Virtualization Report | David Marshall | September 2007

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September 2007

September 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron and Intel FlexPriority Show Huge Virtualization Performance Gains

With the introduction of Intel's new Quad-Core Xeon Processor 7300 series chips came a new technology from the company called Intel VT FlexPriority. It was designed to accelerate virtualization interrupt handling and thereby improve virtualization performance.

According to Virtual Iron Software, they are one of the first companies to take advantage of this new Intel technology. And because of that, Virtual Iron was able to recently announce extremely impressive results from a series of benchmarking tests performed using Intel's vConsolidate against a Virtual Iron v4.0 environment.

Intel ran the tests and found that when using Intel VT FlexPriority on Virtual Iron, virtual servers benefited from up to 40% faster boot times and up to 35% performance improvements on 32-bit Windows guests. These numbers are quite compelling. So compelling that the findings were part of the opening day's keynote at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) that took place this month at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Steve Noyes, vice president of engineering at Virtual Iron Software said, "Virtual Iron 4.0 showed up to 167% performance improvement on the new Intel Xeon 7300 processor based servers, relative to previous offerings as measured by Intel's vConsolidate benchmark." He continued, "This new Intel VT extension allows our solution to avoid the common performance penalty these operating systems introduce when virtualized. This enables truly efficient SMP configurations of 32-bit guests to meet the demands of critical enterprise applications in a virtualized environment."

Posted by David Marshall on September 30, 2007 06:08 AM

September 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Qumranet Startup Makes Grab for Virtualized Desktops

Qumranet, the creator, maintainer and global sponsor of the KVM Open Source Hypervisor Project, has dropped out of stealth mode to offer its answer into the seamingly very crowded VDI or virtual desktop infrastructure market where desktops are served up to end users from a centrally controlled server infrastructure in the datacenter. Established at the end of 2005, Qumranet has around 45 employees and was co-founded by CTO Moshe Bar, one of the co-founders of both XenSource and Qlusters.

After a two year quiet period, Qumranet dropped into the scene at DEMOfall '07, where it premiered its technology strategy and unveiled its first commerical product called Solid ICE (Independent Computing Environments).

Solid ICE is the first virtualization product offered that runs on top of the KVM virtualization platform that was added into Linux kernel 2.6.20 back in October of 2006. The product allows an organization to host what the company believes is thousands of Windows or Linux desktops running as KVM virtual machines on servers in the datacenter.

To complete its VDI solution, the company has also created its own proprietary remote protocol that it calls SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Compting Environments) that provides a way to manage connections between the server and the virtualized desktops. SPICE has been optimized for virtual desktop environments and provides users with a superior interactive experience, especially with respect to graphics and multimedia. In addition to SPICE, the company has stated that it will also support Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

Like other VDI solutions, Solid ICE provides usefulness within a number of scenarios such as: providing a secure desktop to outsourced groups or contract workers; enabling developers to self-provision machines as required; running legacy applications without having to maintain older equipment; providing clean machines to training classes without long provisioning times; and avoiding painful desk side PC upgrades.

"Virtualization is changing the way we interact with computing resources. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of applications for virtualization," said Benny Schnaider, Qumranet's CEO and co-founder. "Qumranet's new desktop virtualization solution, Solid ICE, is taking computing to the next level by separating the user environment from the underlying hardware. This separation creates a wide variety of very attractive use cases and solves many of today's desktop provisioning and management problems."

The product is expected to be generally available later this year.

Posted by David Marshall on September 29, 2007 01:47 PM

September 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware's Certification Program To Include Storage Vendors

VMware announced that it is expanding its hardware certification program to include storage virtualization devices.

The virtualization company has been making an attempt to attract more business from the SMB market, an area where server virtualization competitors have been trying to make inroads against the market leader. One common complaint being made by SMBs is the fact that ESX Server does have a strict hardware compatibility list when it comes to server hardware. So the question does need to get raised, will this additional HCL in storage hurt the SMB market?

VMware says this program is designed to enable customers to have more choice in deploying virtualized storage solutions with VMware Infrastructure. Parag Patel, vice president of alliances at VMware said, "VMware is committed to working with our storage partners to offer customers the greatest choice of storage vendors when deploying virtualization across their organization's infrastructure."

Already, some of the world's largest network storage system vendors have signed on to attain their certification for their storage offerings later this year. This list includes VMware parent company EMC as well as Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM and Network Appliance.

Patel went on to say, "VMware Infrastructure leverages and drives significant new adoption of iSCSI and fibre channel SANs with its native capabilities for distributed volume management, VMware VMotion and rapid application recovery. Many customers are looking to implement network-based storage virtualization as their VMware environments continue to grow in order to optimize the storage resources that support these new capabilities. This new certification program is designed to fully support this capability by leveraging the native capabilities of VMware Infrastructure."

VMware said that the new program to certify storage virtualization devices is another step forward in VMware's ongoing efforts to work with the storage industry to bring server and storage virtualization together to improve customers' flexibility, efficiency and total cost of ownership.

Posted by David Marshall on September 29, 2007 10:57 AM

September 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Machines Make Things Easy. What About Security?

With server virtualization and virtual machine technology being deployed across mainstream IT environments more and more, security is one of those things that often get overlooked. In a physical IT world, security is usually at the top of every administrator's list. But for some reason, security seems to get pushed down the priority list when you move into a virtual world. So who is looking out for virtualization security? During VMworld, two companies that I spoke with, Catbird and Blue Lane Technologies, were both beating the virtual security drum. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on September 29, 2007 09:02 AM

September 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Battles Back with Fusion 1.1 Beta

Mac users seem to be getting a lot of attention these days what with Parallels and VMware going back and forth updating their Mac virtualization platforms in a relatively quick fashion as they battle for dominance in that market.

If you are just joining the party, VMware and Parallels both offer a desktop virtualization platform to allow Intel-based Macs to run virtual machines that operate Linux or Windows operating systems so that you can easily run your favorite applications that work on those operating systems.

VMware's latest Beta version of its Fusion product, version 1.1, includes a number of new features and bug fixes. Most notable of these new features are:

New experimental support for DirectX 9.0 3-D graphics (without shader support).
Improved USB support for syncing the iPhone in Microsoft Windows virtual machines
Improvements to Unity such as the option to show or hide the Windows taskbar and Start menu in the View menu and the VMware Fusion "Launch Applications" window no longer appears automatically when no Unity windows are open
Eject key now automatically ejects the optical drive, even if the optical drive is attached to a virtual machine
Improved support for running on Mac OS X Leopard hosts
VMware Shared Folders created with Windows Easy Install now default to "Read Only" access of the Mac's home directory for maximum security

Check out the Fusion Beta site for more information, here. And you can register and download the Beta product from VMware, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 26, 2007 06:11 AM

September 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld Test Center Tackles Virtual Desktops, Application Virtualization and SaaS Delivery

InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy tackles virtual desktops and application virtualization by putting three of today's application virtualization products through the InfoWorld Test Center.

Randall takes a look at Symantec's SVS Pro 2.1, Microsoft's SoftGrid 4.2 and Thinstall's Virtualization Suite 3.2 products by looking at a "click 'n' run" concept, where he attempts to serve up virtualized applications via a SaaS method leveraging these three technologies.

To describe the level of difficulty of normally providing such a solution, Randall explains it best when he says "delivering traditional fat client applications over the Internet is a technological hurdle on the scale of enabling pigs to fly. First, you have to package the code in a way that allows it to run without actually installing anything. That's where virtualization comes in. Then you need to find a way to deliver the bits to the end-user without choking their network connection or leaving them helpless when they no longer have access to the distribution point. Here streaming and caching are the keys."

