May 16, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Dell and Sun offer new servers for virtualization with AMD Quad-Core processors

Virtualization platform vendors like Citrix, Microsoft, Parallels and VMware are constantly trying to update and increase the capabilities of virtualization, but they aren't alone. Hardware manufacturers are also taking a stab at improving virtualization. Check out the latest from AMD's Quad-Core Opteron processor technology as it makes its way into new Dell and Sun servers.   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 14, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Microsoft opens Beta of its Offline Virtual Machine Servicing tool

Microsoft has opened up the Beta program for one of its latest virtualization tools, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool. The tool aims to address one of the new IT challenges created by virtualization - how do I keep my offline, stored or template virtual machine images up-to-date? Virtual machines that are stored offline for a period of time are not receiving updates or patches to its operating system, applications or anti-virus solution. These images typically become out-of-date and out of compliance, and if deployed or cloned, they can either quickly be attacked, compromised or attack other network resources. While... more

TAGS: Virtualization Apps/Tools

May 11, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Microsoft releases an integrated virtualization ROI tool

One of the hurdles keeping organizations from fully embracing virtualization is cost justification. To combat that, virtualization providers have been developing and offering their own ROI and TCO calculators, and many of them are quite good. It was just over a year ago that VMware launched its own TCO/ROI Calculator. To do it right, VMware's calculator was independently developed by a leading ROI and TCO consultancy - Alinean, Inc. Microsoft has taken a page out of VMware's book. Like VMware, Microsoft has created its own ROI Tool, and it too was developed independently by Alinean and ex-Gartner TCO/ROI experts. Microsoft's... more

TAGS: General News

May 11, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VMware announces a new virtualization certification

Even as competition continues to heat up in the server virtualization world, virtualization market leader VMware continues to dominate in yet another area of the technology - certifications. Love 'em or leave 'em, those pieces of paper in the IT world can sometimes help an organization track down and identify key employee candidates to fill much needed positions. And right now, it can be frustrating and difficult for an organization to find "virtualization experts", so finding potential candidates with a certification certainly helps. And VMware is further adding to their growing list of certifications. Recently, the company announced a new... more

TAGS: General News

May 11, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Amazon EC2 and Sun OpenSolaris VMs together in Beta

Sun Microsystems announced the initial version of its opensource OpenSolaris operating system, previously only available in a developer preview release. The OpenSolaris operating system is available as a free download for developers to develop, test, and deploy new Web services and network applications. The new OS includes Sun's 128-bit ZFS file system which scales better and allows developers to protect their work with its instant rollback and continual check-sum capabilities. It also includes Solaris Containers so that developers can build virtualization-aware applications that can be run on a single instance of the Solaris operating system. At the same time, Sun... more

TAGS: General News

May 10, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Services organizations are helping the virtualization push in the datacenter

If you haven't started down the path of adding virtualization into your datacenter, what's stopping you? There are so many different benefits offered by the technology, like server consolidation, disaster recovery & business continuity, migrations, and more. And if you aren't sure, just ask a services organization like GlassHouse Technologies or SunGard Availability Services. Listen to what these two organizations are up to at the moment.    LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 10, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

ClearCube spins off software business to VDIworks

In January of this year, ClearCube introduced version 5.6 of its Sentral VDI Management System software. With this release, the company promoted the notion of "No Vendor Lock-Down", meaning that it would provide cross-platform support for hardware from all leading vendors and also provide vendor agnostic support for multiple virtualization technologies. This may be a growing trend. Back in October of 2007, Egenera also decided to start allowing its own management software, PAN Manager, to work with hardware platforms outside of its own Egenera BladeFrame product line. But now, ClearCube is taking things one step further. Rather than simply stating... more

TAGS: Desktop Virtualization

May 07, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Leostream's long virtualization journey reaches $3 million Series A funding

