Parallels announces Virtuozzo Containers 4.0

Parallels has been busy, as usual. The company has officially transitioned over from the SWsoft company name to Parallels full time. And they’ve also announced the release of its container-based server virtualization platform, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. At the same time, they have also announced the launch of their new data center management tool, Parallels Infrastructure Manager.

Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0 includes enhancements and new features that aim to improve usability, data center management and business continuity.

“The ever-changing needs of today’s enterprise data centers call for a virtualization solution that is flexible and delivers high performance,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “With the release of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0, we are launching the next wave of virtualization, including a suite of products that help IT administrators effectively manage their growing virtual infrastructures.”

When people think of server virtualization, more often than not, they immediately think about VMware, Microsoft or some Xen-based technology. This is probably one of the biggest hurdles that Parallels has to overcome with its Virtuozzo product. Unlike these other hypervisor technologies, Virtuozzo is a containers virtualization solution. In other words, it virtualizes the operating system, not the hardware itself.

Benjamin Rudolph, Parallels Director of Corporate Communications, describes the process like so:

“You can install an OS (Windows or Linux) and then run workloads off that single kernel in isolated execution environments that we call ‘containers’. Because all of the containers are working in direct contact with real hardware and are all working off that 1 OS install, performance is exceptional… about 97-99% of native, regardless of how many containers are running. And, container footprints are tiny – only 10MB of RAM and 45MB of disk space required at the bare minimum.”

Rudolph adds, “All of this means that you get the best performance and best density of any product in the market, meaning that Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 is the ideal solution for large scale, datacenter virtualization.”

So while this solution typically scales better than hardware virtualization, like anything else, it has its own set of drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks is that the environment has to be homogeneous and must remain at the same patch or service pack level. Of course, if your environment runs on the same operating system and you keep everything patched at the same level, this probably wouldn’t adversely affect you.

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 offers new features and functionality in several key areas:

• Business Continuity – Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 includes several new options to drive uptime, such as Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat clustering services. In addition, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 delivers a comprehensive set of backup enhancements.

• Ease of Use and Manageability – Version 4.0 extends the already significant resource management in Parallels Virtuozzo Containers with the inclusion of virtual CPU improvements, burstable CPU limits, hardware device forwarding, hardware device sharing and more.

• Efficiency – Version 4.0’s architectural enhancements provide even higher levels of stability and performance. New efficiency-driving features include real-time optimization of hardware resources, and an improved Virtuozzo file system that speeds common management tasks and more effectively utilizes hard disk resources.

Virtuozzo 4.0 also introduces the Parallels Infrastructure Manager, a powerful tool for managing the Virtualized Data Center that enables IT administrators to efficiently manage their infrastructure from anywhere.

The Parallels Infrastructure Manager includes a number of important features such as:

• Enhanced Permissions – Includes role-based security and audit, Microsoft Active Directory support and LDAP integration.

• Newly Designed Management Tool – Easier assessment of resources and assets via powerful dashboards.

• Large Scale Deployment and Management Capabilities – Includes application and OS templates as well as centralized data center management, providing logical views of the data center.

If you’d like to find out more about the product or what the company is doing, Parallels is also sponsoring an online Web event on Thursday, January 31, 2008. The live Webcast will take place at 11:00AM EST, and afterward, it will be available online as an on demand video. Parallels’ CEO Serguei Beloussov will discuss the new features in Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0, and he will also take a look at the entire virtualization landscape as well.

You can watch this event, here.