When describing application virtualization and this whole notion of streaming or SaaS delivery, he says, "What makes application virtualization so compelling is its immunity to the very issues that torpedoed the kiosk solutions. For starters, virtualized applications are modular. Though streamed by default, virtualized applications can be configured for offline use, either through caching or by simply copying the application image to the client. And though isolated from the local system (because the application's registry access and private file set are virtualized), they can still interact with local resources, seamlessly accessing the PC's storage and print devices, for instance."

He continues, "But despite having the right general plumbing, none of these first-generation solutions is designed specifically with a subscription-based computing model in mind. Microsoft SoftGrid and Thinstall Virtualization Suite are still aimed at internal enterprise deployment, whereas Symantec SVS Pro -- by virtue of its integration with a streaming server component from partner AppStream -- is closer to the goal of a true click 'n' run format. All Symantec needs to do is work out the optimization kinks."

In this 6 page analysis, all three products undergo a series of tests and benchmarks. So, what's the bottom line? Which product stands out and why? Read Randall's full findings, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 26, 2007 05:40 AM

September 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Veeam and Vizioncore Enhance VMware's Products

VMware's VI3 product comes with any number of add-on products to enhance the ESX server virtualization platform, but its many of the third-party software companies out there that make the ESX server platform that much better. Case in point, the additional utilities from relatively newcomer Veeam and the various solutions being offered from Vizioncore. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on September 25, 2007 05:35 AM

September 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Hitachi Brings Hypervisor to Xeon-Based Blades

Hitachi is making its Virtage embedded firmware virtualization feature available to Intel Xeon-based blade servers with its BladeSymphony 1000 system.

In the first quarter of 2008, Hitachi plans to ship a Xeon version of its BladeSymphony 1000 system that comes with its Virtage technology. The technology was previously only available with the company's Itanium-based blade servers.

But Hitachi isn't alone in talking about built-in hypervisors. Two virtualization power houses, XenSource and VMware, have both recently announced OEM embedded virtualization hypervisors of their own. However, Hitachi thinks its solution creates more of a bond between the hardware and the hypervisor than that of its competitors. With Virtage, Hitachi is loading its system into the firmware of the service processor to gain greater access to all blades in the chassis. It also allows Hitachi to extend greater control to individual server components, controlling things such as physical I/O interfaces.

The company also claims its systems should be more resistant to security attacks since the hypervisor is better protected from unauthorized access since it isn't placed in flash memory.

And another benefit to the new BladeSymphony 1000 is that it also works with standard versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 without the need for any special drivers.

"With this announcement, we've completed the first iteration of Virtage, as promised. While it was imperative to release Virtage on Itanium in 2006 to make it available for databases and applications with greater computing needs, our goal was always to make it available to all customers at all three tiers," said Steve Campbell, vice president of marketing and solutions, Hitachi Server Systems Group. "By adding Virtage on Xeon, that part of our mission is complete. That said, we will continue to innovate and provide breakthrough technology to the enterprise datacenter."

Posted by David Marshall on September 23, 2007 06:37 AM

September 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)

CiRBA Releases Version 4.4 of its Data Center Intelligence Software

Canadian based CiRBA, Inc. announced the release of version 4.4 of its consolidation and virtualization analysis software solution.

The company says that its solution enables organizations to simultaneously analyze critical business and technical constraints and detailed workload data to map virtualization opportunities. To enhance the accuracy of virtualization planning, version 4.4 enables organizations to add to their analysis a number of characteristics provided by VMware's virtualization technologies such as VMware-associated CPU overhead.

Highlights of CiRBA Version 4.4 include:

VMware DRS Integration - VMware's Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) determines motion paths for virtual machines based on workload balancing criteria, without consideration for the technical and business constraints used to determine virtual machine placement. While DRS supports affinity and anti-affinity rules to identify where systems should or shouldn't reside, these rules must be developed and entered manually. CiRBA 4.4 enables organizations to analyze environments, factor in technical and business constraints, and automatically populate and synchronize VMware DRS rules.
Virtualization Overhead Modeling - The ability to accurately model workloads is critical to virtualization planning. Virtual machines create CPU overhead, and until now VMware customers had to rely on percentage-based estimates of those overhead levels. With Version 4.4, CiRBA enables organizations to accurately model VMware workloads including virtualization overhead by using an algorithm to automatically calculate CPU overhead by converting disk and network IO into projected CPU load.
VMware VMotion Compatibility Analysis - VMotion is a powerful capability that enables organizations to migrate virtual images between compatible servers without experiencing downtime. CiRBA has developed new rules that enable organizations to map where VMotion will and won't work amongst servers they already own or intend to purchase.

"The combined power of VMware's VMotion and Distributed Resource Scheduler will undoubtedly have a significant impact on management processes within data centers," said Andrew Hillier, co-founder and CTO of CiRBA. "However, leveraging the benefits of these tools without sound boundaries runs the risk of violating key constraints. CiRBA's integration with VMware's DRS makes it easy to create sophisticated DRS rules and manage them over time."

CiRBA 4.4 will be available September 30, 2007 and has a monthly licensing model with pricing based on the number of server operating systems analyzed and term of commitment.

Posted by David Marshall on September 22, 2007 05:57 PM

September 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Next Generation Connection Broker from Provision Networks

Provision Networks, provider of enterprise presentation and desktop virtualization solutions, announced the latest version of the company's VDI connection broker - Virtual Access Suite 5.9.

"While many vendors are rushing to market with their first generation technologies, our third-generation Virtual Access Suite sets the standard by which VDI solutions are judged," said Paul Ghostine, co-Founder and CEO of Provision Networks. "We are very pleased with our latest release which incorporates the feedback from many customers and partners, and accounts for hundreds of new use case scenarios we've encountered in production deployments."

The beta release of Virtual Access Suite 5.9 offers tighter integration with VMware VI3, Virtual Iron and Microsoft technologies. It also offers more features, better flexibility, stronger security, higher scalability and resiliency.

The 5.9 version adds a huge laundry list of enhancements that include:

Tighter Integration with Microsoft Active Directory: Provides for the auto-creation and auto-removal of AD computer objects upon creation or deletion of virtual machines.
Support for Multiple Resource Pools and Data Stores: Allows for the mass creation of virtual machines across multiple resource pools and data stores.
Semi-Permanent VM Assignment: Provides for the automated assignment of a new temporary but dedicated virtual machine, until the original permanent VM becomes accessible.
Power State Transition Management: A new VM power state called "Changing" marks the occurrence of an OS reboot or shutdown, thus resulting in a VM power-state transition.
Scheduled VM Power Operations: Enables VMs to be automatically powered on and suspended at the start and conclusion of a business day, respectively. This ensures VMs are always powered on during work hours, and powered off shortly after employees conclude their work day.
Bandwidth Virtualization: Integrated support for Expand Networks WAN optimization and application acceleration.
Virtual Channel Policies: Enables policy-based access to local devices over RDP, including drives, printers, smart cards, clipboard, audio, and serial ports.
Enhanced Printing Support: New font management capabilities deliver superior print quality and reliability, as well as drastic print job size reductions compared to other universal print drivers.
New AppPortal Look and Feel: A modern Web 2.0 new design enhances the look and usability of the most popular Windows client interface for Terminal Server and hosted desktops.

To learn more, you can watch one of Provision Networks' demos, here.

Or, you can download a trial of their product, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 22, 2007 05:09 PM

September 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Solaris VDI Solution to Secure the Desktop

During VMworld 2007, Sun Microsystems, Inc. previewed its new software offering that helps to provide a more secure and manageable virtual desktop environment. Installed on the company's Solaris Operating System, Sun's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (Sun VDI) Software 1.0 enables organizations to turn PCs into thin client devices by moving operating systems and applications off the desktops and mobile PCs and consolidating them in the datacenter.

Sun VDI is a secure platform for accessing virtualized Microsoft Windows desktop environments from a variety of devices. When combined with VMware Infrastructure software, Sun VDI consolidates desktops onto servers in the datacenter giving each user a dedicated and isolated virtual machine that is customized to their needs.

