VMware has announced the availability of its latest and greatest free server class virtualization product, VMware Server 2.0.  VMware Server 2.0 is a free hosted virtualization product for Microsoft Windows and Linux servers that has been around for quite some time.  You might remember the original, VMware GSX Server.   

New Key Features

• VI Web Access: VI Web Access enables you to perform host and virtual machine configuration on VMware Server 2.0. This intuitive web-based interface provides a simple and flexible tool for virtual machine management.
• VMware Remote Console: VMware Remote Console enables you to interact with the guest operating system on the host or a remote system. After you install it as a Web browser add-on, it can run independently from VI Web Access. VMware Remote Console also allows you to connect and disconnect client CD/DVD and floppy devices.
• USB 2.0 Device Support: VMware Server now supports faster data transfer with USB devices plugged into the host system. If the guest operating system has appropriate USB 2.0 device drivers, you can use peripherals that require high-speed performance, such as speakers, webcams, next-generation printers and scanners, and fast storage devices.
• Increased RAM support: The maximum amount of memory that can be allocated per virtual machine has been raised from 3.6GB to 8GB. The amount of memory used by all virtual machines combined is limited only by the amount of the host computer's RAM.
• Improved 64-bit guest support: 64-bit guest operating systems that run on Intel EM64T VT-capable or AMD64 revision D or later processors are fully supported.
• Native 64-bit host support on Linux: VMware Server now runs natively on 64-bit Linux host operating systems.
• Quiesced backups of virtual machines: On Windows hosts, you can enable the VMware VSS Writer, which uses snapshots to maintain the data integrity of applications running inside the virtual machine when you take backups.
• VMCI Sockets interface: This feature provides a sockets interface for the Virtual Machine Communication Interface, which provides a faster means of communication among applications running on the host and in virtual machines. For more information, see the VMCI Sockets Programming Guide.
• Hot add and remove for SCSI hard disks: You can now add and remove SCSI virtual hard disks while the virtual machine is running in hardware version 7 virtual machines.