No matter what virtualization platform or technology is chosen, a common question most adopters ask is, "What exactly can I virtualize?" As virtualization technologies become more mainstream, the question gets asked more and more, "Will my application or operating system work in this environment? And if so, is it supported by the vendor?" These are both great questions. Just because you CAN do something, doesn't No matter what virtualization platform or technology is chosen, a common question most adopters ask is, “What exactly can I virtualize?”As virtualization technologies become more mainstream, the question gets asked more and more, “Will my application or operating system work in this environment? And if so, is it supported by the vendor?” These are both great questions. Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you should. If you did virtualize something that “worked” for a period of time but then it blew up on you somewhere down the road, if it isn’t “supported”, good luck getting assistance through official channels.The good news is that virtualization companies and vendors are trying to make more of an effort to say whether something is supported or not. And yes, sometimes this can be tricky. But at least they are starting to address the problem. VMware did it with their Virtual Appliance Marketplace, and now Parallels is creating its own certification list for its virtualization products. Parallels has created its Parallels Certification Program — a program that enables software vendors to test their products and certify their compatibility with Parallels virtualization technologies such as Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, Parallels Desktop for Mac, Parallels Server, and Parallels Workstation.“Certification spans our entire desktop and server virtualization software portfolio, which is the broadest in the industry,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “Through this program, customers will have confidence that they can deploy a broad range of ISV applications with our award-winning server and desktop virtualization software.”The catalog currently contains 116 software solutions that span many application types and include applications such as BEA Weblogic, Citrix Presentation Server, IBM DB2 and Websphere, Microsoft Exchange, Office and Outlook, and Oracle 10.g, to name a few. The key here is to identify which Parallels virtualization platform offers the support and who certified the software (a C designation means that the software was certified and is supported by the vendor, while a V designation means the software was tested by Parallels). As of now, it looks like most of the certification was completed by Parallels rather than the software vendor. I think it will be important for the software vendors to step up here and participate in this program and others like it by stating that their software works in various virtualization technologies. And then when the time comes, they should stand by that decision and offer full support for their solutions in a virtual environment. Doing so will greatly help continue the push for mainstream virtualization usage in a corporate environment.Software vendors can register for certification at no charge by going to: Product Certification Application Form. Certification benefits include Parallels software test licenses, access to testing documentation and Parallels support, as well as a listing in the online Parallels Certified Products catalog and usage rights to the exclusive Certified Product logo. To view the current list of Parallels Certified Products, visit: Parallels’ Catalog page. It looks like Parallels has put very little effort behind the Parallels Workstation and Parallels Server products in this support catalog. Server is still in Beta, so that is understandable. However, Workstation has been around for quite some time, so I would have expected that column of the catalog to have been populated more. Software Development