VMware
IBM had already invented virtualization in the 1960s. The mainframes of that era allowed users to share the resources of a single physical machine across multiple virtual systems. But this technology remained confined to mainframes for decades, until a small team at Stanford University decided to transpose it to x86 processors.
In the mid-1990s, Professor Mendel Rosenblum and his students were attempting to build a supercomputer. To run different operating systems on their prototype, they experimented with virtualization. The results exceeded their expectations. Rosenblum then realized he had something bigger than a simple university project. He founded VMware in 1998 with his wife Diane Greene, Edouard Bugnion, Scott Devine, and Edward Wang.
The initial idea was simple: data centers were wasting their resources. Servers ran at 10 or 15% of their capacity because they were sized to handle peak activity. The rest of the time, processors and memory remained unused. Virtualization would allow multiple workloads to run on a single physical machine.
VMware Workstation 1.0 was released in 1999. It required a 266 MHz Pentium II and 64 MB of RAM. This first version supported MS-DOS 6, Windows 95/98/NT, Red Hat Linux 5.0, and a few other systems. The technical challenge was considerable: the x86 architecture had never been designed for virtualization. The engineers had to be clever.
Their solution combined two approaches. Direct execution for non-privileged application code, dynamic binary translation for system code. This hybrid method delivered decent performance while isolating virtual machines from each other. It was a feat: no one had managed to properly virtualize the x86 architecture until then.
ESX Server 1.5 arrived in 2002. This hypervisor could manage 64 virtual machines simultaneously with 3.6 GB of RAM each. Unlike Workstation, which installed on an existing operating system, ESX ran directly on bare metal. Performance was improved. That year, VMware secured its first patent (US 6397242) for its x86 virtualization techniques.
The following year marked the arrival of vMotion. This technology was a game changer: you could move a virtual machine from one physical server to another without service interruption. No need to stop applications for maintenance. VMware also launched vCenter Server, a centralized console to manage the entire virtual environment.
EMC Corporation acquired VMware in 2004 for 635 million dollars. The company opened offices in the United Kingdom, China, India, and Ireland. Three years later, EMC decided to take VMware public while retaining 90% of the capital. The stock was offered at 29 dollars. It closed its first day at 51 dollars, valuing the company at 19.1 billion dollars.
VMware vSphere was released in 2009. This platform integrated numerous advanced features for virtual resource management. Things accelerated in 2013 with NSX for network virtualization and vSAN for storage. Virtualization was no longer limited to servers: network infrastructure and storage also moved through the software layer.
Meanwhile, processors had evolved. AMD and Intel added hardware extensions dedicated to virtualization (AMD-V and VT-x). VMware adapted its products to take advantage of them. These hardware features facilitated 64-bit system virtualization and boosted performance.
Dell acquired EMC in 2015 and thus inherited VMware. The company maintained its operational autonomy and continued its development. It invested in environmental projects like Carbon Neutrality, aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from data centers. In 2023, Broadcom finalized its acquisition of VMware.
One figure sums up VMware’s impact beyond its own hypervisor: as early as 2009, the number of virtual servers exceeded that of physical servers. x86 virtualization had transformed the industry. It reduced infrastructure costs, optimized resource utilization, and brought flexibility to information systems. It also laid the foundation for cloud computing techniques: automation, resource elasticity, everything relied on these virtualization mechanisms.
By making virtualization accessible on the x86 architecture, VMware modernized infrastructure management. Its success pushed other players to develop their own solutions, like AWS Nitro, creating competition that benefits everyone.