Virtualization Report | David Marshall | March 2007

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March 2007

March 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Workstation 6.0 Reaches Release Candidate Stage

VMware has announced that VMware Workstation (build 42757) 6.0 has finally achieved Release Candidate stage. The good news for those of you testing the product - now that it is no longer in beta, the forced debug logging has been turned off and you should hopefully see an immediate boost in performance.

VMware Workstation 6.0 RC also includes the following features:

Support for Windows Vista - Use Windows Vista as a host operating system
Multiple monitor display - You can now configure a VM to span multiple monitors, or multiple VMs to each display on separate monitors
Support for USB 2.0 devices - You can now use peripherals that require high-speed performance in your VMs, such as MP3 Players and fast storage devices
VM Record/Replay - Use this feature to record VM activities and be guaranteed to reproduce the exact VM state 100% of the time
Integrated Virtual Debugger - Workstation integrates with Visual Studio and Eclipse so you can deploy, run, and debug programs in a VM directly from your preferred IDE
Automation APIs (VIX API 1.1) - You can write scripts and programs to automate VM testing
ACE Authoring Capabilities - Workstation 6 now has the power of ACE. Securely package and deploy desktop virtual machines with encryption, network access and device control, and much more. With the Pocket ACE feature, deploy to a portable media device so you can take your PC with you, without the PC.

To download or find out more information about Workstation 6.0, click here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 31, 2007 04:34 PM

March 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

News About Microsoft SoftGrid Including Vista Support

Very reminiscent to the period of time between when Microsoft acquired virtualization IP from Connectix Corporation and the eventual release of Microsoft Virtual Server, there has been very little news in the way of SoftGrid, the application virtualization product Microsoft acquired from Softricity less than one year ago.

However, more interesting news about the product has finally surfaced, in part because of the inquisitive audience at Microsoft's Management Summit 2007. But more to the point, the Microsoft SoftGrid team recently posted the following information on their SoftGrid Team Blog:

SoftGrid 4.1 Service Pack 1

SoftGrid 4.1 SP1 is mostly a hotfix and critical updates release, improving overall system stability and compatibility. A noteworthy improvement is the ability to sequence applications using Side by Side assemblies (aka WinSxS), including Visual Studio Express and Office 2007, among many other applications from both third party ISV's and Microsoft. Expected availability is in the second quarter of this year and the release will be made available for download as soon as test is completed. We will release the Sequencer, Desktop Client, Terminal Server Client and Server at the same time.

SoftGrid 4.2

SoftGrid 4.2 builds on the 4.1 improvements by adding Windows Vista compatibility, both on the sequencer and client. There is not going to be a 4.2 version of the Server or the Terminal Server client as the moniker 4.2 is reserved for the components adding Windows Vista compatibility. We expect a final release some time around Q3 of this year. We expect 4.1 SP1 and 4.2 to maintain parity over time, the only exception being Windows Vista compatibility in the 4.2 components.

Posted by David Marshall on March 31, 2007 04:10 PM

March 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Intel's Penryn Processor Family Boosts Virtualization Performance

Intel recently announced the details of the company's forthcoming family of processors, codenamed Penryn, which is slated for release in the second half of this year.

These new processors benefit from enhancements to the Intel Core microarchitecture and also Intel's industry-leading 45nm Hi-k process technology with its hafnium-based high-K + metal gate transistor design, which results in higher performance and more energy-efficient processors.

One of the major features of the Penryn processor line is its enhanced Intel Virtualization Technology (VT). Specifically, Penryn speeds up virtual machine transition entry and exit times by an average of 25 to 75 percent. And according to Intel, this is all done through microarchitecture improvements and requires no virtual machine software changes.

There are a lot of discussions going around right now about virtual machine performance differences from one virtualization platform to another. Products such as Parallels or those built on Xen technology will be the biggest winners with Intel's performance increase as they are all designed to take advantage of Intel's VT. VMware on the other hand leverages their own tuned binary translation monitor for 32-bit guest operating systems, which they claim currently outperforms the hardware assisted VT technology in many cases.

It will be interesting to see what the performance differences are between these products once Intel's latest Penryn line hits the streets and virtualization platforms take advantage of the new VT code.

Posted by David Marshall on March 31, 2007 03:42 PM

March 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Veeam Software Updates Reporter to 1.5

Less than a month after announcing the release of their 1.0 version of Reporter, Russian based software provider, Veeam Software, has already updated their product based on feedback received from customers.

The product is a reporting tool used to discover, document and create a visual (Microsoft Visio) diagram of a VMware Infrastructure environment. Designed for professional use by ESX administrators, system integrators and datacenter managers, Veeam Reporter integrates with and extends the functionality of VMware VirtualCenter and ESX Server. The tool collects information about the VMware Infrastructure 3 environment, its components and configuration settings, and provides a comprehensive visual report for analysis and documentation.

In addition to the networking reports already included with 1.0, the company has added new reporting capabilities such as storage and configuration reports.

You can download a sample report, here. And you can download the software, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 31, 2007 03:27 PM

March 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft Announced SCVMM Beta 2 Features

At this year's Microsoft Management Summit 2007, Microsoft announced the beta 2 release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and said the product should be released sometime around the Microsoft WinHEC 2007 conference. For IT professionals responsible for managing the virtual infrastructure, SCVMM provides a solution for the management of both physical and virtual machines, consolidation of underutilized physical servers, and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines.

The new beta product includes a number of highly anticipated features, such as:

Identification of Consolidation Candidates - System Center Virtual Machine Manager leverages historical performance data in the Operations Manager 2007 database to identify and list underutilized physical servers that are good candidates for consolidation.
Physical to Virtual Machine Conversion (P2V) - Virtual Machine Manager improves the Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) experience by integrating the conversion process and by using the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) of Windows Server 2003 to create the virtual machine faster and without having to interrupt the source physical server.
Intelligent Placement for Capacity Planning - When a virtual machine is deployed, Virtual Machine Manager analyzes performance data and resource requirements for both the workload and the host. This allows an IT administrator to fine-tune placement algorithms to get the best matched deployment recommendations. First, historical performance data is used to understand actual resource requirements of the workload. Next, minimum CPU, disk, RAM, and network capacity requirements in the virtual machine's configuration are checked. After determining the virtual machine's requirements, performance data is gathered for candidate virtual machine hosts. Finally, pre-selected business rules are factored in to optimize placement recommendations either for resource maximization or for load balancing, and to weight the importance of different resource types for the workload.
Centralized Resource Optimization - Resource settings can be changed on virtual machines without interrupting workloads and virtual machines can be migrated from one host to another to optimize physical resources.
Automate Test Lab Operations - Using Virtual Machine Manager, administrators can delegate the provisioning role to authorized users while maintaining precise control over the creation and management of virtual machines and hosts. Authorized personnel are assigned to a set of physical host servers - known as a "host group" - on which they can provision virtual machines according to administrator restrictions. The administrator can set quotas to limit the resources an individual user or group can use within the host group. The end user is presented with an easy to use Web page that enables virtual machine provisioning within the controls preset by the administrator.
Monitor Physical and Virtual Machines from one Console - System Center Operations Manager 2007 provides an end-to-end service management solution for Windows Server-based virtual machines because it is deeply integrated with Windows Server technologies, helping IT increase efficiency while enabling greater control of the datacenter environment.
Fully Scriptable Using Windows PowerShell - Virtual Machine Manager is built on Windows PowerShell, a new administrator-focused command shell and scripting language. Easy to adopt, learn and use, Windows PowerShell's architecture enables the quick construction of ad-hoc integration solutions. Windows PowerShell scripting features allow administrators to integrate System Center with established tools and procedures in the data center.

