Virtualization Report | David Marshall | July 2007

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July 2007

July 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

AMD's Roadmap is Virtualization Friendly

Intel and AMD have gone back and forth fighting the good fight for market share in the CPU market - a fight that the consumer greatly benefits from. AMD has come up with some great designs in the past, and this year expects to be more of the same. With new CPUs coming out with added virtualization support as well as improved system memory support, the virtual data center should be expecting a nice boost in performance. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 31, 2007 08:16 PM

July 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Cisco and VMware - $150 Million Later

Were you shocked to hear Intel's announcement about purchasing a $218.5 million stake in VMware?

If not, I guess you weren't shocked to hear that Cisco had something similar in mind. The networking giant decided that it would acquire an equity stake in VMware as well - announcing that it would purchase $150 million of VMware Class A common shares. Doing so would give the company a 1.6 percent ownership in VMware (less than one percent of the combined voting power of VMware's outstanding common stock). This amount wasn't enough to demand a seat on the board, however, VMware did agree to consider the appointment of a Cisco executive to VMware's board at a future date.

Cisco's purchase is intended to strengthen inter-company collaboration towards accelerating customer adoption of VMware virtualization products with Cisco networking infrastructure and the development of customer solutions that address the intersection of virtualization and networking technologies.

Cisco Chairman and CEO - John Chambers - will be participating at VMware's largest trade show, VMworld 2007 in San Francisco. In fact, Chambers is going to be one of the keynote speakers on Wednesday, September 12. I'm sure we'll find out more about the stock purchase, the collaboration agreement between the two companies, and any future solutions the two companies may have to further enhance the datacenter or the end-user desktops.

Posted by David Marshall on July 30, 2007 05:52 PM

July 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

EMA's Andi Mann Shares his Virtualization Wisdom with the Virtualization Report

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Andi Mann, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Management Associates. For those of you who may not know them, EMA is a leading IT Analyst firm specializing in IT management issues. Andi heads up EMA's Systems Management practice, and is the author of several reports on virtualization, including last year's ground-breaking 130-page research study "Virtualization: Exposing the Intangible Enterprise", and the recent 4-page advisory note "Is Virtualization Right For You? The Top Ten Questions You Should Ask."

Q. What do you think is behind the current boom in virtualization?

A. Well, some 'common wisdom' - which seems to be based on little more than guesswork - says it is all about cost savings - server consolidation, floor space, things like that. But EMA's research actually shows pretty convincingly that is not true. For most businesses it is primarily about strategic business values like flexibility, agility, and business continuity. You can never ignore direct costs, but they appear to be secondary to these more strategic goals. That's one reason why we advise our clients to look at virtualization as a strategy, not a project.

Q. What do you mean by that - can you explain the difference a little bit more?

A. I have been telling my clients for almost 18 months that virtualization is a strategy, not a project; it is about the whole business, not just about IT; it is about long-term benefits, not necessarily short-term savings. For example, once you have finished a server consolidation project with virtualization, you are left with a half-empty data center, and a sunk cost in virtualization technologies and skills - so how do you keep leveraging that investment? Enterprises need to consider how they can use virtualization to make their entire business better for the long-run, not just about how they can finish their server consolidation project.

Q. Where are the biggest problems with virtualization?

A. My research last year showed that the key issues are management challenges, and human issues. For management of virtual systems, integration is a major challenge - integrating the management of physical and virtual systems, of heterogeneous platforms, and of different virtualization types. Configuration management, capacity planning, and workload orchestration are also key disciplines, to get the most from virtualization while preventing or delaying VM sprawl. On the human side, the politics of sharing resources and prioritizing performance can be difficult. Virtualization also requires a new set of skills and methodologies, not just within IT, but in the end-user community. And it requires new and creative thinking, not just new training and skills. These are key issues right now.

Q. What about security - is that as big a problem as people are saying?

A. Well, it is important, but it is not as big a problem as some people make it out to be. As far back as 2006, I pointed out many different security challenges in a virtualized environment, based on my research data. For example, there are some entirely new threats like the so-called blue pill/red pill attacks, hypervisor attacks, hypervisor malware, etc. But it has security benefits too. For example, virtualization also makes it easy to overcome virus infection by recovering from a "golden image". So security becomes a bit of a double-edged sword.

Q. So should businesses be concerned about these security exposures? Should they delay virtualization initiatives?

A. There are some self-styled experts saying things like that - but they come across like Chicken Little saying "the sky is falling, the sky is falling", when really they should know better. Sure, businesses need to be aware of the potential risks, and we do need better tools for security management for virtual environments - but there is no need for some of the panic I have seen from other analysts. There are some straightforward ways to deal with the threats; they just require some informed thinking and good process controls. Once you understand the new exposures, you can implement processes and technology to close the gaps. Controls like continuous discovery, configuration management, change management, and other positive procedures can be very effective. Virtualization can be quite secure, if you know what you are doing.

Q. So finally, what do you see as the next big thing in virtualization?

A. It will be all about the end user impact of virtualization. In fact, that is the topic of my next virtualization advisory note. Way back in 2006, way before some other writers picked it up, my research was showing that desktop and application virtualization would be the next big thing. You can see it in how the primary vendors have focused on various desktop initiatives - like desktop virtualization, application virtualization, streaming, etc. You can see this in moves like VMware picking up Propero, Citrix acquiring Ardence, Microsoft taking Softricity, and LANDesk and Altiris both building in application virtualization technology. I think you will see pure-play vendors like Thinstall, Endeavors Technologies, Kidaro, and AppStream becoming even more important too. These are some really exciting technologies for cost saving, agility, business value, security, and so on.

Q. And long-term? Where is this all heading?

A. Eventually, we will see virtualization as the basis for a truly dynamic IT infrastructure, which will allow businesses to be more agile than ever before. SOA, Web Services, grid architectures, and virtualization will come together to provide business services that are truly platform independent, thin and agile, and available 'on tap' with extreme scalability and mobility. Automation and management will be critical success factors, but IT will eventually be able to deliver discrete, flexible services across a highly dynamic compute fabric as and when they are needed - internally or externally; through the Web or locally; on desktops or handhelds; wireless or tethered. It is going to be a way off, but you can see it coming. It will be exciting to watch these technologies continue to develop.

Q. Thanks Andi, it was great to talk to you.

A. My pleasure David, as always.

Posted by David Marshall on July 30, 2007 04:13 PM

July 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Cisco Gears Up for Data Center 3.0 with VFrame

While at its Networkers conference in Anaheim, CA, Cisco announced its roadmap plan, calling it - "Data Center 3.0". The funny thing is, I just got used to living in the "Data Center 2.0" era described to me some six or so months ago. My how these things fly! I half expect someone to declare Data Center 4.0 by the end of the year... ok, perhaps 3.5.

In any case, part of this announcement from Cisco included the introduction to its VFrame Data Center (VFrame DC), an orchestration platform that leverages network intelligence to provision resources together as virtualized services. Cisco claims this approach greatly reduces application deployment times, improves overall resource utilization, and offers greater business agility. Further, VFrame DC includes an open API, and easily integrates with third party management applications, as well as best-of-breed server and storage virtualization offerings.

VFrame DC is a highly efficient orchestration platform for service provisioning which requires only a single controller and one back-up controller. The real time provisioning engine has a comprehensive view of compute, storage and network resources. This view enables VFrame DC to provision resources as virtualized services using graphical design templates. These design templates comprise one of four VFrame DC modular components: design, discovery, deploy, and operations. These components are integrated together with a robust security interface that allows controlled access by multiple organizations.

"VFrame Data Center offers unprecedented orchestration within the data center network, for dynamically re-programming server, storage and network resources into agile application services," said Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President, Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group, Cisco. "This agility addresses the need for greater time to market for complex E-commerce application deployments by customers."

