Parallels announced that the latest version of its container-based server virtualization software -- Parallels Virtuozzo Containers -- is now generally available. Version 4.0 includes enhancements and features designed to improve usability, data center management and business continuity.

"The ever-changing needs of today's enterprise data centers call for a virtualization solution that is flexible and delivers high performance," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "With the release of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0, we are launching the next wave of virtualization, including a suite of products that help IT administrators effectively manage their growing virtual infrastructures."

Beloussov continued that Parallels customers are already doing large-scale virtualization deployments, including service provider data centers and software-as-a-service applications. "Parallels offers the right technological approach coupled with the best economics to deliver a comprehensive suite of virtualization and automation products for any hardware or software environment," said Beloussov.

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers is different from traditional hardware virtualization solutions in that it dynamically partitions a single Windows or Linux operating system instance into highly efficient and scalable virtual environments or "containers".

By delivering native server performance, Virtuozzo virtualization can be used with performance-sensitive workloads such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle databases that are not practical with other virtualization solutions due to their associated overhead and the performance penalties that are incurred.

Also, Parallels Virtuozzo offers three times the density or more versus other solutions, which permits data center managers to maximize the number of virtual containers per each physical server. In fact, Virtuozzo is the only virtualization solution that enables dozens to hundreds of containers to immediately and automatically leverage hardware, resulting in exceptional data center efficiency from administrative, ROI and energy-consumption perspectives.

Along with the increased density capabilities, IT administrators can reduce operating system sprawl in the data center by using Virtuozzo.

“We were impressed by the Beta and are looking forward to implementing Virtuozzo 4.0,” said Robert Berry, Director of Technical Services, Homes & Land Magazine. “The new centralized management and networking options in the tools will make managing our virtualized data center even easier."

"With the Virtuozzo product, Parallels is focused on taking virtualization to the next level," said John Humphreys, Program Vice President with IDC's Enterprise Platform Group. "By virtualizing above the operating system, customers get both the benefits of hardware reduction and a reduction in the number of operating system images they need to run to support their applications."

"As virtualization continues to proliferate in data centers and on desktops, Intel is delivering leading platform capabilities and performance to foster the growth," said Diane Bryant, Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Server Platforms Group. "Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0’s manageability tools, ease-of-use and reliability take advantage of the performance improvements with Intel's latest generation of Quad Core Xeon and Itanium processors and make it a leading virtualization solution."

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 offers new features and functionality in several key areas:

• Business Continuity
• Ease of Use and Manageability
• Efficiency

More information about how customers are using Parallels Virtuozzo can be found at www.parallels.com/virtuozzo.

Virtuozzo 4.0 also introduces the Parallels Infrastructure Manager, a powerful tool for managing the Virtualized Data Center that enables IT administrators to efficiently manage their infrastructure from anywhere.

The Parallels Infrastructure Manager includes a number of important features such as:

• Enhanced Permissions
• Newly Designed Management Tool
• Large Scale Deployment and Management Capabilities