You can register for the beta, here. To find out more information about the product, visit the following Web site.

Posted by David Marshall on March 31, 2007 02:58 PM

March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Nearly Half of Virtualization Projects are Unsuccessful

Nearly half of global virtualization projects are unsuccessful, this according to an independent global study which surveyed 800 organizations from around the world. The study, commissioned by Computer Associates, found that 44 percent of respondents who said they had deployed server virtualization technology were unable to declare their deployment a success.

Inability to quantify ROI was a key factor in their reticence to definitively claim positive results. The study also revealed that 71 percent of organizations that have moved ahead with virtualization have deployed, or plan to deploy, multiple server virtualization technologies.

"Although we were surprised by how many organizations were unable to declare their server virtualization deployment a success, we were not at all surprised by the prevalence of heterogeneous virtual environments," said Paula Daley, director of product marketing at CA. "The challenges facing organizations with diverse virtualized data centers are exactly the types of issues CA helps address - by delivering a unified management solution that provides a single pane of glass view across virtual, physical, and clustered server deployments."

The numbers may seem alarming, but in reality, the high numbers simply show that too many companies are jumping on the bandwagon and underestimating their virtualization project. Management applications and best practices that are used in the typical physical environment may not always be the best solution in a virtual infrastructure.

According to Richard Whitehead, director of product marketing at Novell, "Virtualization is gaining a lot of traction in the industry and is being heralded as a technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency. While virtualization promises these great benefits, it clearly brings up a new set of management challenges. So, it's not surprising that the survey shows almost half of the respondents do not feel their deployment of virtualization is a complete success. That's why last year Novell introduced several new virtualization management solutions including, ZENworks Orchestrator, ZENworks Virtual Machine Management and ZENworks High Performance Computing Management."

He went on to say, "Virtualization can lower hardware costs, improve efficiency and reduce server sprawl as promised, but it can also increase the total cost of ownership if not managed properly. This is where we see so many companies are running into issues and why, according to this survey, so many are unable to declare virtualization a success."

As more companies begin to virtualize, training and best practices within the virtual infrastructure will continue to develop and the success rate should then increase to a number that will no longer raise the eyebrows of survey takers and survey readers.

Posted by David Marshall on March 29, 2007 08:42 PM

March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SWsoft - Teaming with Novell and Apple

SWsoft is reaching out across the virtualization community. First, the company has been spotted teaming up with Novell to bundle in their Virtuozzo operating system virtualization solution into SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. And then second, rumor has it that SWsoft and Parallels are at it once again, this time possibly generating a new virtualization product for Apple servers to go along with the company's existing desktop product. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on March 29, 2007 04:21 PM

March 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

OpenVZ Software Available for Latest Linux Kernel

The Linux kernel is becoming quite the popular place to be if you have anything to do with virtualization. We've talked about KVM and Xen fighting to get into the kernel, we just discussed VMware's VMI yesterday, and now, the OpenVZ project is announcing the availability of its operating system (OS) server virtualization software for the most recent stable Linux kernel - 2.6.20. This new Linux kernel includes a number of bug fixes and improvements, along with support for the latest hardware.

"Linux 2.6.20 is also the basis for the next Ubuntu distribution, which potentially would enable us a smooth transition to add OpenVZ virtualization," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project. "With this latest release of OpenVZ software, we've made a number of improvements to benefit our users in the open source community."

The OpenVZ software for Linux kernel 2.6.20 includes improvements in the following areas:

Support for read-only bind mounts, which allows a read-only view into a read-write file system. This allows for greater levels of control and enhances security by only allowing specified parts of file systems to be made writable.
Namespaces technology, resulting from on-going work on Linux kernel containers virtualization, is now used by OpenVZ software.
A new I/O prioritization feature that makes it possible to set priorities for each virtual environment so that some can be set as high priority for disk access, and others as lower priority. This solves the problem of distributing I/O throughput (which can be a performance bottleneck) across all virtual environments.

The new OpenVZ kernel software can be downloaded, here.

Also, users can access helpful installation instructions from the OpenVZ wiki.

Posted by David Marshall on March 28, 2007 04:47 PM

March 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Put Your Corporate Desktop on a USB Drive "To-Go"

Kidaro announced their latest desktop virtualization solution today calling it the Kidaro Corporate "To-Go" for a USB flash drive.

The solution comes at a time as organizations are growing their remote workforce. This remote workforce is made up of corporate employees working from home, outsourced individuals, subcontractors, or employees who find themselves on the road more than in the office. While this remote operation can be a cost savings, it also burdens an IT department with management and security issues to worry about. The beauty of Kidaro's solution is that an organization can give out a USB drive to these employees instead of giving them a corporate laptop. The end-user simply plugs in a USB drive into their own machine and they are presented with an encrypted corporate-managed desktop that they then authenticate into and gain access.

"Kidaro pushes the right buttons when it comes to desktop virtualization," says Andi Mann, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), "Its innovative Managed Workspace provides a highly secure virtual desktop environment, but with an unobtrusive and seamless end-user experience, even for the most novice user. Kidaro rounds out its offering with a centrally managed, policy-based control approach that manages corporate users wherever they are, while securing corporate data."

Some of the features provided by Kidaro's corporate "to-go" USB drive include:

Provides ultimate mobility. End-users just plug the USB flash drive in to any workstation, regardless of hardware or user setup, and gain immediate access to corporate resources. They can even remove the corporate "to-go" drive from one desktop and resume work on a different machine.
Controls non-corporate endpoints. Create a corporate-compliant, centrally managed IT environment on any desktop (including all management tools and security policies).
Seamless, transparent, end-user experience. Unlike other solutions, Kidaro Managed Workspace offers users an easy, familiar experience, eliminating toggling between their desktop and the workspace running from the USB drive. Users work in a familiar environment, initiating workspace applications just like they do on the desktop.
Centrally manage and provision workspaces. Fully functional management console controls thousands of users. Administrators can manage a repository of virtual machine images, provisioning them according to Microsoft Active Directory users or groups, assigning security policies and expiration dates, and monitoring user activity.
Streamline IT chores. Simplify support by providing a locked-down, centrally controlled and hardware-independent workspace.
Safeguard data from leakage, theft or loss. Encrypt the corporate "to-go" drive to prevent data exposure. Control data removal via copy-paste, files, removable devices, or printing.

"Corporate 'to-go' extends our best-of-breed Kidaro Managed Workspace offering, providing ultimate end-user flexibility and mobility," says Kidaro CEO Ran Kohavi. "It's not just a mobile desktop: it's a corporate-controlled desktop solution that provides IT operations with full lifecycle control over their mobile workforce laptops and even non-corporate remote desktops - from the creation of a virtual corporate desktop, to rapid, optimized deployment, ongoing management, monitoring and policy enforcement."

Posted by David Marshall on March 28, 2007 03:27 PM

March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Linux Kernel Gains a new VMware Option

It seems as though the next stable release of the Linux kernel will reportedly have a new virtualization feature developed by VMware called VMI or "virtual machine interface". The 2.6.21 kernel update will allow paravirtualized operating systems such as Linux to modify itself for faster performance when run on top of a hypervisor.

VMware originally introduced VMI back in July of 2005. It originally hoped that VMI could generically serve as an interface for any other virtualization vendor to hook into in order to communicate with the Linux kernel. However, it received a bit of pushback from some people in the open source kernel development community as they feared a closed source, commercial vendor may end up controlling part of the kernel in the future.

So, VMware modified VMI to support other hypervisors and implemented the solution as a patch to the paravirtualization interface known as paravirt-ops. It has been reported that Ubuntu 7.04 will include a VMI enabled kernel and the forthcoming VMware Workstation 6.0 product will be capable of exploiting VMI-enabled Linux kernels.

