Parallels announced the hosting implementation of Parallels Server for Mac, a server virtualization solution for Intel-powered Apple Mac systems. Parallels Server for Mac is a powerful and easy-to-use hypervisor solution for server virtualization that runs on any Intel-powered Apple hardware, including Xserve and Mac Pros that support running Leopard Server or Tiger Server. Product launch partner (mt) Media Temple is already utilizing Parallels Server for Mac with the Leopard VPS hosting solution; the (xv) Xserve-Virtual server.

Virtualization provides service providers such as (mt) Media Temple with the ability to offer complete servers or slices of a server with isolated resources. Their new (xv) Xserve-Virtual product Beta is running 2GB of RAM with a dedicated CPU core of an Apple Xserve with 8 3GHz CPU cores, 32GB of RAM with 15,000 RPM SAS drives in RAID.

“Parallels Server for Mac enables service providers to offer their clients the option of hosting a Mac OS while maintaining the operational and management benefits of virtualization,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “Not only does Parallels Server for Mac open the door for virtualizing Apple servers, it also adds hypervisor-based server virtualization to our ‘Optimized Computing’ vision.”

”Through Parallels Server for Mac, we can apply our years of experience with web hosting technologies to deliver new services based on Apple servers,” said Demian Sellfors, CEO of (mt) Media Temple. “For 7 years, Parallels has been an incredible partner who consistently delivers virtualization software and tools. It’s been crucial to our business and has helped make us one of the largest Parallels Virtuozzo Containers virtual deployments in the world. “

Parallels Server for Mac includes support for Mac OS X10.5 Server as a guest operating system in a virtual machine. Running Leopard Server in a virtual machine gives Mac server administrators the ability to run multiple, isolated workloads on a single Leopard Server-powered XServe, as well as the ability to test software and hardware in protected, easily restorable “sandboxes.”