It has been reported by Private Equity Hub that Waltham, MA-based virtualization software company Leostream finally completed a $3 million Series A round of funding which was led by Meakem Becker Venture Capital. What's particularly interesting about this news to me is that I have somewhat of a personal history with Leostream. You see, Leostream is one of the oldest third-party virtualization software companies still around in this space. In the early days, VMware and Connectix were fighting it out as the two key server virtualization platforms on the market. However, neither company did a very successful job at managing... more

TAGS: General News

May 06, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VMware announces new Mac desktop virtualization - Fusion 2.0 Beta 1

Mac virtualization users have been watching a very interesting tennis match between VMware and Parallels. And this time, it looks like it's VMware's turn to serve with the announcement around VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1. If there was a theme with this release it might be "More. More. More." Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 is a public beta, available for download. More good news? VMware also announced that Fusion 2.0 would be a free downloadable upgrade for all VMware Fusion 1.x users. With the latest release, VMware is adding more displays, more 3-D graphics, and more of what people have been... more

TAGS: Desktop Virtualization

May 05, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VirtualBox 1.6 - Desktop virtualization comes out of the Sun

VirtualBox 1.6 is a major update to the open source desktop virtualization platform from Sun Microsystems. This is Sun's first release of the product since acquiring it from the German company Innotek back in February. This latest version of VirtualBox 1.6 now offers full support for Mac OS X and Solaris as host operating systems. For some time now, support for these platforms was available from Innotek, however, it was only experimental. With full support available, Sun is now entering into a competitive marketplace with VMware and Parallels. New features in the 1.6 version also includes a Web service API,... more

TAGS: Desktop Virtualization

May 04, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Microsoft makes their heterogeneous virtualization management play

During Microsoft Management Summit 2008, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft, outlined the company's dynamic datacenter strategy. Part of Microsoft's strategy is to expand its virtualization capabilities and to deliver automated management of heterogeneous IT environments. "At Microsoft we are helping redefine what it means to do IT management in the enterprise with the new capabilities we are announcing today," Muglia said. "By taking our knowledge of the Windows environment and expanding it to address heterogeneous management needs across platforms, applications, hardware and virtualization, we are opening up a new level of opportunity... more

TAGS: Virtualization Apps/Tools

May 03, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Parallels, Microsoft and Leopard - Mac users watch out!

Parallels continues to rock the Apple world. After its recent announcement that the company has surpassed selling 1 million copies of the Parallels Desktop product, this virtualization company is still moving quickly to try and capture even more of the Mac market. Parallels is now up to Beta4 on its anticipated server virtualization product. With build 1990, the company has re-introduced Leopard Server virtualization support back into the product - meaning that you can once again run Apple's Leopard Server in a virtual machine on an XServe running Leopard Server. In addition, they've improved the virtualization engine for added performance... more

TAGS: Server Virtualization

May 01, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

I/O and storage importance in a virtual environment

The whole notion of I/O in a virtual environment is becoming less and less of a mystery as more people are starting to realize that virtualization takes a hefty toll on the I/O of a system. Consumers will typically see this as they standardize on larger systems in order to achieve higher densities. At the same time, part of the important component of virtualization and I/O is the storage side itself. DataCore Software operates in this space and recently received a sizeable investment in their technology.   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 30, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Qumranet tackles virtualizing the desktop

The commercial sponsor of KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), Qumranet, launched its anticipated desktop virtualization solution - Solid ICE (Independent Computing Environment). The Solid ICE product is used on x86 hosts and leverages the KVM hypervisor technology. On top of that, Qumranet created its own management suite to wrap everything together. And the company's secret sauce is, well, not a sauce, but a spice. SPICE is the company's integrated remote rendering technology which connects the virtualization product to a thin client or desktop PC. The remote technology is said to be much more powerful than Microsoft's RDP, and provides instant access... more

TAGS: Desktop Virtualization

April 30, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Virtual Iron hits a customer milestone and releases a new update

Virtual Iron Software has reached a new customer milestone and at the same time released another update to their production-class server virtualization product. The company announced that its virtualization solution has been deployed in over 2,000 customer organizations. Much of Virtual Iron's growth has come from small and medium-sized enterprises, which make up about 70% of its customer base. To reach this audience, Virtual Iron says it offers comparable capabilities to VMware but in a package that is much easier to deploy and easier to afford. Both of which typically resonate well with SMBs. "There is tremendous demand worldwide for... more

TAGS: Server Virtualization

April 29, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Virtualization and Apple Mac sound like a winning combination

Remember the old days when Mac users and PC users used to argue about who had the better computer? Hmmm... Never mind. So maybe things haven't changed that much. But perhaps those Apple fans who swore off Windows might be coming around a bit? Or, maybe PC users are now crossing over to the other side, but don't want to give up their Windows applications just yet? Either way, it looks like virtualization software could be stepping in to try and mediate this ancient argument. Why not have the best of both worlds? Products like Parallels Desktop for Mac and... more

TAGS: Desktop Virtualization

April 27, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Sun Microsystems helps ISVs with SaaS model

Sun Microsystems introduced a new virtualization service called Solaris On Demand, a software as a service (SaaS) program created to help the independent software vendor (ISV) community. Solaris On Demand helps convert traditional installation applications into a software as a service model. By leveraging Sun's virtualization technology, ISVs can offer their applications on-demand without having to use a multi-tenancy application architecture and without having to make any code changes. To make this transition from a traditional software to a SaaS architecture, Sun is offering a 90-day free trial to its customers to ensure success. Joining the program, ISVs will have... more

TAGS: Application Virtualization

April 27, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Desktone's virtualization desktop-as-a-service

Massachusetts based Desktone is claiming that it is the very first provider of a system that enables delivery of virtualized desktops, calling it the Desktone Virtual-D Platform. The newly unveiled Desktone Virtual-D Platform is designed to enable service providers the ability to offer hosted, subscription based virtual desktops, dubbed as "desktops-as-a-service" or DaaS. Desktone streams the graphical interface of an entire operating system and all of the applications from a service provider's data center down to a PC or a thin client. As of right now, the service works with Microsoft Windows XP, but the company hopes to add Vista... more

TAGS: Desktop Virtualization

April 23, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VMware releases the official VirtualCenter plug-in guide

Last month, I reported that VMware was working on an "official" VMware VirtualCenter plug-in guide. And just that quickly, the company has released the guide - although only with "experimental" support. But that's more support than they would have given the reverse-engineered guide from Andrew Kutz. VMware writes: With the release of VirtualCenter 2.5, VMware offers third‐party developers and partners the ability to extend the VMware Infrastructure Client (VI Client) with their own product‐specific menu selections, views, tabs, and toolbar icons, to provide access to external, Web‐based functionality. These extensions, or VI Client Plug‐ins, comprise the set of configuration files,... more

TAGS: White Papers, Reports & Books

April 22, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VMware Q1 2008 revenues beat street expectations

VMware reported strong first quarter growth today, which seemed to calm many of the "buy and sell" folks over on Wall Street. The stock turned south earlier this year after VMware told investors that they wouldn't be able to double revenue growth every quarter. It seems these investors may have finally come to grips, at least for now. The stock has been bouncing around like a virtual machine with resource problems - thanks to DRS, HA and VMotion. VMware's stock price rose 15 percent after late trading today, thanks to an impressive report on the company's first quarter. Revenues for... more

TAGS: General News

April 22, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

AMD quad-core and Parallels Server Beta3

AMD is certainly doing their part to help push virtualization technology. The company just recently released to market their quad-core AMD Opteron processors which give machines an added boost in CPU power. And Parallels is pushing forward with their long awaited Parallels Server product which has now reached Beta 3 stage. They've enhanced stability and performance, and also added a few new features.   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 22, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Veeam announces beta program for its Reporter Enterprise Edition

Veeam has come a long way since releasing FastSCP to the VMware community back in October of 2006. Launching a number of virtualization application solutions since that time, the company has most recently entered into the VMware backup application race with their Veeam Backup for VMware Infrastructure 3 product. Now, the company is further extending a previous product, Veeam Reporter, upgrading it to a more enterprise offering. Yesterday, the company opened up a public beta for Veeam Reporter Enterprise Edition. The new offering is now designed for large VMware Infrastructure 3 environments. New features in Veeam Reporter Enterprise include: Enterprise-level... more

TAGS: Virtualization Apps/Tools

April 20, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

openQRM 3.5 released, but Qlusters bids it adieu

A posting on SourceForge.net states that Qlusters has released openQRM 3.5 to the open source community. The 3.5 release succeeds release 3.1.4 and includes a set of new features based on input from various datacenters and test/dev labs. And while a new release of a software solution is usually quite interesting, what is catching most people's attention is the rest of the announcement. In addition to making 3.5 available for download, Qlusters announced at the same time that they are saying goodbye to the open source project. In spite of the project being downloaded more than 120,000 times, Qlusters has... more

TAGS: Virtualization Apps/Tools

April 20, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

EMA virtualization research offers trends, forecasts and recommendations

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, announced the release of its latest research report titled, "Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts and Recommendations." EMA and its research director, Andi Mann, digs deep within one of 2008's hottest technologies - virtualization. A technology that cuts across many different layers such as server virtualization, network virtualization, storage virtualization, grid and cluster computing and more. In order to really see what's going on within the industry, and to move past the marketing hype, the firm surveyed more than 625 IT professionals this year in order to learn their... more

TAGS: White Papers, Reports & Books

April 17, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Virtualization and the desktop: HP with Citrix and Pano Logic

One of the hot topics that everyone loves to talk about is the datacenter and server virtualization, but the fact is, there are way more desktop machines out there than there are servers. And in some cases, those desktops could be small, shiny silver boxes brought to you by Pano Logic. HP is also looking to the desktop, and the company recently announced plans to support Citrix XenDesktop on its Proliant series and on their Compaq Thin Clients.    LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 16, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VKernel virtual appliance identifies virtualization bottlenecks

VKernel announced that it was ready to ship its Capacity Bottleneck Analyzer virtual appliance. The appliance is designed to help you with your VMware ESX environment by identifying current and future capacity bottleneck issues in order to help lower the cost of each virtual machine while working towards providing higher performance. The company said their patent-pending technology will continuously monitor CPU, memory and storage utilization trends across VMware ESX hosts, clusters and resource pools. The virtual appliance makes use of a simple-to-use, single management dashboard and provides users with the ability to receive alerts via email or SNMP. "When properly... more

TAGS: Virtual Appliances

April 16, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

Free VMware video education series now available

VMware is taking advantage of the popular video services provided by YouTube and Blip.tv by leveraging both Web sites to help educate and provide VMware users with free video training. Here at the VMware ELearning channel, the company's education services team and affiliated parties have already provided 19 videos on each service that help with VMware Server 1.0. As of right now, it looks like most people are interested in learning about creating a virtual machine clone in VMware Server 1.0 as it is currently the most viewed video in the series. These education videos range from topics such as... more

TAGS: General News

April 16, 2008 | TrackBacks: (0)

VMware helps developers with a new Virtual Disk Development Kit

Without any sort of major fuss or media blitz, VMware released a 1.0 version of its Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK). The VMware VDDK is an open API and SDK that enables VMware customers and partners to develop applications that create and access virtual disk storage. And it allows partners to extend their solutions to support virtualized IT environments and offer solutions for the virtualization market place. The VDDK supports virtual disk formats for VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI3), VMware Server, VMware Workstation and VMware Player products. It enables a wide range of use-cases for application vendors including: Creation of virtual... more

TAGS: General News