Posted by David Marshall on March 27, 2007 07:46 PM

March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Vizioncore Announces Public Beta of esxReplicator 2.0

Vizioncore officially announced the public Beta release of their esxReplicator v2.0 software, the real-time replication solution for the VMware VI3 Server environment. esxReplicator 2.0 offers a completely new approach to virtual machine replication, and includes the following new features:

VMware Infrastructure 3 support
VMotion and Distributed Resource Schedular (DRS) awareness
Real-time statistics and jobs wizards
Better error handling
Improved user interface

The beta release can be downloaded here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 27, 2007 07:29 PM

March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Aberdeen Report - How Does Your Company Rate?

According to the recently announced AberdeenGroup report, "Virtualization is back in vogue. The technology that originated within mainframes has now gained a strong foothold in the open systems world as more customers adopt server and storage virtualization in order to gain more control over their infrastructures and reduce costs."

AberdeenGroup recently surveyed 140 end-users to measure the adoption rate for server and storage virtualization technologies, along with the business drivers, challenges and responses to those barriers.

Find out the key virtualization challenges and recommendations for action:

See how key performance and business value data for best-in-class companies compares with those for average or laggard companies
Understand the top business drivers for both server and storage virtualization
Identify the challenges for deploying virtualization technologies and how you can address them

Some of the key takeaways from the report include:

50% of the overall respondents are either evaluating or plan to adopt server virtualization while 47% are either evaluating or plan to adopt storage virtualization within six to 18 months.
Server consolidation is the top driver behind server utilization, while reducing data center complexity is the top driver for storage virtualization.
Sixty-eight percent of end-users are targeting operating system-based virtualization, while 38% are targeting I/O virtualization.

For a limited time, you can download the analyst report for free. Click here to register and download your copy.

Posted by David Marshall on March 27, 2007 04:12 PM

March 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtualization Disrupting the Server Market and VMware Climbs the Scalability Wall

Analyst firm IDC recently announced a new paper that talks about how virtualization and multicore innovations are disrupting the worldwide server market. And then, I'm curious about your VI3 infrastructure, have you surpassed the 1000 management mark yet? If so, have you hit a brick wall? In a recent Computer World article, the question was raised about VMware's scalability in their VirtualCenter management product. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on March 26, 2007 07:36 PM

March 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The JPC Project is Computer Virtualization in Java

JPC is a pure Java emulation of an x86 PC with fully virtual peripherals. And it can run anywhere that has a JVM, whether x86, RISC, mobile-phone or set-top box. It has been developed since August 2005 in Oxford University's sub department of Particle Physics and has been released in beta for members of Oxford University.

The developers say that emulators for the x86 PC are rare and until now there hasn't been one written in pure Java. They claim that this is because the x86 PC is an extremely complex architecture, with a long history of incremental improvements, and therefore a legacy of many subtle features. Most people believed that an x86 emulator written in Java would be far too slow to be of any use to anyone. The JPC Project took that on as a challenge.

JPC is a pure Java x86 PC emulator which currently runs up to 10% native speed. It uses a number of optimization strategies to achieve an acceptable speed - strategies that are similar to those used by modern x86 hardware. It then uses dynamic binary translation to help achieve the best performance.

Key Features of JPC include:

Cross Platform - Programs are generally compiled for a specific computer architecture and, once compiled, will only run on that machine (or another like it). Pure Java can be compiled once and run on any platform that has a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Thus JPC runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, mobile phones, set-top boxes, ARM boards and anything else with a JVM without the need to build different versions for each platform.
Secure - Malicious software in a JPC virtual computer cannot harm your real computer because your real machine is protected by multiple independent layers of security. The first layer is JPC itself, supported by the industry-standard Java virtual machine and then scrutinized by your machine's real operating system. These layers combine to form an impregnable shield for your computer and data.
Flexible - You can interact with the virtual computer through a window on your desktop, or just watch it while a virtual robot taps at a virtual keyboard. The different components of the virtual computer are completely separated. This enables you to use the hard disk of one computer, the CPU of another, while displaying it all on a screen across the network and typing input on a keyboard on a mobile phone.

You can try out an interactive demo of the product, here.

I would have told you about this product sooner had I not wasted an hour or two geeking out on my machine playing some of these older DOS based games like Mario and Donkey Kong.

Posted by David Marshall on March 25, 2007 01:29 PM

March 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Gartner Names Sentillion as "Cool Vendor"

Sentillion, Inc. was recently named one of the "Cool Vendors" in the "Cool Vendors in PC Technologies" reported by Gartner. The five vendors listed in the report provide products that "enable PC users to perform their jobs with ease, flexibility and mobility." And based on that, you can understand why Sentillion's vThere product helped the vendor receive this recognition.

According to the March 2007 report:

"New innovations in virtualization will continue to advance capabilities to provide managed environments on 'hostile' PCs." vThere is a packaged virtualized desktop solution that leverages virtualization technology to create a corporate managed secure end-point that runs on any contemporary Microsoft Windows-based workstation. End-points at remote locations, such as a virtual call center agent's or teleworker's home office, are secured and controlled by creating corporate virtual computers, which run on, but are isolated from, the underlying unmanaged PC. In contrast to server-based virtual desktop solutions, vThere does not require any additional servers because the virtualized desktop executes on the host PC.

vThere attempts to solve a growing problem in today's IT world. As more and more workers become remote employees, IT will continue to struggle with serious technology and security challenges. Sentillion's vThere solution seems to provide one type of answer to this problem. According to Paul Roscoe, president of Sentillion vBusiness, "vThere provides remote users with the same operating system, application access, user experience and security as if they were physically within the enterprise."

And don't forget, it was only less than a month ago that vThere was also awarded RSA Secured certification with RSA SecurID.

Posted by David Marshall on March 25, 2007 12:03 PM

March 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld Test Center Looks at Four Desktop Virtualization Solutions

InfoWorld's Test Center and Randall C. Kennedy recently published their findings after trying out four competing desktop virtualization solutions from Microsoft, Parallels, VMware and new comer InnoTek.

Based on his testing, Randall scored the products like so:

InnoTek VirtualBox 1.3 - Received a Fair rating and a score of 6.9
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 - Received a Good rating with a score of 7.4
Parallels Workstation for Windows 2.2 - Received a Good rating with a score of 7.8
VMware Workstation 6.0 Beta 3 - Received a Very Good rating and a score of 8.3

Randall concludes the article with the following thoughts:

As with most mature market segments, the major players in the desktop virtualization space have carved out sustainable niches for themselves. VMware Workstation continues to dominate the developer landscape, with Version 6.0 further solidifying its position at the top of the virtualization heap. Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 has been relegated to a "VMware player" type of existence, while Parallels Workstation for Windows 2.2, though a speed demon, struggles to escape the shadow of its favored (and better equipped) sibling, Parallels Desktop for the Macintosh. And despite a poor benchmark showing, VirtualBox still delivers a modular, developer-friendly architecture that effectively complements its open source licensing.
Longer term, these vendors have one of two options: Dig in and try to carve out the biggest piece of a very limited pie (developers and help desk professionals); or evolve their products into something more all-encompassing, as VMware has attempted to do with ESX, VDI, ACE, and other acronyms du jour. With Microsoft already focused on the datacenter and with InnoTek well on its way to delivering an ESX-type solution, that leaves Parallels as the odd man out.

