When it comes to running virtual machines in an Intel-based Mac with OS X Lion installed as the primary operating system, which one is better: Parallels or VMware ? Parallels and VMware are two companies that are both competing for the top spot in the Mac virtualization market. They both have commercially available software solutions for virtualization on Intel-based Macs, each of which offer many great features that overlap in certain areas. Essentially, they do pretty much the same thing. But of course there are differences in what you can achieve if you use either one of their products.
Nov 11, 2020 Parallels is actively working on a new version of its virtualization software that will be compatible with Apple Silicon and M1 machines, the company said on Tuesday. VMWare Fusion also. Both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion deliver on the core goal of allowing Macintosh users to run Windows applications without needing to reboot their computers. The biggest difference between. Open Parallels Desktop (in the Applications folder) and choose File Open. Select the Windows data file you want to import, then click Open. Parallels Desktop data files end with.pvm. VMware files end with.vm (.vmx for older versions). I receive a warning: The browser cant be used in virtual machine software such as Virtual PC, VMWare and Parallels. Posted by Respondus Support To maintain the academic integrity of an exam, students are not permitted to run LockDown Browser Student Edition when a virtual machine is detected on the system.
If you've ever found yourself wondering which one of the two companies has the better product when it comes to virtualization software for Macs that are running OS X Lion, then this article is for you. In order to find out which one of them offers the better Mac OS X Lion virtualization software product, you've got to know a few key things. In order to find out what these things are, continue reading the rest of the paragraphs in this article.
First, you should learn a little bit about VMware and its software product for virtualization on the Mac, VMware Fusion. VMware Fusion is currently available in its fourth version and has more than 90 new features on top of everything that has been introduced in the last three versions since its introduction in the market.
VMware Fusion 4 has been specifically designed for Mac OS X Lion, and features tight integration that gives users a wholly 'Mac-like' experience outside of the computer's native operating system. This means that users will hardly notice the fact that it's actually Windows they're using or running if they based it on the looks of the user interface.
VMware Fusion 4 also boasts the ability to let users easily switch from a PC to a Mac with minimal effort, and even run Windows without needing to reboot at all. As you can imagine, this will let users save a tremendous amount of time and will allow even the most inexperienced Mac users to not worry about a thing because the technical side has already been ironed out.
And then there's Parallels. Parallels Desktop for Mac was initially called Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X when it was first released in 2005. Since then, it has undergone a number changes, and is now on its 7th release version. The latest version of Parallels Desktop for Mac 7 was only recently announced and released, and like the latest version of VMware Fusion, it features tight integration with the latest version of Mac OS X, Lion. Parallels Desktop for Mac boasts many great features that users will instantly fall in love with.
Some of the best new features on the latest version of Parallels Desktop for Mac as highlighted by the manufacturer include a highly improved user interface, very tight integration with Mac OS X Lion including the ability to use Launchpad for Windows apps, support for Mac OS X parental controls, improved battery life and included support for surround sound 7.1.
Parallels or Vmware ?
Both software products come at relatively great prices and have exceptional support from their manufacturers. But when it comes down to it, which one of them is really better than the other, Parallels or VMware ? One may be able to find the answer to this question simply by listing down each and every single feature that is offered by VMware Fusion 4 and Parallels Desktop for Mac 7. In the end, the winner should be the one that offers the most bang for buck.
Although both Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMware Fusion offer tight integration with the latest version of Mac OS X Lion, only one of them really goes all the way through with integration. That one is Parallels, since it doesn’t have missing features related to the user interface items unlike VMware Fusion.
And when it comes to overall system performance, benchmark results published on various online publications have shown time and time again that Parallels always comes out on top of VMWare Fusion, even if only by a little. The performance shown by Parallels Desktop for Mac is slightly faster overall compared with VMware Fusion.
The numbers on the benchmarks tests don't lie. So on the question of which one is better, Parallels or VMware Fusion, the answer is clearly Parallels Desktop for Mac.
