Preview: Parallels Server beta looks promising

The market for hypervisor-based server virtualization is about to get more crowded. Parallels, the one-time nascent maker of desktop virtual machine (VM) solutions for the Mac, is preparing to jump into the server virtualization arena with offerings for Mac OS X Server, Linux, and Windows.

This is a major step up for Parallels, which, following parent company SWSoft (the combined company was recently rebranded under the Parallels moniker), is aggressively targeting the enterprise datacenter. Previously, Parallels had been known for its Parallels Desktop solution for OS X-based Macs, a traditional desktop VM product that allows Apple users to run Windows in a VM.

Benefiting from the management tools built around Virtuozzo, the company’s OS partitioning solution for Linux and Windows, Parallels Server takes aim at the 800-pound gorilla of server virtualization (VMware ESX) and the looming elephant (Microsoft Hyper-V) by providing a product that supports both “bare metal” and “lightweight hypervisor” runtime models. In the former, Parallels will boot a scaled-down Linux kernel that acts as the hypervisor layer upon which you can build your VM (the ESX model). In the latter, Parallels will install a combination device driver/service on a host OS (the Hyper-V model), allowing you to build your VM infrastructure atop an existing server platform.

Parallels was kind enough to allow us a sneak peak at an early beta build of Parallels Server. Installing the Windows hosted version onto an existing Windows Server 2003 system was straightforward, and it didn’t even require a reboot. Once installed, Parallels Server presented me with a well-crafted management UI that allowed me to easily create and configure new VMs.

The “Add Virtual Machine” wizard was particularly well thought-out, providing all of the usual configuration settings (number of CPUs, memory size, disk configuration) as well as prompting for optional – yet important – parameters, such as which CD drive or ISO image to use as the Guest OS installation source. All of these elements worked together to streamline the VM creation process and help get my Parallels Server configuration up and running quickly.

Note: Since this was an early beta release, I didn’t pay much attention to performance. However, I did find Parallels Server to be quite responsive, allowing me to install Windows Server 2003 into a new VM at a very competitive pace. I also found the various performance and resource utilization counters to be both helpful and informative, with everything arranged neatly in a series of tabbed panes within the VM console window.

One feature I found most welcome was support for multiple virtual CPUs. Many server applications are tuned to behave differently on a single-CPU system, limiting scalability in non-SMP VM environments. Parallels Server’s multi-CPU support should give these applications a healthy performance boost.

Another welcome addition – the absence of which I found to be a major deficiency when I reviewed Parallels Workstation against VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, and innoTek (now Sun) VirtualBox last March – was support for Network Address Translation (NAT) for VMs. Now you can give your VM access to the outside world without having to create a network bridge or otherwise exposing them to other systems.

In summary, the inclusion of multi-CPU support and improved networking in Parallels Server – plus the aforementioned “bare metal” option (which I didn’t get to test here) – are important steps forward and should help the company to establish its virtualization offering as a viable data center competitor to VMware and Microsoft.