And although VMware's product achieved the highest rating and score, VMware's John Troyer still wanted to set the record straight on two points of the article. First, John questions the benchmarking of a beta build of Workstation. And I suppose he has a point here. Although VMware came out on top, any performance tests made on a beta build of VMware's product would be hurt by the fact that the beta build is in debug mode. However, it probably wouldn't have been right to test with VMware Workstation 5.5. And secondly, John questions Parallels' use of the word hypervisor to describe their workstation product. John offers his own definition of hypervisor and then tries to explain what he believes is a better explanation of Parallels' approach.

You can read John Troyer's response on the VMTN Blog site, here.

And you can read the entire InfoWorld Test Center article which contains all of Randall's findings, thoughts, charts and "Bottom Line" information, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 24, 2007 08:38 AM

March 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Be Aware of the Following VMware Configuration Limits

When building out your VMware virtual infrastructure, it is important to keep in mind the maximum values and limitations of the products and components that you are working with to ensure a scalable and supported architecture.

To that end, VMware has created a 4 page document titled "Configuration Maximums for VMware Infrastructure 3". The document details the current supported configuration maximums for VMware ESX Server hosts, VMware virtual machines as well as VirtualCenter for the ESX Server 3.0.1 and VirtualCenter 2.0.1 releases.

This is an extremely useful document that should be printed and read by anyone who is in the implementation planning stages or is currently operating a VMware infrastructure. Many of these maximum and supported values have been talked about and available in different forms over the years, but this is the first time I have personally witnessed them all written down in a single, clear and concise document such as this.

Check out this document to find out the maximum configuration values for virtual machines, storage, compute resources, memory resources, networking and VirtualCenter.

Click HERE to read.

Posted by David Marshall on March 24, 2007 07:52 AM

March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Join the INSYSTEK Virtualize IT for VMware Beta Program

INSYSTEK Inc. announced today that the company was going to open up to the public its Beta program for the new Virtualize IT for VMware. Beta program enquiries can be made, here.

According to the company, using its Virtualize IT technology, customers will be able to discover and map virtual environments, create virtual machines, track and manage physical and virtual relationships and automate the lifecycle of a large number of virtual servers and desktops.

"We are very excited to make available the beta program for our newest VMWare management and reporting tool," said Alex Turner, president and CEO at INSYSTEK. "VMWare is a great platform for virtualization and in combination with Virtualize IT for VMWare will offer tremendous benefits to administrators. There is clear need for centralized virtualization management and reporting tools that allow access to both the physical and virtual environments."

INSYSTEK Virtualize IT technology provides the ability to effortlessly manage complex virtual infrastructures from the same console used to manage the physical one. In addition to the agentless desktop and server management features in their existing solution, the Virtualize IT features also include:

Common user interface - Manage VMWare ESX Servers, VirtualCenter, Windows Desktops and Servers from a single console. Virtualize IT is the connection between physical and virtual environments, providing access to control and configure multiple VMWare Servers and Windows hosts at the same time in one view.
Discovery, Link and Manage - Auto Discover virtual infrastructure systems and resources and dynamically link physical to virtual machine relationships. Deploy software applications, patches, and critical updates. Inventory and audit both physical systems and virtual resources for full hardware and software configurations and changes.
Virtualize IT wizards - Wizards automate many administrative functions including the ability to completely replicate inventoried physical systems as image ready virtual machines in a single easy to use wizard for hot site, backups, disaster recovery planning or desktop and server migration.
Audit and Track - Virtualize IT technology extends the already comprehensive inventory model for the complete inventory of virtual machines, resource pools and physical servers. The extended model includes all INSYSTEK's baseline configuration audit and historical tracking features.
System monitoring - Continuously monitor physical servers and virtual machines for availability and utilization from a single interface. Set five separate alarms levels for hundreds of performance stats for physical and virtual systems and resources to manage and prevent problems. Quickly identify servers for consolidation.
Reports - Virtualize IT technology extends INSYSTEK's Crystal Reports features to include all VirtualCenter resources in additional to combined reports that provide a holistic view of the Physical to Virtual environment.

Please click here for more information.

Posted by David Marshall on March 22, 2007 07:55 PM

March 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource Versus VMware in Performance Comparison

If you remember listening to a recent Virtualization Report Podcast earlier this month, you may well remember the back and forth "Performance Comparison" news coming out of both camps - VMware and XenSource.

VMware initially offered a white paper comparing the performance between VMware's ESX Server 3.0.1 product and Xen 3.0.3. In that report, VMware's product clearly outperformed the open-source Xen solution in almost every category it tested. In doing so, the VMware product was deemed the superior hypervisor platform.

It wasn't long after the release of VMware's comparison white paper that XenSource CTO Simon Crosby came out with a response of his own. It was clear that Crosby found the white paper flawed. First, he claimed, "Xen 3.0.3 is not a commercial product, it's a code base. Second, Xen 3.0.3 only had partial support for hardware virtualization, and third, the VMware results are off - it seems ESX can get more than 1Gb/s out of a Gig-E NIC!"

To respond, XenSource ran exactly the same benchmarks on the same kind of machine to compare their commercial hypervisor product, XenEnterprise, against VMware's ESX Server 3.0.1.

Until now, we have been unable to see those results because of VMware's EULA policy which prevents anyone from publishing benchmarks of their products without permission from the company. So XenSource submitted its test plan and findings to VMware for publishing approval, and after review, VMware has agreed to let XenSource publish the comparative numbers between the two products.

XenSource published the following conclusion in their white paper:

VMware appears to have failed to appreciate the difference between our Xen open source code base and our commercial XenServer products. For example, had they read the release notes for Xen 3.0.3, they would quickly have established that Intel VT was only partially supported in that release. Moreover, XenSource's Xen Tools for Windows, which optimize the I/O path, were not installed. The VMware benchmarks should thus be disregarded in their entirety.
Our performance results show convincingly that XenEnterprise 3.2 performs equally well or better than VMware ESX Server 3.0.1 in all but a couple of tests.

Given that we have not spent much time on optimizing our product for traditional benchmarks we are pleased to see that there is essentially no difference between the two products. Our tests highlighted a couple of areas in which ESX marginally outperforms XenEnterprise, namely on compile time, and for Netperf TX.

XenEnterprise outperforms ESX on the Passmark memory operations. XenEnterprise scales well to utilize multiple CPUs to allow a wide variety of workloads to be run. Additionally the scalability testing found that XenEnterprise provides similar scalability to ESX when additional virtual machines are added to the platform.

VMware also appears to have under-appreciated the performance advantages of the latest generation of Intel and AMD processors with built-in support for virtualization. Although VMware's legacy technology cannot exploit these features, XenEnterprise's high performance is proof that these technologies deliver tremendous price/performance advantages to end users. What's more, the performance of these CPU features will increase further over time, with Moore's Law.

In conclusion, XenSource's commercial products are reliable, affordable and offer the Windows or Linux IT Professional a high performance platform for server consolidation for production workloads. They are very easy to use, and offer open APIs that enable our ISV ecosystem partners to complement our products to deliver a range of solutions that in every way eclipses the expensive, single-vendor, closed "solutions" marketed by VMware.

Some time today, XenSource is expected to add a link to the entire comparison white paper. Once that happens, I will update the article to point directly to it.

** UPDATE **

Click here for the link to the report!

Posted by David Marshall on March 21, 2007 04:40 PM

March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Independent Developer Creates Parallels for Mac Tool

It was only a matter of time before a third party tool was developed for the Parallels Desktop for Mac product. In this case, independent software developer, BriteMac, created a third party tool that allows you to better manage your Parallels virtual machines.

The tool is called VM2Go v1.2. One of its coolest features is the ability to transfer your virtual machine from your Macintosh computer to an Apple iPod or other portable USB type device and then actually run the virtual machine from that device - allowing you to use the VM on the go.

