So how about extending server-based virtualization to notebooks? Neoware (and Wyse) has been building them for a while now, and has found a suitor in computing giant HP. HP has been pushing virtualization from the hardware and storage sides, but looks to be making a bigger play in the arena with this acquisition. Between the Internet and virtualization technologies, the mainframe may be making a comeback!

How about running that database on a virtual server? Maybe not. Databases require good I/0 performance, which may not be available on a virtual machine.  This Q&A reiterates a point we have been making in our presentations on virtual computing that stresses I/O intensive applications are not the best candidates for virtual machines.

So how do I compare performance on virtual machines? VMware is glad you asked, because they just developed a benchmark to test virtual machines. So now we can await the results to see if VMware continually beats out other virtual computing competitors like Microsoft, Xen, and others using their “open” benchmark.