Intel and VMware continue to work together closely on virtualisation implementation in both hardware and software, with Intel VT support expect to appear in VMware's enterprise ESX server in the second half of the year.
Virtualisation, which allows multiple operating systems to share usage of a single platform, is looking like one of the buzzwords of 2006. Intel's latest CPUs (sorry, it's platforms now, isn't it?) have "Intel VT" technology in them, which is basically support for Virtualisation at a processor level.
There are currently beta releases of VMware's server software featuring support for Intel VT capable CPUs, and VMware expects this to be available in its highest of high enterprise server versions as we get halfway through the year.
Intel are continuing to develop their virtualisation technology, expanding support at the hardware level through to I/O, giving us Directed I/O or VT-d. The idea is to assist the assignment of I/O devices to virtual machines. This will tie in with work that PCI-sig (special interest group) is doing on enabling virtualisation capabilities for PCIe devices.
Intel and VMware are sticking together on this one, and by working together, both Intel's VT enabled hardware and VMware's virtualisation software stand a good chance of dominating the virtualisation market, unless something else comes along to steal their flame.
Get more details on Intel and VMware's collaboration in their press release.
