Desktop Virtualization Software products are very interesting, useful and nice to work with them. But a simple question, why desktop virtualization software required for a person? Do you have an answer?
If you are an ordinary computer user how it will help you? Or if you are a computer expert, how you can utilize desktop virtualization software? After I wrote several articles on VMware Workstation and Sun VirtualBox problems and solutions,I got a doubt whether desktop virtualization software is useful for all computer users?
The final answer is ‘No’ because it’s suitable for advanced computer users only.
But still here are some reasons,
Why Desktop Virtualization Software Required?
1) It allows you to run different operating systems on your computer regardless of which operating system you have on host computer ( you can run Linux,UNIX, Solaris, Windows 2008 even Mac on you Windows OS)
2) You can run multiple operating systems without restarting computer. All virtual machin operating systems boot,work and shutdown very fast.
3) It allows you to work on multiple operating systems and host operating system in same monitor screen at the same time.
Guest – Virtual machine Operating System
Host- Physical machine Operating System.
4) You can make network between guests and host or among guests and share data. If required, you can make guest and host network separate. There for host computer will be protected from guest machines.
5) For any testing and experiment purpose you can use virtual machines without disturbing your current physical computer. So, if anything goes wrong, it effects only virtual machine OS.
6) You can create a mini computer lab on your single physical computer. Install required server and client operating systems, make network and use it for learning purpose. You will have the exact lab experience.
7) It uses your physical computer resources such as processor, memory and hard disk. No additional costs needed to buy any hardware or networking devices to use multiple operating systems and networking.
8) Virtual machines can be moved to different physical computer easily. The cool feature in desktop virtualization software is ‘Snapshots’, made to protect virtual machines efficiently and restore virtual machine state to earlier date very quickly.
9) This is the ideal environment to install trail and demo versions of operating systems and applications, rather than installing on your working host computer.
10) Above all advantages and some more what I might have missed, come for REAL FREE except VMware. Sun VirtualBox and Microsoft Virtual PC completely free with enough of options to run virtual machines on your physical computer.
Why Desktop Virtualization Software NOT Required?
1) You don’t want to try anything new. You are happy with current operating system and applications.
2) You are not interested in install and learn other operating systems such as Linux, UNIX or other Microsoft Operating Systems.
3) You are not a technical person to experiment other operating systems or applications with networking.
4) Your physical computer is already running with low resources such as processor, memory and hard disk, there for virtual machines cannot be run.
5) Till read this post, you didn’t have idea what is desktop virtualization and advantages of it OR after read this post also you are not clear what I’m telling.
6) It’s not suitable to implement in production environment. It’s not useful to install on users computer in a company.
I wrote above points according to my knowledge and experience with desktop virtualization software products. I expect people who read this article to understand usage of desktop virtualization software and encourage using it. All issues related to Sun VirtualBox and VMware work station are covered in this site and I keep updating. I will be helping all users through this website anything related to desktop virtualization software.
For any VMware Workstation issues click here
For any Sun VirtualBox issues click here
