Gone are the days when virtualisation products were the preserve of the hard-core geek. With the easy availability of low-cost virtualisation software from the likes of VMware, as well as a slew of free and open-source products, there has been an explosion of interest in the subject. One of the lesser known products in this area is VirtualBox, recently bought and rebadged by Sun Microsystems.

For those not in the know, virtualisation is a process whereby a real physical device (your PC, for example), can play host to a virtual device (a software PC, in effect). This makes it possible for one real machine to have one or more virtual machines running under it. It is then a breeze to try out a different operating system, play with software in a ‘sandbox' that doesn't trash your real machine, and multiple other scenarios.

VirtualBox, which is available for Windows, Linux and Solaris, is a particularly user-friendly application for creating and running these virtual machines. Once installed, (and it's a relatively small download of 23 MB), it's a case of firing up the application and clicking through the ‘Create New Virtual Machine' wizard to get started.

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Each new machine is configured with a complement of virtual hardware, including a virtual hard disk (in reality a set of files on your real hard disk), a virtual network card, CD/DVD drive, memory, etc. Once the spec of the machine has been selected it's time to fire it up and install the operating system. Supported operating systems for virtual machines include all flavours of Windows, a range of Linux distributions, Solaris, OS/2, xBSD and more.

Once configured, the new virtual machine boots into a BIOS screen and will then look for bootable media to install from. This can be a CD/DVD or it can be an ISO image on the hard disk. The operating system then proceeds as normal; from the inside of the virtual machine it appears no different to a real, physical system, even though it's just a process running on the real machine.

Your virtual machine can be linked to the rest of the world in a number of ways. The default is to use NAT so that the virtual machine can see the Internet. You can also use bridged networking so that your machine can get an IP address by bridging to your real network card. In this case your virtual machine is to all intents and purposes just another system on your network.

Performance of virtual machines is limited both by the power of your real CPU and by the amount of memory you can assign to it. In our tests VirtualBox machines performed well compared to virtual machines with similar specs running under VMware Server and Workstation.

Some of the higher end functionality of VMware Workstation is missing, but compared with VMware Player or Server (VMware's free offerings), VirtualBox has plenty of worthwhile features, including the ability to take snapshots and resizable virtual machine windows.

Overall VirtualBox has a lot more than no-cost going for it. It is easy to use, provides good functionality and performs well compared to some of the better known competition. Highly recommended.