Still pushing to stamp some kind of authority on the open source space after what is now more than eighteen months worth of its Java "stewardship," Oracle has announced the availability of its Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0 open source, cross-platform virtualization software.
The company describes the Oracle VM VirtualBox product as a route for desktop or laptop computers to run multiple guest operating systems simultaneously. It supports a variety of host operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X, most popular flavors of Linux (including Oracle Linux), and Oracle Solaris.
Built to handle increased capacity and throughput than previous iterations, Oracle says that the new version handle greater workloads, offers enhanced virtual appliance capabilities, and also sports significant usability improvements.
“Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0 is the third major product release in just over a year, and adds to the many new product releases across the Oracle Virtualization product line, illustrating the investment and importance that Oracle places on providing a comprehensive desktop to datacenter virtualization solution,” said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president, Linux and Virtualization Engineering, Oracle. “With an improved user interface and added virtual hardware support, customers will find Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0 provides a richer user experience."
With the new release, community developers can now create extensions that customize Oracle VM VirtualBox and add features not previously available such as the new scalable display mode that enables users to view more virtual displays on their existing monitors. There are also improvements to VM management, including visual VM previews, an optional attributes display, and easy launch shortcut to enable administrators and power users to customize the interface to make it as simple or as comprehensive as required.
