VMware (http://www.vmware.com) is a virtual machine monitor for standard personal computers. VMware provides isolated environments in which multiple standard operating systems can run concurrently on a standard PC. An obvious application for VMware is providing concurrent access to different operating systems and their applications, such as running Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office concurrently with Linux. VMware is however capable of much more than just running multiple operating systems. After an introduction to VMware this talk will cover some of the more interesting capabilities and applications. These capabilities are likely to change the way technical users think of and use PCs. Areas that will be covered, including live demonstrations, are--

Virtual Networking
VMware implements multiple virtual Ethernets, these appear to be real physical Ethernets to a guest operating system. Multiple virtual machines can communicate via multiple virtual Ethernets. VMware virtual networking has uses in file sharing, development and testing of client server and web applications, training systems administrators and applications in network security.

Virtual, Undoable and Nonpersistent Disks
VMware can add disk re-do log capability to any guest operating system, providing the ability to manage whether any changes to the disk are committed or undone. This provides great flexibility, and has applications in software testing and QA, as well as being highly addictive for everyday personal use. Future product capabilities, including "suspend to disk" and checkpointing will be described.

Encapsulation
A virtual machine entirely encapsulates a guest operating systems and the user's environment. This leads to interesting capabilities such as being able to move virtual environments easily between PCs and ubiquitous access to computing environments stored on file servers with applications in technical as well as corporate computing.

VMware, Inc. is a privately funded software company pioneering the use of virtual machine technology on standard personal computers. VMware offers a dramatically new approach to personal computing, shattering the limits of personal computing and freeing developers and end users to be more innovative and experimental. Founded in 1998, VMware is based in Palo Alto, CA.

Darryl Ramm is director of technical marketing at VMware, Inc. His responsibilities include helping plan and define VMware products and working with leading edge customers and partners. Darryl has a unusual blend of business, marketing and technical knowledge.

Prior to joining VMware Darryl worked at Adobe Systems, both in the United States and Europe on the planning and rollout of new high-end graphics products. Prior to Adobe Systems Darryl held marketing and engineering positions at Silicon Graphics, Inc. and Pyramid Technology Corporation (now Fujitsu Siemens Computers). For most of his career in the computer industry Darryl has worked on the development and marketing of high-performance commercial and database servers. Including a lot of work on mission critical systems and applications in telecommunications, and financial services.

Darryl has held positions as technical board member and consultant to high-technology start ups. He holds a degree in Physics from the University of Western Australia.