Parallels Workstation
Encyclopedia
Parallels Workstation is the first commercial software product released by Parallels, Inc.
Parallels, Inc.
Parallels, Inc. is a privately held virtualization technology company with offices in the USA, Germany, UK, France, Japan, China, Russia and Ukraine. Parallels' US offices are in Renton, WA.The company has more than 700 employees as of 2010....

, a developer of desktop and server virtualization software. The Workstation software consists of a virtual machine
Virtual machine
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...

 suite for Intel x86-compatible computers (running Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 or Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

) (for Mac version, see Parallels Desktop for Mac
Parallels Desktop for Mac
Parallels Desktop for Mac by Parallels, Inc., is software providing hardware virtualization for Macintosh computers with Intel processors.-Overview:Parallels, Inc...

) which allows the simultaneous creation and execution of multiple x86 virtual computers. The product is distributed as a download package.

Implementation

Like other virtualization software, Parallels Workstation uses hypervisor
Hypervisor
In computing, a hypervisor, also called virtual machine manager , is one of many hardware virtualization techniques that allow multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run concurrently on a host computer. It is so named because it is conceptually one level higher than a supervisory program...

 technology, which is a thin software layer between Primary OS and host computer. The hypervisor directly controls some of the host machine's hardware resources and provides an interface to it for both virtual machine monitors and primary OS. This allows virtualization software to reduce overhead. Parallels Workstation's hypervisor also supports hardware virtualization technologies like Intel VT-x and AMD-V.

Functionalities

Parallels Workstation is a hardware emulation virtualization software, in which a virtual machine engine enables each virtual machine to work with its own processor
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

, RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

, floppy drive, CD drive, I/O devices, and hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...

 – everything a physical computer contains. Parallels Workstation virtualizes all devices within the virtual environment, including the video adapter, network adapter, and hard disk adapters. It also provides pass-through drivers for parallel port
Parallel port
A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. In computing, a parallel port is a parallel communication physical interface. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port...

 and USB devices.

Because all guest virtual machines use the same hardware drivers irrespective of the actual hardware on the host computer, virtual machine instances are highly portable between computers. For example, a running virtual machine can be stopped, copied to another physical computer, and restarted.

Parallels Workstation is able to virtualize a full set of standard PC hardware, including:
  • A Pentium or AMD Duron processor
  • A generic motherboard
    Motherboard
    In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

     compatible with Intel i815 chipset
  • Up to 1.5 GB of RAM
    Ram
    -Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

     (even though the real i815 only supports 512 MB)
  • VGA and SVGA video cards with VESA
    VESA
    VESA is an international standards body for computer graphics founded in 1989 by NEC Home Electronics and eight other video display adapter manufacturers.VESA's initial goal was to produce a standard for 800×600 SVGA resolution video displays...

     VBE
    VESA BIOS Extensions
    VESA BIOS Extensions is a VESA standard, currently at version 3, that defines the interface that can be used by software to access compliant video boards at high resolutions and bit depths...

     3.0 support
  • A 1.44 MB floppy drive, which can be mapped to a physical drive or to an image file.
  • Up to four IDE devices. This includes virtual hard drives that range in size from 20 MB to 128 GB each and CD/DVD-ROM drives. IDE devices can be mapped to physical drive or to an image file.
  • Up to four serial port
    Serial port
    In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time...

    s that can be mapped to a real port, to a pipe or to an output file.
  • Up to three bi-directional parallel port
    Parallel port
    A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. In computing, a parallel port is a parallel communication physical interface. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port...

    s, each of which can be mapped to a real port, to a real printer or to an output file.
  • An Ethernet
    Ethernet
    Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....

     virtual network card compatible with Realtek RTL8029(AS).
  • 2-port USB 1.1 controller.
  • An AC'97 compatible sound card.
  • A 104-key Windows enhanced keyboard and a PS/2 wheel mouse.

Known issues

Known limitations of Parallels Workstation, , include the following:
  • Can only run 32-bit operating systems.
  • DVD/CD-ROM "pass-through" access has not been implemented, which means that it is impossible to use DVD and CD burners exclusively in guest virtual machines.
  • Supported memory limit for all virtual machines is 4 GB, and memory limit for a single virtual machine is 1500 MB.
  • Devices such as USB mice, memory keys, webcams, and mobile phones have been cited on the company's support forum as not working correctly.
  • Network emulation does not support NAT.

See also

  • Comparison of platform virtual machines for a list of related virtualization software products
  • Hypervisor
    Hypervisor
    In computing, a hypervisor, also called virtual machine manager , is one of many hardware virtualization techniques that allow multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run concurrently on a host computer. It is so named because it is conceptually one level higher than a supervisory program...

  • Virtual appliance
    Virtual appliance
    A virtual appliance is a virtual machine image designed to run on a virtualization platform ....

  • Virtual machine
    Virtual machine
    A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...

  • x86 virtualization
    X86 virtualization
    In computing, x86 virtualization is the facility that allows multiple operating systems to simultaneously share x86 processor resources in a safe and efficient manner, a facility generically known as hardware virtualization...

  • Virtual disk image
    Virtual disk image
    A virtual disk image is a file on a physical disk, which has a well-defined, published or proprietary, format and is interpreted by a Virtual Machine Monitor as a hard disk. IT administrators and software developers administer them through offline operations using built-in or third-party tools...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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