Cisco VFrame Data Center components include:

Cisco VFrame Data Center Appliance: Central controller that connects to Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks
Cisco VFrame Data Center GUI: Java-based client that accesses application running on VFrame Data Center Appliance
Cisco VFrame Web Services Interface and Software Development Kit: Programmable interface that allows scripting of actions for Cisco VFrame Data Center
Cisco VFrame Host Agent: Host agent that provides server heartbeat, capacity utilization metrics, shutdown, and other capabilities
Cisco VFrame Data Center Macros: Open interface that allows administrators to create custom provisioning actions

The technology, while impressive, isn't new. Back in 2005, Cisco purchased the Mountain View, CA company Topspin for $250 million. Topspin focused on server fabric switches providing a high performance, programmable infrastructure for grid and utility computing, clustered enterprise applications, and server virtualization.

With virtualization becoming the "next best thing" in IT, what better time to dust off this technology and reintroduce it to the market. VFrame DC is an important component to help Cisco reach its vision for the next generation datacenter which includes the real-time, dynamic orchestration of infrastructure services from shared pools of virtualized server, storage and network resources, and optimizing application service-levels, efficiency and collaboration.

Posted by David Marshall on July 28, 2007 07:24 AM

July 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtualization Security Challenges

As the mainstream continues to adopt virtualization into their IT environments, the question of IT security still comes up. In fact, some worry that security might even pose a bigger problem within a virtualized environment.

Research specialist, emedia, recently used its RapidResearch service to conduct an email survey to find out more about some of the challenges virtualization adopters are facing.

The survey indicates that over half (52%) of respondents are saying virtualization systems introduce some new security challenges. The main ones amongst those mentioned, include consideration for patching and update (32%), guest-to-guest attacks (27%), and the addition of new host software (22%).

Interestingly, the later the implementation of the technology is scheduled for, the more apprehensive IT professionals seems to be. emedia's survey shows that 51% of current users think that virtualization poses some new risks, rising to 57% amongst those planning to use the new solution within the next 6 months and 66% amongst those adopting it within the next 6 to 18 months.

David Clark, managing director at emedia, concludes their findings saying, "The advantages of virtualization appear to be tantalising but it seems that IT managers approach it with caution."

And for many who are highly interested and concerned with security, there is no better place to go to find out more information than Black Hat. The next event is taking place now through August 2, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The Black Hat Briefings bring together a unique mix in security: the best minds from government agencies and global corporations with the most respected independent researchers and hackers. Topics at these forums are diverse and range from RFID Security, Windows Vista Exploits, Forensics and Anti-Forensics, Root-Kits, Zero Day Vulnerabilities, Anomaly Detection, Hardware Hacking and much more. Virtualization is also becoming a favorite topic at these forums.

Microsoft's own Brandon Baker, security developer on the Windows kernel team, will be presenting a must see session called, "Kick Ass Hypervisoring: Windows Server Virtualization". In it he will be discussing things such as Windows Server Virtualization architecture and components, how Windows Server Virtualization virtualizes the CPU and enforces virtual machine isolation, best practices for Windows Server Virtualization deployment and hardware futures (ex. TXP from Intel, SVM from AMD, IOMMU).

You can find out more information about this event, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 28, 2007 07:07 AM

July 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Book: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Resource Kit

Robert Larson, an architect and expert on Microsoft Virtualization for Microsoft Consulting Services, and Janique Carbone have completed the Microsoft Virtual Server Resource Kit - described as the definitive, in-depth resource for administering Virtual Server 2005.

This book contains insights from the Microsoft experts who know the technology best. The official Microsoft Resource Kit provides the in-depth technical guidance on installing, configuring, administering, and supporting Virtual Server 2005.

In addition, you also get in-depth chapters on advanced configurations; development and test tools; migration and management tools; security, scripting; Linux support; disaster recovery; and extending and customizing Virtual Server 2005.

It also comes with a DVD that includes a copy of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Virtual Server R2 SP1, a bunch of new scripts, source code, sample applications, and a whole lot more.

To find out more about this coming soon book from Microsoft Press, go here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 27, 2007 05:55 PM

July 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The Green Grid - Who, What and Why?

One of the latest pushes being made within the IT community is to make the datacenter a more efficient operation. This is being dubbed as the "Green Datacenter". To accomplish this, organizations are leveraging virtualization to help reach that goal and make their datacenters comply with these green ideals so that they consume less power, require less cooling, and use up less datacenter space. Let's face it, datacenter floorspace is becoming a hot and scarce commodity. So to address this issue, an organization called the Green Grid has formed and its member roster is growing fast. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 27, 2007 05:50 PM

July 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Check Up On Altiris Software Virtualization Solution 2.1

Altiris recently posted a HotFix for its Software Virtualization Solution (SVS) 2.1 product. The HotFix reportedly fixes three blue screen problems reported to Microsoft via the Online Crash Analysis system. Also included in this HotFix is a registry cache enhancement that preserves correct operation of SVS when used with Scense on terminal servers.

The company said all users should upgrade their SVS installation with this update. For more information on this HotFix or to download it, go here.

And while you are thinking about Altiris SVS, you might want to check out the recent Podcast recording with Randy Cook, the Chief SVS Architect at Altiris. In this 12 minute audio cast, Randy talks about the beginnings of SVS (started in a basement, had three patents filed, acquired by Altiris) and how they have since completed an estimated 250-300,000 installs of the product. The media has also taken notice of the product, and it has been recognized many times by receiving numerous awards.

Who better to explain the product than Randy! Listen as he talks about how the product can instantly activate or deactivate a particular piece of software, revert a piece of software back to its first installed state with a simple reset and how it eliminates application conflicts.

He also talks about various new features found in the 2.1 release of SVS and makes mention of both Run Time Mode and Logon Hook.

You can listen, here.

You can download the product free of charge for personal use as well as other interesting downloads for SVS, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 27, 2007 05:25 PM

July 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Configuresoft Delivers its Configuration Intelligence for Virtualization

Configuresoft announced the delivery of the latest phase of its Configuration Intelligence platform to manage virtualized environments. Configuration Intelligence for Virtualization enables organizations to lower operating costs, improve IT agility and availability while meeting security and compliance regulations.

The company's initial pass at Configuration Intelligence for Virtualization will include agent software for VMware guests as well as an agent free approach for physical host servers. And it addresses many of today's virtualization concerns by centralizing and automating the monitoring, managing and auditing of physical (host) and virtual (guest) assets across an organization's infrastructure.

"Dependencies between physical servers, operating systems, application and business functions exponentially increase the level of complexity with the introduction of virtualization," said Dr. Dennis Moreau, CTO of Configuresoft. "This new level of complexity makes visibility into the security of this environment exceptionally hard. Configuration Intelligence provides enterprises with the ability to realize the significant advantages of virtualization without being overwhelmed with security vulnerabilities and compliance concerns."

Configuration Intelligence for Virtualization delivers unparalleled visibility, security and control to virtualized environments with:

Secure Collection Architecture - Auto-discovers and collects granular configuration details for VM machines and their hosts.
Guest/Host Relationship Correlation - Supports management and security compliance of each guest, host and the associated relationships across the entire virtualized landscape.
Visibility Into Dormant VMs - Assesses the security posture of dormant VMs before they can compromise the integrity of the overall infrastructure.
Security Hardening and Compliance Toolkits - Provides out-of-the-box templates that address vendor and virtualization best practices, regulatory mandates and security guidelines.
Holistic Security View of Virtualized Environment - Views hosts and associated guests environments as a single security entity.
Virtualization Visualization - Includes graphical indicators of non-compliance issues and pending actions across entire virtual environment.
Patch Assessment, Delivery and Verification - Significantly improves patch rates across the virtualized infrastructure.
Separation of Duties - Delegates user access to reports and operational actions based on AD rights, roles and responsibilities.

