Year: 2005

Quoting from the Parallels official announcement:

Today Parallels, Inc. announced the immediate availability of the Beta3 version of Parallels Workstation 2.0, the company’s efficient, cost effective, easy to use PC virtualization solution. The Beta3 version of Parallels Workstation 2.0 includes several updates and enhancements, including:

• Improved product usability
• Smoother virtual machine operation
• Fixes for commonly encountered issues

A free, fully functional 60-day trial version of the Beta3 version of Parallels Workstation is available for download at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/.

“The Beta3 release of Parallels Workstation 2.0 is another major step on the road to building the world’s most powerful, easy to use, cost-effective virtual machine solution,” said Benjamin Rudolph, Parallels’ Marketing Manager. “The product’s enhanced usability, security and performance will undoubtedly improve the efficiency and productivity of computer users worldwide.”

As with the previous beta versions of Parallels Workstation, Parallels is very interested in learning about user experiences with Parallels Workstation 2.0 Beta3. Users are encouraged to submit comments, feedback, and questions via Parallels’ online support page at http://www.parallels.com/en/support/. Comments can also be emailed to [email protected].

The final release version of Parallels Workstation 2.0, expected to reach the market in the next 30 days, will include additional product enhancements based on user comments and suggestions received during the Beta3 testing period. The product will also feature the world’s first hypervisor-based desktop virtualization engine, which will provide better operating system performance and stronger, more secure virtual machines.

If you don’t remember who the Parallels team is check this previous post.

Quoting from CRN:

VMware President and Founder Diane Greene discussed parent company EMC, Xen, Microsoft, file formats, solutions and new opportunities for VMware partners in an interview with CRN Senior Writer Paula Rooney at VMworld 2005 in Las Vegas. Before launching the virtualization software company in 1998, Greene held technical leadership positions at Silicon Graphics, Tandem and Sybase, and she served as CEO of VXtreme, which Microsoft acquired.

CRN: VMware broke the $100 million revenue mark in the third quarter. How is your relationship with parent company EMC, and what did you expect would happen after it acquired VMware?
GREENE: [Third-quarter revenue was] $101 million. We are a separate subsidiary. It’s been two years, and it has not changed. It’s a lot busier than we were before because we’re a lot bigger. I did not ever let myself have any expectations because it didn’t seem appropriate. We agreed to sell the company. I worked with [EMC CEO] Joe [Tucci], and we just thrived. And you wouldn’t know we’re a subsidiary.

CRN: Has EMC provided VMware with additional resources?
GREENE: Overseas, we were able to grow more quickly because of office space availability. But we’re independent of marketing.

CRN: Partners were concerned when the acquisition deal was announced.
GREENE: A year ago, partners were really worried about that. But that has quieted down.

CRN: How many VMware employees are there now? I have heard of Citrix Systems people migrating here. What’s the synergy? Do you see VMware and Citrix as competitors?
GREENE: Roughly 1,500 employees, and it’s a constant process of sharing responsibility and hiring great people. We just announced a partnership with IBM and Citrix, so we’re quire complementary to Citrix. We’ve partnered with people who put [Citrix] MetaFrame in ESX virtual machines to help with scalability on the server side. We’ve worked a lot with Citrix and are both in the area of system infrastructure software.

CRN: VMware made its fortune on server consolidation. What’s the focus on desktop?
GREENE: Enterprise Hosted Desktop is a big thing. People have security and manageability problems on the desktop. Our ACE product is getting phenomenal attention, and no connectivity. We made this announcement with IBM and Citrix, but there has been a hosted desktop for years using ESX server. We gave examples of Bell Canada and [others] hosting Windows XP for their remote call centers and remote developers, and [we are] putting three products together in a solution in an integrated way for customers with IBM. IBM is very serious about the hosted desktop market. ACE addresses security on desktop, manageability on the desktop and mobility on desktop. When run in a hosted desktop, you have to have connectivity. For the IBM solution, that’s just ESX server.

CRN: Are there new features in ESX 3 specifically to better enable the hosted desktop?
GREENE: Distributed Resource Scheduling and Distributed Availability Services.

CRN: But those are tied to VirtualCenter 2 …
GREENE: It’s a combination of both. We just released a unified interface for both.

CRN: Will ESX and VirtualCenter become integrated into one product over the long term?
GREENE: No, there’s a play for both products. We just want nice integration among the two, but we’ll have open interfaces and SDKs.

