Virtualisation OK for Leopard Server

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 11 December 2007 11:20

Business IT - Technology

Apple has given its customers the go-ahead to use virtualisation software to host multiple copies of Mac OS X 10.5 Server.

Apple's operating system licences have traditionally been 'one licence, one computer'.

But the licence for Mac OS X 10.5 Server states "This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Mac OS X Server software (the 'Mac OS X Server Software') on a single Apple-labeled computer. You may also install and use other copies of Mac OS X Server Software on the same Apple-labeled computer provided that you acquire an individual and valid license from Apple for each of these other copies of Mac OS X Server Software"

The increasing power of servers such as Apple's Xserve makes the idea of running multiple virtual servers on one physical computer. During quiet periods, servers that usually run on separate hardware can be consolidated onto a smaller number of devices as an energy efficiency measure.

But what host VM software could be used? There is currently a dearth of hypervisor software capable of running Mac OS X - not, it seems, for any technical reason but because Apple has reportedly discouraged companies from producing such software as there has been no legitimate way of using it given the Mac OS X licence terms.

It therefore seems likely that we will see a VM announcement at Macworld Expo, either from Apple itself or from a third-party such as VMware.

The regular Mac OS X 10.5 licence lacks the additional language, saying simply that "This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time." Its users will have to be content with running other operating systems (eg, Windows and Linux) under virtualisation software such as Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion.