Quoting from IT Week

Will VMware's new Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3) suite of high-end server virtualisation tools become a de facto standard? Currently, its rivals have relatively immature offerings, though Microsoft's Veridian hypervisor, expected to arrive within two or three years, might offer serious competition. Meanwhile, the open source Xen hypervisor project is due to be included in the next version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

However, already Microsoft's Virtual Server software and VMware's VMware Server and VMware Player provide valuable free virtualisation tools, which means that virtualisation is no longer a niche technology for the well-heeled but can be used by everyone. And users of IBM mainframe and HP and Sun Unix systems are already running these vendors' proprietary virtualisation and partitioning tools.

VMware's VI3 pulls together its recently launched ESX Server 3 with revamped versions of management tools including VMotion, VirtualCenter and Virtual SMP, to support mainstream, x86-based servers. In addition the suite adds new features for high-availability and server load-balancing. Given these capabilities, VMware currently has the edge over its rivals.

And the market is growing as more and more firms see the value of virtualisation to get better value from their existing hardware and software. Others are using the technology to support their moves towards web services and, in the longer term, service-oriented architectures (SOAs) with automated management.

Lacking credible competition, for now, VMware tools are almost a de facto standard, and firms may overlook the proprietary aspect of the technology because VMware has published APIs and other technical specifications, which enable others to produce compatible products. For example, VMware has published its virtual disk format, which means third-party vendors can make tools to work directly with virtual disks.

Just as MS-DOS and then Windows coupled with Intel processors developed a huge market, the same might happen with VMware and x86-based servers. The prices VMware quotes – $1,000 (£540) for an entry-level system and $5,750 (£3,120) for the top-end Enterprise Edition – put virtualisation within reach of even small firms.

VMware's moves should ensure continued demand for x86 servers, particularly high-end models, which provide a robust platform to run multiple workloads with virtualisation. It will also develop the market for virtual software appliances, and maybe some specialist hardware appliances as well.

What it won't do, of course, is give any more comfort to the Itanium troops at Intel. That processor is being deliberately ignored by VMware – the market is too small, and is 90 percent taken up by HP, which has its own virtualisation and partitioning tools. Intel can now kiss goodbye to any white knight server maker coming along with a fat order. In fact, VMware's announcement of VI3 may persuade the few Itanium adherents left to give up the unequal struggle.

Read the original article, here.