The company expects to support VMware's ESX Server by the end of the third quarter and then add support for Xen and Microsoft sometime in 2008.

You can find out more about this technology, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 25, 2007 04:56 PM

July 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

EMC Profits Up as VMware IPO Nears - Show Me the Money!

EMC said on Tuesday that its second quarter profits rose nearly 20 percent as the company recorded double-digit sales gains and posted its largest revenue gain in more than two years.

EMC reported net income of $334.4 million for the three months ended June 30, which is up from a profit of $279 million in the same quarter of 2006. And revenue rose 21 percent to $3.12 billion from $2.57 billion a year ago.

And once again, VMware was a huge contributor to the bottom line. The crowned prince of virtualization grew sales 89% year-over-year to $298 million during the second quarter as it continued to unlock the value of virtualization for existing and new customers around the world.

During the quarter, the virtualization leader broadened its product portfolio with new releases of its award-winning virtual desktop software and continued to expand its network of technology and distribution partners.

EMC plans to sell 10 percent of VMware in an IPO of stock this summer, and recently announced its plans to sell another 2.5 percent stake to Intel Corporation through its global investment arm, Intel Capital, for $218.5 million.

EMC's chairman, President and CEO told analysts that he is optimistic information technology spending will remain strong through the year's end and drive further gains at EMC. He added that the company sees a positive environment in all major geographies.

With the current earnings, the IPO and the investment from Intel, the question remains - what will VMware spend their money on to help retain their marketshare lead? Or the question could be re-phrased to ask, who will they spend their money on? SYS-CON had reported that VMware had planned on acquiring Opsware. If that were true, it looks like HP beat them to the punch. But with a sea of third-party applications leveraging the virtualization technology out there, VMware still has a chance to reel in a couple of really big fish.

Posted by David Marshall on July 25, 2007 04:20 PM

July 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)

HP Acquires Opsware and Neoware - Oh My!

Hewlett Packard isn't content leading the market with its server hardware. Now, they are making a strong play to become a software powerhouse as well. The company announced the acquisition of the data center management software firm - Opsware. And at the same time, the company also announced the acquisition of Neoware, further strengthening their position in the thin client market. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 24, 2007 08:08 PM

July 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Released its Benchmarking VMmark Solution

VMware has finally rolled out its virtualization benchmark solution called VMmark, which is the result of two years of engineering design, collaboration with partners, and review of extensive customer survey data.

The company hopes that VMmark can provide its customers and partners with a robust, reliable way to measure the performance of applications running in virtualized environments.

According to VMware, traditional benchmarks were developed to measure the performance associated with running a single workload on a server. These benchmarks do not capture system behavior of multiple virtual machines or the ability of a server to support multiple simultaneous workloads on the same server. VMmark is the first benchmarking system that measures the scalability of heterogeneous virtualized workloads and provides a consistent methodology so benchmark results can be compared across different virtualization platforms. As a result, companies can use this information to make appropriate hardware choices, and compare the performance and scalability of different virtualization platforms.

Server vendors who conduct benchmark testing under the guidelines using VMmark can publish a VMmark score that provides scaling information about the workloads each product can support and the overall performance level of virtual machines running on a server. In this way, VMmark empowers customers who are making purchasing decisions for their virtual infrastructures.

"With customers asking for ways to measure and compare performance on different server platforms, VMware worked closely with partners to design and implement VMmark," said Raghu Raghuram, vice president of product and solution marketing for VMware. "We created this open benchmark to enable customers to make the best decisions about running mission-critical applications on virtual infrastructures."

Some of the significant changes made since the public beta are listed below:

The VMmark distribution is now packaged as a .zip file.
Minor tilescore bugs fixed.
Reporting scripts added.
Updated VM templates to better support cloning.
Updated VM templates to fix DNS resolution problems.
Workload parameter updates to java, file and web server workload.
Memory ballooning disabled for file server template.
tilescore integrated with harness.
tilescore script updated to allow for html output.

VMware VMmark can be downloaded free of charge, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 23, 2007 08:19 PM

July 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource and Symantec to Deliver Unified Server and Storage Virtualization

XenSource, Inc., provider of the open-source Xen virtualization project, and a provider of enterprise virtualization solutions, announced that it has signed an OEM agreement with Symantec to embed Veritas Storage Foundation, Symantec's industry-standard storage management software into XenEnterprise, and collaborate on delivering enterprise-class HA/DR and backup technology to XenSource customers.

By unifying Symantec's storage virtualization software with the XenSource hypervisor, customers can implement a scalable, high-performance virtualization platform that leverages their current storage investments, processes and environments. The combination of these two leading products will help to give XenSource an answer to combat VMware's current offerings.

By working with Symantec, XenSource will enhance XenEnterprise to address key customer needs in three areas:

Unified Server and Storage Virtualization - XenSource will embed Veritas Storage Foundation within XenEnterprise to provide customers seamless storage management for major server and storage array and enable advanced storage functionality, including utilization optimization, dynamic multi-pathing and point-in-time copies.
Resiliency and Business Continuity - XenSource will develop XenEnterprise HighAvailability, a new product which will be tested for certification by both Symantec and XenSource, to provide failover of virtual machines, ensuring business continuity for enterprise applications.
Data Protection and Backup - To provide protection for critical applications running within XenEnterprise virtual servers, Veritas NetBackup will be jointly tested for certification.

"Symantec is the global leader in storage management, data protection, and backup software for large enterprises", said John Bara, Vice President Marketing, XenSource. He added, "XenSource is very pleased to announce the OEM agreement and partnership with Symantec. Customers will now be able to purchase a unified server and storage virtualization solution with the virtualization power and performance of XenSource, combined with the trusted storage management, data protection, and backup software from Symantec."

XenSource products will include key storage management products from Symantec, starting as early as this fall.

Posted by David Marshall on July 23, 2007 08:06 PM

July 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Linux Kernel 2.6.23 Gains Two New Virtualization Solutions

It was back in December of last year that I talked about the virtualization solution called Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) being added into Linux kernel 2.6.20. The Linux 2.6.21 kernel then improved on the support for paravirtualization with the full featured addition of Virtual Machine Interface (VMI).

Now, if that weren't enough, the upcoming 2.6.23 kernel release will feature two new virtualization frameworks. The 2.6.23 kernel will be merging in support for both Xen (the more popular of the two) and lguest.

Xen is described as a popular virtual machine monitor (VMM) for x86-compatible computers that can securely execute multiple virtual machines, each running its own OS, on a single physical system with close-to-native performance. The project was originally started as a research project at the University of Cambridge, and today is backed by commercial support from XenSource.

Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource, said on his blog that "it has been a tremendous, collaborative effort to get the patches upstream by all of the kernel community. The effort for XenSource has been led by Jeremy Fitzhardinge, who has tirelessly tracked the developing kernel versions, while adding the Xen guest support for SMP guests, with fast paravirtualized block and network I/O. Next up is 64 bit support, according to Jeremy, who is also working on Dom0 support." Simon continued to say that this work will allow future Linux distro kernels to "automatically inherit Xen support, without needing to pull the Xen paravirtualization patches into their kernel as a separate effort."

And lguest is described as "a simple hypervisor for Linux on Linux. Unlike kvm it doesn't need VT/SVM hardware. Unlike Xen it's simply 'modprobe and go'. Unlike both, it's 5000 lines and self-contained." The lguest patches are written and maintained by Rusty Russell who says, "Lguest is designed to be a minimal hypervisor for the Linux kernel, for Linux developers and users to experiment with virtualization with the minimum of complexity. Nonetheless, it should have sufficient features to make it useful for specific tasks, and, of course, you are encouraged to fork and enhance it."