CRN: What are your thoughts about the competition posed by Xen open-source virtualization?
GREENE: Today, it’s an open-source project, not a product. It’s interesting. It moves the Linux market into virtualization, which is a help to us. We’ve had Linux support forever. The Linux world now sees value to virtualization as a result of Xen. It’s a great thing. So we’re also doing our own. We work with the open-source community, Red Hat and SUSE, and will find ways to work with these guys.

CRN: IBM and Hewlett-Packard are big VMware partners, but they also have publicly embraced Xen. Doesn’t that pose a conflict for IBM?
GREENE: I think IBM is the master of co-opetition.

CRN: And HP?
GREENE: I do think we have a strong relationship with IBM, HP and Dell–great partnerships–and we’re helping each other.

CRN: VMware announced a community source program in August and is opening up source code to partners [for viewing]. But do you plan to open-source any of your products over time?
GREENE: It’s not the same as GPL [General Public License] at all. Never say never to anything, but I hope we can work on standards so the customer investments can be protected.

CRN: What do you think about Microsoft’s plan to integrate a virtualization hypervisor into the Longhorn Server R2?
GREENE: I don’t know what Microsoft is doing. We hope to work with them on standards so that everything can work together for customers and partners. [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer talks a lot about what customers want. So whatever they do [at Microsoft], I hope it’s good for the customer.

CRN: Why is there conflict between Microsoft and VMware over Microsoft’s proposed Virtual Hard Disk format?
GREENE: Microsoft is licensing it. It is free, but it requires a license. A standard should not require a license. We don’t care what the format is. We just want a standard that doesn’t require a license. We will support standards developed through DMTF and if [there’s a] virtualization working body that forms. The format is how you manipulate and move virtual machines around, so it’s relevant.

CRN: There’s industry buzz that VMware may be looking at acquisitions to stay ahead of the competition. But some say you are averse to M&As and like to build technology from the ground up.
GREENE: That’s really funny. There are so many myths about me. We just announced the acquisition of AOG, which I’m very happy about. I’m quite focused on making customers very happy.

CRN: What do you think of application virtualization, which Softricity has and Citrix plans to offer via a project code-named Tarpon?
GREENE: It’s complementary to us. Softricity is a partner of ours.

CRN: So AOG’s Capacity Planner will be delivered through VMware Professional Services and partners?
GREENE: It is a service offering from [our] professional service organization. We’re the service bureau for it. We compile it [the customer capacity plan] and give it to our VACs [VMware Authorized Consultants], who then take it their customers. This is something we want to build out a lot for partners to help them build virtualization services.

CRN: Will Capacity Planner be built into VMware’s platform?
GREENE: It’s a service. It will work well with VirtualCenter.

CRN: Microsoft said it is piloting a managed desktop service. Would VMware consider offering an enterprise hosted service?
GREENE: We’re not a hosting center. We don’t have applications [to host]. We are the infrastructure to do those things. We have several customers that do it for demos and training, hosting using ESX. But we’re the infrastructure. We’ve got plenty on our plate.

CRN: What is your channel philosophy?
GREENE: It’s an incredible thing. When we put our workstation product version 1.0 up on a site, all of a sudden people were asking if they could resell our product. We started establishing channels from day one. At that point in time, people coming to us knew more about what they needed than we knew. We started investing right away, and it’s gotten a lot more mature over the years. It’s how we compensate our [sales] people, neutrally. We’re meticulous about [avoiding] channel conflict, and we agonize over making thing works well for our partners.

CRN: It’s one thing to resell a product, but selling your virtual infrastructure is pretty complicated stuff. Is there an ample base of partners out there sophisticated enough to do this work?
GREENE: I disagree [that it is complicated]. Actually, it’s not that complex to sell, and there are tremendous opportunities for partners adding value with services. Yes, we have enough partners in the markets we serve today.

CRN: So what are the biggest value-added services opportunities for VMware partners?
GREENE: We see it around solutions, high availability, disaster recovery and lot of service offerings around that. We have solutions that exist today, so you don’t need ESX 3 to provide that. There are plenty ways we support those today with the existing 2.0 [software].

CRN: How are high availability and disaster recovery different?
GREENE: Server containment is typically a project where you consolidate physical footprint to virtual, where someone has to do P-to-V migration and implementation of infrastructure on the server side and storage. There is a lot of drag in storage services. Our partners back up images for customers and do testing at remote data centers for disaster recovery.

CRN: How does virtual infrastructure lend itself to disaster recovery?
GREENE: Today, if customer wants to back up physical servers, they’d need hardware. Because of the portability of the virtual machine, you no longer need more hardware. You have images for disaster recovery and do not have to worry about the underlying architecture and platform. You don’t want a one-to-one ratio.

