Virtualization Report | David Marshall | January 2008

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January 2008

January 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Venture capitalists can't get enough of virtualization - Thank Goodness!

Yes, you've heard it before: Virtualization is a hot, growing market. The strange thing is, it isn't just the analysts and media talking about it anymore. And it's not just those people in the virtualization community talking about it either. Venture capital firms have recognized the trend and can see where virtualization is going. Because of that, we've seen an increase in the funding of these companies. Why, just in the last week or so we've seen a number of press releases hit the wire about additional funding.

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Cirba, a provider of data center intelligence software, today announced that it has raised $12 million in its second round of institutional funding led by Sigma Partners. Existing investors including Edgestone Capital Partners and others also participated in the round. The funding will enable Cirba to further accelerate growth on a global scale, with investments in sales, marketing and product development.

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Virtual Iron Software, as provider of enterprise server virtualization, today announced that it has secured $20 million in new venture equity financing. The funding, provided at an increased valuation, will be used to accelerate product development and expand global sales, marketing and distribution efforts. The investment brings Virtual Iron’s total venture funding to $65 million in invested equity capital and includes Highland Capital Partners, Matrix Partners, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital and SAP Ventures.

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Pano Logic today announced it has completed a $12 million series B funding round led by Goldman Sachs, and joined by existing investors ComVentures and Foundation Capital. Pano Logic leverages existing server virtualization technologies to create a new approach to client/desktop computing that dramatically lowers total cost of ownership while increasing security, management and mobility. To keep up with the growing demand within the enterprise for desktop virtualization solutions, the company will use the funding to accelerate product development, expand sales and marketing efforts, and secure additional channel/SI partners to address the midmarket.

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VirtenSys, a provider of I/O virtualization solutions -- a crucial new technology that enables organizations to optimize the data centers in their IT infrastructure, to improve performance and reduce total cost of ownership -- announced it has received USD 12 million in its Series B funding round, all from its original investor syndicate. The syndicate comprises Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), Celtic House Venture Partners (CHVP), and GIMV. The investment will be used to expand its market, to grow its operations in the U.K. and the U.S., and, shortly, to launch its products and begin revenue generation.

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Hopefully, VC firms continue to fund new and innovative solutions in the virtualization space. We've only just begun to see where virtualization can take us.

Posted by David Marshall on January 31, 2008 08:17 PM

January 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMware bumps Mac Fusion up a notch

Devoted users of VMware's desktop virtualization application for Mac might be happy to hear that VMware has updated the product with a new dot release (VMware Fusion 1.1.1). And its true, while a minor dot release normally wouldn't make people stand up and take notice, perhaps the dozen or so bug fixes in this "maintenance release" will make your life a little bit easier.

One interesting new capability has been added, VMware Fusion now transparently remaps keyboard shortcuts when the user goes back and forth between applications in the guest and in the host. Keyboard remapping can now take place outside of Unity mode so that all of your keyboard shortcuts can be remapped to be more Windows friendly.

The release notes also mention fixes for wireless network problems, Ubuntu mouse issues and fixes for keyboard, microphone and camera problems. Even some application crashes and stability issues were corrected. You can find out more about these fixes, here, in the release notes.

With this minor update, the debate and battle continues as to which product - VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac - is superior, more feature rich, more stable, etc. Remember, this is a minor dot release, a maintenance release, not a feature packed update. Don't expect that a 1.1.1 product is going to cause Earth shattering results or cause a tear in the space time continuum. However, it just might alleviate some of your Fusion problems if you are already in the VMware camp.

You can download the update from VMware, here. And in case you are wondering, if you are already an existing customer of VMware Fusion, the update is free.

Posted by David Marshall on January 31, 2008 07:46 PM

January 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMLogix brings virtual lab automation to Citrix XenServer

VMLogix is joining forces with Florida-based Citrix to make its virtual lab automation solution, VMLogix LabManager, the first solution of its kind available on the Citrix XenServer hypervisor.

The partnership is an extension of a relationship that was originally established in August 2007 between VMLogix and XenSource. XenSource was the commercial side of the open source Xen hypervisor, which was acquired by Citrix in October of that same year.

VMLogix LabManager is an all-inclusive software lifecycle management solution which supports all leading enterprise-level virtualization platforms. VMLogix LabManager helps software engineering organizations ensure fast, repeatable and consistent development and test environment setups. The application, coupled with powerful virtualization platforms like Citrix XenServer, enables significant server consolidation in the build farm and test lab. Finally, LabManager drives increased collaboration between support, development and test, increasing employee productivity and accelerating time to market for everything from bug fixes to new product applications.

To find out more about this announcement, I was able to catch up with Sameer Dholakia, CEO of VMLogix, during his busy schedule at the Citrix Summit event taking place in Florida.

(Q) Having gone head to head with VMware Lab Manager, have you learned anything that you were able to add into your Citrix support?

(A) Fundamentally, we are working to build the best virtual lab management solution available across all major virtualization platforms. So that implies that whatever improvements we deliver for Citrix XenServer we are also committed to delivering on our other supported platforms. That said, the Citrix release is certainly a beneficiary of all the research and customer facing work we have engaged in over the past few years. It delivers a set of advanced 3rd generation VLA capabilities. Specifically, we have:

refined our workflows for the most common software Dev, QA & Support use cases;
built powerful automation capabilities for not just VM management but also automation of complex operations that span VMs and within the guest OS itself;
built advanced collaboration and user management capabilities that allow fine-grained sharing, User Interface customization, and resource access controls.

The second and third bullets, coupled with our industry-leading platform support (customers want choice and flexibility, which they get from us and not VMware Lab Manager) are the reasons that customers are selecting VMLogix over VMware Lab Manager in head-to-head evaluations.

(Q) How has the transition from XenSource to Citrix been for VMLogix? Any noticeable changes or has it been business as usual?

(A) We have had a tremendous working relationship and partnership with the XenServer team, dating from April 2007. From business development to engineering to marketing to sales - every function has helped us build the joint offering and educate the market on the benefits of the VMLogix/XenServer solution. The XenServer development team is extremely talented, and focused on delivering a world-class platform upon which partners like VMLogix can build robust, scalable solutions.

Since the acquisition, we have been actively working on go-to-market activities with Citrix as well. In fact, we are at the Citrix Summit in Orlando this week, working to educate the Citrix reseller channel about VMLogix as the superior XenServer alternative to VMware for Virtual Lab Automation.

Net net: the transition post-acquisition has been extremely smooth and positive.

(Q) Is there any difference between your VMware supported product and the Citrix one?

(A) One of the key capabilities of VMLogix LabManager is to manage virtual machines running on multiple hypervisors from the same management console. Thus, in our previous version, you could manage hosts in the lab running VMware ESX, VMware Server, and Microsoft Virtual Server. The new release, LabManager 3.3, is the same application (with improvements noted above), but with the ability to manage XenServer hosts now as well.

This multi-platform support means there is virtually no barrier for a VMware shop to switch over to VMLogix LabManager and Citrix XenServer for future virtualized servers. All the "legacy" ESX managed hosts (servers) can still be leveraged and managed from the same VMLogix LabManager console that is also managing the new XenServer hosts.

All the major features of LabManager are supported on both platforms. If there are differences, they tend to be minor platform specific implementation dependencies. In our judgement the XenServer team & platform has rapidly bridged all major gaps in the past few months.

(Q) Since Citrix doesn't have a QA product like this in-house (like VMware), and there are no other competitors yet, can you expect anything different with your Citrix relationship as opposed to the one you have with VMware?

(A) Absolutely! Our Citrix partners recognize Virtual Lab Automation as an important virtualization management application and are excited to have VMLogix fill that role in their partner ecosystem. I imagine we will continue to collaborate with the Citrix team on ways we can integrate with their other offerings to unlock more value for our joint customers.

