VMware Server is a (now discontinued) no-cost virtualization software product developed and supplied by VMware, Inc., a subsidiary of Dell Technologies. VMware Servers can create, edit and run virtual machines (VMs). They can also partition a single physical server into multiple virtual machines. VMware Server was discontinued as a free product in January 2010 and has been replaced by the “shared virtual machines” feature in VMware Workstation, versions 8.0 and beyond.
VMware Workstation is a hosted hypervisor that runs on x64 versions of Windows and Linux operating systems. It enables users to set up multiple VMs on a single physical machine and use them simultaneously. Each virtual machine can execute its own operating system, including versions of Microsoft Windows, Linux, BSD and MS-DOS. VMware Workstation includes the ability to group multiple virtual machines in an inventory folder. The machines in such a folder can then be powered on and powered off as a single object, useful for testing complex client-server environments.
IT organizations create virtual machines to reduce IT expenses and increase system scalability. Other benefits of virtual machines include greater workload mobility, increased performance and availability of resources, and automated data center operations. For more than 10 years, SUSE and VMware have been delivering interoperable and jointly supported solutions for data center and cloud computing. VMware has been a SUSE Alliance Partner since 2004, supporting Linux on VMware software, on premises or in the cloud. In addition to providing a reliable data center virtualization solution, SUSE and VMware have collaborated to provide solutions for both private clouds and public clouds. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware has VMware drivers built in, eliminating the need to separately install VM tools and providing the ability to quickly deploy virtual machines on the VMware infrastructure.