Advantages of VirtualBox vs. competition

[Technologov]

Missing feature:

- Aero for Vista / Win 7
- Teams / Clones

- The Aero / WDDM gap is now closed with VBox 4.1.
- Clones are now in GUI (VBox 4.1)
- Teams are only useful for network apps test. For this use-case, I have recently developed GNS3 Network Simulator -- VirtualBox Edition. (also needs VBox 4.1)

Screenshot:
http://www.gns3.net/phpBB/download/file ... &mode=view
Link:
http://www.gns3.net/phpBB/topic3262-70.html

GNS3 is a category-killer app, and beats everything competition has to offer hands-down.
It is Free/Open-Source Software.

-Technologov

[Technologov]

Just decided to take a look at Microsoft Virtual Server 2005:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... s.85).aspx

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 vs VirtualBox 4.1:

# Loads and runs during start-up.
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We lack.

# Large memory support for virtual machine sessions.
Virtual Server provides support for up to 3.6 gigabytes of RAM per virtual machine session, up to the limit of RAM supported by the server operating system running Virtual Server.
---
We do better. (3.5 GB on 32-bit hosts, 1TB RAM per guest on 64-bit hosts)

# Support of up to 64 sessions.
Virtual Server can run up to 64 virtual machine sessions simultaneously, provided the server running Virtual Server has adequate resources.
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We do up to 128 VMs on Windows hosts (theoretically, not tested).

# Virtual networking.
Virtual Server supports up to 4 virtual Ethernet NICs per virtual machine session, and an unlimited number of virtual networks.
---
We have 8 vNICs per VM.

# Virtual SCSI disk support.
Virtual Server supports up to 4 virtual SCSI controllers per virtual machine session, and each controller can support up to 7 virtual hard disks. These are in addition to the virtual IDE hard disks supported by Virtual Server.
---
We do 31 SCSI devices per VM vs. 28 for MS.
Comparable.

# Resource limiting and reservations.
Virtual Server can set minimum and maximum CPU usage limits separately for each virtual machine session.
---
We have CPU exec. cap.
Comparable.

# Web interface controls and virtual machine Remote Desktop administration.
Virtual Server provides a native Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) that allows remote users to manage any type of virtual machine session desktop from within a browser.
---
Third-party projects. (phpvirtualbox ?)

# Virtual machine threading.
All virtual machine sessions are threaded to take advantage of multiple processors in the Virtual Server's host server hardware.
---
We do the same.
Comparable.

# COM-based architecture and scripting support.
Virtual Server is based entirely on a COM architecture. This allows developers to control Virtual Server with any language that can control COM objects, such as Visual Basic.NET, Visual C#, and so on.
---
We do the same. (+python + JAVA)

# Crash detection, recovery, logging, and monitoring.
Virtual Server can detect when a virtual machine session crashes and initiate event notices to external scripts. Extensive logging is available for each virtual machine session.
---
We lack.

# Pmon and Microsoft Management Console (MMC) integration.
Integration with Windows Performance Monitor.
---
We lack.

====================
But we have lots of killer features:

-3D acceleration: WDDM/Aero + D3D + OpenGL
-GuestControl Execute
-UDP Tunnel
-Much better UNIX-like platform support.
-Seamless view mode
-Scaled view mode
-64-bit guests
-SMP guests
-Multi-monitor guests
-Branched snapshots

[mctiew]

I have used VirtualBox 4.1.0 and VMplayer 3.1.4. I like some of the features that found in VirtualBox not found in VMplayer however, I only have one major problem with VirtualBox, my USB wifi cards not working properly in VirtualBox but the same image (converted to vmware format) is working in VMWare. I would say VMware does a better job in USB pass through.