But the utility isn't a one trick pony. It adds a number of other useful features, such as:

Easy transfer of a virtual machine to your Apple iPod or other removable media device such as a USB thumb drive or external hard disk. Just click and VM2Go figures out what files need to be moved - fixing the configuration of the virtual machine so that the machine will run from the device.
VM2Go features a backup capability so you can copy your virtual machine to a DVD. Most people like to have a clean version of Windows around that has nothing installed. Using the DVD backup feature you can create virtual machines with Parallels Desktop, install Windows and backup the machine to DVD. You can also easily restore it using either the Finder or the restore feature within the software.
Do you have multiple virtual machines on your Mac? VM2Go using Apple's Spotlight technology will locate them no matter where they are on your system.
VM2Go does a virtual machine analysis. You can click on each one and see the details of each machine. Further, VM2Go will analyze your virtual machine and tell you if any of the critical files are missing.
You can also delete these machines in the utility tab. Clicking delete - while permanent - will delete the various files associated with the virtual machine including the desktop alias should it be present.
You can also launch your virtual machine from within VM2Go. You simply click the machine and click Start. Parallels Desktop will be loaded and the virtual machine you selected will be launched.

You can download and try the software, here. However, as of this writing, I was unable to locate where the full version of the product was being made available for purchase.

Posted by David Marshall on March 20, 2007 04:37 PM

March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Bridges Announces Major Update of Win4Lin Pro

Virtual Bridges, Inc. announced today the release of a major upgrade to its desktop and enterprise virtualization product - Win4Lin Pro.

Win4Lin Pro Desktop allows Linux users to run Windows applications from the security of the Linux desktop. Win4Lin Virtual Desktop Server is the enterprise/SMB product for delivering Windows applications to Linux Desktops and thin clients via a Linux server.

"Win4Lin differentiates itself from desktop virtualization vendors by focusing on Windows virtualization and integration into the host Linux environment," said Jim Curtin, president and CEO of Virtual Bridges. "Win4Lin 4 increases the value to customers migrating from Windows to Linux by offering the smoothest, most integrated way to run Windows applications within one's Linux environment."

Some of the major highlights of Win4Lin 4 include the ability to cut and paste between Windows and Linux, bridged networking support, enhanced graphic modes, two concurrent user sessions per license and core virtualization enhancements. The current product offers support for Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Mandriva, Red Hat, Linspire, Freespire, Debian, Fedora Core and openSUSE. While other distributions may work, they have not been tested by Virtual Bridges.

Win4Lin Pro Desktop features include:

It runs Windows 2000/XP Applications and Desktop on Linux Desktop at near-native speed
Ability to display either full desktop mode or "floating" application mode
Windows malware resistance through "renewable" Windows architecture
Allows re-use of your existing Windows license for both cost-savings and broad application compatibility
Full integration between the Linux Desktop and Windows file systems for user documents and settings

Win4Lin Pro Desktop 4 is available immediately and is currently being offered to new users at a price of $69. Existing Win4Lin Pro users can upgrade for only $19.99 until April 15, 2007.

Posted by David Marshall on March 19, 2007 08:01 PM

March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 with Symantec and OpenVZ

In addition to the announcement about Red Hat releasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, other announcements have been coming out around the same time such as the discussions around the Red Hat and Symantec collaboration agreement and the news that the OpenVZ project was making its operating system server virtualization software available for Red Hat's operating system. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on March 19, 2007 07:54 PM

March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Cisco Acquires Storage Virtualization Firm

Cisco Systems moved further into the file virtualization arena when it announced a definitive agreement to purchase privately held NeoPath Networks, a network storage and virtualization firm. NeoPath's patented SMART virtualization technology and its File Director family of products simplify the management of network attached storage (NAS) and other file servers.

Cisco has been aggressively moving into the storage networking space since it acquired Fibre channel switch maker Andiamo back in 2002. Cisco is not alone in this endeavor. Rival Brocade recently acquired NuView, and EMC recently purchased Rainfinity. The more Cisco plays in this space, the more the rumor mill will continue to charge that Cisco may yet acquire one of the many NAS vendors such as NetApp or ONStor.

In a recent statement, Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President of Cisco's Datacenter Switching and Security Technology Group (DSSTG), said, "Enterprise customers are asking Cisco how they can make better use of their existing IT infrastructure, and NeoPath is part of the answer. "NeoPath's technology will enhance Cisco's Services Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) direction and vision by establishing tighter linkages between file based data and network accelerated services."

Cisco expects that the deal will close in the current quarter, which ends April 28. However, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Posted by David Marshall on March 19, 2007 04:20 AM

March 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Neoware Expands into the Virtualization Market

Neoware announced the launch of the industry's first mobile virtual desktop thin client solution, an initiative that expands the company's reach into the rapidly growing virtualization market.

Neoware unveiled a new product line of virtualization-oriented thin client devices. The virtual desktop initiative ready devices include special editions of the Neoware C50 and e140 thin client devices, as well as the Neoware m100 mobile thin client.

According to Neoware, these VDI-ready devices are fully compatible with leading virtual personal computer initiatives, including VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), IBM's Virtual Client Solution (VCS) and the Citrix Dynamic Desktop Initiative (DDI). Additionally, all the new Neoware thin client devices include support for Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and the latest version of Citrix ICA, they are compatible with connection brokers from Leostream and Propero, and they are certified as Citrix Ready.

"The rise of virtualization technology in the corporate enterprise has given way to a new breed of thin client solutions that provide enterprises with tremendous advantages over traditional personal computers," said Klaus Besier, CEO of Neoware. "As the first to market with a mobile virtual desktop thin client solution, Neoware has taken a significant step in driving the adoption of personal computer virtualization and the evolution of thin client computing. We will continue to leverage virtualization technology to provide our customers with the most cost-effective and reliable thin client solutions available."

The devices are immediately available, and list prices start at $279.

Posted by David Marshall on March 18, 2007 04:55 PM

March 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Symantec Acquisition of Altiris Draws Near

Symantec revealed that the acquisition of Altiris is drawing nearer following the early termination of the waiting period imposed by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

The $830 million deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007. The acquisition still requires satisfaction of certain conditions. They now need Altiris shareholder consent which should happen during the company's shareholder meeting on April 4, and they also require regulatory approval in Germany. Once that happens, the deal is expected to close and the companies will move quickly to complete the merger.

The question that remains in my mind is which Altiris products will remain? Are any on Symantec's chopping block? Specifically, I wonder what Symantec's plans are for Altiris Software Virtualization Solution (SVS). Do they know what they have in this product or is it being overlooked?

As an example, Altiris continues to move forward with product announcements in spite of the impending acquisition. Recently, the company announced a new product called Altiris Application Compatibility Suite which is a bundle of solutions that help IT departments diagnose and mitigate most Microsoft Windows Vista application compatibility challenges.

The following Altiris solutions are included in the new suite:

Altiris Application Control Solution software helps preserve the security benefits of user account control while creating an efficient and user-friendly application environment within Windows Vista.
Altiris Software Virtualization Solution technology virtualizes trusted applications and places them in a virtual, protected area of Windows, allowing applications to continue to function as originally intended.
Wise Package Studio software helps organizations package or re-package existing applications as a Windows Installer (MSI) package to help deliver optimal Windows Vista installations. Wise Package Studio also provides certain Windows Vista compatibility testing for application components.

Steve Morton, Altiris VP of product management and marketing, said, "Altiris is working to provide the most comprehensive set of solutions available to help businesses migrate to Windows Vista as easily and effectively as possible."

The software suite is expected to be available in the second calendar quarter of 2007.

