Talk:Comparison of platform virtualization software

Additional sub-category needed
It appears to me that as currently formulated, the page makes no mention of virtual machines that don't purport to emulate the instruction set of any physical CPU, but are created specifically to be virtual machines. Examples include the Java VM and the UCSD p-machine. Given that the title of the page remains "Comparison of virtual machines," clearly these also qualify. User:Dfavro 12:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * There seem to be three conceptually different things lumped together here; emulators (BOCHS, etc), hypervisors (Xen, VMWare, etc), and extended compartmentalisation facilities in an OS (FreeBSD Jails, Solaris Zones, etc). I would recommend splitting this article into three tables, or possibly splitting it into three new articles and turning this one into comparison of the three different methods. --David Chisnall 18:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I second that. It's very hard to compare feature between similar "virtualisation" applications because the table mixes these different things mentioned above. I'm not even sure if it's correct to use the term "vitrualisation" for emulators - I always seen them as something different (although a few emulators allow running in a virtualized way when host and target are the same kind of hardware - this is usually an add-on feature though and they should be seen as emulators with visualization capabilities).


 * Similarly, OS containers are a different thing - applications still runs on the same system, but resources are allocated and external things are hidden. This can possibly fit within the "virtualisation" definition but is still very different than virtual machines since they can't run any real-mode code.


 * 216.94.210.146 (talk) 14:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with these ideas. Breaking it down to groups that are actually similar is important.  I also believe this can be done in one article to make it easier for the person learning about the subject. - KitchM (talk) 22:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Previous discussion from User Talk
The following comes from User_talk:Jasper_Deng.

You reverted my edit on the comparison page, stating I had no source. I think you misunderstand RemoteFX's operating method, which exposes a virtual graphics processor supporting DirectX 9+ (9c?) to a virtual machine, in addition to improvements in the RDP protocol. I correctly cited that the accelerated graphics feature was only for guests that run *certain* editions of Windows operating systems, which is backed up by my citation. If you believe me to be in error still, please let me know and why, as I do not want to get into a revert war and understand the negative impact it has on Wikipedia. (Posting anonymously.)
 * RemoteFX is not a direct part of Hyper-V. Hyper-V itself doesn't support 3D acceleration. RemoteFX concerns remote connections, and by your argument all virtual machine software supports 3D acceleration, which is obviously incorrect. RemoteFX is technology to do 3d acceleration on remote connections; the virtual graphics adapter does not itself support 3D acceleration.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You are plainly incorrect, as found here: . Where are you getting your sources? Do you have experience with, or have you deployed Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1? (Which, by the way, is not yet available via retail channels, but is available to volume license customers.) Where is *your* source that I am wrong? If you cannot cite sources, and you will not revert my sourced edit, I will take you to dispute resolution.
 * Addendum—I will be restoring my change to the article some time tomorrow evening if you cannot back your argument up, probably around 2200 UTC.
 * You don't seem to be getting this-Wikipedia lists 3D acceleration as per local support, and RemoteFX is just that-remote, and that doesn't count under Wikipedia's article. Once again, please sign your comments!Jasper Deng (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that supports anonymous contribution, and I prefer to be anonymous. Moving on, you do not understand RemoteFX, obviously. There are two components to RemoteFX, and even a cursory reading of the Technet Library, Microsoft's blog posts on this issue (the Remote Desktop Services Team Blog, the Virtualization Team Blog) and other sources would provide you with this information. Simply put, there are two components to RemoteFX. First, there is a software stack improvement with Remote Desktop Services allowing hardware accelerated graphics to be sent over the wire, with optional hardware accelerated compression. Second, there is a hypervisor stack improvement that allows virtual machines to be given a virtual 3d graphics adapter, to allow non-physical operating system environments to access hardware accelerated 3d graphics. These are *separate* features under the same name, collectively termed RemoteFX. The former and the latter are separate technologies implemented separately in the OS. Were you to install Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1, you would be able to test this out yourself and find that upon enabling the Hyper-V role and the Remote Desktop Services Role and the RemoteFX role service, you would find that under the Hyper-V management console you could add a RemoteFX virtual graphics adapter, and configure how much graphics memory, roughly, should be allocated to the virtual machine. It is not my fault that you do not understand these things and will not cite a source to back up your claims, and I will be reverting your unwarranted and unsubstantiated change now. If you revert my addition to the article again I will take you through dispute resolution.
 * First, concerning signing, please read WP:Sign your comments. Second, please do not make threats. Third, the 3D acceleration occurs remotely, not locally. It's local graphics that Wikipedia is doing there.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Concerning your edit summary, I'd like you to know that you should not revert while discussing as per Wikipedia guidelines.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't edit my comments in the discussion to you. And please stop citing policy incorrectly. Re: your claim, the graphics acceleration is happening in the guest operating system, via a paravirtualized graphics adapter. If you dispute that, please cite an article to that effect.
 * How am I citing policy incorrectly? The graphics acceleration is only happening remotely, and remote connections have always been a way to get 3D acceleration in VMs; thus, local graphics are the only ones that count. Concerning policies, you don't seem to be getting WP:Civility and WP:Assume good faith, WP:3RR and most importantly WP:Consensus, which you aren't achieving here.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am taking this discussion to Talk:Comparison_of_platform_virtual_machines and undoing your edit to my comment. I am additionally requesting dispute resolution assistance from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Software and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Computing. 03:49, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