CRN: What’s your philosophy on storage virtualization?
GREENE: We do some with ESX server, but that’s within an Intel x86 homogenous environment. We think it’s important that we interoperate with storage virtualization out there. It’s a different focus.

CRN: So many people are using the word ‘virtualization.’ Are you concerned that is impacting your marketing message?
GREENE: When we started out, we had big problem because when we used the term ‘virtual machine,’ everyone thought we meant Java. Yes, virtualization is an overused term.

CRN: How will you evolve the platform in the next generation, ESX 3 and VirtualCenter 2, and in the future?
GREENE: We’ll move the platform forward with new hardware support, multicore, 64-bit, four-way SMP and iSCSI.

CRN: During your VMworld keynote, you said VMware is a solutions company. Can you elaborate?
GREENE: We build out this virtualization platform, but there are all kinds of functionality locked in there that’s difficult for end users to exploit. So we’ll build out solutions that do that for customers. They want out-of-the-box solutions, where they push a button and have a disaster recovery platform. We are building that in and making those a full solution that customers can grab and deploy.

CRN: Will these services be offered exclusively?
GREENE: No, we would never do that. We would not do things that aren’t good for partners.

CRN: Where do you see the biggest opportunities that VMware partners are not taking advantage of?
GREENE: We see our value-added resellers taking advantage in all kinds of ways to enhance value of virtual infrastructure. I think the new hosted desktop will offer new opportunities. ACE and certainly ESX 3 will open up a whole new set of value-added opportunities because of Distributed Resource Scheduling, Distributed Availability Services and storage interoperability.

CRN: What small- and midsize-business opportunities are there for VMware?
GREENE: The ease of use around ESX 3. We see huge potential in SMB with our channel. ESX is a departmental solution, edge-of-network and data center. GSX is a hosted solution that is a stepping stone.

CRN: Is there a possibility of two versions of ESX, one priced for SMBs and one for enterprises?
GREENE: No. Actually a large portion of our base is the small-business market and the midmarket.

CRN: With competition from Xen on the horizon, is there any thought about reducing the price of ESX server?
GREENE: No.

Quoting from the 3PAR official announcement:

3PAR, the leading provider of Utility Storage, announced today a utility computing solution with VMware ESX Server that will enable organizations to easily and quickly adapt to ever-changing business demands in an extremely cost-effective, pay-as-you-use manner. 3PAR Dynamic Optimization allows for the online, non-disruptive optimization of data service levels. VMware VMotion allows for the online, non-disruptive optimization of processing service levels. The integration of the 3PAR InServ Storage Server and 3PAR Dynamic Optimization with VMware ESX Server and VMotion enables customers to simply provision and maintain optimal service levels for both data and processing in their data center.

Maintaining data center resources—processors and storage—simply and with high utilization over time is a challenge for organizations deploying traditional server and storage technology. Since optimization approaches based on data and server migration are prohibitively time-consuming and complex, IT organizations are often forced to choose between over-provisioning to assure service levels and tolerating sub-optimal service levels in order to improve storage and processor utilization. However, when 3PAR Dynamic Optimization is used in conjunction with VMware ESX Server, this difficult choice is no longer necessary.

With the integration of the 3PAR InServ with VMware ESX Server, customers benefit in the following ways:

• Ability to respond swiftly to changing business needs: both data and processing service levels can be changed dynamically—online and non-disruptively—with 3PAR Dynamic Optimization and VMware VMotion.
• Pay only for what is used: capacity is consumed only as the application writes data with 3PAR Thin Provisioning. Server resources are granularly provisioned from a virtual processing pool with VMware ESX Server. Overall server and storage resource utilization rates are improved many-fold. Capacity utilization approaches 100% versus 25% with traditional “fat provisioning.” Processing utilization approaches 80% versus just the 5% to 15% commonly found with underutilized servers.
• Rapid server provisioning: ESX Server and associated applications can now be provisioned instantly and on-demand to the appropriate servers from a golden image on the 3PAR InServ using 3PAR Virtual Copy. This eliminates time-intensive manual steps such as loading and configuring software on each server.

“ESG is seeing rapid adoption of VMware in companies of all sizes and industries,” said Tony Asaro, senior analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “Additionally, customers are embracing 3PAR in mission-critical environments because of its utility storage, thin provisioning, and Enterprise-class features and reliability. These two solutions together bring a great deal of utility computing and consolidation value to customers and represent an evolution from traditional approaches.”

