x86-64 is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first announced in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mode.
Virtual PC is a discontinued x86 emulator software for Microsoft Windows hosts and PowerPC-based Mac hosts. It was created by Connectix in 1997 and acquired by Microsoft in 2003, after which the program was renamed Microsoft Virtual PC. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version free of charge. The Mac version was discontinued the same year following the Mac transition to Intel. In 2009, Microsoft released Windows Virtual PC, which is only compatible with Windows 7 hosts, and is the technical foundation for the latter's Windows XP Mode. Windows Virtual PC does not officially support MS-DOS or operating systems older than Windows XP Professional SP3 as guests. Virtual PC was discontinued in 2011 in favour of Hyper-V.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft Corporation which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose, while the other computer must run RDP server software.
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a specification for the firmware architecture of a computing platform. When a computer is powered on, the UEFI-implementation is typically the first that runs, before starting the operating system. Examples include AMI Aptio, Phoenix SecureCore, TianoCore EDK II, InsydeH2O.
Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often providing multiple virtual machines on one physical platform. The table below compares basic information about platform virtualization hypervisors.
Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server", is the seventh release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on February 27, 2008. Derived from Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 is the successor of Windows Server 2003 and the predecessor to Windows Server 2008 R2. It removed support for processors without ACPI, and is the first version that includes Hyper-V.
The Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) is an out-of-band management platform on certain Dell servers. The platform may be provided on a separate expansion card, or integrated into the main board; when integrated, the platform is referred to as iDRAC.
Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers with mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and Linux operating systems, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Storage, among others. All management and configuration operations are performed with a single user interface. Backup Exec also provides integrated deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery capabilities and helps to manage multiple backup servers or multi-drive tape loaders.
In computing, virtualization is the use of a computer to simulate another computer. The following is a chronological list of virtualization technologies.
VMware Workstation Pro is a hosted hypervisor that runs on x64 versions of Windows and Linux operating systems. It enables users to set up virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical machine and use them simultaneously along with the host machine. Each virtual machine can execute its own operating system, including versions of Microsoft Windows, Linux, BSD, and MS-DOS. VMware Workstation is developed and sold by VMware, which has been owned by Broadcom since November 2023. In May 2024, Workstation Pro became free of charge for personal use, with paid subscriptions available for commercial use, while the free restricted VMware Workstation Player was dropped. In November 2024, VMware Workstation was made free for commercial use, with paid subscriptions and support no longer available.
VMware Server is a discontinued free-of-charge virtualization-software server suite developed and supplied by VMware, Inc.
VMware ESXi is an enterprise-class, type-1 hypervisor developed by VMware, a subsidiary of Broadcom, for deploying and serving virtual computers. As a type-1 hypervisor, ESXi is not a software application that is installed on an operating system (OS); instead, it includes and integrates vital OS components, such as a kernel.
Oracle VirtualBox is a hosted hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, which was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010.
Hyper-V is a native hypervisor developed by Microsoft; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. It is included in Pro and Enterprise editions of Windows NT as an optional feature to be manually enabled. A server computer running Hyper-V can be configured to expose individual virtual machines to one or more networks.
The ES7000 is Unisys's x86/Windows, Linux and Solaris-based server product line. The "ES7000" brand has been used since 1999, although variants and models within the family support various processor and bus architectures. The server is marketed and positioned as a scale-up platform where scale-out becomes inefficient. Typically the ES7000 is utilized as a platform for homogeneous consolidation, large databases, Business Intelligence, Decision Support Systems, ERP, virtualization, as well as large Linux application hosting.
Sun xVM was a product line from Sun Microsystems that addressed virtualization technology on x86 platforms. One component was discontinued before the Oracle acquisition of Sun; the remaining two continue under Oracle branding.
Windows Server 2008 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 7", is the eighth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009, the same respective release dates of Windows 7. It is the successor to Windows Server 2008, which is derived from the Windows Vista codebase, released the previous year, and was succeeded by the Windows 8-based Windows Server 2012.
VHD and its successor VHDX are file formats representing a virtual hard disk drive (HDD). They may contain what is found on a physical HDD, such as disk partitions and a file system, which in turn can contain files and folders. They are typically used as the hard disk of a virtual machine, are built into modern versions of Windows, and are the native file format for Microsoft's hypervisor, Hyper-V.
In computing, virtualization (v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers.
Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), also known as nested paging, is a hardware-assisted virtualization technology which makes it possible to avoid the overhead associated with software-managed shadow page tables.