New discussion
I am disputing the revert done by User:Jasper Deng on this article and would like discussion and consensus on my changes. I specifically claim: I will be commenting under the name pseudonym for the purpose of this dispute. Pseudonym 03:49, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) My edit was reverted unnecessarily, as I cited a source and clarified my edit to the table with a reference.
 * 2) The other editor, User:Jasper Deng has not cited one source to dispute my claims, while I have, in the meantime, added sources (as shown above).
 * You are misinterpreting your source.Jasper Deng (talk) 06:24, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree, as I linked to earlier, plainly states, "The RemoteFX 3D video adapter enables 3D capabilities to a user connecting by using Remote Desktop Connection (RDC). A RemoteFX 3D video adapter can be added as a device to a virtual machine, which provides a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver with support for DirectX 9.0c." The virtual RemoteFX video adapter is attached to the virtual machine at the Hyper-V server, and is done so with the instructions that follow. That is 3D acceleration, no? That it is limited to certain guest operating systems (Windows 7 SP1 Enterprise, Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1) was noted. You insisted in the prior discussion that this graphics adapter was for remote use only, but that's a claim further than the cited article states, which is that RemoteFX enables 3D acceleration for remote desktop use. I believe it is against Wikipedia policy to cite yourself, otherwise I would perform the experiment on my home PC. Or would that satisfy you, if I took a screenshot of a Hyper-V VM on my PC with the virtual graphics card in the device manager list? You tell me. Pseudonym 07:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Addendum; my original source additionally stated, "GPU Virtualization / GPU Virtualization is a technology that exposes a virtual graphics device to a virtual machine. RemoteFX exposes a WDDM driver with the virtual desktop, and it allows multiple virtual desktops to share a single GPU on a Hyper-V server." This clearly states that the virtual machines use a GPU on the Hyper-V server. Pseudonym 07:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you're misinterpreting your source. That's all I think you're doing. See below comment (in Outside Comments).Jasper Deng (talk) 17:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Outside comment
If I understand the situation correctly from a technical point of er view, both VirutalBox, VMWare and Hyper-V support 3D acceleration through the use of paravirtualization (i.e. guest-specific drivers). That, in the case of Hyver-V, these same drivers are also used for supporting 3D acceleration over a remote desktop connection would not change this situation. —Ruud 15:14, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Jasper I think you are missing that 3D acceleration has to happen to happen on the actual graphics hardware (unless you're emulating 3D hardware, but then you can no longer speak of acceleration), so the graphics command have to be transferred from the guest to the host somehow. All virtual machines do this through paravirtualization and whether these paravirtualized drivers are supplied by the VMWare Tools or are already present in the OS to support RemoteFX matters very little. —Ruud 15:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My issue is that it's not local and that remote connections have always been a workaround to 3D acceleration issues. Prove that Hyper-V provides local 3D acceleration.Jasper Deng (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you completely fail to understand how 3D acceleration is implemented in virtual machines. You prove Hyper-V's implementation is different from VirtualBox' or VMWare's (it is not). —Ruud 18:09, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I know how it works. Hyper-V however is unable to provide acceleration locally, thus it can't be counted. Remote connections, as I have stated, are often used to work around 3D acceleration issues in virtual machines. But now I propose a compromise:
 * We will not say Yes (the yes template), but instead, Remote only.Jasper Deng (talk) 18:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Your explanation is wrong so you clearly do not understand how it works. VMWare and VirtualBox do not do anything "locally" either. Their implementation works, technically, exactly the same as the implementation of the remote desktop connection. —Ruud 18:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Jasper, the 3d acceleration occurs not on the remote client, but on the host operating system of the virtual machine. This is the same way Virtualbox, VMWare and other virtual machine clients do it. When you run Virtualbox and check "Enable 3D acceleration", what it does is add a virtual graphics card to the virtual machine. That graphics card typically has limited capabilities (low OpenGL or DirectX support) and is used for providing limited graphics support to the VM. That's what RemoteFX does. The graphics acceleration happens on the virtual machine host, and the output is compressed and sent over TCP/IP. RemoteFX is a server-side technology with support for decoding the updated protocol on the client. Nothing in the Remote Desktop Protocol 7.1 specification allows a client with 3D graphics to provide hardware accelerated graphics to software running on the host machine. Pseudonym 19:00, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Here's an additional source: | Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture Poster. This shows the server has the physical and virtual graphics processor, and all the client does is decode the data send over the remote desktop protocol. And I quote, "RemoteFX contains the following elements : Host-side V-GPU rendering and capture for 3D" Pseudonym 19:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A screenshot would be the ultimate proof. The article is about virtualization in servers not remote desktop.Jasper Deng (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Your comments make so little sense (see "not even wrong"), that I'm not going to continue this discussion with you. —Ruud 20:36, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Explain this.Jasper Deng (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm reverting back since this discussion isn't producing anything.Jasper Deng (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You might want to have a look at WP:CONSENSUS first. The situation has been explained to you, in detail, by two other editors. You have only offered some nonsensical ramblings, indication you thorough fail to comprehend this subject. —Ruud 20:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * NOTE:This discussion has been moved to User talk:Ruud Koot.
 * No, it hasn't? —Ruud 21:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Jasper, I think the misunderstanding here is because of two checkboxes under the experience tab of the "Remote Desktop Connection" program. The two options are "Desktop composition" and "Visual styles," among others I may be missing. Those settings, combined, allow the appearance of Aero to be used instead of the Windows Classic theme. This is not the same as 3D acceleration. Windows Virtual PC, the example you cited on Ruud's talk page does not support 3D acceleration. In fact, look at the table on the article, 3D acceleration for Virtual PC 2007 is a big fat template:no. RemoteFX, 3D acceleration != Aero. When you enable Aero for a virtual PC machine via RDP, what you're doing is having the remote desktop client render the Aero frames and do the composition of windows to do the Aero Glass(tm) effect. RemoteFX is entirely unrelated to that. Pseudonym 22:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.86.157 (talk)
 * Prove however that RDP isn't the only way to get RemoteFX. RemoteFX is technically part of RDP, you know.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:00, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's part of Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services, but is not wholly included under the term "RDP", which is just the remote desktop protocol and is published here: |Remote Desktop Protocol: Basic Connectivity and Graphics Remoting Specification. If you download and install this, you'll note the only specification pertinent to RemoteFX is a codec used to transmit compressed bitmaps from the server to the client. 3D acceleration is not mentioned. The 3D acceleration is done on the host machine, RemoteFX the protocol enhancement and RemoteFX the virtual graphics acceleration technology are just confusingly named, that is, Microsoft uses the same name for two different things. The specification for the codec part |Remote Desktop Protocol: RemoteFX Codec Extension is also available from Microoft, and it states:


 * "The Remote Desktop Protocol: RemoteFX Codec Extension is an extension to the Remote Desktop Protocol: Basic Connectivity and Graphics Remoting (as specified in [MS-RDPBCGR]). The RemoteFX Codec Extension specifies a lossy image codec that can be used to encode screen images by using efficient and effective compression."


 * Jasper, if you have no sources, then please cite your technical qualifications for asserting I am wrong. I have cited five sources clarifying what, exactly, RemoteFX is. Pseudonym 23:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.86.157 (talk)
 * You are misinterpreting them. Let me put it that way.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

VM Limits
I am constantly trying to update wikipedia, but my changes are reverted back.

1. I'm Technologov, long-term VirtualBox community member, and understand it well, along with some other virtualization software.

2. VirtualBox 4.0 does have limits. http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=41211

Maximum host physical processors (sockets) = 256 logical Maximum host cores per processor = same (256) Maximum host memory = 2 TB Maximum host disk volume size = no limit Maximum number of guest VM running = 1024 VMs Maximum number of logical CPU per VM guest = 32 Maximum amount of memory per VM guest, 32/64 bit = 16 GiB Maximum number of SCSI + IDE disks per VM guest = 4 IDE + 30 for others Maximum disk size per VM guest = 2 TB

3. Quick look at Hyper-V, also shows limits:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405267(WS.10).aspx

Please let me update stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Technologov (talk • contribs) 02:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Forums are not reliable sources. But, you should add Hyper-V's limits.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:29, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, there are some hard coded limits in source code, here: http://www.virtualbox.org/browser/trunk/src/VBox/VMM/VMMR0/GVMMR0.cpp#L121