VMware, on the other hand, given its competitive product offering in the space, isn't interested in helping us evangelize our solution on their platform nor identifying additional product opportunities. That said, we are a member of their Technology Alliance Program and they provide us all the support, APIs, etc. we need to provide a great integration to the VMware platform.

On the XenServer platform, we deliver a compelling, enterprise-grade solution. In return, Citrix assists us by evangelizing to their channel and loyal customer base on why the VMLogix-XenServer solution is the best option available.

(Q) Have you gotten any feedback from customers or potential customers about your Citrix product that you can share with readers?

(A) Our customers are universally very receptive to deploying their virtual labs on XenServer. They find the economics of XenServer very compelling without having to make sacrifices on technical capabilities. In addition, many large customers are keen to avoid vendor lock-in and plan to build hybrid labs which involve not just Citrix and VMware but also Microsoft's Hyper-V platform down the road. For that reason, they're quite excited about starting with a VMLogix/XenServer solution, or even migrating an ESX lab into VMLogix while adding XenServer for their new virtualized servers.

(Q) Any final thoughts that you would care to share with us today?

(A) We fundamentally believe the following:

More and more customers are focusing on management applications for their virtual infrastructure. Once servers are consolidated and users start creating a lot of VMs, customers need tools to manage it all (the same reason that Systems Management Software is such a big industry).
Moreover, customers want an "open" management application that will support multiple hypervisors. It's increasingly clear that VMware's days as the monopolistic player of the platform are numbered. Customers want flexibility as they navigate these uncertain virtualization waters – working with a VMLogix allows them to change course, because they are not tied to a specific platform.
Lab Management is a critical management app, responsible for all the VMs in the pre-production, or Dev/Test, environment. Using Virtual Center / XenCenter / SC VMM for the production VMs makes a world of sense – but the use case/workflows in Lab Management are unique (which is why VMware acquired Akimbi's lab management offering the first place).

Given all the above, we're excited about the trajectory of our space, and are confident that VMLogix LabManager will continue to see uptake as the best-in-class Virtual Lab Automation solution. Additionally, VMLogix now has customers based in North America, Europe and Asia; they range from start-ups to multi-billion dollar corporations; they include ISVs, Enterprises, and Hosting Providers. And most importantly, every one of them evaluated VMware Lab Manager, Surgient VQMS, or both – and chose VMLogix as their Virtual Lab Automation provider.

VMLogix LabManager for XenServer is available now, and pricing starts at $25,000. For more information about the product or partnership opportunities, click here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 31, 2008 04:46 PM

January 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Server virtualization and the business of I/O solutions

When introducing server virtualization into your environment, you may also be introducing an I/O bottleneck at the same time. Xsigo Systems announced the management integration of the Xsigo VP780 I/O Director and VMware VI3. And Gear6 announced a new suite of tools to better understand, improve and manage I/O performance. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on January 30, 2008 04:21 PM

January 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld's Virtualization Executive Forum days away

IDG's InfoWorld is gearing up for its fifth Virtualization Executive Forum, taking place Monday, February 4th at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, California.

The executive-level event will explore enterprise commitment to virtualization in order to maximize IT resources for strategic business advantage. The event will also focus on how virtualization fits into the big IT management picture.

Keynote presentations, breakout sessions and panel discussions will offer detailed examples of real-world virtualization efforts from companies including AOL, Credit Suisse, Digital Realty Trust, Kroll Factual Data, Novacoast, T-Systems North America, Virtual Iron, VMware, and more.

Eric Knorr, Editor-in-Chief at InfoWorld will kick off the event and then following that, three great keynote presentations that include:

Beyond Consolidation: Visualizing Our Virtual Future - By David Reilly, Head of Technology Infrastructure Services, Credit Suisse.

Virtualization & IT Management Processes: A Progress Report - By Andi Mann, Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates

Server Virtualization: The New Data Center Operating System - By Ed Walsh, President & CEO, Virtual Iron Software

Passes to attend InfoWorld's Virtualization Executive Forum are priced at $1,295, with credential and early registration discounts available. For more information and to register, click here.

Sponsors for the Virtualization forum include Virtual Iron (Cornerstone sponsor), Unisys (Gold sponsor), NEC Corporation of America & MTM Technologies (Silver sponsor), Stratus Technologies and Thinstall (Associate sponsors).

Posted by David Marshall on January 30, 2008 05:12 AM

January 29, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Parallels announces Virtuozzo Containers 4.0

Parallels has been busy, as usual. The company has officially transitioned over from the SWsoft company name to Parallels full time. And they've also announced the release of its container-based server virtualization platform, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. At the same time, they have also announced the launch of their new data center management tool, Parallels Infrastructure Manager.

Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0 includes enhancements and new features that aim to improve usability, data center management and business continuity.

"The ever-changing needs of today's enterprise data centers call for a virtualization solution that is flexible and delivers high performance," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "With the release of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0, we are launching the next wave of virtualization, including a suite of products that help IT administrators effectively manage their growing virtual infrastructures."

When people think of server virtualization, more often than not, they immediately think about VMware, Microsoft or some Xen-based technology. This is probably one of the biggest hurdles that Parallels has to overcome with its Virtuozzo product. Unlike these other hypervisor technologies, Virtuozzo is a containers virtualization solution. In other words, it virtualizes the operating system, not the hardware itself.

Benjamin Rudolph, Parallels Director of Corporate Communications, describes the process like so:

"You can install an OS (Windows or Linux) and then run workloads off that single kernel in isolated execution environments that we call 'containers'. Because all of the containers are working in direct contact with real hardware and are all working off that 1 OS install, performance is exceptional... about 97-99% of native, regardless of how many containers are running. And, container footprints are tiny - only 10MB of RAM and 45MB of disk space required at the bare minimum."

Rudolph adds, "All of this means that you get the best performance and best density of any product in the market, meaning that Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 is the ideal solution for large scale, datacenter virtualization."

So while this solution typically scales better than hardware virtualization, like anything else, it has its own set of drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks is that the environment has to be homogeneous and must remain at the same patch or service pack level. Of course, if your environment runs on the same operating system and you keep everything patched at the same level, this probably wouldn't adversely affect you.

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 offers new features and functionality in several key areas:

Business Continuity - Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 includes several new options to drive uptime, such as Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat clustering services. In addition, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 delivers a comprehensive set of backup enhancements.
Ease of Use and Manageability - Version 4.0 extends the already significant resource management in Parallels Virtuozzo Containers with the inclusion of virtual CPU improvements, burstable CPU limits, hardware device forwarding, hardware device sharing and more.
Efficiency - Version 4.0's architectural enhancements provide even higher levels of stability and performance. New efficiency-driving features include real-time optimization of hardware resources, and an improved Virtuozzo file system that speeds common management tasks and more effectively utilizes hard disk resources.

Virtuozzo 4.0 also introduces the Parallels Infrastructure Manager, a powerful tool for managing the Virtualized Data Center that enables IT administrators to efficiently manage their infrastructure from anywhere.

The Parallels Infrastructure Manager includes a number of important features such as:

Enhanced Permissions - Includes role-based security and audit, Microsoft Active Directory support and LDAP integration.
Newly Designed Management Tool – Easier assessment of resources and assets via powerful dashboards.
Large Scale Deployment and Management Capabilities - Includes application and OS templates as well as centralized data center management, providing logical views of the data center.

If you'd like to find out more about the product or what the company is doing, Parallels is also sponsoring an online Web event on Thursday, January 31, 2008. The live Webcast will take place at 11:00AM EST, and afterward, it will be available online as an on demand video. Parallels' CEO Serguei Beloussov will discuss the new features in Parallels Virtuozzo 4.0, and he will also take a look at the entire virtualization landscape as well.