Posted by David Marshall on March 18, 2007 04:26 PM

March 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Netuitive Delivers Smart Management Software for VMware

Netuitive has announced its entrance into the virtualization world with the release of Netuitive SI for VMware, a software management solution that the company says will help IT managers balance their resource performance and quickly identify poorly performing or problem virtual machines.

Netuitive SI for VMware is designed to help IT administrators identify performance problems in their VMware environment. The software can identify problems with virtual machines, the host environment, and the resource pools and can also analyze and map the interdependencies in the performance relationships found within this dynamic virtual environment. According to George Hamilton of the Yankee Group, "The elements in a virtual environment are highly interdependent. Trying to understand the meaning and impact of their relationships to one another is humanly impossible."

That's where Netuitive comes in. Netuitive SI installs on the host server and integrates with VMware's VirtualCenter. The software scans the environment and monitors the host server, the virtual machines and the applications on them to learn normal behavior for the entire environment as well as the relationships between each component. In this way, the software can then intelligently identify any components that behave outside of the normal parameters. And unlike existing infrastructure monitoring software which is setup with human created thresholds and plagued with false negatives, Netuitive SI for VMware self-learns and cross-correlates the performance behavior characteristics of the virtual infrastructure allowing for performance degradation forecasts up to 2 hours in advance, immediate pinpointing of problems and proactive managing of system health.

Netuitive SI for VMware includes several features that provide performance management capabilities in a virtual environment, including:

Self-learns the performance behavior of VMware ESX host servers and the contextual performance of each guest VM.
Automates threshold administration of the ESX server and for each guest VM, including for application performance.
Automatically identifies "badly behaving" VMs which are choking performance of the ESX server.
Monitors and self-learns the resource profile of each VM and how it relates to the overall resource pool.
Integrates quickly and seamlessly with Virtual Center, requiring no manual rules, scripts or thresholds - and no agents.

Netuitive SI for VMware is expected to be available by April 2 with a cost of $5,000 per host server and $200 per virtual machine.

Posted by David Marshall on March 18, 2007 02:51 PM

March 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Blue Lane Provides Security for Virtual Machines

Blue Lane Technologies, a VMware Technology Alliance Partner, announced the immediate availability of VirtualShield, a software based vulnerability shield that is designed to provide instant protection for virtual machines running on the VMware Infrastructure 3 platform. The software was developed in cooperation with VMware, and it protects virtual machines from attacks against known, unpatched vulnerabilities.

One of the great things about virtual machines is the ease with which they can be created, replicated and brought online. Unfortunately, this can also translate into a huge drawback when using virtualization within a production environment as it has the potential to cause a serious security problem. As virtual machines get quickly replicated and rolled out, there is a tendancy to shy away from following standard procedures and best practices put in place with physical servers. As virtual server sprawl happens, these very same virtual machines tend to get overlooked when it comes time for patching and maintenance.

Blue Lane's VirtualShield software attempts to address this very problem. VirtualShield for VMware Infrastructure 3 works at the hypervisor layer to protect the virtual machines on that host server. According to Blue Lane, the software watches for traffic coming in that violates known security or patching policies. When such a threat is detected, it prevents the virtual machine from being exposed.

"Vulnerability shields are a promising approach to mitigating the security risks of today's IT environments," said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions at VMware. "Blue Lane's VirtualShield brings the benefits of vulnerability shields to VMware environments and gives our customers another option for securing their virtual infrastructure in ways that are simpler and more effective than those available for their physical environments."

Challenges of Virtual Server Security

Decoupling software and hardware breaks perimeter defenses that rely on a physical location or fixed IP address
Dynamic and "offline" virtual servers evade vulnerability/patch management
Agent-based security is challenging to manage and imposes significant costs
Ease of server creation can lead to unmanageable sprawl
Increasingly varied server stacks complicate regression testing and patching initiatives

Blue Lane VirtualShield Features and Benefits

Protects virtual servers regardless of physical location or patch-level
Eliminates remote threats without blocking legitimate application requests or requiring server reboots
Up-to-date protection with no configuration changes and no agent installation on the host operating system
Delivers appropriate protection for specific applications without requiring any manual tuning

VirtualShield for VI3 is priced at $499 per dual-processor VI3 server. To get started, try a 45-day trial of the software, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 18, 2007 01:59 PM

March 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron Offers a Cheap Upgrade Solution for VMware Customers

Virtual Iron Software is attempting to lure away existing VMware customers by offering a limited time upgrade program that is only good for the first 100 customers who take the bite.

Virtual Iron's upgrade program is designed for VMware users currently operating with VMware Server and/or VMware ESX Server 2.5 but haven't yet made the leap to upgrading to VMware Infrastructure 3. According to Virtual Iron, these users want to take advantage of the benefits being offered by VI3 such as high availability, business continuity and utility computing, but these organizations don't want to pay the high price required to upgrade to VI3. Additionally, Virtual Iron says that these same users are holding back upgrading to VI3 because their current investment in ESX licenses and maintenance don't earn them any pricing discounts. Complexity of migrating to VI3 is also listed as a concern.

The company claims their upgrade program will provide VMware users a simple way to upgrade their virtual environment and still get all the advanced virtual infrastructure management capabilities that they need. The program includes seamless virtual machine migration from VMware to Virtual Iron by bundling PlateSpin's PowerConvert platform.

Virtual Iron offers the VMware Upgrade Program in three different product bundles. Each includes the following:

Perpetual Licenses for Virtual Iron Software
One (1) Year of Virtual Iron Gold Level Support
PlateSpin Power Convert V2V Migration and Support
Additional V2V Migrations at a Special Discount

Upgrade Program Bundles and Pricing

Bundle 1 - 2 Servers, 4 Sockets, 24 V2V Conversions - $3,800
Bundle 2 - 3 Servers, 6 Sockets, 36 V2V Conversions - $5,700
Bundle 3 - 4 Servers, 8 Sockets, 48 V2V Conversions - $7,600

More information about the upgrade program is available on Virtual Iron's Web site, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 17, 2007 08:21 AM

March 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

ICS and AppStream Partner to Fortify the SmartDesktop

AppStream, a provider of on-demand application deployment and management, and Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS), a full service information security and technology services firm, have signed a partnership agreement.

The partnership will allow ICS to leverage AppStream's award-winning streaming technology. Doing so, ICS will use the streaming technology as their primary application delivery method for its SmartDesktop solution. According to ICS, they hope their solution can address the challenges that organizations face with managing today's "antiquated desktop environments". ICS points out that through independent research as well as through an ICS costing model, the SmartDesktop solution can allow for a 47% TCO reduction and can provide an ROI period of 8 months. Steve Goldsby, CEO of ICS, claims that AppStream's technology comprises a large portion of that savings.

"ICS's SmartDesktop fortified with AppStream technology ultimately helps businesses optimize IT resources and focus on strategic priorities," said Brad Rowland, vice president of marketing and product management, AppStream.

The solution is availability immediately, but is only offered through ICS. SmartDesktop is delivered as an outsourced consulting service, or ICS can train an organization's staff to design, build and deploy the solution.

Posted by David Marshall on March 17, 2007 07:45 AM

March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

PlateSpin a Mover and Shaker in Virtualization

When people in the virtualization community talk about P2V, the name PlateSpin comes up time and time again. They've been one of the dominant players in this space for quite some time.

For the third year in a row, the company was named one of the fastest growing IT companies in Canada according to the 2007 edition of the Branham300, the definitive listing of leading Canadian ICT companies. Now in its fourteenth year, the Branham300 highlights the top Canadian IT companies based on worldwide revenues. PlateSpin moved up 51 places to the number 130 spot on the Branham300.

PlateSpin also ranked second on the Backbone Magazine Top 20 Movers and Shakers list. This list represents those companies that showed the most significant increases in their rankings compared to the previous year's list.

