There aren’t many software applications that truly revolutionize the way I do business and pleasure for that matter—that is, until VMware Fusion came along. Never could I have imagined that virtualization could be this easy and enjoyable at the same time, and it has made my work on SharePoint easier and more enjoyable.

Taking the Plunge

For a while I was doing all my virtualization of MOSS inside Virtual PC which, to say the least, wasn’t the most enjoyable experience. I tried running it on my Sony Vaio with Vista (I did like the laptop), and it just didn’t work out well for me. The computer was slow and unresponsive. It didn’t make me feel as though I had truly recreated a production-like environment to do my SharePoint work in. Then I started seeing that all the big SharePoint consultants were using MacBook Pros with VMware Fusion or Parallels. I decided to take the plunge for a better experience.

After comparing Parallels and Fusion I decided to go with Fusion, and it was a good decision! With my MBP which has 4 GB RAM, 2.8 Ghz processor, and a 320 GB hard drive at 7200 RPM I run SharePoint faster than some dedicated Microsoft Server setups I’ve seen! I can get in and do all my analysis and minor development quickly and easily. It allows me to enjoy the best of OS X while still running my necessary applications for my SharePoint work.

VMware Fusion in Action

Here are some screenshots of SharePoint inside of VMware Fusion.  A recent VMware post outlines one user running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in Fusion, but here I am running the full blown version of MOSS Enterprise. You can also see screenshots of me running Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server Management Studio, PowerShell, and MOSS in IE. I could even run all of this in unity mode quickly and seamlessly.

MOSS in Fusion

Visual Studio 2008 in Fusion

SQL Server Studio in Fusion