According to Sun, each virtual desktop functions as though it were running directly on the user's computer, however, critical data would reside in the datacenter. Doing so not only guards against theft or loss but it also provides ease of management by allowing IT managers to more quickly create users and workgroups, and control and manage desktops and updates from a central location.

Marc Hamilton, vice president of Solaris Marketing at Sun had this to say, "The accelerated adoption of server virtualization has heightened awareness of the benefits of consolidating servers and IP in the datacenter, and has paved the way toward the adoption of a hosted and virtualized desktop model."

Sun VDI Software will be available in October 2007, priced at $149 per user, and will install on both Solaris and Linux operating systems.

Posted by David Marshall on September 22, 2007 08:44 AM

September 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Emulex and QLogic, Virtual HBAs and NPIV Technology

When scaling with server virtualization technology, local storage or DAS becomes somewhat tricky. SAN technology therefore becomes an important key element when working with server virtualization. Emulex and QLogic both have an answer for the storage side of things with their line of virtual host bus adapters. And at VMworld, both companies were showing off their technology. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on September 21, 2007 04:43 AM

September 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

PlateSpin Introduces PowerRecon 3.1 Virtual Infrastructure Edition

Long time virtualization application provider PlateSpin announced an updated version of its award-winning PowerRecon data center planning and analysis solution. And although only a dot release increase, it offers powerful new features for managing, billing and optimizing VMware Infrastructure environments.

The key features of PowerRecon Virtual Infrastructure Edition include:

Virtual Machine Growth Reporting – The practice of quickly and easily creating a new virtual machine to address almost any requirement can result in rapid proliferation of virtual machines. PlateSpin PowerRecon enables organizations to better monitor and manage the growth of VMware Infrastructure without having to implement restrictive IT policies or lengthy approval procedures. By providing greater visibility into how the dynamic virtual infrastructure is growing and changing, IT directors gain a deeper understanding of how many virtual machines are deployed, who owns them and how they use available resources.

Flexible Chargeback Reporting – Virtualization creates a pool of computing resources that can be shared across many different workloads, which need to be tracked and whose costs need to be allocated appropriately. With PowerRecon, IT organizations can track, assign or report on costs and allocate IT charges to different business units based on their actual disk, CPU and network usage per virtual machine. PowerRecon automatically converts IT resource usage data into billable values over set time periods such as monthly or quarterly, allowing IT departments to more easily and accurately charge for shared resources. Chargeback reports can be automatically delivered to business units via email in a variety of formats.

VMware VirtualCenter Integration – Integration with VMware VirtualCenter provides visibility into the virtual infrastructure, improving data center management and operations. Familiar virtual infrastructure terms and organizational models accelerate ramp-up time and reduce software learning curves.

One-click Inventory Collection – Easily obtain the latest inventory of the virtual hosts in the data center with one-click inventory refresh or schedule inventory collection at regular intervals to keep pace with a rapidly growing and changing virtual infrastructure. Capture a detailed inventory of the contents of a virtual machine to obtain a more thorough and holistic view of the virtual environment.

Accelerated Discovery – The performance of PowerRecon's discovery feature has been greatly enhanced, allowing the discovery of an entire network in minutes. Accelerated discovery improves data center management by allowing staff to more rapidly identify rogue servers, monitor the proliferation of virtual machines and avoid virtual sprawl. PowerRecon is capable of remotely discovering servers across a 65,000 node network in less than ten minutes, making the product unique in its management of large data centers.

PlateSpin PowerRecon 3.1 Virtual Infrastructure Edition is generally available and pricing is based on a per VMware ESX Server CPU model. PowerRecon Virtual Infrastructure Edition is priced at $295 (USD) per socket.

Posted by David Marshall on September 19, 2007 09:03 PM

September 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

OpenVZ Available for Linux Kernel 2.6.22

The open source operating system (OS) virtualization software from the OpenVZ project, which is supported by SWsoft (OpenVZ is open source software that is used as the basis for the SWsoft Virtuozzo virtualization software product), is now available for Linux kernel 2.6.22.

OpenVZ for Linux 2.6.22 includes support for new PID (Process ID) namespace code that replaces a previous implementation. PID namespace ensures that a set of processes does not see any other processes that do not belong to the same set. And its an essential prerequisite for live migration.

The new version also supports UID (User ID) namespaces.

"In this kernel, we already support new Linux 2.6.22 features like the tickless kernel that results in cooler-running processors and increased power savings, along with the SLUB allocator, which is the core of kernel memory management and promises better performance and scalability," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project.

The new OpenVZ software can be downloaded, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 19, 2007 08:48 PM

September 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Offers Product Updates with Security Fixes

VMware has just released dot release updates to three of its virtualization platforms to address a number of security concerns.

VMware has updated its free hosted server virtualization platform, VMware Server to version 1.0.4 and has addressed a number of security concerns while at the same time resolving a number of outstanding issues.

Read about them, here.

The company has also updated two of its desktop virtualization platforms - VMware Player 2.0.1 and VMware Workstation 6.0.1. Both products have a number of security updates and fixes.

Click here for VMware Player update information.

Or, click here for information on VMware Workstation.

In addition to security fixes on Workstation, VMware also updated the product to include the following:

Workstation 6.0.1 adds experimental support for the following operating systems:

32-bit and 64-bit Windows Server 2008 (code name Longhorn) as host and guest operating systems
32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 as host and guest operating systems
32-bit and 64-bit openSUSE Linux 10.3 as host and guest operating systems
32-bit and 64-bit Turbolinux 10 Server as a guest operating system

Workstation 6.0.1 adds full support for the following operating systems:

32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 7.04 as host and guest operating systems
32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (formerly called 4.0 Update 5) as host and guest operating systems
32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD 6.2 as a guest operating system

Posted by David Marshall on September 19, 2007 08:28 PM

September 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Announcements Made Around VMworld 2007

VMworld is now over and for those of us who were there and made it back home safely, most of us are still probably trying to recover from a whirlwind of events. There were over 147 exhibitors present at the show, and each of them had something to share, say or announce while at the show. But interestingly, VMware had a loud voice over that week making quite a few announcements of their own. So what did VMware have to say? listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on September 17, 2007 04:31 PM

September 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SWsoft Unveils Virtuozzo 4.0 Beta

SWsoft has unveiled a Beta version of its long running operating system virtualization software - Virtuozzo 4.0. The company was demonstrating the new product at VMworld this past week as well as other products that the company has to offer.

If you aren't familiar with SWsoft, their Virtuozzo product puts a different spin on the virtualization concept. Rather than hosting multiple virtual machines (each with their own complete operating system) on a single server such as hardware virtualization solutions, SWsoft Virtuozzo dynamically partitions a single Linux or Windows operating system instance into highly efficient and scalable virtual environments called "containers". And while this solution typically scales better than hardware virtualization, one of the biggest drawbacks is that the environment has to be homogeneous and must remain at the same patch or service pack level.

But the technology solves many of the common performance, density, usability and infrastructure compatibility issues that affect traditional hardware virtualization solutions.

