VMware refreshes Workstation 10 for Windows 8.1 and more

During VMworld 2013, VMware kept the spotlight on its next generation enterprise solutions.  Across the first two days of the show, the company’s keynote addresses showcased the software-defined datacenter, vCloud Hybrid Service, network virtualization with NSX, and its software-defined storage platform, Virtual SAN.  And not to be out done, VMware also announced the latest release of vSphere, version 5.5.

While these technologies are great, what seemed to be missing from the announcements at VMworld was anything new about the desktop.  But on the heels of the world’s largest virtualization event, VMware quietly announced an update to the desktop virtualization product that originally brought the company to the virtualization dance in the first place: VMware Workstation. 

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VMware Workstation was first released in 1999, and it was the company’s first official product on the market to prove that x86 virtualization was possible.  Desktop virtualization allowed users to run various versions of Microsoft Windows or different distributions of Linux operating systems in a virtual machine on a PC device.  And it became a spring board for the server virtualization technology that has completely transformed the modern datacenter.

With Workstation 10, VMware is introducing several major enhancements and additions, including Windows 8.1 guest OS support.  This latest release could end up playing a key role within corporations as they continue to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 and now Windows 8.1.  And Workstation could also prove important to those companies currently in evaluation mode and still trying to learn the ins and outs of Windows 8.1.

Under the hood, VMware has souped up Workstation in a big way.  Workstation 10 now supports the new virtual hardware version introduced in vSphere 5.5.  This latest virtual hardware increases virtual machine support for up to 16 vCPUs, 8 TB SATA disks, 64GB of memory and up to 20 virtual networks.  Personally, I’d love to own the beefy desktop machine that can support this new maximum sized virtual machine.  And I wonder just how many people will actually be able to take full advantage of these new VM limits.

Also in the performance category, VMware has added support for a new Virtual SATA disk controller, SSD pass through and USB3 support allowing faster file copying.  The company also claims to have improved application and Windows VM startup times.  And speaking for those people who dislike watching Windows and its applications boot up, I look forward to seeing any progress made in that arena.

What could end up being a nice feature add-on is the ability to convert a physical computer running Windows 8.1 into a virtual machine via an easy-to-use P2V wizard.  This may not be an often used feature, but if you receive a new machine, it should prove extremely helpful with the migration of the new computer over to a VM.

With the needle pointing to new and interesting, Workstation 10 is said to offer “the industry’s first virtual accelerometer, gyroscope, compass and ambient light sensor to enable applications running in a virtual machine to respond when a user interacts with their tablet.” And in today’s world of touch screen devices, this enhancement should raise its fair share of eyebrows.  This additional capability should also help developers test data-driven mobile apps.

As Workstation 10 becomes more corporate-friendly, security and control within the desktop virtualization environment becomes more important as well.  This latest release creates something called “Restricted virtual machines.”  These are encrypted and can be created and set to expire at a specified date and time so users can only access them for a pre-determined period.  When the virtual machine is powered on, it will query the server at specified time intervals, storing the current system time in the restricted VM’s policy file as the last trusted timestamp.  An expired virtual machine will automatically suspend and will not restart without administrator intervention.  This added capability is perfect for maintaining control and delivering applications to employees, contractors or students.

And finally, don’t worry: VMware didn’t forget about the cloud. With the beefed-up virtual machine specifications available in Workstation 10, believe it or not users can build and run a cloud on their desktop machines using popular applications from Pivotal, Puppet Labs, and Vagrant.  While it may sound crazy, you can run a 64-bit VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V server inside of a Workstation VM.  And within that VM, you can also run VMware’s Micro Cloud Foundry or Apache’s OpenStack cloud software.  What a great way to learn how to setup your own cloud environment!  But it goes without saying; this should be limited to educational purposes only.

Workstation 10 is priced at $249.99 for a new license, but VMware is also offering an upgrade from version 8 or 9 for $119.  And if you happened to have purchased VMware Workstation 9 (full license or upgrade) between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30, the company is offering a free upgrade to version 10.

This article, “VMware refreshes Workstation 10 for Windows 8.1 and more,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization and cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.