Posted by David Marshall on July 21, 2007 12:43 PM

July 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMLogix Announces New Version of LabManager - 3.0

I can't believe it was only a month ago that we were talking about VMLogix LabManager 2.8, the company's product that is designed to help streamline the software development lifecycle. Recently, the company announced that it has once again launched a newer, more up-to-date version of their flagship product - VMLogix LabManager 3.0.

The software allows IT and software development resources to be used more effectively while dramatically accelerating the rate at which build and test scenarios can be executed by global development teams. And the latest version improves scalability, usability and has broadened support for heterogeneous virtualization platforms and operating systems through product enhancements and strategic partnerships.

VMLogix LabManager 3.0 has expanded support to include:

VMware ESX 3.0.x
Shared iSCSI, NFS, SAN/NAS storage
LDAP / Active Directory and SSL
64-bit operating system support
IPZones for network isolation
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Sun Solaris (x86 architectures)

The company claims to be the first to market with support for VMware ESX Server, Microsoft Virtual Server, Microsoft Windows Vista and 64-bit guest operating systems, which they say offers customers a broad choice of virtualization and target platforms for application development and testing.

"VMLogix has made significant strides in addressing costly developer pain points in the enterprise through product enhancements, broader platform support and technology partnerships," said Ravi Gururaj, CEO and founder of VMLogix. "Enterprise customers are realizing the significant competitive advantages of virtualization in the software development lifecycle through LabManager 3.0."

VMLogix LabManager can be downloaded and deployed in less than 30 minutes on current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows releases and popular Linux distributions. It also integrates seamlessly with existing development, build and quality processes and tools such as IBM Rational Build Forge.

You can download a free 30-day trial, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 21, 2007 10:58 AM

July 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Updates VirtualCenter Management Server with 2.0.2 Release

VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.2 is a maintenance release that includes several high-priority resolved issues from earlier patch releases, as well as several enhancements and improvements.

VMware states that this maintenance release includes changes to VirtualCenter Management Server and VI Client software. So if you upgrade a VirtualCenter Server host using this maintenance release, you must also upgrade all VI Client hosts. You can upgrade the Windows client hosts by downloading the software from an upgraded VirtualCenter Server host, or by selecting VI Client from the VirtualCenter installation startup page.

This latest build introduces several bug fixes as well as the following new features:

License Administration - Now provides granular control over ESX Server and VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) license redistribution and allocation. This option lets administrators restrict access to the license server, so only specified hosts can obtain licenses. It is also possible to specify the number and type of licenses that should be granted to particular hosts.
Newly Supported Database - Adds support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit).
Permission Can Be Assigned to Users and Groups With Long Names - In VI Client, you can now create permissions and assign them to users or groups with names that are up to 250 characters long.

You can read about the latest bug fixes with VirtualCenter 2.0.2, here.

And you can download it, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 21, 2007 08:54 AM

July 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtualization Executive Movements This Summer

It looks like the Summer months are offering plenty of executive changes throughout the virtualization industry. In June and July, we've seen plenty of virtualization companies adding, changing, and adapting their executive team to try and reach new heights. From CEO and CFO, to Sales and Engineering, no stone is left unturned. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 20, 2007 04:59 AM

July 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

OpenMosix Project Nearing End of Life

According to an announcement posted on SourceForge, Moshe Bar (the openMosix founder and project leader) plans to end the openMosix project effective March 1, 2008.

For those of you not familiar with the project, openMosix is a free cluster management system that provides single-system image (SSI) clustering or building a cluster from a bunch of ordinary networked computers. It allows program processes to migrate to machines in the network that would ultimately help run those processes faster. It is particularly useful for running parallel and intensive input/output (I/O) applications.

The official explanation as to why the project is ending was that the increasing power and availability of low cost multi-core processors is rapidly making single-system image (SSI) clustering less of a factor in computing. The direction of computing is clear, and key developers are moving into newer virtualization approaches and other projects.

Moshe Bar must have been happy with the way the project progressed with tens of thousands of installations done and many more projects started that incorporated openMosix into their own products.

The openMosix Auto-Discovery innovation enabled the development of Instant SSI Clusters and the project also taught others important lessons in Distributed Shared Memory.

SourceForge will continue to keep the openMosix source code on its site indefinitely, frozen as of March 1, 2008. The openMosix Web site will close on that date, and the openMosix-Devel List will close earlier, December 1, 2007.

Moshe Bar wanted to thank all of the users and developers who enthusiastically supported the openMosix project and made it such a success.

Posted by David Marshall on July 19, 2007 07:27 PM

July 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Provision Networks and IBM Collaborate on VCS Deployments

Yesterday, Provision Networks announced that its market-leading Virtual Access Suite has been selected by IBM for inclusion in its Virtual Client Solution (VCS) ecosystem.

According to a statement made by the company, the Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite is the only enterprise-class desktop management solution that consolidates the delivery of applications and deployment of desktops from a centrally managed infrastructure consisting of terminal servers, blade PCs (and other physical desktops), as well as virtual infrastructures such as VMware VI3, Virtual Iron, XenEnterprise, Microsoft Virtual Server and SWsoft Virtuozzo.

With IBM's Virtual Client Solution, users are able to enjoy all of the benefits and personal control of a stand-alone desktop - functionality including print capabilities, USB drive support, and audio - while reducing many of the challenges related to current stand-alone desktop environments. These challenges include limiting susceptibility to theft and viruses, ease of deployment of new users, extended downtime during a hard drive failure, or having to rebuild their preferences and settings after each client "refresh."

Paul Ghostine, co-Founder and CEO of Provision Networks said, "Our relationship with IBM affords customers continued innovation, better reliability and manageability of their virtual client infrastructures."

Posted by David Marshall on July 18, 2007 08:25 PM

July 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource Reaches Customer Milestone

XenSource, provider of the open-source Xen virtualization project and provider of enterprise virtualization solutions, announced that they have reached a company milestone when it comes to its customer base. The company celebrated signing over 500 commercial customers for XenEnterprise and XenServer - Doubling the company's customer base during the past quarter.

XenSource was successful in landing notable customers such as AmerisourceBergen, Cimex Media UK, Harvard University, Intuit, Investcorp, KBC Clearing, Miami Herald, Moen, NASDAQ, Palm, Rollins, Inc., and Sankyo.

"Enterprises are realizing that they have a choice in virtualization and XenSource offers great products that are easy to use, offer high performance for Windows and Linux and are very innovative and open," said John Bara, VP of marketing for XenSource. "This realization has significantly grown our market share, helping us sign more than 500 customers since first introducing our products late last year. As we prepare for our next release, we're seeing more and more customers migrate over from traditional players in virtualization and choose XenSource virtualization over our competitors."

Since introducing XenExpress, the company's free virtualization offering, they have experienced more than 100,000 downloads. They hope to keep up this growing momentum as the company plans to introduce their newest release of XenEnterprise, version 4.0, in late August of this year.

Posted by David Marshall on July 18, 2007 08:13 PM

July 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

How Emulex and IBM are Working with Virtualization and Storage

Virtualization can certainly help lower the number of physical servers in your datacenter or environment, but that doesn't usually mean that the need for storage goes away. In fact, moving to virtualization in my opinion really increases the need for storage, and by that, I mean the need to migrate from using local storage to network attached storage or SAN. Emulex recently announced their new Virtual HBA Technology that just got accepted into the open source Linux kernel. IBM's no stranger to storage either. In fact, the company just recently announced that it is setting record speeds with its SAN volume controller. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 16, 2007 08:38 PM

July 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron and Tech Data Announce Distribution Agreement

Tech Data Corporation and Virtual Iron announced that Tech Data would be the first U.S. distributor to offer value-added resellers (VARs) solutions from Virtual Iron. Tech Data will support VARs deploying Virtual Iron and other datacenter solutions through its Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) Division.