You can watch this event, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 29, 2008 08:03 PM

January 26, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft's broadened virtualization strategy

Over the last few years, I've read and listened to numerous complaints from people about Microsoft not being fully invested in virtualization, that the software giant was simply sticking their big toe in the virtualization water to test it out. Well, if that were true, then last week the Redmond giant did a cannonball from the top most diving board, making a huge splash in the virtualization community.

Microsoft wants virtualization to change the way IT organizations work - from the data center to the desktop. And with that, the company announced several strategic changes in its virtualization strategy in order to make virtualization more attractive to a wider audience.

Along with the company's announcement about what it calls its new Dynamic IT vision, Microsoft also officially announced the following:

The acquisition of Calista Technologies;
Interoperability and collaboration between Microsoft and Citrix;
New Microsoft Virtualization Solution Accelerators;
Expanded virtualization licensing options for Microsoft Windows Vista;
Microsoft Office support using Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization.

Bringing virtualization to the data center with Windows Server 2008 is only one piece of Microsoft's larger vision. They want to leverage virtualization to change the way IT works from one end of the enterprise to the other - from desktop to data center.

"Very few customers are able to reap the benefits of virtualization today," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "We estimate that less than 5 percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex. We believe Microsoft's comprehensive approach - from desktop to datacenter - is unique to the industry by delivering solutions that address virtualization at the hardware, application and management levels. Our approach is not only one of the most comprehensive in the market today, but we believe it is also one of the most economical. This combination brings a big strategic advantage and cost savings to customers."

Early last week, Microsoft announced that it was buying Calista Technologies, a provider of graphics technologies for next-generation desktop and presentation virtualization solutions. The addition of Calista's technology to future Microsoft presentation and desktop virtualization products will enable remote workers to receive a full-fidelity Windows desktop experience without the need for high-end desktop hardware, while enabling software vendors to deliver additional capabilities.

Microsoft and Citrix plan to co-market a broad portfolio of new client computing offerings. The offerings will be based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimized Desktop solutions, extended with Citrix's XenDesktop and Presentation Server products and managed by Microsoft System Center. The two companies will work together to ensure that the Citrix XenDesktop connection broker works well with Windows Optimized Desktop solutions.

At the same time, Citrix is developing a software tool that will allow customers to easily transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to help ensure greater interoperability for customers. A test version of the tool will be available in the second quarter, and a final version will be available with the release of Hyper-V.

To help customers evaluate, plan, secure and deploy Microsoft virtualization technologies across desktops and datacenters, Microsoft introduced four new Virtualization Solution Accelerators that will be available with the Windows Server 2008 launch in February. This set of free guidance resources and tools can help customers effectively plan and deploy virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and Microsoft Application Virtualization.

Within the virtualization community, Microsoft has been chastised more than once about their Windows Vista licensing practices - or more to the point, the company's lack of a clear and acceptable virtualization licensing schema within the Vista product line. That may have finally changed as well. With this announcement, consumers are now licensed to virtualize Windows Vista Home Basic and Windows Vista Home Premium.

In an effort to hopefully push other software ISVs into supporting application virtualization, Microsoft also announced that the 2003 and 2007 versions of Microsoft Office are now supported when running in both Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 and SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2. Unfortunately for consumers and other application virtualization vendors, it seems Microsoft's support may end with their own technology. Very reminiscent of what Oracle recently announced with their support of Oracle database software in a virtual machine, but only one that runs in an Oracle virtualization environment. Still, a step in the right direction I suppose.

Posted by David Marshall on January 26, 2008 02:34 PM

January 26, 2008 | Comments: (0)

PHD Technologies reaches company milestone: 1,000th customer

For many, the debate continues as to whether or not server virtualization is ready for the enterprise. But don't try and debate that issue with PHD Technologies, a backup and replication solutions provider for VMware Infrastructure 3 environments.

The company was proud to announce that it has reached a company milestone: that more than 1,000 enterprise customers have now selected esXpress v3 to manage backup, restoration and disaster recovery of their data centers.

According to the company, they have added significant customers this past quarter to surpass the 1,000th customer milestone. Companies taking advantage of virtualization and esXpress include ADP, Barnes&Noble.com, Siemens, Tyco and U.S. Food Service.

"1,000 new customers in the 11 months since its release is a testament to the fact that esXpress v3 is by far the most effective method of backup for virtual environments," said Laura Harbin, PHD's director of channel sales.

"We are proud to reach this significant milestone. Our continued success is a result of our dedicated Channel Partners worldwide and our commitment to deliver superior backup and recovery products with world-class support."

As you would have guessed, I would argue that virtualization technology is ready for mainstream consumption. And products like esXpress not only help companies with their existing virtual environments, they also offer answers to many of these debated issues as their technologies continue to push virtualization further into mainstream use.

Posted by David Marshall on January 26, 2008 01:44 PM

January 26, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Quest acquires Vizioncore on its virtualization journey

Quest Software is now the proud owner of virtualization backup and disaster recovery solution provider Vizioncore. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

The company originally acquired a controlling interest in Vizioncore back in 2005 while on its journey to help provide its customers with increasing support to manage their virtual environments. Along with the investment and subsequent acquisition of Vizioncore, Quest has continued to broaden its virtualization portfolio with the acquisition of Invirtus (provider of virtual machine optimization, conversion and automation) and Provision Networks (provider of virtual client and desktop management solutions).

Quest CEO Vinny Smith says his company sees virtualization as the next great frontier within IT and that these acquisitions combine to position Quest as one of the leading pioneers in the emerging market space.

Announced at the same time as the acquisition, Matt Dircks, who was recently named general manager of the company's virtualization business, plans to initially focus his time on the Vizioncore product line as he develops the market plans for Quest's portfolio of virtualization products.

Vizioncore has a strong history of supporting VMware's ESX Server product line, but the company recently announced its plans to expand support to other virtualization platforms such as Virtual Iron and Citrix. And Quest plans to continue to leverage Scott Herold as its Lead Architect - a smart move, since Scott is highly regarded as a virtualization industry expert, and his experience will prove valuable as Quest continues its journey into the virtualization market space.

The company will release its financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2007 on Tuesday, February 5, 2008.

Posted by David Marshall on January 26, 2008 12:57 PM

January 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Surgient awarded three interesting virtualization patents

Surgient, a virtual lab solution provider that is perhaps best known for their software testing product (VQMS), just announced that it has been awarded three new patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The company directly competes with Virtual Lab Management products from both VMware and VMLogix.

Surgient has been creating these types of solutions longer than any other company; and as such, they have been accumulating patents to help reinforce the company's vision in the virtual lab management space.

The three patented technologies are key components of the Surgient virtual lab management platform. They include:

US Patent #6,990,666; "Near Online Server": Describes a method for providing fractional burst capacity in delivering virtual computing resources from a centralized, shared server resource pool.
US Patent #7,257,584; "Server File Management": Describes a method for providing portability of virtual server "snapshots" across physical server hosts. One of the underpinnings of Surgient's library management server, this patented technology provides greater flexibility when developing, managing and deploying virtual machine images.
US Patent #7,287,186; "Shared Nothing Virtual Cluster": Describes a method for organizing virtual machine resources for rapid recovery, such as that required by advanced disaster recovery, reduced power consumption or business continuity scenarios. Enables virtual machines to dynamically move across physical hosts without requiring data to be moved or copied.

Tim Lucas, president and CEO at Surgient said, "The patented technologies act as the underpinnings of a number of our virtual lab management capabilities, helping Surgient customers better manage their virtual labs to ensure greater productivity gains across the application lifecycle."

Posted by David Marshall on January 24, 2008 06:21 PM

January 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMware VirtualCenter gets continuous availability

If you are using VMware's VI3, you more than likely use VMware VirtualCenter to manage your VMware ESX Server farm. VirtualCenter provides the monitoring, remote management and rapid provisioning capabilities you need in your virtual environment, and it also acts as the central control point for VMware VMotion and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). The last two features are important to help maintain and provide your virtual environment with much needed business continuance or system uptime as well as increased performance efficiency and flexibility.

But what happens if VirtualCenter goes down? Who is watching it? Or better yet, who is taking care of it to make sure it doesn't go offline?

Neverfail recently announced the release of Neverfail for VMware VirtualCenter. The product was designed to ensure that IT administrators won't lose access to the features provided by VMware VirtualCenter despite IT interruptions ranging from component failure to external interruptions.

According to the company, it offers advanced proactive monitoring of VMware VirtualCenter Server and its underlying environment by constantly checking the health of the hardware, network infrastructure, operating system and the management server software itself. If an issue arises with VMware VirtualCenter Server or one of its components, the system fails over to a secondary server which contains all data and maintains connectivity to VMware VirtualCenter until the outage can be resolved. The entire failover process is transparent and IT administrators can continue utilizing the management features of VMware VirtualCenter.

Peter Parker, Neverfail Group CEO, said "VMware VirtualCenter manages the entire virtual infrastructure, and by offering a continuous availability solution for this product, Neverfail ensures that both IT administrators and end users experience the full benefits that virtualization has to offer."

Keeping VirtualCenter up and operational is a must have in any VMware environment. So products like this are a welcomed addition. However, contrary to some reports, Neverfail's solution isn't the first product to market to provide this ability.

In April of last year, SteelEye Technology had announced SteelEye Protection Suite for VMware Infrastructure 3.

When asked about SteelEye's product, Bob Williamson, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Product Marketing at SteelEye said, "Among other capabilities, this suite includes an agent that monitors and clusters VirtualCenter. We demoed the solution at VMworld 2007 and have it in production at customer sites."

He continued, "SteelEye LifeKeeper constantly monitors critical VirtualCenter services, the associated database, servers, network connections and all other critical components. On detection of any problem, an automated recovery process is begun based on policies defined by the system administrator. It also provides a simple interface for manual movement of applications to eliminate outages from planned maintenance. With support for both data replication and shared storage environments and for configurations where VirtualCenter and the underlying database reside on either the same server or separate servers, LifeKeeper provides maximum flexibility in the configurations that can be deployed."

And when asked about Neverfail being first to market, Williamson told me that simply wasn't the case. He added, "In addition to the SteelEye solution, VMware has documented for some time the use of Microsoft Cluster Services to protect VirtualCenter. NeverFail is over 6 months behind in the delivery of their solution."

Williamson did say that NeverFail's release of a competing solution validates the need that SteelEye recognized over 9 months ago, and also offered that his company is always quick to identify single points of failure in critical business applications and quick to deliver a solution to protect their customers.

Both Neverfail and SteelEye offer numerous other solutions to help protect a wide range of applications other than just VMware's VirtualCenter.

Posted by David Marshall on January 22, 2008 07:59 PM

January 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMware growing in many different directions

VMware is facing increased competition from its competitors such as Microsoft, Citrix, Sun and SWsoft/Parallels. And now, people are starting to view virtualization differently as they become more familiar with the technology. No longer are they thinking just in terms of server virtualization, and no longer are they thinking that server consolidation is the be all end all. So how is the virtualization giant handling this? listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on January 21, 2008 04:47 PM

January 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)

PlateSpin now shipping its disaster recovery solution

Business continuance and disaster recovery always sound great, that is, until management takes a look at the dollars involved. While it can be somewhat easy to justify the costs involved in providing complete duplication of a few key mission critical servers and applications, it becomes much more difficult to justify the next tier of applications requiring duplicate hardware for disaster recovery protection.

That's why PlateSpin was happy to announce the general availability of PlateSpin Forge, the company's latest solution into the virtualization world that offers a disaster recovery hardware appliance for cost-effectively protecting and rapidly recovering server workloads in the data center.

Since PlateSpin Forge was first announced in early December 2007, the solution has been deployed and tested hands-on by a select number of customers and partners as part of the PlateSpin Forge Early Access Program (EAP).

The solution offers complete system and data protection in an easy-to-implement package that includes Dell hardware, storage and application costs. And by consolidating workloads onto the purpose-built PlateSpin Forge appliance, organizations can achieve a 25 to 1 workload protection ratio without incurring the expense of duplicate hardware and software licensing costs. This makes Forge an extremely affordable alternative to traditional recovery infrastructures and host-based replication solutions which typically require costly one-to-one hardware and software redundancy.

"The early response from the market has been extremely encouraging," said PlateSpin founder and CEO Stephen Pollack. "Users have praised the recovery appliance's rich feature set and unique combination of ease-of-use and affordability."

"PlateSpin has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to offering customers innovative solutions to adopt, manage and extend their use of server virtualization in the data center," said Pollack. "With PlateSpin Forge, the world's first virtualized recovery hardware appliance, we are once again transforming the data center by making it easier and more affordable to implement, test and manage a virtual recovery infrastructure. In our work with clients, we kept hearing a lot of frustration with traditional recovery infrastructures that were cost-prohibitive, complex to implement and difficult to test. Our response was to bring to market a revolutionary 'plug in and protect' recovery hardware appliance that offers a dramatically simplified approach to disaster recovery, especially when compared to traditional backup and recovery solutions."

Posted by David Marshall on January 20, 2008 07:49 PM

January 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Citrix adding patch management in future XenServer Edition

Many people have often had the misconception that a virtualized environment must be safe from security problems and vulnerabilities. After all, its virtual, right? Well, no. This just isn't the case, and there have been plenty of discussions around this very subject as of late.

Virtualization platforms are not without their security issues. Case in point, Roger Klorese, Citrix XenServer Product Marketing, recently talked about a new feature coming out in the next release of Citrix XenServer that is currently in closed beta. The feature is designed with patch management in mind. In his blog, Roger writes:

"Pool-wide patch management has been integrated into the product, and, in conjunction with a wizard in XenCenter, will allow you to:

Check the Citrix XenServer website for updates
Download any pending updates to your XenCenter system
Choose which servers in your managed pools you wish to apply the patches to
Put each server in maintenance mode (with their VMs kept online on another server via XenMotion)
Apply the patches
Bring the server back online and move VMs back to it automatically

...All in a single guided process."

This is just another example of virtualization platforms trying to make the technology easier and safer for people to implement in large doses. Server virtualization is enterprise ready, and features like this do nothing but help get that message out.

Like Citrix, VMware is concerned with security and patch management of its products as well, and introduced VMware Update Manager for its server virtualization platform, VMware ESX Server.

Posted by David Marshall on January 19, 2008 10:29 AM

January 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron joins IBM PartnerWorld program

Virtualization software vendors are continuing to work with hardware vendors in the effort of gaining virtualization market share and additional marketing traction within the industry. With approximately 94% of servers still without server virtualization technology on them, partnerships with these hardware vendors will go a long way.

Virtual Iron Software recently announced that it has achieved advanced partner status within IBM's PartnerWorld program. Doing so will give Virtual Iron enhanced levels of marketing, sales, technical enablement and skill development support from IBM. The advanced partnership status will also give Virtual Iron access to more comprehensive technical, business and marketing services from IBM to help further accelerate the development and support of Virtual Iron's solutions across IBM's computing platforms.

Additionally, Virtual Iron achieved two new certifications on IBM platforms. These include IBM "Ready for Grid" (certifying Virtual Iron's interoperability with IBM's standards-based, flexible and scalable suite of software and hardware products for Grid Computing) and IBM "Ready for DB2" (validating its software for compatibility with IBM DB2).

If you still haven't tried Virtual Iron, the company is offering a free version of Virtual Iron 4.2 for download. And you can get it, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 19, 2008 10:13 AM

January 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)

SWsoft snags Microsoft legend for senior technical adviser role

Virtualization software company SWsoft announced on Wednesday that a former Microsoft architect and pioneer software developer Mark Zbikowski has joined the company as a senior technical adviser. In this role, he will assist SWsoft as a resource to the development team and act as an advisor to senior management.

With the addition of this legend and 25-year Microsoft veteran to the team, SWsoft is truly providing themselves with a huge feather in their cap. Zbikowski previously led Microsoft's efforts in MS-DOS, OS/2, Cairo and Windows NT. Zbikowski designed the DOS executable file format, and he was one of the main architects and developers of the Windows file system, NTFS. Since his retirement from Microsoft in 2006, Zbikowski has been a lecturer at the University of Washington.

With rumors about IPO and acquisition in the air, perhaps the recent successes that SWsoft/Parallels has been having was enough to entice this legend back into corporate America.

"The SWsoft culture is reminiscent of Microsoft during its exciting formative years; a young, high-energy company with enormous potential to have significant impact on transforming the way IT is used to help consumers and businesses worldwide," said Zbikowski. "I'm very much looking forward to getting started with helping SWsoft continue to develop world-class virtualization, management and automation software."

This was also news worthy enough to get a response from another former key Microsoft player, Paul Maritz, former Microsoft group vice president. "Mark has been a key developer and architect over the past 20 years on the entire family of Microsoft operating systems from MS-DOS to Windows NT. He has the perspective and experience to be a great asset to any player in the systems software business."

Having the assistance and input from one of the world's leading authorities on Microsoft and system software on the team should help SWsoft/Parallels deliver on their "Optimized Computing" vision.

Posted by David Marshall on January 19, 2008 09:39 AM

January 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Xen development team announces release of Xen 3.2.0

The Xen Development Team recently announced that the latest version, Xen 3.2.0, has now been officially released.

A range of new user-visible features have been provided that include:

Xen Security Modules (XSM)
ACPI S3 suspend-to-RAM support for the host system
Preliminary PCI pass-through support (using appropriate Intel or AMD I/O-virtualisation hardware)
Preliminary support for a wider range of bootloaders in fully virtualised (HVM) guests, using full emulation of x86 'real mode'.
Faster emulation of standard (non-super) VGA modes for HVM guests
Configurable timer modes for HVM guests, depending on how the guest OS manages time-keeping
Many other changes and enhancements across all supported machine architectures

You can get the source using mercurial from here.

To extract your own source tarball:
# hg clone http://xenbits.xensource.com/xen-3.2-testing.hg
# cd xen-3.2-testing.hg
# hg archive -t tgz -r RELEASE-3.2.0 ../xen-3.2.0.tar.gz

The announcement also stated that pre-prepared source tarball and binary packages will soon be available from the xen.org website.

Posted by David Marshall on January 17, 2008 05:06 AM

January 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMware continues down the desktop path with application virtualization purchase

VMware announced that it is once again opening up its IPO purse strings to acquire yet another company. This time, the virtualization giant is extending its reach across the virtualization market by acquiring application virtualization technology with the purchase of San Francisco based Thinstall.

VMware said they are acquiring Thinstall in order to expand their desktop virtualization capabilities. Calling Thinstall the "best technological approach in the market for application virtualization," Jeff Jennings, vice president of desktop products and solutions at VMware added that "the addition of Thinstall to our desktop virtualization portfolio will help us to better deliver cost- effective and more flexible tools for quickly and securely provisioning desktops."

Looking at the current state of the virtualization market, it certainly wasn't a surprise to see VMware go out and buy an application virtualization company. After Microsoft purchased Softricity and then watching Citrix buy XenSource, what else was VMware to do? As its competitors continued to create their own "end-to-end" virtualization story, didn't the virtualization giant need a clear story of its own?

So what does this acquisition mean to the "infant" application virtualization market as a whole?

Natalie Lambert, Senior Analyst, Desktop Operations and Architecture for Forrester Research said that the acquisition further validates the application virtualization market, and that this technology, along with streaming, is the future of software deployments and how applications will be used. Lambert said, "Before this acquisition, VMware had a huge missing piece of the virtualization pie. Yesterday, they plugged that gap by entering the application virtualization space."

Trigence EVP and COO, John Hamilton, believes Microsoft's acquisition of Softricity also helped validate the application virtualization market. Hamilton went on to say, "VMware's acquisition of Thinstall was a logical step for their VDI offering. It not only acts as a further validation of application virtualization for the desktop but moves it into the realm of a commodity." As a competitor, Trigence claims to take the technology to a whole new level beyond that of Thinstall by addressing the complex environment of the data center rather than simply looking at the desktop.

It will be interesting to see what VMware does with this technology and how far they will take it. The company's focus has always been on their hypervisor technology along with additional add-on software to try and differentiate it from the competition. But with a renewed interest in the desktop and their VDI solution, perhaps application virtualization will prove to be the important ingredient that has been missing.

Andi Mann, Research Director for Enterprise Management Associates, said this was an excellent move by VMware - calling it a winning combination. Mann said, "They get a good (and relatively mature) technology, a quality customer base, and some interesting partners, that allows them to leverage their dominance in server virtualization into the application virtualization space."

Mann said the acquisition is particularly important because "EMA's research shows that 95% of all enterprises that have deployed virtualization have deployed two or more virtualization technologies together (e.g., desktop virtualization and server virtualization), and over 90% have deployed three or more virtualization technologies. Considering also the rapid commoditization of server virtualization, and this new ability to provide a heterogeneous, end-to-end set of virtualization technologies will be critical to VMware's ability to compete and grow its success."

The acquisition of Thinstall follows on the heels of VMware's September purchase of the virtualization orchestration firm, Dunes, and the purchase earlier this month of the virtualization consulting firm, Foedus. Like the other purchases, the terms of this acquisition were not disclosed. The deal is expected however to be completed sometime in the current fiscal quarter.

Posted by David Marshall on January 16, 2008 07:31 PM

January 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)

NetEx introduces HyperIP and IDC offers 10 storage predictions

With virtualization comes a higher tax on the I/O of a system. Storage and networking will have to work overtime to keep up, and storage demands are just going to continue to increase. A company called NetEx has become the first WAN optimization vendor to go virtual with its HyperIP for VMware solution. And server virtualization platforms are partnering with storage and virtual storage vendors in order to keep up with this demand. With a look at storage, analyst firm IDC offers 10 storage predictions for 2008. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on January 15, 2008 04:48 AM

January 13, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Virtual Iron and FalconStor form virtualization alliance

FalconStor Software, specializing in disk-based data protection solutions, and Virtual Iron, provider of server virtualization software, announced the formation of a strategic alliance in order to help streamline storage and server virtualization solutions. Both companies hope to enhance IT productivity and business continuity for organizations of all sizes.

The combined solution is geared toward improving data center resource management by increasing utilization of existing physical resources, optimizing virtual infrastructure performance through real-time data migration, and delivering more cost-effective high availability and disaster recovery.

"The server virtualization market is red hot and gaining rapid adoption as organizations strive to achieve physical server consolidation, maximize resource utilization and deploy disaster recovery solutions," said Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "In a recent survey of current and planned virtualization users, ESG discovered the importance of networked storage as 86% of the respondents that have implemented server virtualization use some form of networked storage to support their infrastructure requirements."

Virtual Iron and FalconStor have agreed to collaborate on marketing, sales, product integration and cross-support to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and reseller partners worldwide.

FalconStor's Network Storage Server (NSS) and FalconStor's Continuous Data Protector (CDP) support both iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage. For Virtual Iron customers, it provides:

Storage Migration for Virtual Machines - Virtualization combined with built-in mirroring allows seamless migration between storage arrays without downtime.
Extended support for a wide range of SMB and enterprise-class storage arrays already certified by FalconStor.
Application-aware snapshot agents that provide transactionally-consistent snapshots of data for Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, SAP, and Oracle running in virtual machines.
Thin provisioning for virtual machines maximizes disk space to optimize storage management within virtualized environments.

These capabilities allow Virtual Iron customers to take a storage-vendor agnostic approach to virtualize and provision storage resources for virtual machines. The combination also attempts to offer an answer to the market where questions are raised about competing technologies from VMware and Citrix.

VMware has had its VMotion technology for a while now and recently announced the addition of Storage VMotion to try and answer the questions around storage virtualization. And VMware is also partnered with FalconStor along with other storage virtualization vendors. In addition, VMware offers its own snapshot and disaster recovery features which provides value to customers and also helps to justify the cost of the VI3 solution.

Citrix has also partnered with others, including companies such as Symantec. The partnership allows Symantec to bundle Veritas storage management software with Citrix XenServer in order to offer some of the same functionality.

"Independently, Virtual Iron and FalconStor anticipated advanced data center applications driven by workload mobility and policy-based automation to reduce the cost and complexity of data center operations. We designed our next generation architectures accordingly," said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer at Virtual Iron. "Our joint customers benefit from an integrated server virtualization and storage virtualization solution that leverages existing investments and doesn't break existing practices."

Virtual Iron and FalconStor will host a joint Webcast on February 7th, 2008, featuring the combined capabilities. Register for this upcoming event, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 13, 2008 10:48 AM

January 12, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Can Parallels become the one virtualization to rule them all?

Today, when people talk about virtualization, more often than not, they are doing so by discussing VMware. But the server virtualization playing field has greatly expanded in the last year, and more people are starting to take notice of competing technologies such as those from Microsoft, Citrix, Virtual Iron and other Xen-based technologies.

But there is another company out there, who up until last year, was thought of and treated as two separate virtualization companies - SWsoft and Parallels. Now, the company is publicly under one corporate umbrella and will soon change its moniker to Parallels as it embarks on a quest of virtualization dominance under its new "Optimized Computing" vision.

Parallels is a global leader in virtualization and automation software. Its software is used by more than 700,000 customers in 125 countries and provides products for operating system virtualization, desktop virtualization and server control panels for Internet hosting solutions. Now, the company hopes to extend its virtualization market presence to include server virtualization.

At the beginning of this month, the Virtualization Report talked about Parallels kicking off its first round of beta testing on its long awaited Parallels Server product. Now, the company is ready to expand their beta testing of the company's hypervisor powered server virtualization solution.

The company is describing their beta server virtualization product as achieving a number of technical firsts:

Parallels Server is the first virtualization solution designed to run on Intel-based Apple hardware supporting Mac OS X Server, including Apple's new Xserve and Mac Pro lines recently announced. This will allow Mac OS X Server administrators to run workloads such as SQL Server and Exchange Server at the same time as their Mac OS X Server applications. The product is also the first to enable running Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine to allow users to run in a sandbox environment and test patches, new software and experiment with new Apple hardware configurations.

One interesting first is the way Parallels Server can be installed. During install time, users can choose between a Parallels lightweight hypervisor installation, where virtual machines run in tandem with a primary operating system, or a "bare-metal" installation, where virtual machines operate independently and don't require a host operating system to function properly. Parallels is the first to offer users this type of flexibility to choose their implementation at the time of install.

According to the company, Parallels Server is the first to offer experimental support for Intel second-generation virtualization technology, Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d). The company says that by adopting and supporting technologies like Intel VT-d, Parallels Server will not only deliver high levels of performance and reliability, but also allow users to directly assign hardware resources such as a second graphics or network card to a virtual machine.

"Hundreds of thousands of customers are using Parallels virtualization software in their businesses and homes to get the most out of their Windows, Mac and Linux desktop computers and applications," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of SWsoft. "Launching the Parallels Server beta is a key milestone in delivering on our vision of 'Optimized Computing' for servers and desktops across heterogeneous platforms."

Key features found in the Parallels Server beta include:

Run any combination of more than 50 different x86 and x64 guest operating in secure, high performing virtual machines, and have the option to run virtual machines in the headless mode via a "bare metal" hypervisor.
Take advantage of Parallels Server's industry first capability to simultaneously run multiple copies of Mac OS X Server, Windows Server and Linux on the same Xserve.
Users running Parallels Server on Apple hardware also have the industry-first option to run Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine.
Remote control of the virtual machines via the Parallels Management Console
Support for up to 64Gb of RAM on the host computer
Full support for x64 primary and guest OSes, as well as 2-way SMP in virtual machines. The final release version will support up to 4-way SMP
Multi-user access to the same virtual machine
Support for ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) in virtual machines
Completely open, fully scriptable APIs for customized management
Full support for Intel VT-x, and experimental support for Intel VT-d.

The company is currently accepting registrations for new beta testers. For details about participating in the beta program, click here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 12, 2008 09:07 AM

January 12, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMware buys Foedus virtualization expertise

VMware has acquired New Hampshire based virtualization consulting firm, Foedus. Does this help answer the question about whether or not you should train your existing staff or hire new employees with virtualization expertise to operate your virtual infrastructure? Or does it raise more questions? And how much is virtualization expertise really worth in the open market?

It seems that even the undisputed heavyweight of virtualization leaves its corporate walls once in a while in search of acquiring this type of talent.

VMware announced that it has closed a deal to acquire the assets of the privately held virtualization consulting firm, Foedus. The deal, which closed earlier this month, has 30 Foedus employees moving over to the virtualization giant, and they are expected to help train IT services firms that resell VMware's products and advise them on best practices. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

If you aren't sure who Foedus is but you've been to VMworld - just think about the giant tiki hut, the mixed drinks and the Hawaiian print shirts (and I'll leave it at that). If those things don't ring a bell, chances are you probably never set foot in the exhibit hall.

But just knowing that, you may still have no clue as to who or what Foedus is or why the company could demand any price tag from VMware. To me, this is further proof that virtualization expertise is hard to come by and in many cases perhaps easier to acquire than to train.

In addition to the company's resource pool of talent and virtualization best practices, Foedus also offered a Desktop Optimization service designed to assist in reducing application management costs by allowing accelerated application deployment and increased control of an organizations desktop environment.

They also introduced something called GridTrak, a proprietary tool for tracking SoftGrid application sequencing activities and for package lifecycle. It will be interesting to see if VMware has any plans of continuing such technology.

Posted by David Marshall on January 12, 2008 08:03 AM

January 09, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Storage and virtualization: Onaro and NetApp, Hifn and QLogic

Storage management vendor Onaro provides a nice addition to NetApp's software line after the two companies agree to the acquisition. And a combination from Hifn and QLogic set out to optimize VMware performance using a Swarm Series of iSCSI storage appliances. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on January 9, 2008 08:12 PM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

New Study Profiles Virtualization Impacts, Needs and Benefits

A new study from Saugatuck Technology says server virtualization will have the single largest impact on budgets for IT hardware and support through 2010.

The survey, titled "The Many Faces of Virtualization -- Understanding a New IT Reality," says that virtualization is a key enabler of IT and business efficiency, but is vastly misunderstood and underestimated within user enterprises. Because of that, the report finds that user executives fail to effectively manage it, and therefore fail to realize the full potential and benefits of IT virtualization. It goes on to say that IT vendors seldom realize the breadth and depth of opportunities that IT virtualization presents to them.

The study finds that through 2010, all facets of IT virtualization will see substantial enhancements in functionality and performance, with the most significant enhancements in virtualization technology being found in microprocessor, hypervisor and operating system.

Agreed, but a fairly generic claim. Things have progressed significantly within the virtualization market last year alone. So it seems almost certain that within the next three years, each of these technologies will surely be enhanced in any number of ways.

The study also finds that through 2010, three vendors, Cisco, VMware and Citrix will dominate IT virtualization and account for 60 percent of all new virtualization deployments.

Without further information, I would assume the report is combining network and server virtualization into this number since it included Cisco in that group. Curious that it combined them into the 60 percent number rather than breaking them out. And equally curious that the study ignored the emerging Microsoft Hyper-V platform into the server virtualization market. Surely over the next three years, the Redmond giant will account for some significant percentage of the new virtualization deployments. I guess they control some portion of the remaining and mysterious 40 percent.

"We're at a very critical point in the evolution and adoption of virtualization by both users and vendors. Almost everyone sees opportunity in virtualization, but very few really grasp its scope and complexity," stated Saugatuck vice president Charles Burns, the study's lead author. "That leads to a lot of missed opportunities -- and some very inflated costs of management."

Burns continued, "Our goal with this study is to provide a foundation for understanding key categories of virtualization, their benefits, and how to manage them effectively."

The full 20-page study is available for purchase via Saugatuck's Web site, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 8, 2008 06:46 PM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld names Technology of the Year awards

IDG's InfoWorld recently announced the recipients of its 2008 Technology of the Year honors, recognizing 45 products across 9 general categories. The selection process was handled by InfoWorld Test Center editors and reviewers.

The annual awards identify the best and most innovative products on the IT landscape and the winners are drawn from all of the products that have gone through the testing process during the past year, with the final selections made by InfoWorld's Test Center staff.

"InfoWorld tests upwards of 200 IT products every year, and we see many, many good ones," said Doug Dineley, InfoWorld's Test Center Executive Editor. "Our Technology of the Year award winners represent not only the cream of the crop, but the best products in the most important product categories. From the top AJAX development tools and SOA middleware to the best blade servers and VoIP systems, these are the products at the leading edge of IT."

The Virtualization Report takes a look at three of the winners from the Platform category. You'll probably recognize the names and products from Symantec (application virtualization), VMware (Windows and Linux desktop virtualization) and Parallels (Mac OS X virtualization). All great virtualization tools and well deserved winners of the award. Other winners in this category included Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Sun Solaris 10.

Symantec SVS Professional 2.1
Symantec's choice of AppStream as its streaming partner make SVS Pro the most complete of the three leading application virtualization platforms. Thanks to the AppStream Web portal, users can surf to and access the desired applications in a kiosk-like, on-demand fashion, outshining both Microsoft SoftGrid and Thinstall in Web-based access to packaged applications. In this regard, SVS Pro provides a solution that is closer to the subscription-based delivery model that's been the holy grail of commercial developers for nearly a decade.

Click here for the full story.

VMware Workstation 6.0
VMware Workstation has long been the standard bearer for desktop virtualization among hard-core users, and version 6.0 solidifies VMware's position as the dominant player in developer and product support circles. A combination of class-leading features, direct hooks into popular IDEs, an ever-expanding roll call of supported operating systems, and excellent scalability make VMware Workstation the only choice for serious virtualization users.

Click here for the full story.

Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac
Parallels Desktop 3.0 brings several new features to the Mac OS X virtualization game, including direct graphics acceleration capabilities, snapshots, and offline browsing of VM file systems. It's an intuitive, easy-to-use virtualization platform for switchers who need to run Windows applications alongside OS X. Convenient, GUI-based tools and a quick Windows install are the product's real strengths. It lacks VMware Fusion's support for 64-bit operating systems and some versions of Linux, but for most users it's the better choice.

Click here for the full story.

You can find out about all of the other great winners of the award, here. It includes categories such as Application Development, Applications and Middleware, Data Management, Hardware, Networking, Security and Storage.

Posted by David Marshall on January 8, 2008 06:15 PM

January 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Citrix and HP team up on virtualization

Virtualization vendors continue to fight the fight for virtualization market penetration by creating bundling deals with leading hardware providers. Citrix Systems and Hewlett-Packard have announced such a deal and will be working together to push server virtualization adoption forward.

ComputerWeekly recently reported that Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition 4 will be offered with HP's ProLiant and BladeSystem servers. Citrix XenServer Enterprise will offer HP customers live migration of virtual machines, a scalable virtual infrastructure management framework, and an open XenAPI for third-party add-ons. It also supports both 32- and 64-bit environments.

According to the news provider, vice president of Industry Standard Server Software at HP, Scott Farrand, said, "Virtualization has become a necessity for our customers to achieve desired business outcomes." And HP also claimed that the deal would give its customers the ability to purchase an entire virtualization solution from server to software.

I recently spoke to Simon Crosby, CTO of the Virtualization and Management Division at Citrix Systems, and he told me that 2008 is all about the hypervisor embedded in server hardware. Crosby added, "XenServer will be an option on over 50% of x86 server hardware in 1H08, 'baked in' during system assembly. This offers customers an incredible value proposition built into the box – and dramatically accelerates the adoption of virtualization."

If you missed my discussion with Simon Crosby over the holidays, you might want to give it a read to check out his insight into the virtualization market into 2008. You can read it, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 6, 2008 06:57 AM

January 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Determine virtualization readiness in three seconds

Virtual Iron recently highlighted the top 10 posts that received the most attention in all of 2007 from its company blog.

The blog post titled "The 3-Second Hardware Virtualization Check" seemed to be the company's biggest winner and most viewed. To recap, the posting involved a discussion around a free tool called SecurAble which, among other things, checks to see if the processor in your laptop, desktop or server supports resource virtualization. Or simply, does it run Intel-VT or AMD-V?

SecurAble, from Gibson Research Corp., also tells you more about the processor it found such as the CPU type, speed, maximum bit length and hardware Data Execution Prevention (D.E.P.).

Alex Vasilevsky writes, "All you need to do is download and run the executable (no installation required). It takes about 3 seconds to determine if you're virtualization ready."

So, it's no wonder that people checked out this posting. Who doesn't want to know if their machine is virtualization ready in "3 seconds".

To see the other Virtual Iron corporate blog top ten posts of 2007, click here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 5, 2008 05:53 AM

January 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Parallels starts beta testing of its server virtualization product

Parallels has officially kicked off the first round of beta testing for its long awaited Parallels Server product.

For those of you interested in participating in this beta, you'll have to wait for now. Parallels has kicked off Beta 1 to a small contingent of their most trusted, active beta testers -- the so-called hard-core Parallels supporters who have continued to play an important role in helping the company progress forward with their Workstation and Desktop products. Once these users provide Parallels with their feedback, the company will be ready to release Beta 2 to the general public.

Although no time frame was given, based on past experience with the company, you can bet that it won't be long. In typical Parallels fashion, expect that the quality and speed of their initial set of testing to conclude sometime within the next few weeks.

When asked about what type of people or companies they were looking for to participate in the Beta 2 round, Benjamin Rudolph, Director of Corporate Communications at Parallels, said, "We're looking for companies large and small to participate in the beta process. The broader the scope of beta tester, the more complete feedback we'll get, which means that we'll be able to modify and perfect the product faster." He continued, "As with all Parallels products, our users are key to getting a great product out the door on time. One of the biggest reasons we're successful is that we have a fiercely loyal user base helping us ready new products like this one."

Rudolph said that the product is looking very strong as it goes through its initial beta period. The Parallels Server product is currently offering enterprise features such as SMP, x64 support and scriptable, open APIs. The server class product is going to offer support for Windows, Linux and Apple Mac OSes.

The support of Mac OS X on the new server platform should prove to be a big selling point for Parallels, as the company continues to impress Mac users with their Desktop for Mac virtualization product. And remember, it was only a few months ago that Apple made an unexpected change in its licensing agreement, stating in its Permitted License Uses and Restrictions:

A. Mac OS X Server Software. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Mac OS X Server software (the "Mac OS X Server Software") on a single Apple-labeled computer. You may also Install and use other copies of Mac OS X Server Software on the same Apple-labeled computer, provided that you acquire an individual and valid license from Apple for each of these other copies of Mac OS X Server Software.

Apple consumers look to be an obvious market for Parallels to continue their virtualization quest. And with the new Parallels Server product, they will also go after the SME and department enterprise space. However, the company doesn't plan to stop there as it has a much larger view in mind, specifically, their "Optimized Computing" vision.

According to Rudolph, Parallels expects to get the server product out the door in the next few months. He added, "Beyond that, though, this is a big step forward to achieving our goal of 'Optimized Computing,' in which we believe that through a well thought out deployment of virtualization, management and automation, companies large and small can optimize their business from desktop to datacenter. Having a hypervisor-powered server virtualization product that couples (and will work seamlessly with) our Virtuozzo container-based virtualization solution, and that compliments our desktop virtualization solutions, is a big part of making that happen."

Posted by David Marshall on January 3, 2008 07:38 PM

January 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Virtualization in 2008: funding and acquisitions continue

Computerworld recently put out a report that venture capitalist firms still consider the virtualization market as a hot spot for future VC funding in 2008. At the same time, Macworld is reporting that virtualization vendors are set for acquisition attempts in 2008. listen LISTEN!

Posted by David Marshall on January 2, 2008 05:14 PM

January 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)

VMware updates compatibility guides for ESX

In case you missed it, VMware recently updated its compatibility guides for the VMware ESX Server product:

HCL: Storage Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.x

VMware ESX Server 3.x has been tested and deployed in a variety of storage area network (SAN) environments. This guide describes the combination of HBAs (host bus adapters) and storage devices currently tested by VMware and its storage partners.

HCL: Systems Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.x

VMware ESX Server is tested for compatibility with a variety of major guest operating systems running in virtual machines. Additionally, VMware ESX Server is tested for compatibility with currently shipping platforms from the major server makers in pre-release testing. Our goal is to support a variety of storage and network adapters used as standard options for these platforms as they come to market.

HCL: I/O Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.x

VMware ESX Server Software delivers high performance I/O for PCI-based SCSI, RAID, Fibre Channel, and Ethernet controllers. To achieve high performance, these devices are accessed directly through device drivers in the ESX Server host, and not through a host operating system as with VMware Workstation and GSX Server products.

VMware certifies that specific systems and components are compatible with ESX Server software. Through the VMware Preferred Hardware Partner Program, ESX Server software works with leading server vendors to ensure that appropriate configurations of their current and future server products are certified.

HCL: Backup Software Compatibility for ESX Server 3.x

This is not an exhaustive list of all backup software packages and versions that are compatible with ESX Server software, but it represents those servers that VMware or its partners have tested with the current release of ESX Server software.

Posted by David Marshall on January 1, 2008 08:36 AM

January 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Computerworld's virtualization face-off

Computerworld recently did a really interesting piece with columnists Frank Hayes and Mark Hall squaring off over virtualization technologies. The face-off was less about the technology and more about the "when" aspect of virtualization. Hayes said that 2008 would be the year "to wrap our brains around the whole virtualization idea." But Hall disagreed.

In the article, Hayes writes:

Now it's our turn to go virtual. Not because it's easy or convenient -- when was anything in IT ever easy or convenient? -- but because it's the only way we can move fast enough to do what users need.
When they need more server power for applications, we have to be able to deliver it immediately. Otherwise, they lose business.

When they need more storage, they want us to re-architect our disk farms. By the time we're done, the opportunity is gone.

When they need more flexibility or security or capability, being able to move fast is a real advantage.

That's what virtualization can deliver.

If we can figure it out.

And we'll only figure it out one piece at a time.

That's why 2008 needs to be the Year of Virtualization. We have to start somewhere, and this is the year to choose where - and wrap our brains around the whole virtualization idea.

Hall retorts:

Those readers who, like the two of us, are a bit long in the tooth undoubtedly recall the annual breathless announcements in the 1980s that local-area networks were about to become ubiquitous. The years came and went -- 1982, 1983, 1984 ... -- with no discernible triumph of the LAN over, say, point-to-point networks. Then, one day, without any commotion, LANs were everywhere. They had conquered networking, but no one could say exactly when. History shifted, but no one knows exactly when.
That, too, will be the fate of virtualization.

I can't argue with you, Frank, that virtualization solves many a problem today. And you cogently describe its value for companies using it now. But before our readers take your words of wisdom and join the march to virtualize their data centers, they need to take a moment to reflect on exactly where their IT pain hurts the most.

If, as you rightly point out, a CIO's biggest issue is responding fast to business users' needs, virtualization can be an excellent tool to quickly provision and deploy server or storage systems. However, if data center managers are under different pressures, virtual machines (VM) might just make things worse.

I think only time will tell whether 2008 is the year of virtualization or not. There are certainly enough people in the media and the industry stating that very opinion, and while I believe there is a lot of truth behind that statement, like Hall, I think there are a lot of issues to address before the technology can become mainstream. As vendors continue to enhance the technology and make it easier to work with, and as the IT staff continues to get educated on the who, what, where and why of virtualization, it has a great shot of reaching that goal. The question is can it accomplish all of that before the end of the year?

Or as Hall so eloquently put things, will virtual machines just "creep into our lives at a steady pace until one day we look up and see VMs everywhere, doing everything for everybody."

Read the entire face-off article from Computerworld, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 1, 2008 08:09 AM

January 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Xen Project Roadmap and Status

If you weren't able to make the fall Xen Summit in November of 2007, don't worry, you can catch up on the presentations that were given at this event by downloading them from the xen.org Web site.

Ian Pratt, leader and chief architect of the Xen project, did a presentation titled "Xen Project Status" where he discussed among other things, the Xen project status and roadmap.

One of the things I learned more about while at the Citrix iForum was the continued building of community around Xen. And in Ian's Xen Summit presentation, he talked about the xen.org Web site and how all community related activities were being located and consolidated here. Things like Web site material, source repos, the wiki and bugzilla... with more to follow soon enough. The objectives of this site are to show the independence of the Xen project from any commercial organizations, offer better community tools and to foster independent oversight.

After the Citrix acquisition of XenSource, many questioned what would happen to the open source Xen project. And like the xen.org Web site, the project itself is remaining independent, as is evident by the Xen Project Advisory Board, made up of the largest contributors and key vendors that deliver Xen in the market: Citrix, IBM, Intel, HP, Novell, Red Hat and Sun. The group is also responsible for defining procedures for evolving the group over time.

The Xen Roadmap is also clearly defined in Ian's presentation. It discusses the following:

Server

Performance and scalability optimizations

Enable Smart IO devices

SCSI pass-through

Security

Domain0 disaggregation; XSM Xen Security Modules

Secure boot, TPM, certification, multi-level secure systems

Client

Power management: Suspend and hibernate; clock management

3D video: direct hardware access; high-performance guest virtualization

USB device pass-through

And perhaps equally important as the roadmap is the Xen Project's overall Mission Statement which reads:

Build the industry standard open source hypervisor: Core "engine" that is incorporated into multiple vendors' products
Maintain our industry-leading performance: Be first to exploit new hardware acceleration features and help OS vendors paravirtualize their OSes
Maintain our reputation for stability and quality - Security must now be paramount
Support multiple CPU types; big and small systems: From server to client to mobile
Foster innovation: Be a great platform for research and experimentation
Drive interoperability: Between Xen-based products and with other virtualization products

The Xen Project and all the commercial implementations and applications around it are going to prove important in 2008. As virtualization continues to grow and expand, more companies are going to look to the open source solution and more vendors are going to jump on board as well.

You can find this and other Xen Summit presentations, here.

Posted by David Marshall on January 1, 2008 06:59 AM

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