Virtual machines, containers, functions. Market knowledge for IT decision makers since 2003
After the RC1 release and the VMware Player launch, VMware sent out the Workstation 5.5. Release Candidate 2.
There are no new major features in this RC2 (and no, no Solaris 10 full support with VMware Tools) except what already disclosed in beta 2.
This is probably the last RC we’ll see since Workstation 5.5 RTM is expected for middle December.
Few days ago VMware announced a new feature for Patinum and Gold Support subscription: the Remote Support:
Remote Support allows customers to share their desktop or application, download files and patches, and communicate through online chat with a technical support engineer.
I don’t know what technology they are using but it will probably be something like Citrix GoToAssist and it’s a interesting option to have faster solutions.
Owning a VMware GSX Server 3.2 eventually means you have installed it on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 (the GSX 3.2 release introduces support for Windows 2003 SP1).
If you also choosed to stay away from enterprise storage solutions like SAN, you eventually are storing virtual machines on local hard drives, within the NTFS.
Well, actually this is a very risky configuration, even for a development/testing virtualization environment.
Microsoft just informed customers of a new bug affecting particular Windows Server 2003 SP1 scenarios where NTFS files can become corrupted:
This potential corruption issue in NTFS may occur only if several extreme conditions all occur at the same time during stress tests that run for several hours. This problem may occur if all the following conditions are true:
- The server contains small NTFS volumes. We have reproduced this problem on small NTFS volumes that range from 1 to 24 gigabytes. We understand that as volumes become larger, the chance that this problem will occur significantly decreases
- A volume is full or almost full
- The scenario involves approximately 1000 simultaneous delete, create, or extend operations on files
- The server has multiple CPUs
This seems a tipical virtualization environment for VMware GSX Server 3.2 and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, when it will be released.
So I strongly suggest you to wait adopting 2003 SP1 till this bug is solved (monitor the Knowledge Base support article for updates), while if you already have it I would implement an alert system advicing when 75% of free disk space is surpassed.
Many months ago I created a Google Group called virtualization.info discussion group.
Till now I never posted anything about this cause I don’t think it’s a really needed service: there are VMware VMTN community forums and newsgroups, there are Microsoft newsgroups, there are IBM web forums, and many many other vendor places where community can exchange experiences and suggestions. And obviously there are blogs comments.
But it’s true that every of these places is about only one vendor and you can’t free speak about virtualization market (for example talking about product comparisons or bad products experiences). So someone could be interested in subscribing and using this group:
| Subscribe to virtualization.info Discussion Group | ||
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Email: | |
| Browse Archives at groups.google.com | ||
The group is not moderated and you need to register to post in (sorry, is to limitate spamming). Registration is free.
You can read new messages by usual email updates (singular messages or daily digest if you are subscribed) or by RSS feed aggregation (even if you are not subscribed). Remember you can also create a Google Alert for the discussion group.
BTW: I posted about this just today cause I casually found the first message. So, if this discussion group goes well thank you Mr. JG 🙂
Quoting from the Scalent official announcement:
Scalent Systems today announced general availability of Scalent Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE), an easily installable software suite that can result in dramatically lower IT costs and increased IT agility. Lower costs are achieved through a tripling of server utilization, reduced complexity and increased operational efficiency. IT agility is achieved through unique virtualization technology that decouples applications from the complexities of underlying server, network and storage resources.
With commodity servers rapidly becoming the backbone of enterprise IT infrastructure, corporate data centers are growing out of control. The decomposition of applications into multiple tiers and Web services architectures further accelerates this growth. It’s typical for an enterprise data center to add hundreds of servers every month, trying in vain to keep up with peak usage estimates, without knowing how much server capacity will actually be used. With most servers averaging less than 10 percent utilization at any given time, this problem — server sprawl — has become a focal point of IT concern and escalating costs.
“Current approaches for addressing ‘server sprawl’ are too narrow and do not focus on the real issue,” said Ben Linder , CEO of Scalent Systems. “Scalent Systems’ approach is the first to create true virtual infrastructure — uniting servers, network and storage into one virtual fabric.”
Cost-Effective Approach
Scalent V/OE offers a unique, cost-effective and manageable approach. It enables the decoupling of applications from the physical assets that run them. Scalent allows enterprise IT to manage a heterogeneous environment of servers, networks and storage as a single fabric. Resources are allocated to the applications that need them rapidly and dynamically.