According to Virtual Iron, this agreement immediately expands the availability of Virtual Iron's solutions to a highly qualified group of value-added resellers in the U.S. and opens up the market for server virtualization and management with an affordable alternative to existing proprietary solutions.

Virtual Iron has adopted a 100% channel distribution strategy that maximizes both product and services opportunities for its partners. This affords value-added resellers the opportunity to deliver complete solutions to their customers that include servers, SAN, storage, software and professional services. Some of the typical reseller partner services and consulting engagements driven by Virtual Iron include data center assessments, physical to virtual migration, business continuity and disaster recovery planning, capacity planning and utilization, implementation and deployment, policy-based automation development and various managed services.

"Tech Data will collaborate with Virtual Iron to develop a wide range of channel programs and partner enablement activities to educate VARs about the technology and margin-building opportunities of these competitively priced solutions," said Director, Marketing, Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Division, Amy Belcher. "Our dedicated team of sales and technical resources participate in regular training to provide expert support for VARs developing data centers incorporating a variety of virtualization solutions."

VARs can access virtualiron.com/free to obtain free, 30-day trials of Virtual Iron software to test and evaluate. They also can leverage Tech Data's 4,500-square-foot TDSolutions Center to test and demonstrate these solutions for end users in a real-world data center environment.

Posted by David Marshall on July 16, 2007 05:57 AM

July 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Vizioncore Offers Virtual Disaster Recovery for SMBs

Vizioncore announced that it was delivering Virtual Disaster Recovery for SMB (VDR for SMB), an enterprise-class and cost-effective disaster recovery product bundle for the small and medium-sized business market. It is being targeted at customers with between five and 50 physical servers looking for the benefits of virtualization and disaster recovery for the first time.

VDR for SMB is a bundled offering provided by Vizioncore's channel partners that includes VMware Infrastructure 3 Starter Edition and Vizioncore esxEssentials. The bundle includes:

VMware Infrastructure 3 Starter Edition - a platform for virtualizing and managing servers, storage and networking; it includes VMware Gold Support
Vizioncore esxEssentials:
- esxRanger Professional - a leading hot backup and recovery product for virtualized environments
- esxReplicator - a feature-rich replication tool for VMware Infrastructure 3
- esxCharter - for eliminating bottlenecks and fine tuning performance

"This bundle brings together the critical components needed for affordable disaster recovery and business continuity for the SMB market," said Chris Akerberg, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing of Vizioncore Inc. "This channel offering enables SMBs to affordably and reliably safeguard their data, applications, operating system and servers."

VDR for SMB is available through Vizioncore's partners for $2,275 and that includes a full support package.

Posted by David Marshall on July 15, 2007 10:34 AM

July 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld Puts Virtual Iron and XenSource to the Test

As virtualization industry giant VMware continues to grab at marketshare, other companies in the industry are attempting to face VMware head on in the battlefront. Two contenders making a play for the SMB market are Virtual Iron and XenSource. As they continue to add features and functionality to their products to reach parity with VMware and beyond, they are attempting to do so at a much more cost effective price.

So how do they stack up? InfoWorld's Test Center guru, Paul Venezia, has put both products to the test for the past few weeks and recently came out with his latest report on these two vendors. He writes:

VMware's head start over the rest of the market is substantial. Leveraging nearly a decade of experience and development, VMware Infrastructure 3 has proven to be a very stable, high-performance platform, with wide OS and hardware support and a very clean and functional set of management tools in VirtualCenter (read my December 2006 review). Virtual Iron and XenSource are relative newcomers to the virtualization scene, the duo leveraging the open source Xen hypervisor. Although Xen is the core of both, the Virtual Iron and XenSource products are very different in form and function, not to mention design.
I tested the two platforms on Dell PowerEdge 2950s with dual dual-core 3GHz Intel Xeon 5160 CPUs and 4GB of RAM, using a NetApp StoreVault S500 as the iSCSI back end and Cisco gigabit copper switches in the middle. The NICs in the machines were built-in Gigabit Ethernet, with the addition of another Intel NIC to provide the three-NIC layout required by Virtual Iron when using iSCSI. A low-cost multidialect filer, the NetApp StoreVault fits with the budget-conscious theme of both XenSource XenEnterprise and Virtual Iron Enterprise.

He offers a quick snapshot view of the two products.

Check out Paul's bottom line results of these two products, his test rating, and more by reading his article "Xen masters take aim at VMware", here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 15, 2007 09:37 AM

July 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtualization Software Tool Provider Invirtus Makes Changes

Invirtus, a third-party virtualization solution provider creating applications to assist with efficiency and automation of virtual machine technology, continues to make changes to its management team to help push their technology and company forward.

Back in May of this year, it was quietly reported that the company had been acquired by the much larger software company, Quest. The amount of the acquisition wasn't disclosed, however, the company is coming out in full force with future products and is arming themselves with new management.

Since the acquisition by Quest, Invirtus has been joined by virtualization industry expert, Scott Herold as Vice President of Product Engineering. Prior to joining the company, Scott was the Director of Research and Development at Vizioncore which is also owned by Quest.

And Invirtus recently announced that Andy McCartney has joined the company as Vice President of Marketing. He joins the company from Atlanta-based OpenSpan where he was also Vice President of Marketing. In this role he was pivotal in establishing the company's pioneering position and marketing function in the high growth application integration and automation space, where virtualized desktops were increasingly critical to end-user productivity.

"I am energized by the opportunity to join the Invirtus team, and to help the company further penetrate and lead the virtualization management software market. The roadmap I have seen and the track record of this company to deliver innovative quality software have been the keys to taking on this role," said McCartney. "With virtualization arguably reaching a tipping point, this is a seriously exciting time to maximize the opportunity for a company as agile as Invirtus. Expect to see an aggressive expansion of its portfolio of heterogeneous VM utilities and technologies that radically improve VM creation, management, ROI and usage of the virtualization platforms from Microsoft, VMware and Virtual Iron."

Posted by David Marshall on July 15, 2007 08:50 AM

July 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource Offers Free Virtual Disk Migration Tool

For all the capabilities that virtual machine disk files bring to the IT table, there is one issue that stands out to me that sometimes makes my life difficult - virtual hard disk format compatibility between virtualization vendors, or should I say lack thereof.

If you work with one virtualization platform/vendor exclusively, this issue may never bite you. Unless of course you plan on downloading virtual appliances or need access to someone else's virtual machine images that were created using another vendor's format. Whammo!

Fortunately, even though these virtual disk formats aren't fully compatible with each other, vendors and third-party software companies have created and offer virtual machine imaging tools to help convert from one format to another to get you on your way to using the virtual hard disk file.

To help its customer base address this problem, XenSource recently introduced a free download availability of version 1.0 of their XenSource Virtual Disk Migration Tool. The program is free software, and can be distributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

The tool provides virtual to virtual or V2V functionality which is used to convert Windows virtual machines created with VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC/Virtual Server to the Xen Virtual Appliance (XVA) format. The resulting XVA can then be imported into a XenSource family product such as XenEnterprise, XenServer or XenExpress and then booted as a XenServer HVM guest.

The tool currently operates on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 R2 or Windows Vista machines.

You can download it and read more about it by going here.

And for more support with the tool, you can go here, a XenSource sponsored community forum for discussions and community support of the V2V tool.

Enjoy! Let us know how it works out for you.

Posted by David Marshall on July 15, 2007 08:08 AM

July 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

What are IDC and Forrester Saying About Virtualization?

