I’m just out from the ACE 2.0 preview session and I’m psyched.
ACE 1.0 is really starting to show its age as it is based on the Workstation 4 code base. I have several costumers who turned down ACE 1.0 due to different reasons, but as they went through the new features of ACE 2.0 I checked off one issue after the other. It seems like all the issues reported to me by my costumers will be resolved in 2.0.
Some major new features in 2.0 are Linux host support and the integration of VMware Player and VMware Workstation as ACE clients. (and in fact you also do the VM authoring from Workstation now.) All cool but the really promising thing in my view is Pocket ACE. You can now easily deploy and execute your ACE VM from a flash USB drive. As flash memory becomes faster and faster the execution from flash will probably be faster than from disk, as the access time is super fast, and it will be mobile. You still need to install an ACE client on the host you are running from, but I don’t see why this cannot be combined with a small boot partition on the USB drive and the option of either boot directly to a secure small linux host with an ACE client pre installed or execute from the USB drive if you already have the client installed.
If you’re at VMworld you can sign up for the beta at the ACE booth in the VMworld Exhibit Hall.
– Anders