The benefit, for customers, can be a tripling of average utilization for servers, as well as greater insight into peak load requirements and planning. As a result, IT management can begin to plan rationally for server expansion and purchase requirements and manage both purchasing and operational costs.
“For the typical enterprise IT environment, the runaway costs of server sprawl are becoming a huge strategic issue,” Linder said. “Our approach at Scalent Systems has been to really treat the underlying causes of the problem rather than the symptoms. As a result, IT management can not only see an immediate and dramatic increase in the utilization of the servers they already have, but now they can manage their longer-term server provisioning in an effective way.”
Scalent accomplishes this virtualization by a broad range of innovative software capabilities:
- Ease of installation
Scalent V/OE is nondisruptive to data center processes and typically installs in hours- Hardware independence
Scalent V/OE works with all popular currently installed servers, switches and storage in enterprise data centers- Operating system independence
Scalent V/OE supports Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows XP- Full infrastructure virtualization
There is a logical separation of physical infrastructure (servers, network, storage) from the actual operating system and applications, allowing just-in-time allocation of infrastructure to applications. Server utilization goes up because unused servers are dynamically reassigned to other functions- Virtual topology
Connectivity virtualization shapes the underlying connectivity of LAN and SAN to match desired application topology, security and clustering requirements. Scalent actively controls the connectivity of a company’s network infrastructure to create any network topology or storage mapping- Standardization and compliance
Persona technology containerizes server software stacks (operating system, Web, application and database servers, and business rules) so that they can be created once and then easily placed on any available bare-metal or virtual server
About the Windows support announcement:
Scalent Systems today announced full Microsoft Windows support for its Scalent Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE) software, an easily installable software suite that can result in dramatically lower IT costs and increased IT agility. Windows support in V/OE enables enterprises with Microsoft Windows-based applications and Microsoft .NET deployments to more broadly deploy Scalent’s unique software-based approach to infrastructure virtualization.
Scalent V/OE offers a unique, cost-effective and manageable approach to the issue of server utilization. It enables the decoupling of applications from the physical assets that run them. Scalent allows enterprise IT to manage a heterogeneous environment of servers, networks and storage as a single fabric. Resources are allocated to the applications that need them rapidly and dynamically. Scalent V/OE allows multitiered Windows applications to be deployed on a virtual infrastructure, and supports location-independent booting of Windows servers from iSCSI- or Fibre Channel-based storage area network (SAN) storage.
The benefit, for customers, can be a tripling of average utilization for servers, as well as greater insight into peak load requirements and planning. As a result, IT management can begin to plan rationally for server expansion and purchase requirements and manage both purchasing and operational costs.
“With the availability of Scalent’s V/OE for Windows, IT managers have a new and innovative solution for deploying Windows-based servers in a more agile and manageable manner,” said Ben Linder, CEO of Scalent Systems. “Our unique software-based approach to infrastructure virtualization gives IT managers a powerful solution for Windows-based server farms as well as full compatibility with a wide range of Windows-based applications and middleware such as Microsoft .NET, Microsoft Exchange Server and Citrix Access Platform.”
Thanks to Steven Bink for the news.
An anonymous source relevealed VMware planned to launch Workstation 5.5 on December, probabily on the second week.
If so this date sustains my idea of launching the product with enough margin to prepare VMware Tools for upcoming Microsoft Vista beta2 (expected for the next week).
Let’s hope I’m right 🙂
Not really a news indeed: VMware released P2V Assistant 2.1.0 ten days ago, but I was so sure to have already posted it.
Anyway… This new release bring in all great updates seen in the beta program and already mentioned in this previous post:
All thing the adoption of Knoppix 3.8.1 livecd brought in.
You can check the full release notes here. The product is available as usual on VMware download page.
After publishing the conference presentations last week, now VMware released all hands on lab manuals exposed during VMworld 2005:
Virtual Strategy Magazine produced a very interesting interview about best practises for using VMware ESX Server in a SAN environment, with details about booting directly from LUNs, thanks to Mark Gabryjelski, VMware Authorized Consultant (VAC), Expert Server Group.
Read it here.
Virtual Strategy Magazine produced a very interesting interview about recent Microsoft license changes about virtualization technologies, thanks to Sunny Charlebois, Senior Product Manager, Worldwide Licensing and Pricing, Microsoft.
Read it here.