Pleased to be recognized by the Branham Group, PlateSpin Founder and CEO Stephan Pollack had this to say: "The rapid growth that we have achieved is a testament to the quality of our solutions and our ability to execute on a global scale. Some 25% of the Fortune 500 use PlateSpin products and our technology is used in some of the largest data centers in the world. With the recent introduction of our next generation disaster recovery (DR) solution, which provides an affordable and easy to implement alternative to traditional DR solutions for all the x86 servers in the data center, PlateSpin is well-positioned to extend its leadership in the virtualization market in 2007."

Posted by David Marshall on March 15, 2007 07:58 PM

March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Windows Server Virtualization Demonstration Video

If you haven't had the opportunity to see Microsoft's next generation virtualization hypervisor platform, you are in luck.

Jeff Woolsey, a lead program manager on the Windows virtualization team, recently recorded a great video to walk us through some of the new features that are going to be available in Microsoft's Windows Server Virtualization platform.

In this 5 minute 45 second video clip, you'll be able to see and learn more about the following:

Windows Server Virtualization running on Server Core managed from another Windows Server Longhorn box
64-bit and 32-bit Windows and Linux running on the same server core box
A running 8-core virtual machine
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (which does P2V conversions, live migrations with no downtime and organizes workloads)
System Center Operations Manager
Monitoring the VMs on the Server Core box
Running a PowerShell script to hot-add a new network adapter to a running SQL Server virtual machine

You can watch this amazing video, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 15, 2007 04:29 PM

March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource Kicks-Off Global Seminar Series

XenSource announced a new global campaign titled "Simply Virtualize" which includes a webcast and a series of global events which the company is producing along with IBM and Intel.

Are you interested in reducing IT capital expenditures and facilities costs such as power, cooling and real estate? Who isn't!

In this seminar series, Intel, IBM and XenSource are attempting to help the global community. Advances in hardware and software virtualization, as well as integrated technology solutions such as the IBM System x server bundled with the XenEnterprise solution, have removed common barriers to server consolidation such as cost and complexity.

In this Webcast, you will hear an analyst's perspective on why now is the time to leverage virtualization for server consolidation. If you attend a seminar in one of the cities near you, you will get a more detailed look at how this next generation virtualization supporting both Windows and Linux can dramatically reduce your IT costs while increasing business agility and IT responsiveness.

In his presentation, Gillett will cover the benefits of server consolidation, findings from a recent virtualization adoption study conducted by Forrester, and how companies can get started today. In addition, executives from Intel and XenSource will present in the webcast. The seminar series will feature presentations with executives from IBM and XenSource, and a networking session with live product demonstrations on Intel Xeon Processor-based platforms with Intel Virtualization technology, and an IBM System x platform.

"Simply Virtualize is a great way for IT users to learn about virtualization as a way to reduce cost and improve IT agility," said John Bara, VP Marketing at XenSource. "Together, IBM, Intel and XenSource deliver easy-to-use, high-performance and affordably virtualization solutions."

Forrester VP Frank Gillett will keynote the webcast on March 20, 2007. Following the webcast, eighteen virtualization seminars will be held around the globe, taking place between March 22 and May 25, and focusing on teaching attendees how to minimize the cost and complexity of Windows and Linux server consolidation.

To register for the March 20 webcast which will take place at 9:00 AM PDT/12:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM GMT or to attend one of the events in the global seminar series taking place March 22 to May 10, go here.

Dates and locations for the global seminar series are:

-- March 22 - London, UK
-- March 28 - Birmingham, UK
-- April 12 - Dublin, Ireland
-- April 17 - Wellington, New Zealand
-- April 18 - Munich, Germany
-- April 19 - Frankfurt, Germany
-- April 19 - Sydney, Australia
-- April 19 - New York, US
-- April 20 - Washington D.C., US
-- April 24 - Atlanta, US
-- April 24 - Paris, France
-- April 25 - Chicago, US
-- April 26 - Dallas, US
-- April 27 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
-- May 4 - Milan, Italy
-- May 8 - San Francisco, US
-- May 10 - London, UK
-- May 25 - Madrid, Spain

Posted by David Marshall on March 14, 2007 04:39 PM

March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Virtualized Desktops and XenSource Global Virtualization Initiatives

VMware, today's leader in the industry standard virtualized desktop and server market, announced a public beta of ACE 2 Enterprise Edition and is once again setting its sites on the virtualized desktop market. ACE is a breakthrough product that will help elevate VMware's game in this widely expanding market. And after that topic, we'll find out more about XenSource's global campaign and virtualization initiative as they team up with IBM and Intel to help spread the word about virtualization. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on March 14, 2007 04:33 PM

March 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SWsoft Joins HP ProLiant Partner Program

SWsoft, maker of server automation and virtualization software, announced that they have joined the HP ProLiant Partner Program. Doing so brings together the award-winning Virtuozzo server virtualization software with HP ProLiant servers which both companies hope will help optimize their customers' IT infrastructures.

According to SWsoft, the two companies have validated Virtuozzo operating system virtualization software running on HP ProLiant servers and the solution creates virtual environments that can consolidate several servers into one physical server, using either Linux or Windows, which improves utilization and makes greater use of server resources.

"Collaborating with HP combines our highly-scalable and manageable OS virtualization software with high-performance HP servers to help customers increase utilization rates and improve their return on investment," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO, SWsoft. "Virtuozzo software is ideal for HP systems that range from ProLiant servers for SMBs to HP Integrity SMP systems for mission-critical workloads."

Unlike virtual machines and hypervisors, SWsoft says that Virtuozzo addresses the challenges faced by today's datacenters of operating system sprawl. Its unique architecture and management tools make it the ideal solution for provisioning, monitoring and managing virtualized server resources.

Posted by David Marshall on March 13, 2007 08:19 PM

March 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

RingCube Technologies Scores $12 Million Investment

Mountain View, California-based RingCube announced that they have raised a $12 million Series B round of funding.

"MojoPac is experiencing phenomenal growth month to month across multiple channels," said Shan Appajodu, CEO and Founder of RingCube. "This round of funding will enable us to accelerate our consumer and enterprise market growth and to service our customers across the globe."

The company would like to change computer user's habits by making the personal computing seamlessly portable and more accessible than ever before with its MojoPac software. The MojoPac technology enables customers to take all of their documents, files, applications and settings on a portable USB storage device (such as a music player, flash drive, thumb drive or pocket hard disk), which when plugged into any Windows XP based PC brings up their customized and private computing environment. Multiple users can then have a complete, private and secure personal computing experience while sharing a single PC. The technology is designed to give users on the go the ability to have their work space travel with them no matter where they are or what computer they use.

Consumers can try the product risk-free for 30 days. The company licenses MojoPac by charging a one time fee of $49.99, with up to three additional licenses available for just $24.99 each. The software can be downloaded, here.

To find out more about the product, you can watch one of the Mojo Demos, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 13, 2007 07:37 PM

March 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Trigence Continues Growth with Former Softricity Employees

Trigence, a provider of application virtualization, has announced the appointment of two former Softricity employees within less than a month of each other.

On February 14, 2007, the company announced that Janet Strackhouse joined the company's management team as Vice-President of U.S. Sales. In this new role, Strackhouse is expected to oversee Trigence's U.S. sales operations and focus on business development and new customer penetration. Prior to joining, she was responsible for Softricity's North American Sales.

Fast forward to March 5, 2007, where Trigence once again announced the appointment of yet another former Softricity employee. This time, the company announced that John Hamilton would join Trigence as its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Hamilton is expected to help build the business infrastructure that will enable the company to drive to the next level.