“3PAR is focused on delivering the simplest, most efficient storage platform for the utility data center,” said David Scott, President and CEO of 3PAR. “Where organizations are considering server virtualization or blade servers to improve server utilization and simplify management, 3PAR is the answer for storage.”

The 3PAR InServ Storage Server is on the VMware qualified HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) with VMware ESX Server versions 2.5.1 and 2.5.2. The integration of the 3PAR InServ Storage Server and 3PAR Dynamic Optimization with VMware ESX Server and VMotion is available today. The 3PAR InServ Storage Server with 3PAR Dynamic Optimization is priced below $100,000 for an entry configuration.

Quoting from the IBM official announcement:

IBM today announced the company is teaming with VMware and Citrix to launch the first offering of the new IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure that delivers full desktop functionality to any client from highly reliable and secure xSeries and BladeCenter servers. IBM is announcing a new pre-integrated hosted client solution that is based on VMware virtual infrastructure software and leverages Citrix client access technologies to host multiple users of fully functional desktop environments on IBM BladeCenter, while increasing efficiencies such as utilization of computing resources and quicker deployment of new users. With the new virtualized solution, customers could see total cost savings of up to 60 percent and return on investment in as short as six months.

IBM’s Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure helps overcome a key obstacle to adoption of hosted client architectures: resistance from the desktop user. Users will be able to enjoy all of the benefits and personal control of a stand alone desktop — functionality including print capabilities, USB drive support, dual monitors and audio — while reducing many of the hassles of a “fat client,” including limiting susceptibility to theft and viruses, extended downtime during a hard drive failure, or having to rebuild their preferences and settings after each client “refresh.” This new solution is ideal for all types of knowledge workers with constant computing requirements, and also for remote employees, branch office environments like automobile dealerships or retail stores, customer service call centers and software developers.

“Existing hosted client solutions gain some efficiencies by consolidating clients, but they fall short of delivering the full potential for client experience and IT efficiency,” said Doug Balog, vice president and business line executive, BladeCenter, IBM Systems and Technology Group. “IBM’s Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure with VMware virtual infrastructure software can provide high utilization, performance and reliability, allowing customers to reduce cost and complexity, while providing the level of desktop functionality and quality of support that end users have come to expect.”

The first solution to be rolled out using the Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure is based on IBM BladeCenter, VMware’s virtual infrastructure product line — which has been proven in production at more than 10,000 customers worldwide — and Citrix Presentation Server, the industry standard for providing access to client/server and desktop-based applications using application virtualization. VMware and Citrix are two key founding members of Blade.org, a collaborative organization and developer community focused on accelerating the expansion of blade solutions and the BladeCenter ecosystem.

“VMware virtual infrastructure makes it possible to have one common infrastructure for both desktops and servers and has enormous benefits for customers implementing client hosting. It delivers availability, responsiveness, flexibility, scalability and cost benefits,” said Brian Byun, vice president of strategic alliances at VMware. “VMware virtual infrastructure boosts server utilization rates to up to 80 percent, driving more efficiencies than a solution that is merely dedicated hardware to support desktop features. We’re excited to be working with IBM on continuing to bring these benefits to customers with IBM’s new Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure offering.”

“The new IBM Virtualized Hosted Client integrated solution including Citrix keeps security and management under IT control while enabling a more productive and personal work environment for end users,” said David Jones, corporate vice president, business development and corporate affairs, for Citrix. “Citrix has added a new capability to Citrix Presentation Server that works with IBM BladeCenter and VMware virtualization technologies to enable dynamic provisioning of hosted clients running full Windows XP Desktop images in a secure data center. The resulting solution is used to provide the rich experience that PC users have come to expect and is now available from thin clients or legacy PC’s.”

Citrix Presentation Server allows customers to deliver full desktop capability on any client from anywhere with high levels of security and little to no downtime. In addition, the images of the application appear on a user’s local, remote or mobile computer screen allowing them to work seamlessly regardless of their location, connection or device.

The IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure brings new important benefits to the information technology (IT) department. In addition to delivering security and control, IBM’s new solution uses VMware virtual infrastructure software to help improve IT department efficiencies by optimizing resource utilization, as well as increase end user performance by dynamically provisioning resources to meet the performance needs of each virtual hosted client machine. This enables companies to support more users with fewer resources, while offering the best possible desktop experience from virtually anywhere and on virtually any device.

