From the “Don’t Panic!’ files:
In the spirit of full-disclosure, let me first tell you that I love VirtualBox. I use it every day and it is a core component of my workflow and my digital life.
The new VirtualBox 4.2 release out today is now going to make my life, a bit easier. The new release enables the grouping of VMs, which is a simple, yet great idea. So now on my test box I can group multiple versions of a given Linux distro together for example, instead of scrolling through a (massive) list.
When I do startup multiple distros at the same time, VirtualBox now has network bandwidth controls. Yeaah I know, VirtualBox 4.x (I’m no n00b) enables users to define how many cores, disk space and memory are to be allocated to a given VM, but it never gave us control over bandwidth.
Going a step further, VirtualBox now supports VLAN tagging, which is a huge boost for using the system in a modern network (esp for those of us that segment our networks)
As always, the best part about VirtualBox is that it is Free and Open Source software. I know that there were some that were concerned that Oracle would somehow kill VirtualBox when it acquired Sun, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Oracle over the last two years has expanded VirtualBox to make it the easiest solution for anyone on Linux, Window, Mac or Solaris to get a baseline level of guest operating system virtualization up and running quickly. Sure I have VMware’s Workstation in my environment too, but the simple truth is that for everyday virtualization, I run VirtualBox and will continue to do so.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eSecurity Planet and InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.