Introduction
Since its earliest betas, I’ve been running VMware Workstation 8 and have been itching to be able to share details about some of the truly progressive features that have found their way into this latest version of VMware’s desktop-based virtualizations platform. However, the non-disclosure agreement that governs beta participation has prevented me from doing so. This last week, though, VMware finally took the wraps off the product’s final release and what’s under the hood is pretty exciting stuff!Drag and drop VMs to vSphere
Many people want to use VMware Workstation as a sandbox. This is good! However, in some cases, the result in testing is so good that having the ability to migrate a virtual machine into a production environment would be ideal and be the easiest way to accomplish a goal. VMware Workstation 8 simplifies this process by providing a drag-and-drop capability between Workstation and ESX, ESXi and vCenter. This feature leverages VMware’s OVF Tool to work its magic.
Remote management
With Workstation 8, you can remotely connect to virtual machines hosted on other copies of VMware Workstation on the network. Imagine the possibilities here with regard to a shared development environment; multiple developers can more easily share virtual machines among all members of the team.Further, with Workstation 8, you can now connect to virtual machines that are running on vSphere either directly or via vCenter. This capability brings Workstation further into the realm of enterprise computing. From a vSphere/vCenter-connected copy of Workstation, you are able to perform some basic administrative functions of a virtual machine, such as modifying its settings.
