Virtualization Report | David Marshall | May 2006

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May 2006

May 31, 2006

Parallels Desktop RC2 - The Final Pre-Release Version

Parallels announces the release of Parallels Desktop RC2, the final test version of the first solution that lets users run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously, without rebooting! RC2 boasts dramatically improved product functionality, performance and stability, as well as better networking and device support.

As part of their commitment to simplicity, and in response to the user's requests, Parallels has integrated Parallels Compressor Server - a powerful management tool that can reduce the size of Windows 2000, XP, or 2003 virtual hard disks by 50% or more - directly into Parallels Desktop!

By integrating the two products, Mac users get the functionality of two great products in one simple and easy to use package. The enhanced product will be available for sale at $79.99. This is a $150 savings versus buying the two products individually.

However, if you preorder now, you can get both products at the special pre-order price of $39.99, saving $40 off of the regular price once the product is released.

Some of the new features and improvements made to the product are:

Parallels Compressor Server technology is now built-in

Significantly improved performance

Improved USB performance and broader device support

Improved Host-guest networking

Automatic network adapters now switch on-the-fly

Guest OS no longer steals host IP address in some DHCP servers

Fullscreen mode is now customizable

Integration with Virtue is now bug-free

Customizable Ctrl + Click mapping

Guest 32bit color is supported when Parallels Tools is installed

Improved Shared folders performance

Resolved shared folders/MS Office incompatibility issues

Windows 98 no longer consumes 99% host CPU even when idle (in VT-x mode)

Download Parallels Desktop RC2, here. And don't forget to pre-order it for only $39.99.

Posted by David Marshall on May 31, 2006 06:02 PM

May 31, 2006

Astaro Announces New Central Management Application for Network Assurance Appliances

Quoting from the official press release:

Astaro Corporation today released Astaro Command Center (ACC) V1, a new application for centralized management of its network assurance security appliances. With this new application, network security administrators can now easily manage and control all their Astaro Security Gateway appliance installations worldwide.

Astaro Command Center allows for centralized and efficient management of many challenging and time-consuming tasks like defining security policies, configuring applications, monitoring actual device states, and maintaining device software and pattern updates.

Its intuitive web-based user interface provides a quick overview about the actual health of each device allowing administrators to quickly see which gateways require immediate action. A new user interface leverages state-of-the-art technologies like AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) which displays changes of any data immediately without additional delays resulting from screen refreshes. This results in significantly improved ease of use when managing multiple Astaro Security Gateways.

Astaro Command Center is a highly scalable turnkey solution, designed for management of hundreds or even thousands of devices and delivers all aspects of a full-fledged central management solution.

Astaro Command Center V1 includes the following management applications:

-- Monitoring allows tracking of critical system parameters in real-time,
like detected threats, license status, versions and resource usage. Various
view options provide up-to-date information of all systems within a
complete network infrastructure.

-- A World Map allows easy localization of a specific device within a
large global network. A zoom function allows navigation to specific regions
of interest.

-- Inventory management provides comprehensive information about each
device such as CPU, hard disk, memory, network interfaces, and software
version, among others. All Astaro Security Gateway devices are
automatically integrated into device groups.

-- System maintenance for connected gateways offers centralized control
of updates, system shutdowns and restarts for all selected devices.

-- Single-sign-on eases configuration management via centralized login to
each device's WebAdmin, the browser based administrative interface for
Astaro Security Gateways. Thus, administrators have to login only once to
access any firewall within the network.

-- Role-based Multi-administrative support allows the definition of
administrators with different roles for using different management
functions within Astaro Command Center concurrently.

Availability and Pricing
Astaro Command Center will be shipped as a software appliance (that is, as a bootable ISO image including the operating system and all applications) capable of being installed on a dedicated Intel-compatible PC.

Supported clients are all Astaro Security Gateways running:

-- ASG software V6, version 6.200 and higher, or
-- Astaro Security Linux V5, starting from version 5.211

Astaro Command Center V1 will be available immediately. This release is available to Astaro Security Gateway customers at no charge.

ACC V1 can be downloaded via the following link: ftp://ftp2.astaro.de or http://download2.astaro.com

Posted by David Marshall on May 31, 2006 05:45 PM

May 31, 2006

Double-Take Software and PlateSpin Partner

Double-Take Software and PlateSpin Partner to Protect Entire Windows Servers; Hardware-independent solution combines real-time data replication, whole server protection and bare-metal recovery

Double-Take Software and PlateSpin have formed a partnership to offer centralized backup of entire Windows servers with a full recovery solution that is fast, flexible and hardware independent. Customers can combine Double-Take (Double-Take Software's data replication software package) with PlateSpin's PowerConvert (PlateSpin's OS portability software package) to experience continuous, whole-server protection and bare-metal recovery. They can restore servers automatically and recover business-critical data immediately onto any physical or virtual platform. This solution is much easier than manually reinstalling everything from scratch, application by application.

"The first initiative of this new partnership between Double-Take Software and PlateSpin provides customers with a solution that uses the best technologies from both companies," said John Stetic, Director of Product Management at PlateSpin. "Our customers are looking for proven, reliable and cost-effective ways to address their business continuity needs. By leveraging PlateSpin's OS Portability technology in PowerConvert and the replication technology within Double-Take, they can reduce costs by achieving an unprecedented level of restore flexibility and speed."

"With this joint solution, customers can simply replicate entire servers back to a central site to maintain a continuously updated recovery image," said Bob Roudebush, Director of Solutions Engineering at Double-Take Software. "They can enjoy reliable, whole-server recovery at a fraction of the time and cost it takes to use solutions like tape-based data recovery."

The two products are extremely complementary, and together form an optimal solution for disaster recovery. The server and its applications can now be replicated locally or across long distance WAN connections to a central backup repository. And unlike traditional imaging or backup solutions which require identical hardware, this solution leverages PlateSpin PowerConvert which allows systems to be quickly restored to the same or different hardware, or even to a virtual machine. And rather than having out of date image archives, the solution leverages Double-Take's real-time protection capability for a continuously updated copy of the data. Disaster Recovery made easy!

For more information, visit www.doubletake.com or www.platespin.com.

Posted by David Marshall on May 31, 2006 05:15 PM

May 31, 2006

InfoWorld Virtualization Report Podcast

VMware is moving forward, not bothered by WinHEC news... Virtualization Appliance Challenge is closed! And then, IBM announces the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller 4.1 listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on May 31, 2006 05:06 PM

May 31, 2006

VMware Receives Network Computing's "Well-Connected" Award

VMware, Inc. announced that their VMware GSX Server product was selected as the winner of Network Computing's 12th Annual Well-Connected award, taking top honors in the Virtual Machine Software category.

For those people who aren't familiar with the Well-Connected Awards, they are unique because they are the only industry awards given by technologists based on real-world use and integration. The products selected for the Well-Connected awards are tested in an actual business environment and then judged by the Network Computing editors.

Don MacVittie, senior technology editor at Network Computing, said "GSX Server has better management tools and support for more operating systems than its competitors plus advanced virtual machine functionality, such as virtual CD-ROMs." He calls the product "an administrator's dream" when it comes to server consolidation.

The GSX Server product has officially come to an end, however, its successor product, VMware Server, is a freely distributed, feature-packed, entry-level server virtualization product that hopes to continue its success story.

Dan Chu, VMware's senior director of developer products, was pleased to receive the award. He remarked, "Over the last few months, we've seen hundreds of thousands of beta downloads for VMware Server, formerly known as GSX Server. By making VMware Server a free download, we've set the gold standard for all customers and users in terms of introductory virtualization, while also making available the option to add world-class management with VMware VirtualCenter and to upgrade our enterprise-class suite of products."

Posted by David Marshall on May 31, 2006 04:45 PM

May 31, 2006

VMware Releases Upgrade Patch 1 for ESX Server 2.5.3

If your company is running VMware's latest enterprise product, VMware ESX Server 2.5.3, you might want to consider downloading their latest upgrade patch. The upgrade patch is only for users running the 2.5.3 version.

The upgrade patch addresses the following issues:

The problem documented in knowledge base article 2075, "vmxnet Not Working under SuSE 9.3 in ESX Server" has been fixed.

Eliminates a VMKernel system heap memory leak that would lead to an unrecoverable error in certain instances.

Fixes a problem in which copying a first-level redo file on a virtual machine in append mode did not result in the redo file being completely flushed to disk. This meant that powering on the virtual machine would produce an error message stating the REDO log was corrupt and needed to be discarded. The fix ensures that a consistency check is triggered, correcting the redo file header.

Enhances failover for raw device mapping in Physical Compatibility mode.

Speeds up the recovery for ESX Server and virtual machines when an ISL cable is pulled from the fabric.

Adds active/passive support for the HDS 95xx storage arrays.

The patch also adds support for the following additional guest operating systems:

Novell NetWare 6.5 SP4a

Novell NetWare 6.5 SP5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 Update 7

To view installation and release notes, go here. To download the patch, go here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 31, 2006 04:34 PM

May 27, 2006

Mandriva First Linux to Include OS-Level Virtualization Technology

Recently, various Linux flavors have been coming out with announcements that they are incorporating and integrating virtualization technology into their versions of Linux. Until now, it seems as though Xen has exclusively been given the nod to BE that technology.

Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrakesoft, is the publisher of the popular Mandriva Linux operating system. It seems as though they too have now made a commitment to add virtualization technology into their product roadmap. Unlike the others who have chosen Xen, Mandriva has made an announcement that they are working with the OpenVZ project calling for the OpenVZ operating system virtualization software to be included as part of the Mandriva Corporate Server 4.0 product. The product hopes to offer a solid foundation for a stable and cost-effective open source infrastructure for organizations building on Linux.

OpenVZ is operating system level server virtualization technology, built on Linux, which creates isolated, secure virtual environments on a single physical server - enabling greater server utilization and superior availability with fewer performance penalties. The virtual servers ensure that applications do not conflict and can be re-booted independently.

"The OpenVZ technology is a perfect match for our next Mandriva Corporate Server release 4.0. It provides our customers with a proven virtualization layer to deliver flexible and efficient solutions. We are pleased to offer OpenVZ as a standard component in the Mandriva Corporate Server 4.0 toolbox to simplify production management and maximize hardware usage," said David Barth, CTO at Mandriva.

"Embedding the OpenVZ technology directly into the Mandriva kernel will give Mandriva customers unparalleled virtualization functionality," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project. "We're very pleased to work with Mandriva and make our technology widely available via the popular Linux distribution."

"OpenVZ is also an excellent open source project. By making it available more widely and easily as part of Mandriva Linux, we hope to widen the user community and help improve the integration of virtualization technologies into a standard Linux kernel," added Klara Mika, ISV Manager at Mandriva.

To learn more about the OpenVZ project, visit their blog site that discusses the technology by going here, blog.openvz.org.

Posted by David Marshall on May 27, 2006 02:18 PM

May 27, 2006

VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge - Submission Period Closed

It's official, the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge (UVAC) is now closed! Effective May 26, 2006 at 11:59 PM PST, phase one of the VMware UVAC officially ended, allowing phase two to begin.

Now that the community has finished uploading their virtual appliances, phase two (the voting) can begin. We now wait for VMware to publish the virtual appliances on VMTN, where everyone will be invited to download, use, rate, and comment on them. Judging will be based on the appliance description in the entry, the ratings of the community, and the expert opinion of the judging panel.

Once phase two has completed, phase three (the announcement) will take place. VMware plans to announce the Challenge winners on Monday, August 14, 2006.

August 14th is not that far away, which doesn't give us very much time to download, try, and rate these appliances. If you want to be heard or have your opinion count, don't delay!

Posted by David Marshall on May 27, 2006 12:01 PM

May 27, 2006

InfoWorld Virtualization Report Podcast

If you haven't looked into desktop virtualization, such as VMware's VDI, don't worry. VMware is offering a new series of Webinars to help you understand! And then... We talk about Jeff Woolsey's Viridian demonstration at WinHEC 2006. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on May 27, 2006 11:55 AM

May 25, 2006

NeoPath Networks Closes $11 Million Funding Round

NeoPath Networks, a provider of file storage virtualization solutions, announced that is has closed an $11 million round of funding that included participation by Cisco Systems, Inc., which helps underline the networking gear maker's continued interest in virtualization technology. Cisco joined previous investors such as August Capital, DCM-Doll Capital Management and Gabriel Venture Partners in the latest round of funding, bringing the total investment in the company up to almost $30 million.

NeoPath plans on using the funds to continue its aggressive customer and partner growth, and to further enhance its products to meet the demands of its rapidly growing customer base. To help spearhead these sales and marketing activities, NeoPath has appointed former Network Appliance executive Ali Zadeh to chief operating office (COO) of the company.

"Organizations are increasingly recognizing the benefits of deploying file storage virtualization solutions such as NeoPath's File Director," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy group. "It offers a way for system administrators to simplify the complexities of managing shared resources and file systems without disrupting the user/workflow experience. File storage virtualization has the potential to change the dynamics of how companies implement networked storage."

NeoPath, founded in 2002, makes a device that consolidates file systems on servers and network attached storage spread across an enterprise. It allows administrators to configure and allocate storage space across the network through a centralized interface. Customers use NeoPath's family of products to perform painless data migrations, implement intelligent storage tiering, and establish a unified namespace for non-disruptive storage aggregation.

Posted by David Marshall on May 25, 2006 07:04 PM

May 25, 2006

InfoWorld Virtualization Podcast

The talk about Microsoft acquiring Softricity was huge, but what about the news that Stream Theory dropped? Patent infringement? And then... Do Mac users really want to run Windows operating systems on their Macs? Macworld asked that very question, so lets find out the answer. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on May 25, 2006 03:40 PM

May 24, 2006

Microsoft Serious About Virtualization

If there was anything I took away from Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC 2006), it was that Microsoft finally seems to be serious about virtualization. Serious in the sense that Microsoft appears to be bound and determined to make a clear commitment to the technology by making a huge investment in virtualization. First, they plan to ship an advanced new virtualization software for Windows, a hypervisor codenamed "Viridian", within 180 days of the release to manufacturing of the next version of Microsoft Windows Server, codenamed "Longhorn". Continuing on that effort, they also plan to ship a management platform, formerly known as "Carmine" and now dubbed System Center Virtual Machine Manager. And with their final announcement came the acknowledgement that Microsoft intended to purchase the desktop and application virtualization company, Softricity.

During the keynote address, Microsoft's Jeff Woolsey, a lead program manager on the Windows Server team, demonstrated to the audience some of the key features and capabilities that Windows Server Virtualization will provide.

A uniprocessor, 32-bit virtual machine running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition was brought online. The virtual machine was originally created with the free version of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. It was then migrated to Windows Server Virtualization to demonstrate the fact that Microsoft virtualization technologies were compatible and portable to newer platforms.

Next, a second virtual machine was brought online. This time, the virtual machine was running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, to show the interoperability of Windows Server Virtualization. So what is the big deal about showing a non-Microsoft operating system running within their virtualization platform? The answer, to prove to customers that Microsoft's solution meets both interoperability and standardization when it comes to selecting a virtualization platform. Customers do not want to run multiple platforms, they want to standardize on a single solution.

Woolsey then demonstrated a third virtual machine, this time running a Windows Server 2003, x-64 Edition guest operating system with dual processor. By showing support of both 64-bit guest operating systems and multi-processor virtual machines, Windows Server Virtualization shows it can scale.

He then showcased their new virtualized I/O architecture by demonstrating the architectures ability to hot-add functionality within the virtual machine. As an example, they demonstrated adding a network adapter to a live running virtual machine, where a network adapter previously didn't exist. He also demonstrated hot-adding or re-allocating RAM in a virtual machine, by changing a live running virtual machine from having 4GB of memory to 5GB of memory without skipping a beat. No downtime, no reboot. It also proved that the previous virtual server limitation of 3.6GB of memory per virtual machine has been shattered as Windows Server Virtualization can allocate more than 32GB of memory per virtual machine. Additionally, the new product also increases support for a virtual machine to be created with up to eight processors.

Woosley added, "This is also an excellent example of the integration between the Windows kernel and the Windows hypervisor and how we're providing our customers the best solution in terms of dynamic capabilities and performance". Longhorn Server has been built to take advantage of hypervisor-based virtualization.

To view the keynote address, you can watch the video, here. They start to talk about virtualization around the 25 minute mark.

Posted by David Marshall on May 24, 2006 08:58 PM

May 24, 2006

Webinar Series: Introducing VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

VMware is launching a new series of Webinars to introduce the IT community to their Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). VDI provides desktop environments as an enterprise hosted service. It provides isolated PC environments that are centrally located and managed in the data center. VDI allows administrators to provide PC environments with all the benefits of virtualization: central management, hardware consolidation, and resource flexibility.

The entire series consists of seven Webinars and will be devivered over the next two months using the following schedule:

Event: Simplify Remote Desktop Management with VMware & Citrix
Date and Time: Thursday, June 1, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: With enterprises facing an ever increasing distributed end-user population, Citrix and VMware believe that virtual desktop infrastructures will be an important deployment model. By employing the Citrix Access Infrastructure in conjunction VMware VDI, enterprises that now require virtualized OS infrastructures for their remote desktop users can easily deliver and manage those desktops. Attend this session to learn how VMware and Citrix are providing enterprises with desktop management solutions.

Event: Effective Desktop Disaster Recovery with VMware & Route 1
Date and Time: Tuesday, June 6, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: As companies adopt business continuity programs that also encompass desktop environments, the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure will be a key initiative. Route1 and VMware enable organizations to simply and cost-effectively deploy the combination of virtualized environments built with VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Route1's SAFE Response solution. Route1's SAFE (Simplified Access For Emergency) Response Solution for proportional business continuity utilizes the Route1 MobiKEY to lessen the operational impact of potential worker quarantines and other disruptions resulting from man-made and natural causes. MobiKEY provides simple and secure remote access to your computer's applications, files, and network resources, from wherever you are. The MobiKEY is powered by Route1's core delivery platform - MobiNET which is a highly secure, global managed service that manages users' identity, and the services which they are authorized to access.

Event: VMware & Leostream Secure Off-Shore Development
Date and Time: Tuesday, June 13, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: Off-shore development provides a cost effective option for many enterprises that was not previously available. Although lower in costs, this software delivery method also poses its own challenges associated with providing secure development environments to large teams of off shore developers. Attend this session to learn how Leostream's Virtual Desktop Controller with VMware virtual infrastructure enables virtual desktop deployments to successfully scale to thousands of users. It enables end-users to log on via a web browser, be authenticated against Active Directory, and then automatically connected via RDP to the appropriate virtual machine-hosted Windows Desktop system.

Event: Streamline Your Outsourced Support Operations with VMware & Propero
Date and Time: Tuesday, June 20, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is a secure way to provide desktop environments for transaction workers such as call centers and order processing, particularly for outsourced and off-shored environments. Many call center operators do not need the local flexibility of a thick client and are typically using the computer for one single application. By serving up a server hosted desktop, a company can easily refresh the application or desktop to these professionals centrally. Propero's workSpace for VMware provides seamless, secure access, with full single sign on, to personalized virtual desktops and virtual applications from any location with a browser. In addition, workSpace's dynamic load-balancing and session management features ensure virtual machines consume server resources only when they need to, keeping costs low and simplifying resource management.

Event: VMware & IBM Simplify Desktop Management for Branch Office Operations
Date and Time: Tuesday, June 27, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: IBM's Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure (VHCI) brings together all the benefits and control of a standalone desktop to end users while providing centralized management and increased security and control for the IT administrator. An ideal solution for remote employees or branch office environments, IBM leverages VMware virtual infrastructure software to help improve IT department efficiencies by optimizing resource utilization, as well as increase end user performance by dynamically provisioning resources to meet the performance needs of each virtual hosted client machine. This enables companies to support more users with fewer resources, while offering the best possible desktop experience from virtually anywhere and on virtually any device.

Event: Ensuring Sarbanes-Oxley compliance with VMware & Wyse
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 11, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: Sarbanes-Oxley legislation requires that organizations have internal controls as they relate to financial reporting. One such area for this control is access to the financial systems and data. With the Wyse and VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution, organizations are able to host and stream complete computing environments from within the data center, allowing access through the Wyse thin computing solutions. This provides enhanced manageability and security for our enterprise customers of their financial information and systems.

Event: Cost Effective Solutions for Educational Institutions with Ardence & VMware
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 18, 2006
10:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time

Description: Educational organizations face particular financial challenges when approaching technology implementations. As public sector entities, finding a combination cost effective and best of breed can oftentimes prove difficult. The Ardence Desktop Edition in conjunction with VMware virtual infrastructure allows administrators to stream virtual machine images to diskless desktops from network storage. This breakthrough in desktop management and software distribution radically lowers the total cost of desktop ownership. IT administrators are able to provision virtual desktops from private or shared images over the network in seconds, providing unprecedented scalability, flexibility and responsiveness.

To register for the Webinar events, visit the following Website, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 24, 2006 06:26 AM

May 23, 2006

Microsoft Announces Virtual Machine Manager

Information about Microsoft's Virtual Machine Manager started to leak out into the industry before Microsoft could make an official announcement at their WinHEC conference in Seattle.

Early on, we had tidbits of information about a management product codenamed Carmine, which was later erroneously dubbed Virtual Server Manager. Now that the WinHEC conference has started, official word from Microsoft is coming out, and the product now known as Virtual Machine Manager is starting to take shape. It appears the product is scheduled for a public Beta 1 release sometime during the summer of 2006, followed by a Beta 2 release around Q1 of 2007, and finally, an RTM of the product sometime in the second half of 2007.

With the announcement of an early beta launch of the product, it looks as though Microsoft may have shifted gears. Prior to the announcement, it was believed that the product would only be offered with the upcoming release of codename Viridian. However, support is officially being offered for virtualization hosts running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or later.

The product is offering some of the most requested features that virtualization administrators have been patiently waiting for such as physical resource optimization and rapid provisioning.

Physical Resource Optimization - Virtual Machine Manager delivers simple and complete support for consolidating physical hardware on virtual infrastructure and optimizing utilization. It includes:

Simple identification of consolidation candidates - The first step to consolidation is to identify the appropriate physical workloads for consolidation onto virtual hardware. The Virtual Machine Manager leverages the existing historical performance data in the System Center Operations Manager database to list the consolidation candidates in rank order.

Fast and reliable P2V - Virtual Machine Manager uses block based differencing technology and the Volume Shadow Copy Service to help convert the virtual machine at disk speed.

Intelligent placement - To maximize the utilization of physical assets, the product takes various data into account and then intelligently places the virtual workload onto the appropriate physical host server.

Centralized resource optimization - Virtual Machine Manager enables centralized changes to help tune resources within each physical host server. It also enables simple migration of a virtual machine from one physical server to another to optimize resources via workload migration.

Rapid Provisioning and Agility - Virtual Machine Manager provides rapid provisioning of virtual machines from physical machines, templates in the image library, or by end-users.

Central library - Virtual Machine Manager provides a complete library to centralize and manage virtual hard disks, ISO images, hardware configurations, as well as template images.
Self service provisioning - The end user is presented with a very simple web page that enables virtual machine provisioning within controlled presets identified by the administrator.
Industry standard storage infrastructure - Virtual Machine Manager employs a distributed storage architecture on industry standard hardware and network infrastructures. It offers the ability to centrally manage the images while locating images most closely to where they will be deployed.
Host provisioning - Virtual Machine Manager will identify the physical virtual hosts in the enterprise by discovery in Active Directory by having the administrator group all of the virtual hosts into an OU and pointing Virtual Machine Manager to that OU to discover and setup virtual hosts.

To read the product's overview, click here. And to read the product's FAQ, click here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 23, 2006 01:55 PM

May 23, 2006

PlateSpin Assists Data Centers with its Server Consolidation Product Suite

PlateSpin has announced the general availability release of its Consolidation Planning Module for PlateSpin PowerRecon. The module is a completely automated analysis engine which determines optimal fit between application workloads and server resources. It takes hardware, software, and performance information gathered by PlateSpin's PowerRecon package, and then automatically provides a recommendation for the optimal allocation of servers to the most appropriate virtual hosts, whether that is VMware ESX Server, VMware Server, or Microsoft Virtual Server. It uniquely uses CPU, disk, network, memory and time to determine the proper distribution of servers to a set of virtual hosts. By using the PlateSpin suite of products, data center managers can accelerate their server consolidation projects by quickly and easily determining where to consolidate servers to minimize hardware, while maximizing application performance.

PlateSpin's press release goes on to say:

"Deciding on how to consolidate servers without proper analysis, optimization and what-if modeling tools is far from easy," said John Stetic, PlateSpin Director of Product Management. "By using PowerRecon with the Consolidation Planning Module and PowerConvert, our customers can significantly accelerate their time to value and maximize their return on investment with virtualization."

The Consolidation Planning Module expands the capabilities of PlateSpin PowerRecon with the following features:

Automatically analyzes the five critical dimensions of workload: CPU, Disk, Memory, Network and Time across hundreds of servers simultaneously

Target server templates allow users to input virtual host server characteristics of their preferred makes and models prior to purchasing them

Modeling of virtual host utilization and allocation of VMs to those hosts

Time-based analysis to stagger multiple workloads evenly across virtual hosts

Automatically determines number of host servers required as target for a given set of physical servers to consolidate

Analysis support for both Windows and Linux servers

The Consolidation Planning Module is the first in a series of licensable modules that will be offered with PlateSpin PowerRecon to optimize the use of servers in the data center. This first module will enable data centers to perform continuous server consolidation by allowing data center managers to quickly and easily assess their optimization levels at any time. When combined with PlateSpin PowerConvert to automate migrating server workloads to the destinations recommended by PowerRecon, the combined product suite provides the industry's most automated end-to-end software solution for continuously optimizing the data center.

Posted by David Marshall on May 23, 2006 01:28 PM

May 23, 2006

rPath Wins Department of Energy Grant to Manage Application Delivery for Grid Computing

rPath, a platform provider for creating and maintaining Linux software appliances, announced today that it has been notified that it is a recipient of a $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Department of Energy (DOE). rPath plans on using the grant money to enable its rBuilder platform to create Xen virtual machine images for deployment in grid environments such as the Open Science Grid.

According to their press release:

Large scale grid computing platforms are needed for scientific research, but it is difficult to match available grid capacity with applications because each of the National Laboratory grids is unique in its operating system configuration. rPath's virtual appliance technology solves this problem by combining applications with their operating environments in virtual containers which can be run on any available grid.
According to DOE personnel who reviewed rPath's proposal, the technology "could represent a breakthrough" in the packaging, delivery and maintenance of distributed computing environments. DOE reviewers went on to say that rPath's proposal is backed by "highly skilled people from diverse backgrounds whose combined knowledge should produce a significant advance."

"rPath is excited to be working towards universal application deployment on grids with the Department of Energy," said Erik Troan, rPath founder and CTO. "Together we will show how rPath's virtual appliance technology increases the utilization of grids by making those resources readily available to a wide array of applications."

Posted by David Marshall on May 23, 2006 01:07 PM

May 22, 2006

Application Streaming Monkey Wrench

News about Microsoft acquiring Softricity took the virtualization world by storm! Was it real? Was it a rumor? Who could tell? The news hit the streets so quickly, it spread like a bad rumor in high school, like poison ivy on a 6 year old, like... you get the picture. Soon, everyone was whispering about the possible acquisition - magazines, weblogs, and podcasts.

Today, the market wire received another interesting report. Streaming application technology provider Stream Theory filed a lawsuit against Softricity, AppStream, and Extent claiming the three companies are infringing on its U.S. patent number 6,453,334. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, seeks damages and an injunction against the three companies for their willful infringement of Stream Theory's patent.

The company claims that the U.S. patent office issued the patent on September 17, 2002, and the patent describes "Method and apparatus to allow remotely located computer programs and/or data to be accessed on a local computer in a secure, time-limited manner, with persistent caching." It is believed that this is the earliest patent filed in the field of streaming software as it was filed with the U.S. Patent Office on June 16, 1997.

It will be interesting to see how this patent is interpreted and enforced.

Stream Theory's software streaming technology platforms, StreamFlow and AppExpress, enable fast, reliable application deployments while retaining all user-accessible features and functions. It virtually eliminates application conflicts by delivering only the runtime code that end-users need for local execution of the application. A publishing process breaks existing software into smaller pieces that can be delivered efficiently over a broadband network. It streams only the necessary segments of an application to the desktop, and once streamed to the end user, the runtime code is cached there. New features or changes to the application are then streamed to the desktop as needed.

To find out more information about Stream Theory, their products, or their patent, visit the company's Website, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 22, 2006 05:35 PM

May 22, 2006

Egenera Named to Red Herring 100

Egenera was recognized today as one of the top private technology companies in North America as it was selected as a winner of the annual "Red Herring 100 North America" award by Red Herring magazine. The list of 100 private companies in North America recognizes those companies that play a leading role in innovating the technology business. The entire list can be viewed at their Website, www.redherring.com.

Quoting from their official press release:

"It is an honor to be acknowledged by Red Herring as one of the top private companies in North America," said Bob Dutkowsky, chairman, president and CEO of Egenera. "Not only does this award validate Egenera's longevity and value for customers, but it recognizes the innovative people that come to work at Egenera every day. We've assembled a world-class team that truly believes in what we're building. This award is a direct result of the execution, focus and passion of the entire Egenera organization."
Egenera was founded in March 2000 by Vern Brownell, former CTO of Goldman Sachs, based on his experience running one of the world's largest and most sophisticated datacenters. An early pioneer in pivotal markets such as virtualization, blade servers and utility computing, Egenera brings its experience and depth to a rapidly growing customer list of global enterprises, service providers and federal agencies.

Vern Brownell, Egenera founder and CTO, will present the company's strategy at the exclusive Red Herring Spring 2006 CEO summit, May 23-25 in Monterey, Calif. The event will host a select group of technology entrepreneurs, investors and corporate developers who will be the first to explore this next wave of disruptive technology companies.

"With venture capital flowing again, we're seeing a lot of innovative new companies taking on the established players with disruptive technologies and innovative business plans," said Joel Dreyfuss, editor-in-chief, Red Herring. "The Red Herring 100 North America companies, among them Egenera, are pushing and breaking the boundaries of the technology business and we are excited to report on their success stories."

More Than Just Buzz

Red Herring's lists of top private companies are an important part of the magazine's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and leaders. Companies including Google and eBay were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors as some that would change the way we live and work.

After receiving more than 1,000 submissions and nominations, Red Herring's editorial staff rigorously evaluated Egenera and the other contenders through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development. The Red Herring 100 North America companies are at the forefront of the technologies that are changing the business of technology in profound ways.

To honor the Red Herring 100 companies, Red Herring has invited their CEOs and founders to present at its Red Herring Spring 2006 conference, a forum for technology's most exciting companies, and to share their insights on the future of innovation and the entrepreneurial journey. Scheduled to take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Monterey, this intimate, invitation-only conference will explore "The Pursuit of Disruption" and how it spawns unexpected opportunities, novel alliances, and great success stories.

Posted by David Marshall on May 22, 2006 04:55 PM

May 21, 2006

OpenVZ User Community Enthusiastic About Operating System Virtualization Project

It looks like the OpenVZ project is really taking off within the international community. The OpenVZ project freely distributes and offers support to its users, promoting operating system virtualization through a collaborative, community effort. Since going into full production late last year, the project has been very active within the community - the support forum has had a major increase in message posts and the OpenVZ Website has already attracted more than one million hits for the month of April.

The software comes with user tools that help automate the management of virtual servers. It creates isolated and secure environments on a single physical server while enabling greater server utilization and superior availability with fewer performance penalties. The software takes advantage of the power of modern CPUs from both Intel and AMD, including the latest dual-core technologies. OpenVZ is open source software that is used as the basis for the Virtuozzo virtualization software product and is supported by SWsoft.

The project maintains a blog site discussing the product as well as virtualization technology in general. The blog site can be accessed here, http://blog.openvz.org. Or to learn more about the project, you can also visit the official Website, http://openvz.org.

The worldwide user community offers positive feedback on the operating system virtualization project. Check out what people are saying in this official press release.

HERNDON, Va., May 19, 2006 - The OpenVZ worldwide user community reports positive feedback on the operating system virtualization project, including those who prefer OpenVZ (http://openvz.org) over their experience with other open source virtualization initiatives.

Rick Blundell in Florida currently has 20 OpenVZ virtual servers running and says, "My experience with OpenVZ has been excellent." He is an active member of the OpenVZ user community who has helped others based on his experience, while at other times received helpful advice. "I find OpenVZ much easier to use in comparison to Xen."

John Kelly in South Carolina says, "I need to conserve my resources as much as possible so for my needs, OpenVZ is better than Xen. The one-kernel approach conserves memory, leaving more for applications. And having all virtual servers in one disk partition saves disk space, too." Kelly added, "The ease of quickly installing new operating environments with the template management function is a surprise bonus."

Werner Fischer in Austria has done development work with OpenVZ and high availability clustering, which he says, "makes it possible to start a virtual machine in seconds after a failover" within the information technology infrastructure. Werner Fischer is a developer at Thomas-Krenn.AG. He recently presented a paper on the subject at the Linux Tag conference in Germany (on May 6).

Martin Dobrev in Bulgaria uses OpenVZ on a production server and says, "The existing configuration files and startup scripts for different Linux distributions are making my life easy." He continues to use Linux-VServer virtualization software, which he expects to convert to OpenVZ. "OpenVZ software is innovative and easy-to-use virtualization technology," he said. "I find it's easy to set up a running virtual server in a short time."

Justin Bridges in Georgia echoed those comments praising OpenVZ, which he said "is very easy to set up" and further commented "OpenVZ rocks." He is a self-described "big fan" and reports he has never encountered a problem with the open source OpenVZ virtualization software. He set up dedicated virtual servers for playing online games and built a control panel for users that tracks their game scoring.

"It's gratifying to see the diversity in the ways that OpenVZ is being used, and consistency in the user benefits of performance and simple administration of virtual servers," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project. "Our goal, of course, is to gain adoption as part of the mainstream and other Linux distributions. We continue to build a vibrant, involved user community in the OpenVZ collaborative open source virtualization project."

Posted by David Marshall on May 21, 2006 09:13 AM

May 20, 2006

Will VMware ESX Server 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0 Launch in June?

Will VMware ESX Server 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0 really launch in June? According to a news article by CRN, that is exactly what is expected to happen. They claim that VMware plans on announcing the imminent availability of both products, as well as a new pricing model. When? The first week of June is being thrown around, although partners are saying VMware may formally announce availability of the VMware platform during the first week of June, but it may not be broadly available in the channel until July or August.

The announcement about VMware ESX Server 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0 took center stage at last year's VMworld. The buzz that circulated around the two products spread quickly throughout the industry. People everywhere have been waiting for it; so many people in fact, that it was assumed that many companies were holding off on virtualizing their environments until the new releases became available. The two products have been undergoing extensive testing, both internally as well as through a beta program that began around October of 2005.

The article also mentions possible price changes. It claims VMware is planning to offer aggressive pricing on its ESX Server 3.0 product. Although prices overall may not be reduced as the highly sought after DAS and DRS features may be priced separately as add-on services. In addition, a new per-user pricing model may be launched to help support VMware's increasingly popular enterprise hosted desktop model. VMware's price per desktop is expected to be around $200 per user.

It is safe to say, the IT community is certainly anticipating the release of VMware ESX Server 3.0. And with Xen, Microsoft, and even VMware all releasing a "free" server virtualization platform, it's no wonder that people are talking about ESX Server undergoing some sort of pricing restructuring. It just makes sense, doesn't it?

Posted by David Marshall on May 20, 2006 05:38 PM

May 20, 2006

Thank Enomaly for Making Xen Management Easier

Enomaly, Inc. announced the beta deployment of Enomalism, a pre-packaged virtualization infrastructure solution based on Xen 3.0 and available under the LGPL open source license. The Enomalism Virtualized Management Console (VMC) is an open source web-based systems administrator management tool for XEN hypervisor. Now, servers with hundreds of multiple virtualized systems can be managed as easily as a standalone server by using a centralized web-based interface. Enomalism also includes a virtual server creation wizard as well as templates that help facilitate virtualized server configuration, application deployment, and centralized software patch management.

By offering a single interface for managing multiple virtualized servers across assorted platforms, a single administrator can monitor and administer both Linux and Windows servers using the same interface without having to learn extensive OS skills.

It all boils down to the fact that the Enomalism package leverages all of the features that the Xen hypervisor brings to the virtualization table, and in turn, makes them easier to use, deploy, and manage.

A copy of the Enomalism beta product can be downloaded, here.

Quoting from Enomaly's official press release:

"By using Enomalism, organizations can clearly implement a controlled and easy to manage virtualization environment resulting in increased server utilization, reduced IT cost and improved operational performance," said Reuven Cohen, CTO of Enomaly. "Enomalism supplies customers with a superior virtualization solution that provides open access to source code and price performance benefits over proprietary offerings. By leveraging Xen virtualization technology and open source standards, Enomalism increases flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership for our enterprise customers".
Xen is an operating system level server virtualization solution that makes efficient use of your hardware, software and management resources. Xen lets a computer run several operating systems simultaneously, sharing the same hardware and more effectively utilizing its capacity than is typically the case for stand-alone servers. In the Xen virtual environment independent servers perform and execute with their own memory and I/O, configuration files, users and applications running on a single operating system.

Enomalism enables customers from a single interface to start, stop and move virtual machines from one physical computer to another without any interruption in service or availability. Enomalism comes equipped with a provisioning wizard which deploys new virtual machines and centralized user management. Customers can manage memory resources changing virtual machine behavior so priorities are easily met.

Posted by David Marshall on May 20, 2006 05:00 PM

May 20, 2006

InfoWorld Virtualization Report Podcast

Today we continue talking about the virtual appliance within a PC. Similar to the approach that Intel is taking with vPro, we take a look at two other companies pitching their own ideas for virtual appliances to augment the PC - Astaro and Lenovo. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on May 20, 2006 11:25 AM

May 19, 2006

Parallels Makes a Few Changes

It looks like Parallels is making a few changes. First, a name change. As they approach the release of their Parallels Workstation product for Mac OS X, they decided to make a product name change. Because "Workstation" is a very Windows-centric term, the company decided to make it look and sound more like a Mac product. The new name? "Parallels Desktop for Mac".

So what other changes have been made? As they go into the release candidate stage, they have made a number of improvements, in part, due to the 100,000+ beta testers that were hammering away at the product and sending in comments. Those improvements include:

New look and feel
Improved performance and stability
Better and broader USB support
Improved Shared Folder functionality
Improved networking
Better sound support
Better fullscreen operation
Resolved Suspend/Resume issues
Uninstaller introduced
National keyboards mapping issues have been fixed
Red "Power Off" button now always acts like Power Off
Blue "Pause" button now always acts like Suspend
The "Pause" button was moved to the VM menu

And they are still trying to resolve some USB instability with certain devices, as well as correcting an installation hang on FreeBSD 5.4.

Upgrade to RC, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 19, 2006 04:25 AM

May 18, 2006

Is Softricity Being Purchased by Microsoft?

According to CRN, Microsoft is in talks to buy application virtualization software vendor Softricity.

I'd like to say that the news doesn't come as a shock, but quite frankly, I was shocked! Sure, there was a lot of news about Softricity and SoftGrid 4.0 that came out of the Microsoft Management Summit last month, and sure news spread like wildfire that SoftGrid 4.0 would tie in with Microsoft's Systems Management Server 2003. I'm still floored! While the deal isn't signed, sealed, and delivered, it appears as though they are heading into the final stretches - they just need to get beyond some last minute haggling kind of stuff.

CRN says the deal is expected to be finished before the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle next week. And their sources also claim that Microsoft will unveil at WinHEC Virtual DLL, a feature for Windows Vista developed jointly with Softricity.

It looks like EMC isn't the only company spending its war chest to accumulate solid software solutions and then bring it under the family umbrella.

Read the entire CRN article, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 18, 2006 08:53 PM

May 17, 2006

PlateSpin Announces Milestone - Reaching 1000 Customers

PlateSpin is a software company that is focused on solving difficult business problems by offering truly innovative technological solutions. And today, May 17th 2006, they announced a new company milestone - more than 1,000 enterprise customers have now selected the company's data center software solutions to help manage continuous server consolidations, hardware migrations, virtualization, disaster recovery, and the ongoing optimization of their data centers. This past quarter not only allowed the company to surpass the 1,000th customer milestone, it also brought them their fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue.

"As companies quickly transition to virtual infrastructure, one of the key challenges they face is how to migrate data, applications, and operating systems into the virtualized environments" said Eric Courville, PlateSpin's Vice President of Sales and Business Development. "We are proud to reach this significant milestone. Our continued success is a result of our dedicated Authorized partners worldwide and our commitments to deliver superior data center optimization products with world-class support."

And adding to this already successful team of employees, the company announced new appointments to their executive management team in hopes of further enhancing the company's strategy and to help accelerate its rapid growth in a growing and evolving virtualization marketplace. New members include:

Paul Philp - Chief Technology Officer

Israel Ben-Ishai - VP, Product Development

Cadman Chui - VP, Marketing

Jennifer Small - Director, Human Resources

John Stetic - Director, Product Management

Details and backgrounds on each of these executives can be found on the PlateSpin Website, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 17, 2006 03:47 PM

May 17, 2006

InfoWorld Virtualization Report Podcast

In today's report, we talk about upgrading the processor on your machine. If you are interested in running virtualization, what should you watch out for? And then, we discuss Grid computing. And who better to provide answers than IBM? listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on May 17, 2006 03:35 PM

May 16, 2006

moka5 to Deliver PC Virtualization Innovation

Quoting from their official press release:

moka5 today announced its formation and entry into the desktop virtualization technology business. A spin off from Stanford University's Computer Science Department, moka5 plans to revolutionize the way consumers and businesses view and use everyday computing environments. The company also announced that it has received funding from Khosla Ventures and that Vinod Khosla has joined the board.
The founding team is comprised of a combination of Stanford University PhDs and seasoned professionals from Microsoft, Sun, Symantec, XenSource and Akamai, to name a few companies. Leading the charge at moka5 is Monica Lam, Professor of Computer Science, currently on leave, from Stanford.

Professor Lam's research group was the first to use machine virtualization to address the problems of managing and securing computer desktops. The research, started in 2001, was inspired by the thin-client computing model, where machines are managed centrally and users can gain access to a computer environment anywhere. Thin-client computing, reminiscent of mainframe computing, however, fails to capitalize on the PC revolution. PCs are low-cost, compared to data-center operations, powerful, highly interactive and can run disconnected from a network. The years of research at Stanford led to the creation of a third-generation system architecture, or LivePC(TM), that delivers optimized PC management, security and mobility.

"In university research, we try to create fundamentally sound solutions from the ground up rather than provide incremental solutions. LivePCs are a new approach to computer management that addresses many issues such as spyware, mobile computing, home computer management, hardware migration and disaster recovery. We are excited and committed to putting this technology in the hands of real users," said Monica Lam, Founder, and CEO of moka5.

Based on virtualization, the LivePC technology allows users to work on any operating system, with any applications, on any device in a completely maintained, up-to-date and secure environment. The LivePC opens a new world of work and play where the technology developed allows actively managed computing environments to be run locally on any PC efficiently and transparently. This technology is ideal for businesses, universities and government.

Infotech.com states that, "Virtualization will dominate 2006 for servers and dominate on desktops by the end of 2010. Virtualization on x86 hardware is poised for major growth. We predict that 20% of Windows and Linux server operating systems will be hosted on virtual x86 machines by the end of 2006, with a combined annual growth rate of 20%. Virtualization will be pervasive on servers and desktops by the end of the decade."

moka5 is on the verge of influencing change in everyday computing and has received funding from Vinod Khosla, one of the premiere venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. "PCs are increasingly hard to manage and hard to use, even for sophisticated users. moka5 brings a whole new approach that is much simpler and more powerful for the user, and has the potential to redefine the PC business. moka5 is dedicated to quickly becoming a leading force in desktop virtualization technology for the broad market," said Vinod Khosla, Founder of Khosla Ventures.

Posted by David Marshall on May 16, 2006 04:55 PM

May 16, 2006

VMware Outlines Hardware Requirements for 64-Bit Guest Operating Systems

I bet if I took a short and informal poll and said the majority of virtualization users were excited to hear VMware's announcement of 64-bit guest operating system support, most of you would agree with that statement. And following up on that statement, I would also bet that only a small minority of those same individuals would know exactly which processors offered compatibility and met the hardware requirements. Personally, I didn't even think about it. I just assumed I could purchase a 64-bit processor and then be on my way enjoying a fun filled afternoon with my virtual machine running a 64-bit guest operating system. After all, what's the problem?

After doing a little bit of reading and research, I was directed to a VMware knowledge base solution appropriately titled "Hardware Requirements for 64-Bit Guest Operating Systems". Exactly what I needed.

The question was simple. I want to use either VMware Workstation or VMware Server to run virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems. What are the hardware requirements for the host machine?

The answer was not so simple. As I feared, you simply cannot purchase any old 64-bit processor. But knowledge is power, and so I pass this KB article on to you, in the hopes that the answer can shed some light on the subject for those of you in the market to purchase new hardware in order to run these 64-bit guest operating systems inside your virtual machines.

VMware's virtual machine monitor has traditionally used segmentation to provide isolation between the guest operating system and the virtual machine monitor. This is necessary because the guest operating system and virtual machine monitor share the linear address space.
AMD
Segmentation support is missing from the initial AMD64 processors (that is, revision C and earlier) while running in long mode. As a result, AMD64 processors prior to revision D do not have an efficient mechanism for isolating the virtual machine monitor from 64-bit guest operating systems.

A limited form of segmentation was reintroduced in long mode, in revision D AMD64 processors. As a result, AMD64 processors must be revision D or later to run 64-bit guest operating systems.

Note: Because AMD Opteron and Turion processors do not ship in revision D, AMD Opteron and Turion 64 processors must be revision E or later to run 64-bit guest operating systems.

Intel
Intel EM64T CPUs do not have segmentation support in long mode. If the Intel EM64T CPU is VT-capable, it comes with hardware virtualization support (Intel's Vanderpool Technology). This hardware virtualization support allows Workstation and VMware Server to work around the lack of segmentation, making it possible to run 64-bit guest operating systems on Intel EM64T VT-capable CPUs.

32-Bit CPUs
Please note that Workstation and VMware Server require a 64-bit CPU to run a 64-bit guest operating system. While it is theoretically possible to emulate a 64-bit instruction set on 32-bit hardware, doing so most likely results in unacceptable performance degradation.

VMware distributes a free utility that can be used to determine whether or not your CPU is suitable for running 64-bit guest operating systems. You can download this utility from the VMware Web site at www.vmware.com/download/ws/#utilities. VMware Server includes this utility in its product distribution, so you don't need to download an additional tool.

Workstation 5.5 and VMware Server 1.0 support virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems only on host machines that have one of the supported 64-bit processors:

AMD Athlon 64, revision D or later

AMD Opteron, revision E or later

AMD Turion 64, revision E or later

AMD Sempron, 64-bit-capable revision D or later (experimental support)

Intel EM64T VT-capable processors (experimental support)

Note: In shopping for a processor that is compatible with Workstation 5.5 or VMware Server 1.0 64-bit guests, you may be unable to determine the revision numbers of a given vendor's offering of AMD Athlon 64, Opteron, Turion 64, or Sempron processors. At this time, the only reliable way to determine whether or not any of these processors is a revision supported by VMware software is by noting the manufacturing technology (CMOS). Any of the AMD Athlon 64, Opteron, Turion 64, or Sempron processors whose manufacturing technology is 90nm SOI (.09 micron SOI) is compatible with Workstation 5.5 or VMware Server 1.0 64-bit guests. Using this information, you should be able to determine with the help of your vendor, or from the AMD Web site ( http://www.amd.com ) whether a particular Athlon 64 or Opteron processor model is compatible with Workstation 5.5 or VMware Server 1.0 64-bit guests.

Posted by David Marshall on May 16, 2006 04:04 PM

May 15, 2006

IBM Redbook - A Virtualization Experience: IBM Worldwide Grid

IBM has released a draft document for review - a draft of a soon to be released redbook.

This IBM redbook discusses the IBM Global Account Worldwide Grid (IGA WW Grid), an infrastructure for Grid computing deployed on the IBM intranet. The IGA WW Grid is a global network of heterogeneous resources to enable internal business applications for Grid computing. Using virtualization, the IGA WW Grid is composed of IBM zSeries and pSeries servers distributed across the globe.
In this book, we discuss:

Benefits provided by the IGA WW Grid

Components of the IGA WW Grid

Scheduling workloads on the Grid

Enabling applications to run on the Grid

Table of contents

Chapter 1. Overview
Chapter 2. Grid management center
Chapter 3. Virtual file system
Chapter 4. Grid resource controller
Chapter 5. Grid services
Chapter 6. Installing to virtual file system
Chapter 7. Application deployment on the Grid
Appendix A. Scripts to propagate private keys
Appendix B. Grid daemon scripts
Appendix C. DB2 schema of registration site

The redbook can be downloaded, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 15, 2006 08:43 PM

May 15, 2006

Want to Know About Grid Computing? Ask IBM.

Last week, IBM introduced a new version of its self-managing autonomic software for grid computing environments. The software, called IBM Batch-on-Grid, allows IT administrators to do the job they were hired to do rather than sitting around simply baby sitting a computer. An organization's computer systems can continue operating during system failures, natural disasters, or even while complex applications are being upgraded.

IBM Batch-on-Grid is a combination of IBM's self-managing autonomic computing and classic "batch computing", a technology that dates back to the 1950's and is still used today by many government, finance, and industrial organizations.

Batch computing consists of various computing jobs being submitted to queues and then getting scheduled for processing. Batch-on-Grid creates batch workloads within Grid systems and then uses autonomic technology to schedule and maintain those workloads.

IBM says, organizations can automatically shift Grid workloads so that the most important jobs - those affecting customers and supply chain partners - are taken care of first. For example, an organization can limit a server to 95 percent capacity, and when a server approaches that threshold, the software will instantly shift the workload on demand to another server. This ensures customers and partners are provided with continuous service.

Batch-on-Grid consists of three of IBM's Tivoli products working together. It includes IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, which provides a single point of control for managing batch workloads in mainframe and distributed environments; IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler Load Leveler, which allows customers to boost workload performance on AIX and Linux systems; and IBM Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator, which delivers computing capacity when needed by predicting impending workload requirements and provisioning the appropriate computing capacity when needed.

It is difficult to quantify and determine who, if anyone, is the leader in the Grid computing market, however, it is a safe bet to say, if you want to know about Grid computing... ask IBM.

Posted by David Marshall on May 15, 2006 08:12 PM

May 14, 2006

Astaro Ships World's First Unified Threat Management Virtual Appliance

Quoting the official press release:

BURLINGTON, MA, May 10, 2006 - Astaro Corporation today announced the general availability of the world's first Network Assurance virtual appliance, Astaro Security Gateway for VMware. Defining a new standard of network security and manageability, Astaro Security Gateway for VMware enables managed service providers and enterprises to maximize network protection and hardware utilization while offering astonishing flexibility and lowered overall administrative cost.

Astaro Security Gateway for VMware allows customers to flexibly run Astaro Security Gateway software on a VMware infrastructure. Many hundreds or thousands of Astaro Security Gateways can be virtualized in this way, each delivering the network protection and cleaning for which Astaro is famous. In addition, the new Astaro Command Center will allow for a single, integrated view and unified control of any number of Astaro Security Gateways for VMware and/or Astaro Security Gateway physical appliances.

The Astaro Security Gateway for VMware virtual appliance is identical to the company's physical appliances and is designed to deliver all the functionality of the physical device. The major difference is that instead of being built on a physical computing device, a virtual appliance is built using virtual machine technology and can be run on VMware Player, VMware Workstation, VMware Server, or VMware ESX Server. Major benefits for users include simpler deployment in large and complex environments, better hardware allocation and reduced hardware expenditures because physical computers can run multiple virtual appliances. And because Astaro's unified threat management is ASIC-free, performance when running in a virtual machine is maximized.

"The ability to virtualize gateway security services opens up major new capabilities for managed service providers (MSPs) to deliver air-tight security services to small- and medium-size business customers," said Richard Stiennon, founder, IT-Harvest Group. "MSPs can leverage their hardware investment while providing dedicated security services to end-user customers, resulting in superior security and manageability."

"Virtualization of the Astaro Security Gateway is a natural step for us," said Gert Hansen, chief software architect, Astaro Corporation. "Because our security appliance is very flexible and does not rely on dedicated hardware, every function in the Astaro Security Gateway can be easily virtualized. As a result, we are able to deliver excellent performance while keeping all the benefits of a standardized virtual platform."

Pricing and Availability

Astaro Security Gateway for VMware is available now. Customers are encouraged to download a trial copy of Astaro Security Gateway for VMware at http://www.astaro.com/vmware. To quickly understand the nine integrated security applications in Astaro Security Gateway for VMware, customers are encouraged to use the free VMware Player (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/) with Astaro Security Gateway for VMware.

Pricing for production installations of Astaro Security Gateway for VMware are based on active users and concurrent connections. Configurations for as few as ten users to unlimited users and connections are available. Suggested pricing for a sample configuration allowing 250 active users and 512,000 connections and including subscriptions and one year's maintenance is $11,885.

Astaro Command Center will be available free to Astaro Security Gateway users. Astaro Command Center will be available for download at http://my.astaro.com.

About Astaro

Astaro Security Gateways (www.astaro.com) control access to networks, guarantee availability and ensure compliance for businesses and enterprises worldwide, while reducing network administration costs. With Astaro Security Gateway, network administrators and designers achieve Network Assurance: functional, high-performance and safe business networks. Astaro Security Gateways have won numerous industry awards, and are protecting over 30,000 networks in 60 countries, including such companies as Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Arizona, Los Alamos National Labs, Stanford University and Kansas City Life Insurance, Inc.

Posted by David Marshall on May 14, 2006 03:26 PM

May 14, 2006

HP Launches Advanced Technology Center

Hewlett-Packard announced the launch of its first high-tech Advanced Technology Center (ATC) for Asia Pacific located in Bangalore. The facility will showcase the company's latest range of technological innovations including HP servers, storage, and software solutions.

The center will provide an opportunity for customers, field personnel, and partners to experience cutting-edge products and solutions to help create an adaptive infrastructure. All of the demos at the ATC would be done by trained HP engineers and would take place in a practical environment.

The ATC is expected to provide an opportunity for its visitors to learn new concepts which would further help them in understanding and appreciating areas like virtualization, security, and manageability across servers, storage, and software solutions of HP.

Pallab Talukdar, HP India director of enterprise marketing and alliances, said the ATC will test-run on HP systems, applications that will emerge as the best technology options for CIOs to adopt, while meshing business and IT objectives.

Posted by David Marshall on May 14, 2006 02:36 PM

May 14, 2006

VMware TSX Reaches the USA

For the past four years, VMware has been presenting an EMEA Technical Symposium for its VMware Certified Professionals, resellers, and partners designed to provide technical training on VMware's products as well as to provide an overview of what's new and hot in the virtualization industry. Last month, VMware completed yet another successful Technical Solutions Exchange in Paris. This month, May 23-24, 2006, VMware hopes to replicate that success with its inaugural VMware Technical Solutions Exchange (TSX) being held in Orlando, FL.

TSX is open to all technical professionals including VMware Certified Professionals (VCP) within the partner community. The major theme of TSX in May 2006 will be the upcoming release of VMware ESX Server 3.0. As an added bonus, the keynote speaker at the event will be Dr. Mendel Rosenblum, VMware's co-founder and Chief Scientist.

Examples of the technical breakout sessions being made available to the TSX attendees include:

A Practical Guide to High Availability
A Practical Guide to DRS
Implementing VMware Consolidated Backup
In Depth Overview of VirtualCenter 2.0
Upgrading from ESX Server 2.x to ESX Server 3.0
Service Console Management in ESX Server 3.0
Disaster Recovery Architecture
ESX Server 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0 Troubleshooting
New Storage Technologies: iSCSI, NAS, and VMFS 3.0
Virtual Appliances
Desktop Solutions: VDI and ACE
Programming with the new SDK for VirtualCenter 2.0
VCP Update
Virtualization Assessments and VMware Capacity Planner

There was electricity in the air last year when VMware announced ESX Server 3.0 features to the attendees of VMworld 2005. I can only imagine the excitement that TSX will bring to the general audience as well as to the participants of the technical breakout sessions. It may be hard to top this one if they decide to have a second TSX in the US next year.

To find out more information about the event, click here. To register for the event, click here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 14, 2006 12:35 PM

May 13, 2006

VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge - Time is Running Out!

VMware sent out a shocker back on February 27th of this year, when it announced the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge - complete with a $200,000 prize pool designed to wet your appetite.

In case you haven't heard about it, the short version described by VMware goes something like this:

A virtual appliance is a fully pre-installed and pre-configured application and operating system environment that runs on any standard x86 desktop or server in a self-contained, isolated environment known as a virtual machine. Virtual appliances provide an evolutionary step in the software distribution model.

After reading the latest VMTN Newsletter, I realized that the first phase of the challenge is almost over. TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!! The deadline to submit your entry is fast approaching, May 26th, 2006. If you need more information about the contest, visit VMware's challenge Web site for more details.

The next phase following submission is the community review and judging. Once the deadline passes, VMware will publish finalist virtual appliances on VMTN, and everyone will be invited to download, use, rate, and comment on them. Judging will be based on the appliance description in the entry, the ratings from the community users, as well as the expert opinions of the prestigious judging panel.

It appears as though the time frame for judging the appliances will be tight, as VMware expects to announce the Challenge winners on Monday, August 14, 2006. Depending on how many people submit appliances, there may not be enough time to try out all submissions; it is therefore really important to get creative with your entry description to make sure people download and use your appliance.

If you want to get a better idea as to what a virtual appliance is, try visiting VMware's Virtual Appliance Directory, where you can download and sample quite a few virtual appliances that are already created. And to make the search even easier, VMware has created an easy to use search and filtering solution.

Good luck to all participants! Get those solutions in. And if you already have a favorite virtual appliance, please let us know about it. We'd love to try it out.

Posted by David Marshall on May 13, 2006 09:29 AM

May 13, 2006

InfoWorld Virtualization Report Podcast

In this edition, we peak under the hood and talk about Sun Solaris 10 and Solaris Containers. And then... If you are interested in participating in VMware's Virtual Appliance Challenge to collect your share of the $200,000 prize offerings, time is running out! listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on May 13, 2006 09:14 AM

May 13, 2006

Have You Met Sun Solaris Containers?

As virtualization news and information continues to spread at a fairly rapid pace, Sun Microsystems has latched onto that wave and is making news of its own.

In today's IT world, organizations are building large-scale information systems in order to solve business problems, and they are constantly seeking new ways to protect their technological investments while still providing scalable and highly available IT infrastructures that are capable of adapting to change. Sun Solaris Containers is one method that is available to help reduce IT infrastructure costs and improve end user service level management.

So what exactly are Solaris Containers? Sun describes Solaris Containers as their next advance in server virtualization.

Solaris Containers provide isolation between software applications or services using flexible, software-defined boundaries. Applications can be managed independently of each other, even while running in the same instance of the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS). Solaris Containers create an execution environment within a single instance of the Solaris OS and provide:

Full resource containment and control for more predictable service levels

Software fault isolation to minimize fault propagation and unplanned downtime

Security isolation to prevent unauthorized access as well as unintentional intrusions

The primary benefits of Solaris Containers are:

Reduced management costs through server consolidation, and a reduced number of operating system instances

Increased resource utilization with dynamic resource reallocation between Containers

Increased service availability by minimizing fault propagation and security violations between applications

Increased flexibility because software based Containers can be dynamically reconfigured

Increased accuracy and flexibility of accounting, based on workloads rather than systems or processes

To help gain a better understanding of the solution, the Sun Blueprints Program has recently released two featured articles. The first, Working with Solaris Containers and the Solaris Service Manager, which helps to describe Solaris Containers and Predictive Self-Healing technologies and how they work together by creating separate execution environments, each with their own namespace and assigned resources. The second, Solaris Containers Technology Architecture Guide, is a must read for those individuals looking to find new ways to reduce IT infrastructure costs and better manage end user service levels. It provides suggestions for designing system configurations using powerful tools associated with Solaris Containers, guidelines for selecting features most appropriate for the user's needs, advice on troubleshooting, and a comprehensive consolidation planning example. Both articles can also be found on Sun's BluePrints Program Web page, here.

Posted by David Marshall on May 13, 2006 08:35 AM

May 11, 2006

INS Publishes Survey Exposing Virtualization Issues

INS is a global provider of business-driven information technology consulting and software solutions whose customers include global enterprises and service providers in all major industries, including telecommunications, financial services, retail, pharmaceuticals/healthcare, manufacturing, government and travel and transportation. They are headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and have 38 offices in the US, Europe, Middle East, and SE Asia. They have been around for more than a decade, and have been helping organizations effectively use technology to achieve strategic business goals.

INS periodically conducts industry survey projects intended to provide IT managers with insight into key issues impacting the ability to develop and deploy IT infrastructure dependent business initiatives. This time, INS designed a survey to yield valuable insights into the current usage of as well as future plans for server virtualization within its respondents' IT organizations. From the period of January 16, 2006 through March 7, 2006, they conducted this survey through a series of Web-based questions which were completed by 100 IT professionals from around the globe.

Some of the more interesting findings that were surfaced through this survey:

What are the biggest hurdles when implementing server virtualization?

31% responded lack of staff expertise

30% responded identifying applications that are unaffected by virtualization

13% responded demonstrating ROI

11% responded ongoing growth management

8% responded managing the virtualized infrastructure

7% responded security concerns

What is the primary strategy for implementing server virtualization?

Those responding offered the following answers ranked in this order:

Implement a standalone pilot with success creating the case for the production environment

Virtualize the development environment followed by the production environment

Focus on a blend of virtualization and application stacking

Immediately implement virtualization technologies regardless of technology refresh cycle

Virtualize during the next desktop/server technology refresh

And finally, it was interesting to see which vendors have been approaching and speaking to customers and potential customers about virtualization solutions. Leading the pack in getting the virtualization message out into the market is VMware, the acknowledged market leader in this space, with about 55 percent of the respondents reporting that VMware approached them. Microsoft came in second with more than one-third of the respondents (36 percent), and IBM, EMC, Cisco and HP (in that order) all came in somewhere around 20 percent. Rounding out the survey with about 9 percent between them were vendors such as Dell, Sun Microsystems and Network Appliance. Interestingly enough, 20 percent of the respondents had not spoken to any vendor about a virtualization solution.

If you would like to dig in deeper, you can read the entire INS survey,