The virtualization market is a fast growing marketspace. And it's extremely interesting to see what the analyst firms think as they report their forecasts on the technology and the market. Case in point, analyst firm IDC recently came out with their report stating that the virtualization services market was going to reach a whopping $11.7 billion by 2011. And it sounds like analyst firm Forrester is claiming that VMware will continue to dominate the x86 market for server virtualization for the next few years. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 13, 2007 03:51 PM

July 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Want to Try XenEnterprise 4.0 Before it is Released?

If you are interested in getting a sneak peak at what XenSource is going to be offering in its next major release, XenEnterprise 4.0, look no further.

XenSource has opened up registration to allow people to Beta test the 4.0 version of its server virtualization platform. The company is asking for assistance in bringing this new version to market with as high a quality as possible. And by Beta testing, you can make that happen.

The company lists the highlights of the release as:

Greatly increased scalability and 64-bit guest support for real-world applications
Pooled server and storage resources with XenMotion live relocation, enabling dynamic resource management
Open management integration via the new XenAPI for investment protection for software, skills and processes
The new XenCenter virtualization management console, delivering more powerful and unified configuration and administration

XenEnterprise 4.0 New Features Include:

XenEnterprise Resource Pools – up to 16 servers plus shared NFS and iSCSI SAN storage
- Shared authentication, authorization, resource and configuration management
Storage Flexibility
- Shared and private storage, volume and file-based (VHD), over multiple (DAS, SAN, NAS) connections
- Thin provisioning, copy-on-write, snapshot for file-based VMs
XenMotion Live Relocation – move running guest VM within resource pool with virtually no service interruption
Increased Scalability
- Memory: 128GB/host, 32GB/guest
- CPUs: 1-32 physical, 1-8 virtual
- Networking: 1-8 physical NICs, 1-7 virtual NICs
- Storage: 1-128 Storage Repositories, 16TB/SR
64-bit Hypervisor – 64- and 32-bit Guests
- 64-bit Windows Server 2003 and Windows SBS 2003
Enhanced Resource QoS Control
Hotplug for virtual disk and NICs
Secure, remoteable XenAPI upward-compatible from OSS Xen – XML-RPC and language bindings
Enhanced 'xe' CLI for fine-grained system control
XenCenter – new Windows graphical administration console
- Guided wizards
- Configuration of multiple XenServer hosts and multiple resource pools
- VM lifecycle management
- Storage configuration and management
- Guest templates

You can sign up for Beta registration, here.

XenSource has also created a 4.0 Beta forum site for people to discuss the product and provide input. You can visit it by going here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 12, 2007 05:09 AM

July 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Intel Invests $218 Million in VMware - Not First Time at the Rodeo

Intel Corporation made a significant investment in VMware this week through its global investment arm - Intel Capital. The company announced that it will invest $218.5 million in the virtualization giant, giving them approximately 2.5 percent of VMware's total outstanding common stock.

The deal also gives Intel a seat on the VMware board of directors. However as of yet, an Intel executive has yet to be named for this position.

The investment is intended to foster strengthened inter-company collaboration towards accelerating VMware virtualization product adoption on Intel architecture and reinforcing the value of virtualization technology for customers.

In addition, VMware and Intel have entered into a routine and customary collaboration partnering agreement that expresses their intent to continue to expand their cooperative efforts around joint development, marketing and industry initiatives.

This isn't Intel's first time at the virtualization investment rodeo. About two years ago, the company invested in SWsoft, the second largest virtualization player behind VMware. This is clearly another indication of the importance that virtualization is playing in IT.

Beyond its financial investment, Intel is also placing considerable technological muscle behind virtualization technology, including building it into their own processors.

When I spoke with SWsoft about this recent investment announcement, I asked them what Intel's investment in their own company meant to them. SWsoft's CEO Serguei Beloussov said, "As a virtualization company, having Intel's support is invaluable." He continued, "The monetary investment we received from them in 2005 was great, but of the active working relationship we've shared is of higher value. Virtualization is all about getting more from your computing power, so collaborating with the company providing much of the technology at the heart of this makes perfect sense. For us, working with Intel means we are able to make our products more effective, and bring them to market quicker."

Posted by David Marshall on July 11, 2007 09:21 PM

July 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

moka5 Making Updates to its Virtualization Engine and the Company

moka5, a virtual computing company targeting consumers and SMBs, announced that it has completed a $15 million Series B round of funding. This round was led by Highlight Capital Partners and included an additional investment by existing investor Khosla Ventures.

At the same time, the company made a management change. It named former Microsoft and Yahoo executive Bill Demas as CEO. Founder and former CEO Monica Lam will continue with the company as Chief Scientist to help moka5 continue to advance their technology.

In addition to these announcements, the company was also pushing forward, releasing their moka5 Engine Beta 17 for Windows. The new version has added a few features which include:

Run as non-Administrator: In certain situations you can now run moka5 Engine from a limited-access guest account.
Improved disk performance: Your LivePCs will now run even smoother, especially during heavy disk activity.
USB hot-unplug support: moka5 Engine is now more tolerant of sudden disconnections when running from a USB device.
VMPlayer 2.0 now bundled: moka5 Engine now comes bundled with the latest release of VMPlayer, which includes better support for Windows Vista and USB 2.0.

You can download Beta 17, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 11, 2007 05:15 AM

July 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Veeam Releases New Virtualization Tools

The Russian-based company creating software to help with managing virtual servers introduced today their latest entry into the virtualization marketspace, Veeam Configurator 1.0.

The new software product is a Windows GUI interface that integrates with and extends the capabilities of VMware VirtualCenter, helping to maintain and build on VirtualCenter's centralized view and associated benefits, such as VirtualCenter partitioning to simultaneously configure all ESX Servers in a cluster. Veeam Configurator also offers GUI-based centralized control over ESX settings and subsystems that are not accessible from the VirtualCenter interface, freeing administrators from reliance on the service console. This helps Microsoft Windows administrators who enter the VMware ESX Server market and might not be that familiar with Linux command-line entries.

"The VMware ESX Server service console offers tremendous power for virtual server configuration," said Ratmir Timashev, president and CEO of Veeam Software. "Unfortunately, the console only allows you to configure one server at a time. In addition, for administrators who come from a Windows background, the open-source command line syntax takes time to research, learn, try and test. With this new product, we've done the learning and testing, so our customers can quickly configure multiple servers without having to become Linux experts."

The product offers the following features and benefits:

Centralized control - Veeam Configurator uses VirtualCenter partitioning to simultaneously configure all ESX Servers for a cluster or datacenter.
VI3 integration - Veeam Configurator allows you to gain control over ESX settings and subsystems not accessible from the VirtualCenter interface.
GUI-based configuration management - With Veeam Configurator, you can quickly and easily manage ESX settings and subsystems without needing to become a Linux expert, freeing you from reliance on the service console.
Built-in ESX expertise - Veeam Configurator comes with a set of expert knowledge packs ("Experts") that eliminate the need to study the details of a specific ESX configuration parameter and offer a fully supported alternative to custom scripts.

At the same time, Veeam Software has made available a free script, called EsxDiag, that provides basic post-installation checks on ESX Server configuration. It checks service console configurations, the TCP and DNS settings, and checks which scheduled services failed to launch. It also checks the NTP settings (including firewall) and shows you the time difference between the public NTP server and the host. Veeam hopes that this open-source script will be used as a catalyst to continued enhancement by the virtualization community.

Veeam Configurator 1.0 is available now, with North American pricing starting at $120 USD per CPU. For more information or to download the product, go here. You can also find out more information about EsxDiag, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 11, 2007 04:49 AM

July 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Expands Lab Automation with Lab Manager 2.5

VMware announced the long anticipated update to its virtual lab automation system, VMware Lab Manager 2.5. The product enables users of VMware Infrastructure 3 to automate the setup, capture, storage and sharing of complex, multi-machine software configurations to help with the delivery of higher quality software by allowing developers to code rather than building and rebuilding development environments.