Virtuozzo 4.0 contains a number of new features and focuses on the following:

Management Tools – Server consolidation hardware benefits are simple to attain, but extending the benefit into administration (the largest IT cost component) is the real challenge. 4.0 is a major management tool release with completely new interfaces for both the GUI and browser-based tools. The new tools include the ability to create a virtual pool of resources and the Windows 2000 VZP2V which helps to upgrade a Windows 2000 server to Windows 2003 and converts it to a Virtuozzo virtual environment.
Ease of Use – Ease of use is extremely important as IT departments adopt and deploy virtualization solutions. Virtuozzo doesn't require administrators to learn a new operating system (Linux for Windows Administrators, or another distribution of modified Linux). Building on this straightforward architecture, the Virtuozzo installation is improved to an unprecedented level of ease and its tools provide a very easy intuitive experience for the administrators and virtual environment administrators.
Business Continuity (Disaster Recovery/High Availability) – Virtualization is becoming a key enabling technology for providing efficient and cost-effective ways to keep data available and recover data. New 4.0 features include Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat clustering services, cross platform back-ups, online volume shadow copies, and online cloning to enable simple upgrade testing and deployment.
Platform Parity – Platform parity ensures that all computing resources whether 32 or 64 bit (including Itanium), Windows or Linux, have the same levels of resource maximization, efficiency and management; all virtualized resources should be managed in the same manner. Virtuozzo bridges all of these platforms and moves even closer to platform parity within the differences and constraints of extremely different operating systems. Major enhancements include full support of many features that had previously been available only on either the Windows or Linux platform.
Efficiency – 4.0 takes Virtuozzo's architecture and technology to an even higher level of efficiency. New efficiencies include: a new flexible way of managing a Windows VE file footprint increments and decrements in near real-time, enabling a much better use of hard drive resources; improvements in the Virtuozzo file system to improve disk usage and speed common management tasks and an improved Windows architecture with higher efficiency and a better level of stability.
Real Customer Feedback – Customer feedback is an underlying basis of every feature; either features have been suggested by customers in live production environments or they have been developed in accordance with the SWsoft vision for virtualization and have been tested with an experienced subsection of the customer base.

"Virtuozzo 4.0 is a major step forward in our mission to provide customers with a solution that addresses multiple key barriers to service provider profitability - namely revenue per square foot, manageability and uptime," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of SWsoft. "Integration with our complete line of automation, billing, and management solutions through our OPEN FUSION initiative makes Virtuozzo the most complete solution for service providers."

Virtuozzo 4.0 is expected to be available for public Beta testing by the end of September with a GA date sometime later this year.

You can sign up for the Beta program, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 16, 2007 01:26 PM

September 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Parallels Making Advances in Virtualization

Parallels, Inc. is making great strides to bring their vision of virtualization to market. Not afraid of its larger competitors, the company continues to move forward with advancements to its desktop offerings and is adding server class virtualization and management to its virtualization repertoire.

The company recently announced that it had released a "Feature Update" to its Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac, their award-winning desktop virtualization product that allows Mac users to run Windows and Linux at the same time as Mac OS X on a single Mac desktop without the need for reboot.

This new update improves the product's already tight integration of Windows applications into the Mac OS X desktop. Windows applications running in Coherence mode on the OS X desktop behave more like native Mac applications. It also now offers full integration with OS X's "Expose" feature. So when expose is activated, each Parallels Coherence window appears as a separate Window, displayed with its full contents, enabling users to select a Windows application individually. Individual windows can be minimized in the Dock and can also be stacked and tiled.

The update also adds the ability to mirror the Desktop, Documents and Media on either desktop. And Parallels Explorer now recognizes suspended virtual machines, so users can automatically mount a virtual machine's hard disk even if the virtual machine is powered off. Desktop 3.0 also gets improved performance under heavy workloads and more efficient resource management. And users can now allocate up to 2GB of memory to an individual virtual machine.

And although Parallels has achieved a huge land grab within the Mac desktop market, they aren't satisfied with stopping there. Instead, while at VMworld, Ben Rudolph, Director of Communications at Parallels, showed me how the company is preparing to enter the server market with their new Parallels Server software product that is currently in Alpha. Parallels Server is going to act as a standalone hypervisor on bare-metal as well as a virtualization layer that sits on top of a host operating system. Unlike other hosted virtualization platforms, Parallels Server will also be able to install on top of Mac OS X which will bring server class virtualization to Apple's XServe line of servers.

To further separate them from the competition, Rudolph told me that the company ultimately plans to offer a tight integration between their hypervisor virtualization and parent company SWsoft's Virtuozzo container-level virtualization. While not in the company's initial product, the vision is there to allow a customer to move a live system running in Virtuozzo to a Parallels Server virtual machine. As an example, if a customer is using and getting the benefits of Virtuozzo's container virtualization but needs to upgrade only one instance to a newer service pack level, they can live migrate that instance over to a Parallels virtual machine to upgrade it and then continue to operate it as a virtual machine.

To reach this bold vision, Rudolph said that the company plans on bringing their hypervisor into Beta within the next four to six weeks. And the company plans on shipping the final product sometime near the end of this year or the beginning of 2008. They also plan on revisiting and updating their Windows and Linux desktop virtualization product called Workstation within the next few months.

By leveraging their Mac OS X capabilities, their fast and agile development and their parent company's container virtualization product, Parallels has a number of ways of differentiating themselves from the pack and bringing attention to their offerings.

Posted by David Marshall on September 16, 2007 07:26 AM

September 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMworld Day 3 - Mendel Always Brings It

VMworld may be over, but on the last and final day of the show, VMware's co-founder and Chief Scientist really brought things home as I expected. At last year's conference, I really enjoyed Mendel's discussion - especially the part about VMware's recording feature used to capture the live execution stream of a virtual machine and then the ability to play it back later. This feature currently lives in VMware Workstation but it has so many future use case scenarios in the server virtualization world as well.

Mendel started off the keynote discussing virtualization at a very high-level. He explained what virtualization is and how it works. If I hadn't heard Mendel speak before, I might have been a little nervous at this point - thinking that I just stepped into an introductory course on virtualization and VMware Infrastructure 3 functionality. Don't get me wrong, those things are great, just not what I came to hear from someone like Mendel.

And as expected, he didn't disappoint. Mendel introduced a new form of VMotion to the audience - Storage VMotion. With Storage VMotion, VMware is leaving the CPU executions on the same physical server, and instead, moving the virtual disks from one storage area to another. In essence, it's the opposite of "regular" VMotion which keeps the virtual disks on the same storage location but moves the CPU and memory execution to a new physical host server. The demo worked well as they demonstrated this feature against an Oracle virtual machine.

The next topic covered virtual appliances. Most of us are familiar with the concept as well as the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace. This discussion and demonstration however took virtual appliances to another level by discussing the distribution method. Again, most of us have downloaded a virtual appliance at least one time or another. And no matter how small or large they are in size, it takes a while to download the entire machine. Instead, Mendel showcased a "streaming" distribution of the virtual appliance that allowed for an almost immediate power on of the machine in comparison to a lengthy download of the same machine on another client.

The idea here is to use a recording method to decide which blocks of a virtual machine are needed to be prefetched in order to properly boot the machine in a streaming fashion without downloading the entire appliance. The technology is really interesting and could be extremely important when working in a VDI environment. My question here is how does this compare to what others like Moka5 have been working on for a while now?

And finally, Mendel introduced the idea of high availability to the datacenter. Sure, VI3 already has an HA offering which allows its users to recover a virtual machine when its host fails, but what he demonstrated was a new concept of availability that showed where one virtual machine was being captured and redirected to a second virtual machine in real-time - creating two virtual machines in lockstep with one another. If the primary hardware fails, the secondary virtual machine instantaneously takes over. This was demonstrated with two machines running Exchange Server and LoadSim. Mendel literally "pulled the plug" on the primary server and the secondary VM took over gracefully and continued to operate its 50 simulated users.

Mendel closed by asking for ideas from those in attendance. What are your difficult problem areas?

Thanks to Mendel for showing and discussing the future. Always a pleasure to see what Mendel has to offer at these shows. I was lucky enough to meet with him and speak with him last year.

We're only scratching the surface with what the virtualization layer has to offer. And that my friend is the best part of this!

Posted by David Marshall on September 15, 2007 03:47 PM

September 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMworld 2007 Day 2 - Cisco and Exhibit Halls

The second day of VMworld 2007 ended with the same result as the first day... I was exhausted!