Softricity had something extremely interesting in the application virtualization space. Since being acquired by Microsoft, there hasn't been a lot of news coming out about where the product stands. It will be interesting to see if these two individuals can bring some of that Softricity magic over to Trigence.

Posted by David Marshall on March 13, 2007 07:20 PM

March 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource and XenEnterprise 3.2 Beta

It looks as though XenSource has announced a beta availability of XenEnterprise 3.2. Roger Klorese, Senior Director of Product and Solutions Marketing at XenSource, announced on his blog site that in spite of a minor revision change, this product update is far from "minor". There are literally hundreds of enhancements, both large and small.

They list the following new features and capabilities:

Support for new guests (Windows 2000 Server SP4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1)
Improved support for Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP guests:
- Support for SMP XenVMs (with up to 4 vCPUs)
- Suspend/resume support
- Greater than 2GB of guest RAM
- Signed drivers with WHQL certification
Resource controls for CPU, network and disk bandwidth for prioritization of co-resident guests
Serviceability enhancements
Basic iSCSI SAN support
VLAN trunk support for virtual bridges
CPU, memory, disk and network resource control

With these and other enhancements, XenEnterprise becomes an even better choice than before, and XenSource brings their product more in line with many of the features offered in VMware's ESX Server platform.

You can download the beta version, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 12, 2007 04:50 AM

March 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

A Free SoftGrid Migration Tool Made Available

After Microsoft acquired and dropped the pricing for Softricity's SoftGrid, interest for the product has accelerated. And because converting MSI-based application packaging into SoftGrid sequences can be an extremely laborious task, Dennis Damen and Rodney Medina from Login Consultants created the free SoftGrid Migration Tool to help alleviate this problem.

The tool is 100% freeware and available for download, here. Registration is required.

Posted by David Marshall on March 10, 2007 08:42 AM

March 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Veeam Software Releases Reporter 1.0 for VI3

The Russian based software provider, Veeam Software, is at it again. Having recently announced the release of their latest version of Veeam FastSCP 2.0, the company quickly followed it up with the release of their latest tool, Veeam Reporter for VMware Infrastructure 3.

For those organizations migrating to a virtual environment, this tool can become quite handy. Reporter is used to discover, document and create a visual representation of a VI3 environment. According to Veeam, the tool collects information about the VI3 environment, its components and configuration settings, and then provides a comprehensive visual report in the form of a Microsoft Visio diagram that can then be used for analysis and documentation.

Key functions of the Veeam Reporter include:

Discover it - Veeam Reporter discovers essential components of VMware Infrastructure, their properties and relationships. Veeam Reporter works both with VirtualCenter and ESX Server.
Document it - Veeam Reporter saves the collected data for printing as well as change management tracking.
Visio it - Veeam Reporter is a professional tool for ESX administrators, system integrators and datacenter managers. It builds a detailed visual diagram based on the collected data and presents it as a Visio report.

Pricing for the new tool starts at $120 per CPU. You can also download a free trial of Veeam Reporter, here.

Posted by David Marshall on March 10, 2007 08:22 AM

March 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource, What About Trademarks and Benchmarks?

XenSource has been getting a lot of attention lately. In a recent article, it was claimed that XenSource was laying the smack down on people over the Xen Trademark. It was even claimed that people would have to pay XenSource to have their applications certified or to simply use the Xen name in their product. And not long ago, VMware posted a benchmarking white paper that showed ESX Server outperforming Xen 3.0.3. XenSource decided to run its own benchmark tests. So what happened? listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on March 10, 2007 05:31 AM

March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Sentillion vThere Receives RSA Certification

Sentillion vBusiness announced that its packaged desktop virtualization solution, vThere, has been awarded RSA Secured certification with RSA SecurID, signaling its interoperability with industry leading two-factor authentication technology from RSA. In addition, Sentillion has also joined the RSA Secured Partner Program.

vThere provides organizations with the ability to deliver exactly the same application access, user experience and level of security as when the user is physically within the enterprise, without the need for a server-based infrastructure.

IT departments may leverage vThere to provide this type of functionality to its remote workers, call center employees, contractors, business partners or displaced employees. Sentillion answers that typical problem of supporting these remote desktops and now has an answer for the complex security challenges that go along with it.

"Our RSA Secured certification enables Sentillion customers to enjoy an added level of network security when deploying vThere. We are proud that RSA has certified that vThere adheres to the policies and requirements set forth by RSA SecurID technology," said David Fusari, vice president & CTO for Sentillion.

Interestingly, back in October of 2006, Sentillion decided to form a strategic partnership with Parallels by embedding Parallels Workstation for Windows into its vThere offering - replacing VMware. Now, VMware ACE 2.0 looks to be competing with vThere, and yet it is Sentillion who is making announcements around RSA certification, not VMware - although VMware and RSA are both now owned by parent company EMC.

Posted by David Marshall on March 7, 2007 06:45 PM

March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Announces ACE 2 Enterprise Public Beta

VMware has announced the public beta of VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition. The product is being described by the company as a breakthrough product that enables IT desktop managers to create a standard PC environment including operating system, data and applications. Ansd then wrap it with IT policies to protect the contents, package it into a virtual machine and then deploy it to any managed or unmanaged PC endpoint.

VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta includes a new desktop mobility feature, Pocket ACE, which enables deployment of a full-featured desktop virtual machine to a portable media device such as a USB flash drive, portable hard drive or Apple iPod. End users can load a secure desktop onto the media device, plug it into a licensed PC or laptop and access the desktop from nearly anywhere with network connectivity.

The product also features the newly introduced VMware ACE Management Server, which allows IT administrators to centrally track and manage thousands of VMware ACE desktops and apply standard policies to them from a single console. As the first production-ready VMware virtual appliance, the VMware ACE Management Server is available pre-installed, pre-configured and ready to deploy. In addition, VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta utilizes the latest VMware virtualization platform, enabling IT administrators to use VMware Workstation 6 to create and securely package VMware ACE virtual machines for deployment to end users who then can run them on any licensed PC or laptop.

VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta benefits include:

Streamlined enterprise desktop management. Supporting users on unmanaged hardware can require IT administrators to create, test, provision and migrate a separate desktop image for every flavor of PC hardware being supported. Administrators now can create standard desktop images using VMware Workstation 6, then deploy and manage them with the VMware ACE Management Server. This results in the ability to easily manage numerous virtual machines while reducing the number of images to create and enabling faster desktop deployments.
Simplified policy control. A single management interface provides centralized policy management of desktop virtual machines deployed on existing PCs. The VMware ACE Management Server supports dynamic updates of IT policies and manages virtual machine expiration dates, device and network access configurations and activation or deactivation of VMware ACE clients at any time.
Isolated environments. IT administrators can create secure and isolated VMware ACE desktop environments for use on existing PCs that are separate from the user's personal settings. This allows administrators to manage and control the VMware ACE desktop without infringing on the user's freedom to utilize PC features that might be restricted within the VMware ACE environment.
Easy backup and recovery. IT administrators can take snapshots of stable virtual machine configurations and roll back to the previous state quickly and easily.
Expanded operating system support. In addition to support for Windows Vista, VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta offers Linux host operating system support for Mandriva, Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu.
Increased performance and memory support. VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta leverages the latest virtualization platform from VMware, including support for USB 2.0, and supports virtual machines of up to 8 GB in size.

The product is currently in public beta for Linux and Windows and is available for download, here. The product is expected around the second quarter of 2007.

Posted by David Marshall on March 7, 2007 04:54 PM

March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron Releases Version 3.5 with Added iSCSI Support

This week, Virtual Iron Software announced the general availability of version 3.5 of the company's enterprise-class virtualization platform.

One of the key features in this release was the a