Two leading automated software test automation suites now offer packaged integrations with VMware Lab Manager, further expanding the VMware partner ecosystem and taking test automation to a new level. VMware announced that Borland will integrate UI-level access and control of VMware Lab Manager environments with the release of Borland SilkCentral Test Manager 2007, and Genilogix is releasing the beta version of a new plug-in that integrates HP Quality Center with VMware Lab Manager. Both tools automate the provisioning process by enabling users to easily check out fully provisioned test environments stored in VMware Lab Manager directly from their test management interface.

Last month, lab management competitors Surgient and VMLogix also announced new products that integrate with industry recognized testing software. Surgient's VQMS works with HP's Quality Center and Mercury products, while VMLogix announced integration with IBM's Rational Software Delivery Platform and Build Forge.

VMware Lab Manager 2.5 offers the following key enhancements designed to provide customers with expanded platform support and further the product's ease of use:

New Library Storage Options: VMware Lab Manager 2.5 adds support for iSCSI and NFS storage for storing virtual machine libraries, in addition to its current support for fibre channel SANs. This provides flexibility for customers by enabling them to use a broader set of storage options tailored to their preferences.
Expanded Operating System Support: Customers can create, deploy and manage virtual machine configurations using 64-bit and Virtual SMP guest operating systems. VMware Lab Manager 2.5 also includes new tools support for virtual machines running Solaris 10 x86 and experimental support for virtual machines running Windows Vista. This expanded operating system support enables customers to create an even broader set of virtualized development and test environments to meet their needs.
Enhanced Automation Capabilities: VMware Lab Manager 2.5 enables customers to set policies that automatically undeploy and clean up unused virtual machines, freeing up computing resources and helping users complete projects more quickly. Server maintenance is simplified by enabling users to calculate how much disk space can be made available by consolidating or deleting virtual machines, and users can quickly and easily undeploy virtual machines for redeployment on new managed hardware.

VMware Lab Manager 2.5 is available now and pricing starts at $15,000. You can also purchase Lab Manager as a bundle with VI3 where pricing starts at $35,000. You can go here for more information about the product.

Posted by David Marshall on July 10, 2007 04:50 AM

July 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SWsoft and Parallels - Combining Forces and Dealing with LGPL

While VMware may be currently ruling the roost, that hasn't stopped SWsoft from making its own mark in a growing space. Back in May, the company announced first quarter revenue growth of 140% and virtualization revenue growth in excess of 600%. And since the company announced its acquisition of the hardware virtualization company Parallels, it seems only fitting that the two combine forces to offer something new to the market. Parallels announced their own new product for the Mac, their 3.0 version of the product, but along with that announcement came questions about Lesser General Public Licenses and DLL files used from the open source WINE project. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 9, 2007 08:13 PM

July 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Hires New CFO as IPO Approaches

Virtualization giant VMware recently hired former Amazon.com executive, Mark Peek, as the company's new Chief Financial Officer. In his new role, he will lead VMware's finance, IT and facilities teams.

This, at an interesting time for the virtualization company, as they are about to enter into their long awaited IPO. Expected to happen sometime this summer, all indications appear to show that things are still on track. Although the company and the underwriters have yet to say exactly when the IPO will take place, you can almost bet that it will occur before the VMworld 2007 conference on September 11, 2007.

Parent company EMC is expected to post their earnings in about two weeks, so it will be interesting to see if VMware has continued its impressive revenue growth.

Posted by David Marshall on July 8, 2007 08:55 PM

July 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Transitive Ships QuickTransit 1.2 Helping Solaris/SPARC Migration

Transitive Corporation announced the release of Version 1.2 of its innovative QuickTransit for Solaris/SPARC-to-Linux/x86-64 solution. Just as server virtualization helped bridge the gap for legacy software running on Windows NT to operate on newer hardware platforms, Transitive's solution helps bridge the technology gap to allow customers to run legacy or homegrown software running existing Solaris/SPARC binaries on more modern and powerful Linux/x86-64 systems.

The QuickTransit hardware virtualization solution allows software compiled for one processor/operating system to run on a system with a different processor/operating system and it dynamically translates processor instructions and operating system calls as an application is running. Its dynamic translation includes optimization capabilities that improve performance over time, as frequently-used code is identified and optimized.

The company's innovative QuickTransit for Solaris/SPARC-to-Linux/x86-64 solution makes it possible for x86-based servers to run the extensive selection of commercial and in-house Solaris/SPARC applications, without modification to their source code or binaries, with full functionality.

QuickTransit's operation is also completely transparent to the user. Although a user may experience that the application performs better given that the newer hardware platforms running QuickTransit are generally more powerful than the legacy systems they replace. And even more interesting, these translated applications can also run inside of a virtual machine built on top of either VMware or XenSource.

The product can help enterprise IT managers accelerate datacenter consolidation projects that involve replacing legacy SPARC-based hardware with more cost-effective industry-standard servers running Linux. QuickTransit can help overcome a major barrier to datacenter consolidation projects - legacy application migration - because it allows native Solaris/SPARC applications to run unmodified with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 on x86- or Itanium-based servers.

The product is now available for purchase, but it can also be evaluated by clicking here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 8, 2007 08:21 PM

July 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Third Parties Pushing Virtualization - Nimsoft and uXcomm

Virtualization technology is great, but in addition to the really cool features being offered by the virtualization vendors, it's third party applications that sometime really make a virtual environment stand out. Nimsoft is now offering VMware environments a little assistance with service level monitoring. And uXcomm and Virtugo have combined to help increase performance and service level management. Find out what's going on with both companies. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on July 5, 2007 08:20 PM

July 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Why Virtualization Plays an Important Role in SaaS

SWsoft's Director of Technology, Ilya Baimetov, believes that virtualization plays an important role in the SaaS world. He even goes on to say that the benefits are so significant, that he belives no SaaS provider will be able to be competitive without using virtualization.

To that point, he offers the following examples on one of SWsoft's Blog sites:

Provisioning. Image-based deployment of virtual machines is much simpler and less error-prone than an installation process requiring many steps in the configuration. Virtuozzo, with extremely compact images, makes provisioning a snap.
Density. Most existing applications were not designed for SaaS and only support a single tenant (user hierarchy) per environment. Virtualization allows multiple instances of such applications to run on the same machine, greatly improving efficiency without the need to redesign the application. The unique architecture of Virtuozzo allows 25-50 instances per server, making it economically very efficient to run "legacy" applications in SaaS mode.

Isolation. True multi-tenant design has many advantages, but some significant drawbacks, too. Multi-tenant applications typically don't allow for a lot of customization. Customizing database schema or supplying custom code or scripts is either prohibited or severely restricted. The reason is that a single missing index, poorly constructed query, allocation of too much memory or an accidental infinite loop can bring down all tenants on the same server. By comparison, Virtuozzo gives each application instance a fully isolated environment. Together with resource management capabilities, it guarantees that one instance cannot affect others, however badly it misbehaves.

Service Levels. In a multi-tenant design, it's a non-trivial task to account for CPU cycles, memory or network bandwidth used for servicing a particular tenant. Consequently, it's very hard to limit resource consumption by tenants, which, in turn, makes it difficult to have different service levels for different tenants unless resource management logic is carefully designed into the application. As a result, applications become very complex and admins need to master resource management for each application.

Virtuozzo solves the problem by making it very easy to manage resources between virtualized applications instances. Flexible service level policies can be applied to any existing application, using the same mechanisms regardless of the application. Moreover, Virtuozzo provides capabilities like high availability, clustering, live migration and other high-end features - without spending time on designing them into the application.

While his points direct you to his own product, Virtuozzo, it doesn't negate the fact that I believe his points are valid and hold true - that virtualization does indeed offer significant benefits, flexibility and efficiency to the SaaS world.

