virtual machine.
Just as important may be a planned redesign of the interface, people familiar with the software say. Users of 4.0 will reportedly have access to a simple list of virtual machines that includes favorite apps on each machine. They'll also see the settings for the virtual machine at any time and customize the toolbar to have favorite actions show up as buttons. Business-class users should likewise have more control with command-line access through Terminal.
The virtual machine configuration.
Those familiar with Parallels' plans also allude to a handful of useful but more generalized improvements, such as support for 2TB virtual machines, the ability to resize some virtual machines, and 64-bit guest operating systems.
When the upgrade will be released to the public isn't clear, though the early news is arriving the same week that VMware's shipped Fusion 2.0, which delivers on much of the same feature set.
26 Comments
Woohoo! At last support for more than one core!
The interface looks pretty nice too (compared to Parallels 3).
The interface looks pretty nice too (compared to Parallels 3).
Looks like the UI still isn?t done in Cocoa... (ducks)
Dual-core support should have been there from day one, but it needs to support 8-core Mac Pros. How many Intel Macs shipped are dual+ core? More than 90%?
As a fairly new Parallels customer, what is their typical upgrade pricing?
As a fairly new Parallels customer, what is their typical upgrade pricing?
They are really just playing catch-up to the current VMWare release. I like both products, VMWare seems to be more stable for Windows XP, I have had instances of a Parallels Windows VM just dying, not able to complete the startup process, and no real way to correct the issue.
On the positive side, Parallels did seem a bit more resource friendly, although the latest VMWare seems to have enhanced performance.
My 2 cents.
Now for this server virtualization feature Apple should be buying this company. That's were corporations are heading more and more, virtulized servers, to save on the electric bills at the data centers. My company, with 1200+ servers, is going that route on a 10th of our systems by the end of this year.