VMware Server is a free-of-charge virtualization

Hardware virtualization

Computer hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers or operating systems. It hides the physical characteristics of a computing platform from users, instead showing another abstract computing platform...

-software server suite developed and supplied by VMware, Inc

VMware

VMware, Inc. is a company providing virtualization software founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. The company was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2004, and operates as a separate software subsidiary ....

.

VMware Server has fewer features than VMware ESX

VMware ESX

VMware ESX is an enterprise-level computer virtualization product offered by VMware, Inc. ESX is a component of VMware's larger offering, VMware Infrastructure, and adds management and reliability services to the core server product...

, software available for purchase, but can create, edit, and play virtual machines. It uses a client–server model, allowing remote access to virtual machines, at the cost of some graphical performance (and 3D support). It can run virtual machines created by other VMware products and by Microsoft Virtual PC

Microsoft Virtual PC

Windows Virtual PC is a virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006 Microsoft released the Windows-hosted version as a free product...

.

VMware Server can preserve and revert to a single snapshot

Snapshot

Snapshot may refer to:* Snapshot , an amateur photograph* Snapshot, a 1979 Australian film directed by Simon Wincer* Snapshot, a novel by Garry Disher...

 copy of each separate virtual machine within the VMware Server environment. The software does not have a specific interface for cloning virtual machines, unlike VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation is a virtual machine software suite for x86 and x86-64 computers from VMware, a division of EMC Corporation, which allows users to set up multiple x86 and x86-64 virtual machines and use one or more of these virtual machines simultaneously with the hosting operating system...

. Unlike Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 Hyper-V

Hyper-V

Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian and formerly known as Windows Server Virtualization, is a hypervisor-based virtualization system for x86-64 systems. A beta version of Hyper-V was shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, and the finalized version was released on June 26,...

, VMware does allow VM memory to be over-committed.

In January 2010 VMware Server was declared End Of Availability; general support ended on June 30, 2011.

VMware Server 1.0

VMware released version 1.0 of Server on July 12, 2006, replacing the discontinued VMware GSX Server product-line. VMware Inc continued to develop the Vmware Server 1.0.x series, issuing a maintenance release (version 1.0.10) on 26 October 2009.

VMware Server 2.0

VMware Server 2 runs on several server-class host operating systems,
including different versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2000, 2003, and 2008, and mainly enterprise-class Linuxes. The manual explicitly states: "you must use a Windows server operating system". The product also runs on Windows 7 Enterprise Edition.

Server 2 uses a web-based user-interface, the "VMware Infrastructure Web Access", instead of a GUI. For web interfaces, VMware Server 2 and VMware vCenter 4 use the Tomcat

Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat is an open source web server and servlet container developed by the Apache Software Foundation...

 6 web server, while VMware vCenter 2.5 is based on Tomcat 2.5.

As part of the product, the VMware Host Agent service allows remote access

Remote access

In telecommunication, the term remote access has the following meanings:#Pertaining to communication with a data processing facility from a remote location or facility through a data link...

 to VMware Server functionality.

VMware server 2 supports the Microsoft Shadow Copy service. (Microsoft Virtual Server

Microsoft Virtual Server

Microsoft Virtual Server is a virtualization solution that facilitates the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Originally developed by Connectix, it was acquired by Microsoft prior to release...

 2005 R2 SP1 also supports Shadow Copy.) Virtual machines that support this service can be backed up

Backup

In information technology, a backup or the process of backing up is making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup....

 without stopping - usually called "live backup".

See also

• Comparison of platform virtual machines
• Virtual Box
• List of VMware software
• Virtual appliance
  Virtual appliance
  A virtual appliance is a virtual machine image designed to run on a virtualization platform ....
  
  
• Virtual machine
  Virtual machine
  A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
  
  
• Virtualization
• x86 virtualization
  X86 virtualization
  In computing, x86 virtualization is the facility that allows multiple operating systems to simultaneously share x86 processor resources in a safe and efficient manner, a facility generically known as hardware virtualization...
  
  
• Virtual disk image
  Virtual disk image
  A virtual disk image is a file on a physical disk, which has a well-defined, published or proprietary, format and is interpreted by a Virtual Machine Monitor as a hard disk. IT administrators and software developers administer them through offline operations using built-in or third-party tools...
  
  

External links

• VMware Server product page - VMware, Inc.
• VMware Server End-User License