Parallels EXTREME!!!

I just visited Parallels.com and found their new virtualization product, Parallels Workstation Extreme (love the name?)… it seems that this product uses different technologies to allow users to utilize virtual machines to do high-end graphics work such as video and image and auto-cad work… and even cooler, gaming!

It says that this product uses their —-and that it uses Intel VT-d to dedicate the graphics card(s) and networking hardware to the VM. (I would be interested in hearing how hard this actually is for a developer, way back in the summer of 2006 Steve Gibson of GRC and Spin Rite and of the Security Now podcast had made the comment about how Intel TV technology makes it easier to use a hyper-visor technology and that it would be difficult to patch physical hardware into a VM). This seems like a big step for virtualization, and I’m glad to see it happen so soon: I just hope that it comes to Mac OS X (soon!)

They have a diagram explaining how a physical resource is dedicated to a VM (embedded below), but they don’t point out that the original advertised benefit to virtualization was to consolidate and emulate network cards, etc… but now they’re asking for dedication (??)… Just putting that out there that this is ‘EXTREME’ over kill for (I would say) 80% of Parallels users, but for those who need it, you can sign-up to get more information if you desire here. (I did).