Today’s announcement expands beyond the existing VMware virtualization capabilities on IBM xSeries and BladeCenter, and reinforces IBM’s commitment to deliver virtualization across its entire systems line of products. In July, IBM introduced the Virtualization Engine 2.0 as part of IBM’s comprehensive Systems Agenda. Last week, IBM announced new virtualization technologies, including software and systems, and extended its global virtualization leadership and ecosystem with new technologies and a collaborator interoperability program.

Availability
The IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure will be delivered by IBM Global Services (IGS). IGS is currently enrolling customers for pilot implementations, and an IGS service offering is planned to be available in first quarter of 2006. In addition, availability is planned through select IBM Business Partners.

IBM Global Services has skills and capabilities to help clients take advantage of the power of virtualization and hosted client architectures to create a more secure and cost effective client infrastructure. Leveraging vast experience in delivering hosted client solutions, IGS professionals can help clients evaluate existing applications, images, user profiles and networks to plan, design, implement and manage their Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure.

Brian Madden wrote an interesting insight about this announcement on his site:
Providing Desktops to Users: Centralized Virtual Machines or Terminal Server Desktops?

To prove how useful the just unveiled Player, VMware is offering a preconfigured virtual machine dubbed Browser Appliance.
The VM is configured with operating system (a VMware personalized Ubuntu 5.04) and applications to surf the Net remaining protected against viruses and spywares.

A zero-time, free, internet kiosk world companies can deploy everywhere and move within a simple USB key.

Download it here: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/browserapp.html

VMware finally completed its newest and coolest application: the VMware Player.
Initially planned to be released with upcoming Workstation 5.5, is now out alone, available for Windows and Linux platforms.

VMware Player permits to run any pre-created virtual machine with any VMware product (Workstation, GSX Server and ESX Server), any Microsoft product (Virtual Server and Virtual PC) and even Symantec LiveState Recovery images. For free.

The key features are:

• Run any virtual machine
  Run virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server. VMware Player also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats
• Revert to previous state
  Revert virtual machines to a previous ‘clean’ state within seconds
• Access host PC devices
  Use host CD/DVD drives, network adapters, and plug-and-play USB devices
• Copy and paste
  Copy text and files between the virtual machine and the host PC
• Drag and drop
  Drag and drop files between a Windows host PC and a Windows virtual machine
• Shared folders
  Use shared folders to easily share files between virtual machine and the host PC
• Multiple networking options
  Virtual machines can share or obtain new IP addresses or be isolated from the network and host
• 32- and 64-bit host and guest operating system support
  Run a wide variety of virtual machines containing 32- and 64-bit operating systems simultaneously on the same physical PC. Compatible 64-bit guest operating systems include select Microsoft Windows, Red Hat, SUSE, and FreeBSD distributions
• Adjustable memory
  Tune virtual machine memory for optimal performance
• Configurable shutdown
  Power down or suspend the virtual machine when closing VMware Player

VMware also published a product comparison to clear what VMware Player can do and what cannot:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/comparison.html

A dedicated forum on VMTN Online is now open:
http://www.vmware.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=123

Notice that VMware Player, 28mb sized, requires administrator privileges for installation and won’t install if VMware Workstation is already present.

I really hope to see this wonderful application in every Linux livecd distribution in no time.

Quoting from the Leostream official announcement:

Leostream Corp., the leading provider of heterogeneous server virtualization management software, today announced Leostream P>V Direct 2.0, a tool for the direct conversion of physical servers into virtual machines. P>V Direct 2.0 supports Windows NT4, Windows XP, Windows Server 2000/2003, and conversion targets include Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.

The Leostream P>V tool can achieve conversion without the need to reboot servers, and without the need to use CD or floppy drivers.

So-called ‘virtual machine’ software carves up large multi-processor servers and divides it into individual and multiple computing units, or ‘virtual’ servers, hence allowing multiple copies of Windows or Linux operating systems to be run simultaneously, and independently, on the same Intel-powered server.

A key challenge when deploying server virtualization technology is quickly and easily converting existing physical machines running today’s operating systems into the equivalent virtual machines. Without making a series of complex changes to the operating system the transplanted system will not work.

With P>V Direct 2.0, Leostream has pioneered the concept of low cost, easy to use, conversion tools by enabling the conversion to be automatically repeated, enabling virtual machine conversions to be scheduled. Applications include creating running virtual machines for patch testing, backup, or disaster recovery.