Virtualization allows a single piece of computer hardware to be shared among several virtual machines (VMs). Aside from lowering equipment costs and generating extensive cost savings, virtualization eases resource and IT management, improves business continuity with minimal downtime, and allows faster hardware and software provisioning. A hypervisor that runs on top of the hardware and allows direct access to its components brings virtualization’s capabilities to the fore. Hyper-V and VMware are two of the leading hypervisors in the market.
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What Is Hyper-V?
Microsoft Hyper-V is a native hypervisor that has been an optional component in Windows Server products since Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V is also found in the x64-bit Pro and Enterprise editions of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. There is also a standalone Hyper-V Server with a limited function set that Microsoft makes available for free.
Hyper-V is a type-1, or bare-metal, hypervisor since it runs directly on the computer hardware and beneath the host and guest VMs. Hyper-V’s capabilities and the fact that it is designed and supported by Microsoft allows its use as a virtualization platform for any organization looking to expand its IT infrastructure.
In a Hyper-V infrastructure, the host OS where Hyper-V is installed becomes a parent VM, and guest VMs installed with other operating systems are treated as child VMs. Although the parent VM and guest VMs essentially share the same resources on the server machine, the parent VM takes care of allocating the resources needed by the guest VMs. It uses a VMBus that runs from the parent VM’s Virtualization Service Provider to the guest VMs’ Virtualization Service Client. All this work is performed behind the scenes and without any management needed on both the side of the parent and guest VMs.
Hyper-V utilizes a microkernelized hypervisor architecture where services and device drivers operate independently from the hardware layer. This design means that Hyper-V has less overhead for maintaining and managing devices and services that are not dependent on the hypervisor. This makes Hyper-V fast and scalable, as it not only directly accesses the hardware but also does not need to load drivers and services during initialization.
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Hyper-V saves guest VMs to a virtual hard disk file and uses a high-level communication protocol called Enlightened I/O to access the physical hardware’s processing, storage, networking and graphics components, among others. Enlightened I/O bypasses any device emulation layer and allows direct access to VMBus. Aside from Windows operating systems, Linux devices with kernels based on versions 3.4 and above, as well as FreeBSD, also support Enlightened I/O, allowing them to run faster on Hyper-V. Operating systems that do not support Enlightened I/O run on a slower emulation layer.
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Other notable Hyper-V features include:
● Disaster recovery and backup—Hyper-V can make backup copies of VMs and store them in other locations for later retrieval in case of disaster. It also offers two backup methods, one using saved states and the other using Volume Shadow Copy Service or Volume Snapshot Service (VSS), as it is also known.
● Portability —moving a VM somewhere else is easier since Hyper-V supports live migration, storage migration, and import/export.
● Remote connectivity —Hyper-V has a remote connection tool that supports both Windows and Linux. Known as Virtual Machine Connection, this tool features console access that allows you to see the events in the guest VM even when it is in an unbooted state.
● Security —Hyper-V features Secure Boot, helping protect virtual machines and their data from malware and other forms of unauthorized access.
What Is VMware vSphere?
VMware vSphere is a virtualization platform that is unlike Hyper-V since it comprises a suite of virtualization products. It includes the VMware ESXi hypervisor, a type-1 (bare-metal) hypervisor that approximates Hyper-V’s capabilities. With its latest iteration, vSphere 7, the platform can now handle Kubernetes workloads out of the box, making it ideal for use in development environments.
In terms of the hypervisor component of vSphere 7, VMware ESXi is able to access the physical hardware’s computing resources directly and share them among the VMs in the system. ESXi VMs run on a high-performance cluster file system known as Virtual Machine File System.
Previous iterations of the hypervisor utilize a Linux kernel, but that has been dropped. The latest ESXi version now runs on a microkernel, known as the VMkernel, which uses the Linux emulation layer to host the hardware and guest VMs, and connects directly to processors and RAM.
For the other hardware components, including networking and storage, ESXi uses modules, which are linked via another module, VMKlinux, which itself is derived from the Linux module interface. Some of the other modules are also derived from different Linux kernel modules.