What is the procedure ? Should I speak with Oracle devs, and get the limit docs official ? VirtualBox _has_ limits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Technologov (talk • contribs) 02:41, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Use inline citations. See WP:Citing sources for help.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:05, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that this page be merged with Comparison of VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop. Both Fusion and Parallels are covered on this page, and I feel that their specific page serves only as an advertisement. In fact, many of the criteria on this page have been copied verbatim from the Parallels advertising website, including the criteria: "Keyboard shortcut (F6 or Fn + F6) for hiding/showing Parallels Desktop and all its windows." and "TimeMachine backups can be synced with SmartGuard snapshots, to reduce the space required for backups." The page is clearly biased and serves no purpose that Comparison of platform virtual machines cannot. As a result, this page should be merged with the redundant and biased smaller page to protect Wikipedia's integrity and decrease user confusion. Tutleman (talk) 20:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose — the parallels vs fusion page goes into a lot more detail and deals only with Mac hypervisors. I would however propose that we:
 * Move to Comparison of platform virtual machines for Mac OS X -- samj in out 06:56, 2 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose — I'm with samj on this one, rolling in this smaller article would lose a lot of Mac specific detail, it should be part of a larger Comparison of platform virtual machines for Mac OS X article. -- aanhorn undefined 11:06, 15 September 2011
 * Oppose - With a merger there is the likelihood that the new article on comparison of operating system converters in general will have a compressed version with parts having been eliminated. We should not lose the detail that the present comparison has.Dogru144 (talk) 12:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I don't get why we should merge a general comparison with a specific one.Jasper Deng (talk) 16:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Where is Proxmox?
I've tried making edits before and they were rejected so I won't even try.

There is a serious oversight in this wiki in that it is missing one of the most popular open source virtualization tools available.

http://www.proxmox.com/products/proxmox-ve

Note: I don't work for proxmox but I do use the tool as do many.

Note: ProxmoxVE uses Perl (and some PHP scripts in v1.9) to provde a web admin interface for OpenVZ and QEMU Virtual Machines.

208.54.39.130 (talk) 07:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:WTAF first. You might also have a look at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Proxmox Virtual Environment for the case you want to help other editors. mabdul 13:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

VMware Fusion is outdated in list
VMware released version 5 already. Table "Other features" has information about version 2.0 Can I update it? --Mark Ziegler (talk) 13:56, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, please do it! Be bold!. mabdul 13:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

free /proprietary
Came here looking for information on free (as in free beer) hypervisors. Didn't see that information. Information on the limits and availability of the free versions of vmware and hyper-v, and of the proprietary extensions of some of the OS hypervisors would be useful to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.148.53.46 (talk) 11:11, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Ski ia64 (Intel Itanium) emulator
May be worth to be added to this data set, is the Ski Itanium emulator: Ski project page at sourceforge.net. --Hibou57 (talk) 23:03, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:WTAF and create an article first. Keep in mind that you need independent, reliable and third party references. mabdul 13:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Live memory allocation
What exactly is "Live memory allocation"? ‣Andreas• ⚖ 20:48, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

VMWare ESXi is 64 bit hosts only
While ESX ran on 32 bit x86 processors ESXi only runs on x86_64. Just to be extra clear this in reference to the host machine architecture.

87.114.116.213 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

VMWare Fusion requires 64 bit hosts from 4.x
While earlier versions ran on 32 bit Macs, VMWare Fusion 4 and above require a 64 bit Mac.

87.114.116.213 (talk) 21:30, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Same for VMware Player! 217.251.198.89 (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Why lock some thing from 2008 that is no longer relevant in 2014?
"tolerated by other OS's." is a 2008 reference and does not appear as a current issue. Shjacks45 (talk) 05:06, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Several entries are for primarily VDI software
Citrix and Microsoft is designed for VDI implementations, however only Linux and other proprietary VDI software is listed here. Perhaps splitting out VDI as a separate section? Windows MultiPoint Server creates a Virtual PC with as little as a USB hub with USB-Video and USB KBD/Mouse. Shjacks45 (talk) 06:09, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

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QEUM external links
The external links for QEMU are to an odd domain with an unhelpful page. I tried but was unable to easily find a better link. Maybe someone else can take a look? Squigish (talk) 03:14, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

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Nested Virtualization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization#Nested_virtualization

This will become increasingly important and should be considered for a column on one of the feature tabels

Was added to Hyper-V with Windows Server 2016, but I am still trying to track down which other Hypervisors (and which versions) support it

To the people who like to maintain this comparison page, please consider this idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.168.44.190 (talk) 00:55, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Red Hat Virtualization
What about "Red Hat Virtualization" ?

I have just been asked to help support this environment and found you don't even mention it in the comparison.

Redhat used Xen for years then switched to KVM and now evidently switched to "Red Hat Virtualization" as a more mature web gui driven product. I guess I will install it somewhere and try it hopefully on CentOS.

This is the home page https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/virtualization/enterprise-virtualization — Preceding unsigned comment added by NE1Scott (talk • contribs) 16:14, 15 January 2020 (UTC)