On Tuesday, Parallels Inc. released Parallels Server for Mac, the first server virtualization solution for the Intel-based Mac. This talked-about product has been in development for more than a year now, and it runs on any Intel-powered Apple hardware such as the Xserve and Mac Pro. It operates on Mac OS X Leopard Server, but it can power virtual machines running Windows, Linux, and a combination of some 50 diff On Tuesday, Parallels Inc. released Parallels Server for Mac, the first server virtualization solution for the Intel-based Mac. This talked-about product has been in development for more than a year now, and it runs on any Intel-powered Apple hardware such as the Xserve and Mac Pro. It operates on Mac OS X Leopard Server, but it can power virtual machines running Windows, Linux, and a combination of some 50 different x86 guest operating system platforms, including the recently released Windows Server 2008. It also adds the distinction of being the first released server virtualization platform to offer support for Mac OS X Leopard Server as a guest operating system in a virtual machine. Last November, Apple eased up on its licensing policy so that Mac OS X Server 10.5 could be virtualized. I say eased up, because there are still stipulations. Only the server class OS can be virtualized, so the desktop version is excluded right now. You still need a valid license for each instance virtualized, and it has to operate on Apple hardware. Parallels Server includes a wide range of enterprise-class features such as Virtual Support for 4-way Symmetric Multi-processing; support for as much as 32GB of physical RAM; support for Intel VT-x technologies for hardware assisted acceleration; and the inclusion of technologies such as ACPI BIOS. And for the enterprise, it also has the ability to power x64 (64-bit) guest operating systems.It also includes an SDK that enables third-party vendors to integrate Parallels Server support into their products. The company said the SDK is the same one used by Parallels engineers to build the Parallels Management Console. They also offer a fully Scriptable Multi-client Parallels Management Console that lets users manage virtual and physical servers locally and remotely. According to the company, the Parallels Management Console’s APIs are completely open and scriptable with Python, enabling administrators to automate common server tasks straight from the command line.“Parallels Server for Mac opens the door for virtualization on Apple servers and represents an important step in delivering on our ‘Optimized Computing’ vision by adding hypervisor-based server virtualization,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “Parallels Server for Mac will be a catalyst in driving Mac server adoption in the enterprise, as it is the first product ever to enable IT professionals and developers to capitalize on the power of OS X Server while keeping the flexibility to run Windows and Linux workloads.” Parallels Server for Mac is now available at a price of $999 per system, running on an unlimited number of cores, possibly making this an attractive offer to some who may have previously overlooked Apple servers. And watch out, Parallels is still working on the other version of Parallels Server, which runs on bare metal and on other hosted platforms such as Windows and Linux. Software Development