I may have been tired from a long day, but a successful day it was. One of the best things about these forums is being able to meet new people. And with well over 10,000 people in attendance, there was no shortage of new people to meet. Along with the new faces, I was happy to see some old friends from conventions past as well as old friends that I have never had the chance to meet face to face with until now.

The morning started off like a bolt of lightning for me, getting to the show early to get a jump on things (who said you could sleep in later when you go to a convention?).

The keynote presentation was given by the Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, John Chambers.

John predicts a second wave of innovation since the Internet, built on top of virtualization and the power of the network, creating new services and support models that will be driven by consumers.

We keep coming up with new words or numbering systems, and it seems like we are already heading to the Virtual Datacenter 3.0 where all aspects are virtualized. Did we ever complete Virtual Datacenter 2.0? Anyway, all of the infrastructure gets virtualized in this world, servers, storage and networks. I've been waiting for this version of the datacenter world since the early part of 2000. Slow and steady wins the race I suppose.

Moving from talk to action, Cisco then demonstrated for us a corporate portal that makes use of VMware's VirtualCenter APIs to help automatically provision resources as needed. In addition, we saw Cisco's VFrame console, showcasing how additional servers could be deployed and provisioned with VFrame workflows doing the orchestration.

The demo went on, and while interesting, I couldn't help but wonder about what happened to any announcements about virtual switches for ESX Server. It was afterall something that many of us anticipated hearing about - and without it, something seemed to be missing from the keynote.

Other than that, Cisco like many of us find virtualization and green computing a top priority for next year.

Leaving the keynote, the rest of the day was basically spent walking around the exhibit room when I could to find out who was there, what were they showing, and what new companies were popping up onto the radar screen. More on the technologies at a later time. Suffice to say, there was no shortage of interesting products being displayed in the exhibit hall.

And then it is off to Treasure Island for a little entertainment and fun.

Posted by David Marshall on September 12, 2007 10:21 PM

September 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMworld 2007 Day 1 a Virtual Success

If you attended VMworld 2006 in Los Angeles and thought you were surrounded by a large flock of virtualization users, you probably wouldn't have imagined the number of people that descended on the Moscone Center in San Francisco this year.

In my mind, two recent events have defined just how big virtualization has become. Obviously, the first is the not talked about enough IPO of VMware. And the second, the number of VMworld 2007 attendees and exhibition booths. I mean, who is going to argue with a billion dollars made from an IPO and the fact that 11,000 people all gathered around in one place to find out about one topic... not me! Virtualization is definitely more than buzz folks. Climb aboard.

The VMworld conference officially kicked off today for everyone, although many people were in attendance the day before for Technology day and Partner Day, and of course, plenty of virtual fun at any number of bars located around the city. Virtualization engineers know how to have fun.

Kicking the show off, Diane Greene said it best when she said that a year ago, we were talking about virtualization becoming mainstream, now, we're talking about a virtualization industry.

One of the most interesting things was watching Diane and Mark Jarvis, Dell's CMO, introduce us to the embedded VMware (ESX Server 3i - no, it isn't a new BWM) hypervisor.

Similar to last year, the talk continued about virtual desktops, virtual appliances and the green computing initiatives that we keep hearing so much about these days.

Pat Gelsinger, a Senior VP and GM at Intel, took the stage and discussed several virtualization areas of focus such as FlexMigration (helping live migration across processor types), Extended Page Tables and virtual processor IDs.

The Intel talk included a discussion on the Intel VT-d architecture for directed I/O as well as Intel's Virtual Machine Device Queues which reduces CPU utilization on network and storage devices. It then closed with a demo of the Xeon 7300 series processor and showed off some of its benchmarks.

Hector Ruiz, Chairman and CEO of AMD took over and discussed their green computing efforts and the company's energy efficiency which was showcased in the company's datacenter in Austin by reducing power consumption by well over 70%.

The company then discussed their recently announced AMD Quad-core Barcellona chip. The new AMD nested paging technology (AKA Rapid Virtualization Indexing or RVI) was explained - how it increases performance and helps reduce the size of the VMM.

Karthik Rau returned to the stage to end the day's keynote. And then, Day 1 launched into full gear as people scattered for the exhibit hall, breakout sessions and labs. Stay tuned!

Posted by David Marshall on September 11, 2007 11:38 PM

September 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Vizioncore Now Optimizing Virtual Machines

Vizioncore just announced one of its latest offerings, vOptimizer 4.0, an enterprise-class version of its virtual machine optimization utility.

In case you aren't familiar with previous versions of this product from Vizioncore, it isn't really "new", as you can tell from its 4.0 version number. Instead, the product is a new offering from Vizioncore thanks to the strategic partnership formed by the acquisition of both Vizioncore and Invirtus by Quest Software.

vOptimizer reduces a virtual machine's virtual hard drive to a much smaller size while optimizing Windows guest operating systems for increased portability and performance.

The 4.0 release offers a local desktop version as well as an enterprise or network version that works across the LAN or WAN and offers the ability to automate and schedule jobs to optimize a repository of virtual machines in a batch mode.

Other new features of this release include new management reports, the fact that vOptimizer no longer needs to run inside the virtual machine, as well as a significant improvement in the application's optimization process.

With more products entering the virtualization scene to battle Vizioncore for their virtualization backup customers, this product seems like a nice offering to get included into Vizioncore's bag of virtualization tricks.

Posted by David Marshall on September 11, 2007 11:10 PM

September 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Hitachi Wants to Deliver Universal Storage Platform to the Midmarket

Hitachi Data Systems unveiled its Universal Storage Platform V series. Positioned toward smaller enterprises, the Universal Storage Platform VM delivers the benefits of enterprise-class virtualization, thin provisioning and tiered storage across a heterogeneous storage services platform.

The company says that the storage package doesn't require a raised floor data center and that it operates on an industry standard 220-volt power supply. Both are good options to help meet the demands of a smaller enterprise. According to Josh Krischer, founder, Josh Krischer & Associates, a leading storage research firm, Hitachi's innovation engine is moving the company further ahead of competitors in entry-level enterprise-class storage technologies.

The rackmounted storage platform offers the same service available as the Universal Storage Platform V: Hitachi's Dynamic Provisioning software, Universal Volume Manager with support for up to 96 petabytes, large logical storage pools, and Hitachi Virtual Partition Manager. And it has also added a newly enhanced parallel crossbar switch architecture with 4Gb/s fibre-channel to deliver 75% more peak IOPs than their previous rackmount virtualization products.

Interestingly, the system has also added support for VMware ESX Server 3.0 - a product that is owned by its competitor in the storage solution field, EMC - although HDS doesn't seem to have a problem with its ties to EMC.

And while aimed at the mid-range market, the USP VM will cost around $60,000 for the basic system controller without any disk storage. And the other problem is that it doesn't seem to support the cheaper SATA or SAS drives, instead opting to support the more expensive Fibre disks.

Posted by David Marshall on September 11, 2007 10:31 PM

September 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

IBM and BEA Working to Change Virtualization

IBM has introduced its new virtualization ready System X Server to help the company address growing needs and concerns in the virtualization arena. One interesting aspect, it debuts a new embedded hypervisor capability right out of the box. BEA Systems is also changing virtualization, this time, licensing. In a bold move, BEA Systems has changed their licensing format for BEA WebLogic Server Virtual Edition from per CPU pricing to per instance pricing instead. So how is this new licensing being defined? And how well will it be received? listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on September 11, 2007 10:15 PM

September 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Rackable Systems Creates a Virtualized Server Line

Rackable Systems, creator of high-density server and storage products for large sized datacenters, announced that they will now operate with VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) virtualization software to further their mission of datacenter consolidation.

As part of a new formed relationship with VMware, VI3 is now available on Rackable Systems rack-mount server lines with full platform certification from VMware. In addition, Rackable will also resell and distribute VMware products and provide different levels of support for the various offerings.