Nashat Bolis, chief information officer of MacLean-Fogg, a leading provider since 1925 of mechanical and insulation devices for the world’s power and telecommunications companies, said, “Leostream’s P>V Direct tool enables us to provide a low cost disaster recovery solution for production servers spread across 20 sites. We can recover quickly from a hardware failure without the need to deploy a hardware-intensive clustered solution.” Based in Mundelein, IL, MacLean-Fogg runs about 20 factories in Asia, Europe, and North America. (www.maclean-fogg.com)

“Business Continuity is a key benefit of server virtualization and Leostream’s P>V Direct is a true example of this technology in action. Leostream’s work with Microsoft will enable Virtual Server 2005 R2 customers to increase operational efficiency and reduce IT costs through faster backup and recovery,” said Zane Adam, director of marketing, Windows Server Division, Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is the most cost-effective server virtualization technology engineered for the Windows Server System platform. As a key part of any server consolidation strategy, Virtual Server 2005 R2 increases hardware utilization and enables organizations to rapidly configure and deploy new servers. Virtual Server 2005 R2 provides customers improved performance, availability, and scalability in order to increase operational efficiency in server consolidation, application re-hosting, disaster recovery, and software test and development.

“The biggest advantage of using virtual machines for backup and disaster recovery is that you can recover in a matter of minutes, and it is very easy and quick to ensure that you have made a valid copy of the server,” said David Crosbie, Leostream CEO. “Traditional solutions take several hours to recover from tape, are very difficult to validate, and may not run if the image is not restored to identical hardware.”

Pricing & Availability

Leostream P > V Direct 2.0 is priced from $100 per conversion and will be available October 17th. Free trial copies can be obtained from www.leostream.com

Quoting from the Portlock official announcement:

Portlock, a leading provider of backup, storage management and disaster recovery software, today announced three new VMware®-specific offerings based on its flagship Portlock Storage Manager product.
Portlock Storage Manager is software for performing rapid backup, bare-metal restore, server-to-server migration, and disaster recovery on NetWare®, Linux® and Windows® systems, as well as VMware platforms.
Three new products will provide a broad range of support for VMware:

1. Portlock Storage Manager for VMware ESX Server enables Disaster Recovery and backup from boot CD or Native, and supports VMware ESX Server 2.5.2, VMFS2 and EXT2/3 partitions. Offers the option to write to DVD and supports FTP and TCP/IP.
2. Portlock Storage Manager for VMware Hosts is a Windows-based program running on the host managing virtual machines and virtual disks.
3. Portlock Storage Manager designed to run natively inside VMWare Guest, with all of its utility functionality, including Image and Restore, copy, move, etc.

“We are excited to announce support for VMware,” said Leslie T. Giamona, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Portlock. “Portlock will support the leading virtualization product with a variety of solutions designed to help customers reduce risk to their valuable data as it migrates from physical to virtual disk.”
Availability
Portlock Storage Manager for VMware products is available for download and evaluation at www.portlock.com.

Quoting from the BMC Software official announcement:

BMC Software, Inc. [NYSE: BMC], a leading provider of enterprise management solutions, today announced its Service Oriented Resource Management (SORM) solutions, including the new BMC® Virtualizer Suite and the latest version of BMC Performance Assurance for Virtual Servers. The SORM solutions also include both current and planned integration with other BMC products enabling holistic management of IT processes, from the mainframe, through distributed systems, and into a virtualized environment. BMC Software’s SORM solutions provide customers with a predictive and adaptable computing environment that automatically provisions new server and software resources, based on real-time business requirements. With SORM, businesses gain control over the latest virtualization technologies and industry standard servers to reduce infrastructure costs, increase service availability, and respond in real-time to changing business requirements.

Introductions today include:

• BMC Virtualizer Suite, a new software family that automatically orchestrates the provisioning of resources on-demand. It includes BMC Virtualizer for High Availability and BMC Virtualizer for Capacity on Demand;
• Enhancements to BMC Performance Assurance for Virtual Servers, making it the first comprehensive predictive modeling technology for virtualized server environments;
• BMC Virtualizer integration with existing BMC Performance Manager and BMC Performance Assurance solutions; and
• BMC Virtualizer integration with BMC Configuration Management and Discovery products to ensure resources are synchronized with appropriate software updates and with change management processes.

“St. George Bank saw significant cost savings using BMC’s Performance Assurance solutions to predictively model performance, capacity and consolidation opportunities presented during business mergers,” said Michelle Ruel, senior capacity planner, St.George Bank, Australia. “We were naturally excited to hear BMC would be extending predictive capabilities to Virtual Servers, and asked to participate in development and testing. Based on our experience there, we look forward to leveraging equivalent value as we adopt these technologies.”

