Apparently for VMware, virtualizing desktop and server operating
systems isn't enough. At CES 2012 in Las Vegas, the company is
demonstrating how it can now run a separate instance of Android in
a virtual machine that is hosted by an Android-based smartphone.
VMware demonstrated this capability on LG's newest handset; the
Revolution VS910.
According to VMware director of product management Hoofar
Razavi, the ability to have a separate instance of Android running
on an existing Android handset opens up a world of possibilities.
But the key advantage accrues to those who want to keep their
handset-bound digital personas for work and personal life
completely partitioned from one another. For example, the host
version of Android that's running on the smartphone's bare metal
can have all of your personal life stuff in it; your Facebook app,
connections to your personal email accounts, personal contacts,
etc. Then, the version of Android running in a VMware virtual
machine can have all of your mobile work apps in it along with
connections to your work email and contacts. For additional
security, the VMs are fully encrypted as well.
This architecture has serious (and very positive) implications
in the area of consumerization of IT. For example, when employees
have their work and personal lives intermingled in the same
instance of a mobile OS, any attempt by the IT department to manage
the work-related stuff results in "management" of the personal
stuff too. Let's say an employee leaves the company and the IT
department decides for security reasons that the phone must be
remotely wiped. The net result is that everything gets wiped; all
the work stuff and all the personal stuff. The user must then go
about rebuilding all the personal stuff.
In a scenario where all the work stuff is kept in a partitioned
VM, the IT department doesn't have to remotely wipe out the entire
handset. It just wipes out the VM instead. Another scenario that
this sort of VM architecture works well in is the one where a user
loses their phone. Not only can the IT department remotely wipe the
VM out, it can also restore the VM (from a backup) to the
replacement handset.
Much like on desktops and servers, mobile developers will
greatly appreciate the virtualization capabilities because of how
easily they can create differently configured VMs for testing
purposes.
Razavi also claimed that the mobile version of VMware doesn't
necessarily need a heavily resourced smartphone like one of the new
ones with lots of memory and a multicore processor. "We're aiming
for mass market devices" said Razavi. "The capabilities of the
system are more than adequate in your mid-level device today to
support this."
Unfortunately, there's one big group of mobile users who are
still out in the cold when it comes to VMware Mobile; iOS users.
Razavi said that VMware is always looking to extend the company's
virtualization solutions to other platforms but that the company
has nothing yet to announce regarding virtualization of iOS. This
shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to people who follow the
virtualization space. While VMware Fusion allows Mac users to run
Windows on the Mac (in a virtual machine), the company hasn't yet
offered the ability to run Mac OS X in a virtual machine.
Source: InformationWeek USA