"The VMware relationship enables Rackable Systems to extend our build-to-order model to support rack and data center-level virtualized environments," said Mark J. Barrenechea, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rackable Systems. "Now enterprise data centers can leverage our high performance, ultra-dense virtualized systems to support development, test and production application workloads as well as mission-critical business continuity solutions."

VMware Infrastructure 3 is available immediately on Rackable Systems' x86 servers.

Posted by David Marshall on September 9, 2007 06:27 AM

September 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Whitepaper: Virtual Machine Security Guidelines

Virtualization security is always a hot topic of discussion. And now the Center for Internet Security (CIS) is joining in that discussion with its latest whitepaper titled "Virtual Machine Security Guidelines - Version 1.0".

For those not familiar with CIS, they are an independent body that provides benchmarks, scoring tools, software, data, information, suggestions and ideas as a public service to Internet users worldwide. Their recommendations are typically the result of a consensus-building process that involves many security experts and are generally generic in nature.

The 30 page whitepaper addresses security concerns that apply to virtual machine technologies. Their recommendations are considered to be vendor neutral and are based on a variety of public sources and contains input from members of the Center for Internet Security.

While the document focuses on issues that are unique to virtual machine deployments, it does not cover all of the steps that are needed to harden the individual operating systems. Other documents from the CIS provide the necessary guidance to secure other aspects of a computing infrastructure.

The next CIS whitepaper will be the addendum for VMware ESX Server. That document will cover specific steps needed to apply the general concepts discussed in this document to an installation of VMware ESX Server.

You can download and read the entire whitepaper, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 9, 2007 06:08 AM

September 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware Offers Developers the VMware Infrastructure Perl Toolkit 1.0

VMware has just released a Perl Toolkit for its Virtual Infrastructure virtualization platform. Developers and administrators will be happy to know that the Toolkit can either be installed or downloaded as an appliance.

The long time virtualization vendor has come a long way since the early days of GSX Server and ESX Server. Back then, administrators were happy just to have a command-line interface in order to execute commands. Now, VMware is offering a number of ready-to-run utility applications that be used immediately or modified to operate as you need them. The Toolkit also provides a client-side library to interface with the VI API, documentation, sample code and for Windows users, a Perl runtime and development system.

VMware describes the Toolkit as "an easy-to-use Perl scripting interface to the VMware Infrastructure API (VI API). Administrators and developers who may be more familiar with Perl (rather than with Java, C#, or other programming languages) can readily leverage the VI API. For developers who have previously worked with the Scripting API (VmPerl API), the VI Perl Toolkit is the tool of choice."

The VMware Infrastructure API capabilities include:

Inventory Operations
Virtual Machine Life-cycle Operations
Host, Network, and Storage Configuration
Performance Monitoring and Management
User Management
Event Management

The Toolkit also includes a comprehensive set of scripts - Utility Applications - that can be immediately used for common management tasks, including virtual machine power operations, host configuration, and virtual machine life-cycle management.

You can download the Toolkit, here.

Alternatively, VMware offers the VI Perl Toolkit as a Virtual Appliance. One runs on ESX Server and another runs on a hosted platform for VMware Server, Workstation or Player. You can download it, here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 8, 2007 02:50 PM

September 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtugo Launches Virtualization Management Suite

Virtugo Software, a company providing software products to help manage solutions for virtualization platforms, announced the availability of virtualSuite r6, a management platform for virtualized server and desktop environments.

You might remember back in April of this year that uXcomm, a company known mostly as a systems management provider, purchased the assets of Virtugo Software, a small San Francisco company developing management tools for virtual environments. uXcomm then changed its name to Virtugo Software.

Chris Dickson, VP of marketing, Virtugo Software said "By bundling our products together, and extending support for other virtualization platforms like XenSource, we believe we have created a powerful, convenient and cost effective way for companies to manage virtualization within their data centers, while still optimizing resource use, and delivering higher savings for companies."

Now, the company is announcing its latest suite of products called virtualSuite r6 which combines 5 modules to help better manage VMware and Xen environments. Datacenter managers can leverage the software to help monitor and control virtual machines and hosts, and can optimize performance to help meet service level agreements.

virtualSuite r6 includes:

Virtugo Perform delivers a performance management tool specifically designed for IT organizations to discover and monitor virtualized environment vital statistics. Perform incorporates host server and virtual machine knowledge to show real-time variables such as CPU, memory and disk usage within a comprehensive user interface. Graphs and charts make the data easy to understand.
Virtugo Optimize automatically tunes the virtual environment to enhance application performance. By dynamically adjusting CPU, memory and disk resource allocations in real-time, the virtual environment can handle more work while decreasing application response time. Optimize was designed to maximize utilization and increase productivity of existing systems, enabling companies to dynamically manage workloads and ensure business priorities are met.
Virtugo Capacity allows IT administrators to monitor and document vital statistics about a company's virtualized environment. It tracks a comprehensive set of host server and virtual machine metrics, stores them in a database and generates reports that identifies bottleneck and trends. These capabilities enable the IT administrator to plan the right amount of virtualization capacity to meet current and future demands of the organization.
Virtugo Meter provides utilization measures for tracking resource use within physical and virtualized environments. This allows businesses to allocate costs, validate intended usage levels and perform accurate chargeback.
Virtugo VDI is a comprehensive solution that manages, supports, and configures physical and virtual desktops in a single easy-to-use console, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership for virtualization desktop infrastructures. Administrators can now take a proactive, centralized approach to Virtual Desktop Infrastructures and deploy necessary software applications, patches and critical updates. virtualSuite VDI enables automated asset discovery, audits and reporting for hardware and software configurations in virtual and physical environments.

The product is available now and pricing starts at $349 per CPU socket. Enterprise licensing is also available.

Posted by David Marshall on September 8, 2007 06:00 AM

September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Here Comes Microsoft's Virtual Machine Management Software

Since its initial release, one of the key missing components of Microsoft's Virtual Server virtualization platform has been the lack of an enterprise class management application. Microsoft is finally correcting that problem with the release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2007.

SCVMM has been in the works for nearly two years now and is expected to finally release to manufacturing sometime in October. To date, there have been over 20,678 public beta users of the product and over 32 Technology Adoption Partners giving great feedback to help it along. Microsoft itself has been using the product to manage 100% of their virtual environments (86 physical hosts running 1224 VMs) in production since Beta 2.

The new product was created to have tight integration with existing Microsoft tools to help with multiple scenarios that make up virtual and physical machine management. To help provide health and performance monitoring, SCVMM integrates with Microsoft Operations Manager. For patching machines and images, the product integrates with Microsoft Configuration Manager. And for backup and restore, they integrated the product with Data Protection Manager so that you can backup all the virtual machines at the physical host level.

Microsoft has also changed the licensing model. They announced the System Center Management Suite Enterprise license which gives you everything you need to manage your virtual environment at a price of $860 per physical host. This includes System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, Enterprise Server Management licenses for System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. The license is on the physical host and includes an unlimited number of virtual machines on that host.

Microsoft also announced pricing for the SMB market with a package called System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Workgroup Edition, available in January 2008 at a price of $499. This package allows for management of up to 5 physical servers with an unlimited number of virtual machines.

Microsoft is also developing its next generation of SCVMM based on great feedback from customers and Beta users. The roadmap includes support for not only Microsoft Windows Server Virtualization (Viridian), but also full management of non-Windows, third-party virtualization platforms from VMware and Xen. A Beta of the software is expected to be announced around the same time as Windows Server 2008.

