What can Workstation Pro do?
VMware Workstation Pro offers a wide range of functions and tools to design software for any end devices as well as platforms or clouds and to test it in the most diverse environments. Workstation Pro acts like a data center running on a single PC. Depending on the version, the following functions and features are included in Workstation Pro :
- Simultaneous running of multiple operating systems on a single PC: With VMware Workstation Pro not only real Linux and Windows VMs, but also other Desktop-, tablet as well as environments can be created, including the simulation of a virtual network as well as the network conditions. The respective created VMs can also be used for code development as well as solution architectures and application testing.
- Establish a secure connection to vSphere, ESXi and other Workstation servers: VMware Workstation Pro can be used to start and control not only virtual machines but also physical hosts. These can be used as Remote hosts to perform typical management tasks such as shutdown and restart, power control, activation of a maintenance mode and creation of new virtual machines.
- With the proven integrated VMware hypervisor, it is easy to transfer VMs between local PCs, which further helps to increase developer productivity.
- Large number of development and testing features for just about any platform: Workstation Pro not only supports hundreds of different operating systems, but is also compatible with various Cloud- and container technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes.
- High protection by isolating environments: Workstation Pro has one of the most secure hypervisors, providing powerful features for IT security professionals: including the creation of a secure second desktop to use different settings for data protection, network configurations as well as tools, as well as different forensic tools to identify the vulnerabilities of an operating system.
Other features of Workstation Pro
Workstation Pro offers much more features and possibilities than Workstation Player, which does not allow running multiple virtual machines at the same time. Depending on the Workstation Pro version used, the following features are also included:
- Easy SSH login with a mouse click, connection details only need to be entered the first time.
- With Workstation Pro virtual machines can be encrypted and encrypted virtual machines can be run, furthermore user rights can be restricted to configure virtual machines.
- Virtual networks of Windows hosts can be renamed, including DHCP, NAT, IP addresses, LAN segments, Samba (Linux) and simulation of packet loss and latency.
- The snapshots feature allows testers and developers to restore a virtual machine to its previous state after changes or updates.
- Cloning of virtual machines is possible in two variants: Linked Clones are copies of a VM that share a virtual hard disk; Full Clones, on the other hand, are complete copies of a VM or copies of virtual hard disks.
- With Workstation Server in VMware Workstation Pro shared or Remote VMs can be run and used over a network by other VMware workstations.
- With vctl, the new command-line interface tool, local OCI containers and Kubernetes clusters can be deployed, including options for isolating VMs, virtual networking, and virtual resources; VMs and containers can also run on a single PC.
- Workstation Pro acts as development and testing capabilities for all platforms, as well as for virtualizing x86 operating systems.
- Complex IPv4 and IPv6 virtual networks for VMs can be created as well as configured - including simulation of network latencies and bandwidths to create real-world scenarios.
- The powerful 3D graphics of the new Workstation Pro version allows smooth running of 3D applications, including support for DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 in VMs and games.
General system requirements
VMware Workstation Pro can be run on x86 Standard hardware with Intel and AMD processors (64 bit) and on Windows and Linux host operating systems (64 bit). The following minimum requirements must be met:
- Compatible x86/AMD64 CPU running 64 bit, 2011 or higher (single CPUs are not supported)
- Core-Speed: 1.3 GHz or faster
- Memory: 2 GB; 4 GB RAM or more recommended
Different or higher requirements may apply depending on the version of VMware Workstation Pro .