VMWorld 2008 live: VMWare vService demonstrated

Dr. Mendel Rosenblum, chief scientist and co-founder of VMWare, demonstrated the newest form of virtualization: vService. The ideas is to package several virtual machines together, which together offer a certain service, like for example a CRM application. These kind of applications consist of a DB server, a webserver, the actual business logic server and a VPN access application. Packaging all this together in one file is a lot more convenient than installing several OSes upon which you have to install every component separately.

 

 

It is basically works as follows: you download the complete vService file. This file is based on the OVF (open virtual machine) format and is thus virtualized. Next you start up an installation script which allows you to customize the complete multi-tier application.

 

 

In the same keynote, Rosenblum announced "continous availability" (record an replay) which should improve the current rather flaky (in our experience) HA and a "site recovery manager" for those looking for disaster recovery over several datacenters.