Posted by David Marshall on July 4, 2007 08:35 PM

July 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

TechWorld Announces 2007 Award Winners

With a record breaking number of product entries this year, TechWorld 2007 Award judges once again had the difficult task of choosing a winner in each category from a host of projects.

The award presentation itself was held at the Gibson Hall in central London. Entrants were evaluated on strategy, creativity, innovation and effectiveness. And they were judged by an independent panel of judges made up of respected individuals from within the IT industry and TechWorld editors.

And it seems as though virtualization made a nice showing at the event.

Winning "Storage Virtualization Product of the Year" was DataCore Software with its SANsymphony 6.0 product.
EqualLogic, who has been making the news lately with its PS Series SAN technology being combined with VMware Infrastructure 3, took home the "SAN Product of the Year" award for its EqualLogic PS3800XV.
Long time virtualiation application provider, PlateSpin, took home the award for "Green Product of the Year" for its PowerRecon 3.0 application.
And winning "Virtualization Product of the Year"? It may not come as any surprise - VMware scores with its VI3 virtualization platform.

You can view these and all of the other TechWorld 2007 award winners, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 4, 2007 07:57 PM

July 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Fusion One Step Closer to General Availability

If you're from another planet or just haven't heard the news yet, VMware is one step closer to releasing its Intel-based Mac virtualization product - VMware Fusion.

Yesterday, VMware came out and said that Fusion 1.0 is now feature complete, and then they made the Release Candidate (RC1) available for download. The company is working toward a general availability release date prior to the end of August.

Fusion 1.0 RC1 includes new Unity improvements to help seamlessly run Windows applications on the Mac. Drag and drop is available to easily move files from Finder windows onto Windows applications or Windows Explorer windows. You can also launch Windows applications from the VMware Fusion dock icon by using control-click or by right-clicking and then selecting the virtual machine to get access to the Launch Application window and the complete Programs menu for that virtual machine. VMware has also extended Unity support to Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows Server 2003 (32- and 64-bit) as well as Windows Vista (32- and 64-bit).

Fusion RC1 also offers better Mac integration as VMware has added compatibility with system-wide keyboard shortcuts. You can now use Command Tab, Exposé, and your favorite keyboard shortcuts like Control-Space for Quicksilver and LaunchBar when a virtual machine is grabbed or in full screen view. You can also hide VMware Fusion when grabbed or in Full Screen or Unity view.

Other new features and improvements found in the RC1 build include:

Improved Boot Camp performance - This release improves disk performance in Boot Camp virtual machines, which shortens boot time and makes applications launch more quickly. Note: VMware recommends that you let VMware Fusion create a new Boot Camp virtual machine for your existing partition to obtain the best settings and performance.
Experimental 3D support restored for Intel GMA 950 graphics cards - Back by popular demand: users with Intel GMA 950 graphics can re-enable experimental 3D support. However, you are now warned that Intel GMA 950 does not fully support OpenGL 1.4 and that you may encounter issues.
Improved experimental support for running on Mac OS X Leopard - Addressed in Beta 4.1, but VMware Fusion now installs and runs on the WWDC Mac OS X Leopard release.
Fixed USB problems when running on Mac OS X 10.4.10 and later - Addressed in Beta 4.1, VMware Fusion has been updated to support the latest USB stack introduced with the Santa Rosa MacBook Pros and with Mac OS X 10.4.10.
Improved resume from suspended state - Virtual machines now resume completely in the foreground to get you up and running as quickly as possible with complete speed in your virtual machines.
Optimize memory use for your needs - You can now choose to optimize memory usage for either virtual disk performance or for Mac OS X application use. In most cases for regular use and disk-intensive applications, the default to optimize for virtual disk use is ideal and improves performance. If you are low on memory or have memory-intensive Mac applications, choose to optimize memory for Mac OS X applications.

VMware also warns that after upgrading to VMware Fusion RC1, make sure that you also upgrade the VMware Tools installed in your guest operating systems. The enhancements found in RC1 require that you have the latest version of Tools installed.

You can download VMware Fusion 1.0 RC1 (Build 50460), here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 4, 2007 07:10 PM

July 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Manage Your Microsoft Virtual Server Environment with VMRCPlus

A new and much needed tool has entered the Microsoft Virtual Server R2 SP1 world. Called VMRCPlus, this Virtual Machine Remote Control Client Plus tool is a welcomed addition to managing any Microsoft Virtual Server environment.

The tool has been used for quite some time internally at Microsoft. Originally designed and developed by a Microsoft employee, Paul Despe, the tool was used internally but wasn't available to the public as it wasn't really polished for end-user consumption. A Microsoft consultant, Matthijs ten Seldam, took up the torch and ran with it, as he continued development to further enhance and polish the tool for others to use.

So if you are tired of the old look and feel of Microsoft Virtual Server's Web based management application, I invite you to take a look at this VMRCPlus replacement.

Microsoft describes it, like so:

VMRCplus is a tool for both configuration management of Virtual Server and remote control of virtual machines. It allows for local and remote management of Virtual Server and supports simultaneous management of up to 32 Virtual Server hosts.
Remote control sessions of virtual machines are grouped in a single window using Tab pages. The interface enables sorting virtual machines based on various properties like name, status and description. Multi-select of virtual machines enable you to perform actions to change their status or open remote control sessions all at once.

VMRCplus is a Windows application and does not require IIS to manage Virtual Server.

Some of the features found in this tool include:

Direct control of local or remote instances of the Virtual Server service. IIS and IE browser are no longer required!
Tabbed interface to quickly jump between Virtual Server hosts and guest VMRC sessions.
Reusable saved states: this feature allows users to preserve a particular saved state and return to that state at any time.
Multiple guest selection supported for startup/shutdown/save/display.
Browse button navigation for media, hard disk images, ISO images, .VMC files, etc.
Drag and Drop support for .VMC files, ISOs images, VHD and VFD files.
Resizable desktop support for guests running Virtual Machine Additions (maximize VMRC window supported).
Limited cut and paste of text from host to guest (only).
A built-in utility to take JPG screenshots of running guests. Useful when filing bugs.
Built-in error notification with Virtual Server eventlog viewer.
A Virtual Networks Manager and Virtual Disks Manager that cover all features.
Keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl-S to save state a guest).
Create multiple guests at once.
Create guest from parent (or multiple guests)
Automatic reconnect to a designated Virtual Server host.
Toolbars in both Guest and Console Manager for quick access.
Unlimited number of guests.
Maximum of 32 Virtual Server hosts.
Sorting on columns of guests so you can sort based on status and multi-select.
Automatic detection of Virtual Machine Additions and notification.
Detection of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1.

You can download a 32-bit or 64-bit version, here.

Posted by David Marshall on July 3, 2007 04:53 AM

July 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron Quick Hits in the News

NEW 4.0 BETA

Virtual Iron is launching a beta program to test the company's upcoming 4.0 release. If you are interested in participating, simply go here to the Beta survey page and answer the questions on the form. All registrations will be reviewed and followed up on with additional information.

PARTNERSHIPS

Compellent and Virtual Iron Software announced they are teaming to deliver enterprise-class server and storage virtualization capabilities to the mainstream market and enable more users to take advantage of the significant benefits of virtual infrastructure management. The companies will collaborate on joint marketing, sales and product development aimed at small and medium-sized organizations looking to reduce the cost and complexity of their IT infrastructure.

And...

Virtual Iron Software announced the signing of four new distribution partners in Europe. The agreements immediately expand the availability of Virtual Iron's solutions to over five hundred new reseller partners across Europe and open up the market for server virtualization and management with an affordable alternative to existing proprietary solutions. These new partners are AppSpeed Distribution Ltd.,