Last week VMware released the new 3.1 version of their Mac workstation virtualisation application and according to VMware it is better, stronger, and faster than ever before and it is a free update for all VMware Fusion 3 customers.

When I started my VMware Fusion 3 application it immediately offered to automatically download VMware Fusion 3.1.

The VMware press release states that VMware Fusion 3.1 provides 35% better end-to-end application performance compared to VMware Fusion 3.0. Windows applications launch faster and scrolling and 2D graphics in Windows Vista and 7 is almost 4x faster than VMware Fusion 3.0. Virtual machines suspend and resume faster and virtual machines are more responsive on resume.

As a relatively new Mac user I could not wait to try and indeed I can certainly confirm the ‘faster than ever‘-statement. Damn what an improvement.

So what else is new?

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While I was updating the Determining VMware vCenter and ESX Build Numbers post I thought I would semi-automate the updating of the post with new build numbers for new releases, while working on it I started too fill an excel sheet and ended up with an excel sheet with the following products and build numbers for easy reference:

VMware vSphere 4 Suite (combines several products)
VMware Infrastructure 3 Suite (combines several products)
Cisco Nexus v1000 (1.0)
VMware ESXi (4.0, 3.5, 3.0)
VMware ESX  (4.0, 3.5, 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, 1.5, 1.0)
VMware Server (2.0, 1.0)
VMware vCenter Server (4.0, 2.5, 2.0)
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone (4.0, 3.0)
VMware vCenter Lab Manager (4.0, 3.0, 2.5, 2.4)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (4.0, 1.0)
VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat (5.5)
VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager (1.0)
VMware vCenter CapacityIQ (1.0)
VMware vCenter AppSpeed (1.0)
VMware vCenter Chargeback (1.0)
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For everyone who is new to VMware Workstation 7 and as a refreshment course for all other VMware workstation users, VMware has released a Free online course you can follow.

I must say version 7 of VMware Workstation is a lot faster with starting up and booting virtual machines then version 6.5 was. One very nifty and cute thing I use is I can run ESX 4 in a virtual machine within workstation 7, makes it much easier to show it to customers and colleagues.

The Online Course will give an overview of VMware Workstation 7, helps you getting started and shows tips working with VMware 7. (Also useful for 6.5 users)

Yesterday VMware released version 7 of VMware Workstation which has advanced capabilities to help developers, QA engineers, technical sales professionals, and IT administrators get up and running faster and streamline tasks that save time and improve productivity.

New features include:

• Windows 7 support (32 and 64 bit);
• Improved 3D graphics acceleration which enables you to run Windows Aero Glass and other 3D applications with DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.1;
• Improved VM configuration  maximums:
  • 4 vCPUs;
  • 32GB memory;
• 256-bit AES encryption;
• Supports 200 operating systems including ESXi and vSphere 4.

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