In case you missed it, some of the benefits found in SCVMM 2007 include:

Centralized deployment and management of virtual machines
Intelligent Placement analysis to determine the best servers for virtualization
Quick physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual conversion
Ease of use with a familiar interface and seamless integration with other Microsoft products
Faster deployments with administrator-managed self-service provisioning
Resource efficiency with server consolidation and increased processor utilization
Quick automation via PowerShell scripting integration

Posted by David Marshall on September 6, 2007 05:01 PM

September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

AMD and Intel Continue to Enhance Virtualization

When AMD and Intel first announced that they were going to add virtualization instruction sets into their respective processors, people stood up and took notice. It not only made virtualization operate more efficiently with less overhead, but it also helped new virtualization platforms enter the scene, as these instruction sets helped bring new virtualization products to market faster by knocking down some of the barriers to entry. So what are AMD and Intel up to next? AMD is offering Extended Migration and Intel has its new Xeon 7300 series and FlexMigration Assist. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on September 6, 2007 04:05 PM

September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Vizioncore Expands Product Line Beyond VMware

Vizioncore has been around since 2002 as a consulting company in the virtualization field working with products from VMware and Citrix. However, the company is probably best known for its VMware backup solution - esxRanger.

Vizioncore has moved beyond backups, and has created quite a number of add-on applications to help make its customers' VMware experience a much easier time.

To help the company grow, it was quietly acquired by Quest Software sometime this year and Vizioncore has since been operating as a separate subsidiary. Also this year, Quest Software again quietly purchased another virtualization application player, this time, virtual machine optimizer Invirtus.

In July, Quest Software's acquisitions formed a strategic partnership allowing Vizioncore to OEM all Invirtus technology and the company fostered collaboration between the two companies on future initiatives.

"As the virtualization market has grown and matured, we have seen increased demand from customers running a variety of different virtualization technologies," said David Bieneman, founder and CEO of Vizioncore.

Bieneman said that while his company will continue to have a very close working relationship with VMware as a Technology Alliance Partner, his company plans to focus on virtualization as a whole and not on one particular technology.

To reflect that broader vision, the company is incorporating the Invirtus technology into their offering as well as changing the name of their existing product line to better represent the fact that their solutions work across multiple virtualization platforms, rather than simply just on VMware's ESX product.

To that end, the company announced the following product changes and updates:

vRanger Pro (formerly esxRanger Professional) - provides image-level hot backups of either entire virtual machines or differentials - simply and easily while virtual machines continue running.
vCharter (formerly esxCharter) - provides a top-down view of performance for the entire virtual infrastructure in a drill-down display that shows each level - beginning with the container and then through to the host level as well as all virtual machines.
vReplicator (formerly esxReplicator)- supports replication of entire virtual machines including configuration settings, OS patches and the application itself as well as the data and all other OS-level changes.
vMigrator (formerly esxMigrator) - migrates virtual machines to new platforms while keeping the source virtual machines intact and unmodified, allowing them to be used even as the virtual machines are ported to new production servers.
vOptimizer (formerly Invirtus VM Optimizer) - reduces a virtual machine's virtual hard drive to the smallest size possible and optimizes guest operating systems for maximum performance and portability.
vConverter (formerly Invirtus Enterprise VM Converter) - significantly reduces the time and effort spent converting physical and virtual servers to VMware, Microsoft or Virtual Iron virtual machines.
vPackager (formerly Invirtus Libra) - provides a virtualization collaboration solution via virtual appliances by extending and optimizing the use of VMware Snapshot and Microsoft Differencing Disk technologies.
vEssentials (formerly esxEssentials) – a powerful bundle package consisting of vRanger, vReplicator and vCharter for organizations looking to enhance disaster recovery and simplify the overall management of virtual infrastructures.

Posted by David Marshall on September 6, 2007 05:24 AM

September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

XenSource Offers OEMs an Embedded Hypervisor

With all the hype surrounding virtualization reaching an all time high, virtualization vendors are continuing to scramble to come up with new features, applications, use-case scenarios, etc to try and further penetrate the market. One such idea being floated around recently was that VMware might be launching some sort of "light" edition of its popular ESX Server hypervisor that would run within a server's firmware. Rumor has it that VMware may even be announcing it or showing it off at VMworld next week.

If that's the case, XenSource may have just beat them to the punch as they announced yesterday their XenExpress OEM edition - an embedded version of its hypervisor for AMD and Intel processors.

This new edition will allow OEM system vendors and other OEMs interested in the technology to include a full virtualization platform as an integrated component in the server, pre-installed in system flash or on the hard disk. It enables the server to boot with multiple BIOS partitions at system power-on, making it ready to install and manage virtual machines.

The OEM edition is fully compatible and upgradeable to the new advanced management features found in XenEnterprise v4 - features that include XenMotion, XenCenter and the XenAPI.

Features of XenExpress OEM Edition:

Based on the industry's most open, scalable, high performance virtualization engine, the Xen hypervisor.
Built-in support for the latest hardware virtualization features from Intel and AMD - delivering near-native performance, while maximizing platform security.
OEM value-added extensions - optimized for virtualization-ready hardware platforms, enabling OEMs to enhance the serviceability, manageability and security of their customer's infrastructure, through direct integration of embedded, secure system partitions that implement OEM value-added software enhancements.
OEM up-sell opportunities for virtual infrastructure - offering a fully featured server consolidation value proposition "out of the box" with easy upgrade to the full XenEnterprise v4 feature set.

The company said that XenExpress OEM edition is available now to OEMs who want to integrate the product into their solutions. No OEM customers have been announced as of yet, however XenSource says they have commitments from people - they just can't name them yet. If you are interested in more information, you might want to stop by their booth at VMworld.

Posted by David Marshall on September 6, 2007 04:50 AM

September 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

VMware and Parallels are Fine, but what about Free Virtualization Software for the Mac?

Mac users are finding it easier and easier to support Windows applications on their machines. The choices in front of them are numerous and growing.

With Apple's Boot Camp not satisfying everyone, Parallels and VMware have created and offer a virtualization solution to make running Windows and other operating systems on one's Mac an extremely simple process.

But they aren't the only virtualization games in town. Others are picking up the virtual torch in hopes of bringing this benefit to Mac users - only better - offering it free of charge. Unfortunately, you might have to wait a little bit longer for these desktop virtualization platforms to bake.

The German company Innotek recently announced a new version of its desktop virtualization solution for Windows and Linux - VirtualBox 1.5. But with an Alpha version in the works, it should be available for Mac OS X in the near future.

VirtualBox 1.5 adds a number of new features such as seamless windowing mode where the windows of a VM directly integrate with your Linux or Windows desktop - making VirtualBox the first product to offer this support on the Windows and Linux platforms. Support for the 64-bit versions of Windows as host operating system has been added as well as official support for IBM OS/2 Warp as a guest operating system. Version 1.5 also adds support for serial ports and comes with a fully standard compliant Intel PXE network boot agent. A detailed list of improvements can be found in the Changelog.

Another free product making its way into Mac user's living rooms in the not so distant future is "Q". With Q, you can run Windows, Linux and a lot more on your Mac. Q is based on the open-source QEMU project from Fabrice Bellard and has a lot of potential, but right now is still currently in Alpha. It is a completely rewritten cocoa port of QEMU, built directly on OS X, and it makes use of Apple's core-technologies such as Coreimage, Coreaudio and OpenGL for in- and output, saving the overhead of cross-platform APIs like SDL, FMOD or GTK.

You can find out more information about "Q", here.

Posted by David Marshall on September 4, 2007 06:50 PM

September 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SWsoft Growing with Acquisitions and Product Creation

When virtualization is spoken about, most people automatically assume you are speaking about VMware. They are after all the world's largest virtualization software company.

However, SWsoft might have something to say about that conversation. The company recently announced a number of new milestones reached this year, and dubbed itself the world's second-largest overall virtualization software company to those people who might otherwise not have known that information.

So what exactly is the company up to? According to a recent article by The Inquirer, SWsoft is plotting a buying spree. The company's CEO, Sergeui Beloussov, "disclosed that he is closing on 'several' acquisitions, one of which is likely to be announced early next week. This will be a company analogous to Opsware, the automation outfit that recently agreed to sell out to HP. Beloussov wouldn't name the company but Israel's The Marker is reporting the target as Sphera, a company that specialises in management tools for software-as-a-service firms."

