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VMware's flagship vSphere now in never-ending beta, if you're up for it

Go forth and test code that may never become a product if you dare

VMware has announced that its flagship vSphere virtualization suite now offers a continuous beta.

Virtzilla's beta programmes have evolved over time from a conventional "we've got a new version coming, who wants to play?" model to a "sign up to test this and future versions" panel.

Now the company has announced new arrangements it's dubbed "the vSphere Continuous Beta".

"The goal of this program is to deliver new features and functionality that are not tied to a specific release," Virtzilla's blurb says. "As such, you may find yourself testing features we'll see in an upcoming release, releases much further down the road, or features that simply might never make the cut to be released."

VMware says the programme has already kind of commenced, with software that dropped on 22 July, the first release under the new regime.

It may not be a stretch for VMware to operate this way because in recent years it has worked towards a quarterly release cadence of new code for its VMware Cloud on AWS Service and used that effort to spur development on the versions of vSphere it sells to non-cloudy customers.

Whether beta testers want to work this way is another matter as there is plenty of incentive to get one's hands on an early version of a forthcoming release, but rather fewer reasons to play with code that may never become a product. ®

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