Web hosting software provider Parallels (SWsoft), announced that it has released a templates catalog for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, a library of more than 350 software downloads that can be used to create and manage operating systems and applications running in virtual environments.

Parallels says that by using templates, only a single instance of a software package is required and managed on a physical machine, regardless of the number of containers using the software. Some of the advantages to this approach are that templates can be deployed and updated online without any downtime or restarting the physical server and patches and updates can be applied to a single template and automatically propagated across all similar templates.

"Parallels Virtuozzo Containers is the only virtualization technology that uses this innovative templates approach, which enables software to be deployed in seconds and managed once thus greatly reducing the administrative management tasks and associated time," says Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "Our partner community is working with us to provide and extend the list of available templates."

The templates catalog include Linux distributions, such as CentOS, Debian, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Ubuntu, as well as applications like MySQL, Spam Assassin and Wordpress. Parallels says that it is also actively pursuing partnerships with companies and OS vendors that are interested in making their software available as a Parallels Virtuozzo Containers template.