VMware Launches vSphere4 – First “Cloud Operating System”

VMware has just released the vSphere4 platform which it is billing as the world’s first ever cloud operating system. The technology is an evolution of the company’s work in virtualization software for servers. VMware optimizes the partitioning, containment, data transfers, & management of disk space / memory on shared servers, allowing for encapsulated configurations of multiple virtual hard drives that work and act like independent machines but share the same processor & architecture. The end result, according to VMware, is that you can increase the activity and efficiency of your server from 5-15% to 60-80% with the subsequent reduction in hardware investment costs while performing the same network tasks.

VMware is largely responsible for creating the VPS or Virtual Private Server industry with their breakthrough technology first released in 1999. The company currently has a market cap of nearly $12 billion USD, though less than half of its value at the height of the last business peak, and its yearly sales figures totaled nearly $2 billion USD in 2008. VMware has stayed an independent, publicly traded company despite persistent rumors of a buy-out by Microsoft. VMware software currently works on Windows, Linux, and OS X with some versions being able to run directly on a machine level without any OS.

Read the rest of VMware Launches vSphere4 – First “Cloud Operating System” »