“Making sure our freight arrives at its destination on time is one of our most critical business services,” said Tim Hill, distributed systems capacity planner at CNF, a $3.7 billion company that is a leading provider of global supply chain solutions for a wide range of manufacturing, industrial, retail, and government customers. “We rely on the performance analytics and the predictive capabilities of BMC Performance Assurance to increase our utilization rates, save money, and eliminate potential performance and capacity risks for our critical business services. As we are now adopting VMware to virtualize portions of our server infrastructure, we are excited that BMC will be able to provide these same benefits with BMC Performance Assurance for Virtual Servers.”

SORM Solutions Advance Business Service Management Strategy
BMC Software’s Business Service Management (BSM) strategy enables companies to move beyond traditional IT management to better optimize and manage their critical services from a business perspective. By applying business relevance in automating resource management, companies can ensure the most critical business systems are addressed first. The company’s SORM solutions also provide the management capabilities needed to successfully adopt today’s industry standard hardware and virtualization technologies in a utility computing model. BMC’s SORM solutions don’t lock customers into a specific implementation framework, so customers can start with any product, such as BMC Virtualizer, based on their immediate needs and then incorporate other SORM offerings as they go.

BMC Virtualizer Suite allows companies to consolidate and cost-optimize their datacenters and significantly improve application service availability. BMC Virtualizer solutions provide policy-based resource orchestration and provisioning capabilities across enterprise clusters and standalone application servers. Unlike other failover automation products that require one dedicated backup server per production server or cluster, BMC Virtualizer automatically provisions appropriate server resources – whether physical or virtual – for applications based on business need and enables the sharing of the server resources across multiple applications. The shared pools of server resources can be used for both failover and/or providing capacity on-demand. The first products in this family, BMC Virtualizer for High Availability and BMC Virtualizer for Capacity on Demand, are available immediately.

BMC Virtualizer for High Availability eliminates 1:1 server failover requirements by managing a smaller pool of shared failover servers. This automates application server failover and recovery in less than five minutes. BMC Virtualizer for Capacity on Demand includes the functionality of the High Availability product and also allows organizations with server clusters, such as Oracle 10g, Apache, and Microsoft IIS, to improve service availability and performance through datacenter virtualization and the automated provisioning of applications, servers, networks, and storage.

“SORM enables customers to leverage the latest virtualization and industry standard hardware architectures to realize the quickest possible business agility, at the lowest possible price, while mitigating the risks associated with adopting these technologies,” said Mary Smars, vice president and general manager, Distributed Systems Management, BMC Software. “The combination of BMC Performance Assurance, BMC Performance Manager and BMC Service Management solutions allows customers to dynamically provision from a business perspective. Our goal is to reduce business risk and help our customers achieve Business Service Management.”

BMC Software is also working with several partners including Microsoft to bring its SORM strategy to market. “Microsoft and BMC share a common goal to help customers achieve the promise of self-managing dynamic systems, and BMC’s Service Oriented Resource Management solutions, along with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, help customers begin to achieve that promise,” said Zane Adam, director of marketing, Windows Server Division, Microsoft Corp.

BMC Software’s Performance Assurance® solutions provide comprehensive performance analysis and prediction capabilities required to optimize resource acquisition and deployment decisions. BMC Performance Assurance for Virtual Servers includes new predictive capability that shows how key applications will perform during and after transition from physical to virtualized environments. Once the planning and implementation is complete, the solution helps ensure the ongoing optimized performance of Virtual Server environments such as VMware, Microsoft and XEN.

By using BMC Performance Assurance solutions and BMC Virtualizer, provisioning policies can be created and used to automatically deploy exactly the right capacity, just before it is required. This automatic provisioning minimizes the need to purchase and install new computing resources to handle peak loads; it allows customers to pay only for the capacity needed. Through BMC Software’s exclusive methodology, customers also can test resource requirements and deployment scenarios before implementation. Coupled with BMC Performance Manager for Virtual Servers, a solution that discovers all virtual machines and maps those virtual machines to their associated VMware ESX/GSX servers and or VMware Groups, a complete lifecycle performance monitoring, management and optimization solution is realized.

BMC Software’s Configuration Management and IT Discovery – Key Industry Differentiators for Managing Virtual Environments
Using processes orchestrated from BMC Virtualizer, BMC Software Configuration Management (formerly Marimba Server Management from BMC Software) and BMC Software IT Discovery solutions detect, provision and manage specific server configurations. BMC Topology Discovery discovers virtualized environments and records them in the BMC Atrium CMDB (Configuration Management Database) while BMC Software Configuration Management solutions provide automated, closed loop configuration management of those environments and the servers on which they reside. The BMC Atrium CMDB provides an open, common data repository, shared service model, and unified user and reporting interfaces to accelerate attainment of BSM. Virtualized environments change frequently, necessitating the use of “virtual environment aware” configuration management and discovery tools to provide up-to-date configuration information to the CMDB and ensuring that all service management activities are executed based on the most recent configuration information.