Other VMware vSphere components and features include:
● vCenter Server —a management tool for ESXi that also acts as the controller for datacenter services.
● VMware vSphere Client—an HTML5 browser-based interface for connecting remotely to vCenter.
● VMware vSphere Distributed Switch—a virtual switch for connecting to multiple hosts.
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● VMware Virtual SMP —allows virtual machines to use more than one physical processor simultaneously.
● vMotion—allows live migration of virtual machines even while they are running.
● Storage vMotion—allows migration of virtual disks or configuration files.
● vSphere High Availability—allows using other available servers to restart failed VMs.
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● VMware vSphere Software Development Kit—provides users with application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow access to some vSphere components.
● Fault Tolerance—ensures continuous availability by creating copies of selected workloads on different servers.
How Do VMware and Hyper-V Compare?
VMWare and Hyper-V have their own strengths and weaknesses. When choosing between the two, it boils down to which of the two meet your own requirements.
Both VMware and Hyper-V have their own management tools, each equally up to the task. In this aspect, the choice becomes a personal preference.
In terms of storage deployment, VMware’s Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) holds a slight edge over Hyper-V’s ReFS, or Resilient File System, particularly when it comes to clustering. While both have almost similar clustering capabilities, Hyper-V’s Cluster Shared Volume is more complex and difficult to use than the VMware equivalent.
Both platforms also boast snapshot technology, which allows point-in-time copies of VMs and their data to prevent data loss. However, Hyper-V’s snapshots edge out VMware’s, as it can run snapshots in production and its persistent checkpoints can be exported to other locations. Moreover, Hyper-V also allows 64 snapshots per VM, compared to just 32 allowed by VMware.
VMware and Hyper-V also implement memory management techniques to ensure that RAM use in VMs is optimized. While VMware implements a variety of techniques such as memory compression, transparent page sharing, and oversubscription/overcommit, Hyper-V sticks with just one—Dynamic Memory. This reliance on a single memory management technique works out in Hyper-V’s favor—it’s simpler but better than the complex memory management in VMware.
VMware supports more operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Unix and macOS. On the other hand, Hyper-V support is limited to Windows plus a few more, including Linux and FreeBSD. If you require broader support, especially for older operating systems, VMware is a good choice. If you operate mostly Windows VMs, Hyper-V is a suitable alternative.
When it comes to scalability, there is no clear winner, with some features in favor of VMware and Hyper-V prevailing in others. For example, while VMware can use more logical CPUs and virtual CPUs per host, Hyper-V can accommodate more physical memory per host and VM. Plus it can handle more virtual CPUs per VM.
For security, while VMware implements data encryption at rest and in motion, and even during workload migration, Hyper-V security is managed via Active Directory. The latter also has other security components that are far more extensive than VMware’s.
Finally, pricing for the two platforms varies widely, depending on edition. Prices also cannot be compared with ease since they are computed differently. VMware charges per processor, but Hyper-V’s pricing is based on the number of cores on the host. For larger enterprises, VMware’s pricing structure seems ideal; smaller organizations, on the other hand, might find Hyper-V more to their liking.
Parallels RAS Supports Hosts Created with VMware and Hyper-V
Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) supports VMware vSphere and Hyper-V, as well as various other type 1 and type 2 hypervisors, including Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Scale Computing HC3, and Nutanix Acropolis.
Setup and configuration of VMware vSphere and Hyper-V hosts in Parallels RAS is straightforward. VMware requires more steps, which is not surprising given that you must also set up VMware vCenter and the ESXi Host. Hyper-V setup is simpler since you only need to set up the Hyper-V host.
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After the host configuration and setup, you must set up only an agent on the guest VMs to manage guests and publish their resources. Guest pools and templates are also easy to set up, and managing and updating templates is performed over a single pane of glass.
Regardless of the platform you choose, Parallels RAS allows quick creation of an affordable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with improved security and centralized desktop management capabilities.
Download the Parallels RAS trial, and set up your VDI using the platform of your choice.
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