Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 Released by Parallels

Parallels has released the finished version of its container-based virtualization software, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. Those familiar with the Virtuozzo name might be wondering who Parallels is. SWSoft, the company which developed Virtuozzo, officially changed it’s name to Parallels at the same time it released this new version of Virutozzo.

According to Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov, "The ever-changing needs of today’s enterprise datacentres call for a virtualization solution that is flexible and delivers high performance. With the release of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0, we are launching the next wave of virtualization, including a suite of products that help IT administrators effectively manage their growing virtual infrastructures."

According to the company, Virtuozzo 4.0 offers the highest levels of density, performance, and manageability compared to other virtualization technologies by creating isolated containers on a single physical server and OS instance.

"With the Virtuozzo product, Parallels is focused on taking virtualization to the next level," said John Humphreys, program VP with researcher IDC’s enterprise platform group. "By virtualizing above the operating system, customers get both the benefits of hardware reduction and a reduction in the number of operating system images they need to run to support their applications."

Intel server VP Diane Bryant’s comment was, "As virtualization continues to proliferate in datacentres and on desktops, Intel is delivering leading platform capabilities and performance to foster the growth. Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0’s manageability tools, ease-of-use and reliability take advantage of the performance improvements with Intel’s latest generation of quad-core Xeon and Itanium processors and make it a leading virtualisation solution."

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 is available globally for $3,000 per dual CPU. A Parallels Virtuozzo Containers licence can be purchased without the Parallels Infrastructure Manager for $2,500 per dual CPU.