For more information including additional customer success stories with BMC Virtualizer and other BMC Service Oriented Resource Management solutions, see: http://www.bmc.com/capacitymanagement.

Quoting from the AppStream official announcement:

AppStream, Inc., today announced a technology partnership with VMware, the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. This partnership provides customers with the ability to distribute virtual images more efficiently enabling users to be operational up to 10x faster and making remote usage over DSL a reality and expanding the potential use of virtual images throughout the enterprise.

Today’s enterprises are more distributed than ever before, consisting of remote sales offices and multiple global locations. At the same time the need to rapidly provision standardized and secure PC environments is as strong as ever. All of this has increased the challenges facing today’s IT organizations. Users in the extended enterprise demand the same level of service as their fixed and local counterparts, and their need for on-demand and immediate access to resources just adds to the complexity of the problem for IT organizations. VMware ACE provides an optimum solution for those connected to the LAN and AppStream extends that advantage to the rapidly increasing number of remote and mobile users.

According to Gartner, worldwide mobile PC shipments are expected to grow 26.5% in 2005, while desk-based units are now forecast to grow 4.6%. Serving this community can be a challenge with the long download times for large image files outside the LAN.

AppStream.NOW technology dramatically increases the speed with which a user can be operational. “We understand that enterprises need to satisfy their users and maintain an efficient, low cost, secure operation.” said Srinivasa Venkataraman, AppStream’s Executive Vice President of Products. “We believe that we have a solution that satisfies these concerns. Our streaming technology can deliver a secure 4.4 GB OS image over a DSL connection and have a user up and running within 15 minutes. That same image distributed without streaming would time out after 4 hours. This has dramatic impact on how and where an enterprise can effectively use VMware ACE.”

With AppStream technology you retain the ability to apply enterprise IT policies to a virtual machine containing an operating system, enterprise applications, and data to create an isolated PC environment in a reduced image file size that is deployed quickly.

The AppStream.NOW platform provides four key benefits to the VMware ACE customer:

1. Increased efficiency of distribution – AppStream technology streams images in blocks delivering what a user needs to get up and running in minutes rather than hours or not at all. Lab tests have shown that a user receiving a 4.4GB image file over DSL can be operational in 15 minutes compared to over 4 hours without AppStream.NOW.

2. Automatic removal of images upon expiration – An image delivered using AppStream is automatically deleted from the user’s hard drive when the expiration date is reached or when the user is de-provisioned. Without AppStream, image removal must be done manually, which can be difficult or impossible for remote users who do not have a local IT resource or technical know-how to remove the file or where security is critical.

3. Preservation of user data and settings when updating images – When IT needs to update an image that has been delivered with AppStream, all of the user’s existing saved documents, personalized settings, etc are maintained, enabling remote users who need a secure environment, and contractors to take advantage of ACE technology without fear of losing all their work or configuration settings.

4. Central management and usage tracking – AppStream.NOW is administered and managed from a central Web-based console and provides comprehensive management tools to configure, manage and monitor the entire AppStream system.

“With the market penetration of VMware ACE rising, we’re seeing increasing interest from customers in our ability to quickly deploy large image files and get users up and running.” commented Dan Udoutch, CEO of AppStream. “Our solution augments ACE beyond distribution offering fine-tuned image management and central control. It truly is a perfect to complement to ACE in real world applications.”

AppStream.NOW 4.6
The AppStream.NOW platform makes distribution of desktop software and the management of software licenses easier with little to no IT intervention. Unlike traditional models, the ability to distribute applications, monitor usage, and manage licenses is integrated in a single platform. IT retains control over application versioning and provisioning but gains flexibility to give off-line use of applications and the ability to use local graphics cards and other local resources. The AppStream.NOW platform is scalable and hardware investment is minimal with one server handling approximately 1000 users.

With AppStream, application images reside on a server and are delivered on-demand to the desktop. This creates a self-service software environment that enables the end user to access applications when and where they need them without any action from IT. At the same time, AppStream maintains a real-time inventory of the applications that are in use, keeping the number of licenses needed aligned with the true requirements of the organization. When software is not being utilized on a PC it can be re-harvested and made available to others.