The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook (Networking & Security)

It was good at the time, but now it is pretty dated, wouldn't recommend it for current VMware users. Unfortunate, because I don't think there's a comparable good VMware book out there now.

1. It is just a manual, not a text book that you want to learn more.2. I don't think we need to spend $28 to buy a manual. Too Much!!3. Easy installation if you follow the instruction from the book.

In the past few years, the need and application of using a product such as VMWare has increased exponentially. Current hardware technology (such as processor speed, large memories and storage space) has allowed us to have a Virtual Machine that can host numerous types of Operating Systems and configurations. This means that one can have a single PC, but using VMWare, have multiple Operating Systems and configurations. Have you ever needed to write a program that works on Linux, various versions of Windows and Unix operating systems? Before VMWare, you would have had to have multiple boxes each with a different setup, but all you need now is a single box with VMWare - and host any Operating System and configuration that you like all in one box.The power of VMWare is explained and demonstrated throughout the book - from basics all the way to topics such as Physical to Virtual conversation. P2V allows you to create a mirror image of any environment and use VMWare to host that environment thus allowing you to test before you go to production, for example: mirroring your production environment, testing, deploying and blowing away the test environment all in one day's work. Snapshots are great way to further expand the power of VMWare. You can test a configuration, take a snapshot, change the configuration and test again to see the difference. VMWare brings with itself an enormous flexibility for developers and engineers alike.VMWare tools, a package that allows your virtual machine to have better mouse response, screen resolution and seamless desktop environment are covered in detail by the author. I have personally been using VMware for a number of months now, and VMWare 5.0 has been a life saver for me. I have a laptop and I wanted to separate out my personal stuff from work documents, etc. With VMWare, I can do just that. This book showed me other features that I never knew about such as backup, image transfer and snapshots. I found the chapter of performance tuning and optimization particularly useful, as many of you agree, Virtual Machines introduce an overhead that many of us worry about. I tend to lose sleep over my performance degradation, but I seem to have been wrong about how much overhead VMware actually introduces.The author talks about memory and disk optimization that can dramatically increase performance. In all honestly, I don't even notice that I am running a VM anymore. I had to change my background to tell me I am on VM or not - because I was not able to tell them apart. Network optimization is also covered in detail. VMWare is capable of handling up to a 1Gbit network card and data transfer rate. Bridging technique is used to allow any of your VM's access the network. If you are a developer such as myself, it is very helpful and important for you to know that you can test a distributed application - simulate it as if it was running on multiple boxes, right on your laptop or desktop using VMware. That to me was priceless. I can go from one instance to the next and I can test, deploy and maintain my application right from my laptop. After I have done everything, I simply burn a CD and transfer the image to the server that I want to deploy my application on, and I am done.This book is simply great! If you are a VMWare fan, then you must read this book as it tells you things about VMWare that makes you love it even more. If you have never used VMWare, then you can now with a demo copy of the product that is included on a CD at the end of the text and b

When it comes to virtual computers installed on one physical computer nobody does it quite as well as VMWare. Version 5 of their workstation product is a significant improvement over earlier versions with easier installation, better discovery of available hardware, and many other features. While it is easy enough to install a basic system and the software pretty much installs itself the documentation of VMWare has always been lacking. This book fills that void by supplying a superb manual to match the superb software product. The author takes a kind of quick start approach as he goes through installation and upgrading, and then moves straight to creating a virtual machine so you can get working with it right away. From there he moves to some of the more advanced features such as working with snapshots, cloning a virtual machine, and working with teams. This is followed by a section on networking virtual machines, performance tuning, and optimization. He even includes an excellent section on tips and tricks. If you have the need for more than one operating system installed on your computer or just want to work with more than one then virtual machines is the easiest way to go about it. No rebooting and working in just one system at a time like a dual-boot configuration, you just run them both at once and switch back and forth as needed. And it will support more than just two virtual machines running at the same time. The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook is highly recommended to anyone interested in the VMWare product.

This is a good book on VMware. However it's not a 'guru' book, which one might expect for the price. There is lot's of useful information for beginner & intermediate level, but I didn't find much that isn't covered in the free User Manual (though a couple of hours spent browsing this book will get you much further than the manuals). However there is a shortage of boks on the subject and this book answers almost all needs.