If confirmed, the acquisition of Sphera makes sense. SWsoft has been talking about and promoting the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market with their Plesk software and many of the company's faithful customers are some of the larger hosting providers. The company also recently made headway towards creating a SaaS integration platform with the introduction of the Application Packaging Standard.

To further its growth in the market, the company also has two major releases planned for this year: Virtuozzo v4, which the company previewed for folks at the LinuxWorld conference, and Parallels Server which runs bare-metal as well as on top of Windows, Linux or OS X server.

In this crazy world of virtualization, SWsoft may not be the most vocal person in the room, but they are definitely one company to keep your eyes on. So while others are being acquired or going public, SWsoft is quietly building up a nice set of solutions and offerings to help address today's datacenter concerns.

Posted by David Marshall on September 4, 2007 06:03 PM

September 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron Looks Ahead With Version 4.0 of its Server Virtualization Solution

Today, Virtual Iron announced the latest release of its server virtualization platform and virtual management solution.

The company hopes that Version 4 of its software will continue to chip away at VMware's lead in the market with Virtual Infrastructure 3. Virtual Iron said that Version 4 provides comparable capabilities to VI3 and is still available at just a fraction of the cost.

Version 4 offers the following new capabilities and features:

Integrated SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Kernel and Drivers - Version 4 integrates the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 kernel and Linux drivers in Virtual Iron's core virtualization architecture. As a result, users get all the benefits of complete Novell certification and corresponding full global commercial support for their entire spectrum of server, storage and networking hardware supported by Novell in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. This includes systems from IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, Network Appliances, Cisco and many others. Virtual Iron joins VMware as the only server virtualization providers to integrate fully supported kernels and drivers with its hypervisor - a critical requirement for users moving virtualization into production environments.
LiveConvert - P2V and V2V Conversion Capabilities Powered by PlateSpin - Version 4 adds LiveConvert, an automated software solution powered by PlateSpin that enables customers to easily migrate workloads (data, applications, and operating systems) across physical, virtual, blade and image-based infrastructures in any direction. LiveConvert provides Virtual Iron users with the ability to quickly migrate workloads between physical servers and virtual machines allowing users to quickly achieve the benefits of large-scale server consolidation, rapid provisioning, high availability and capacity management.
New Graphical Management Console Interface – Version 4 adds a powerful new Windows graphical administration console including new management wizards for creating new virtual machines and managing their entire lifecycle. The console also includes new graphing and reporting tools for measuring resource utilization and performance including CPU, memory, disk and network I/O. These capabilities simplify management of the entire virtual environment.
New Xen 3.1 64 Bit Hypervisor – Virtual Iron continues to contribute to and leverage the latest advancements in the Xen open source project. Version 4 integrates the Xen 3.1 hypervisor for increased scalability, increased memory density, support for up to 128 GB of physical memory, and per guest virtual machine limits of 32 GB. The new hypervisor also supports up to 8-way SMP per guest and leverages ACPI to support dynamic hot plugging of CPU, network and storage running into virtual machines. As a result, users can support a larger number of virtual machines per host, increasing utilization and ROI.
Expanded OS Support - Virtual Iron Version 4 adds support for several new 32 and 64 bit operating systems including Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. This enables Virtual Iron to continue to expand mainstream adoption, provide support for diverse data center environments and increase user flexibility and value.
Windows SMP Support - Version 4 expands support to virtual machines with up to 8 CPUs, for the ability to virtualize more demanding workloads such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server.

These new features add to Virtual Iron's already comprehensive server virtualization and virtual infrastructure platform including advanced policy-based automation capabilities which allow data center managers to monitor and automatically manage the capacity of their server resources to deliver on established service level agreements (SLAs). These include easy-to-use capabilities such as:

LiveMigrate - the ability to move virtual servers between physical servers without any application downtime;
LiveCapacity - monitors virtual server CPU utilization to determine when a workload needs additional capacity and live migrates it to a physical server when needed;
LiveRecovery - monitors the status of physical resources and moves virtual servers to maintain uptime in the event of a hardware failure;
LiveMaintenance - moves virtual servers to alternate locations without downtime when a physical server is taken offline for maintenance. This allows physical server maintenance to be performed outside of scheduled maintenance windows without downtime.
LiveProvisioning – a "zero touch" automated deployment capability that eliminates the need for physical installation or management of virtualization software on virtualized physical servers.

"Virtual Iron Version 4 continues to keep pace with the industry's most-advanced offerings and is substantially more feature-rich, higher performing and easier to deploy than XenSource's latest offering," said John C. Thibault, president and CEO of Virtual Iron. "With Version 4, we continue to bring the most comprehensive enterprise-class virtualization and management capabilities to the mainstream market at a fraction of the cost of comparable alternatives."

Like their previous offering, Virtual Iron offers a free license to customers using its software on a single four-socket server with up to 12 virtual machines.

Once hooked, customers can move up to the Enterprise Edition at $499 per socket which adds the ability to create an unlimited number of virtual machines, and offers local, iSCSI and fibre channel storage support, access to the Novell kernel and drivers, Virtual SMP and VLAN support.

And for $799 per socket, users can upgrade to the Extended Enterprise Edition which gives customers everything in the Enterprise Edition plus capacity management and disaster recovery tools as well as image conversion tools thanks to PlateSpin.

The company said Version 4 should be generally available on September 10, 2007.

Posted by David Marshall on September 4, 2007 05:17 PM

September 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Cassatt's Power Management Offers the Color Green

Cassatt Corporation announced one of its new technology offerings that allow datacenter managers to safely and intelligently power servers off and on as needed to help move toward a greener datacenter.

Cassatt's Active Power Management technology is controlled by policies set by administrators and optimized automatically. It continually optimizes power consumption based on the time of day, demand, curtailments imposed by power companies, or other facilities-based events. And the company said that early tests have shown that customers are experiencing up to 50 percent reduction in their power usage by allowing Active Power Management to turn servers off when idle and then on again when needed.

Active Power Management intelligently works with existing resources in the data center and applies best-practice principles that are:

Policy-Based - Administrators can apply appropriate business policies and priorities in order to determine when, where, and how to shut down idle servers, rather than leave them running 24 by 7 or relying on "hard-wired" power decisions. Polices can then be applied to safely and successfully power servers back on and confirm a successful start up
Application Aware - Knows when and how applications can be systematically shut down and brought back up gracefully, and is aware of application interdependencies shared across multiple servers
Hardware and Software Independent - Runs on any platform, requires no change to existing hardware and software configurations, and is compatible with existing power distribution/UPS equipment

In a typical datacenter, the cost of electricity and cooling are for the most part rising at a much faster rate than a datacenter's operational or equipment costs. Studies by American Power Conversion (APC) have shown that servers are consuming as much as 55 percent of their fully loaded power when they just sit idle. And lately, EPA reports have come out that state datacenter power consumption can be reduced by simply shutting down idle servers or putting them into sleep mode.

That's fine for underutilized physical servers, but what about virtual machines and their host servers?

Cassatt said the product also works with virtualization and datacenter consolidation projects. They continued by saying that organizations making use of virtualization will be able to gain not only the benefits of using fewer servers, but with Active Power Management they will be able to extend those benefits to all power management scenarios across all virtual and physical facilities.

I can definitely see this technology helping out with underutilized servers in a datacenter. Later this month, they should be coming out with more information on this product, and they are rolling the product out at select sites such as with early adopter Brocade. The company is planning to show off the technology at VMworld, so if you are interested in seeing it first hand to see how it can help your virtualized datacenter, this might be a great place to do just that.

Posted by David Marshall on September 4, 2007 04:34 PM

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