Year: 2006

Ron Oglesby, author of VMware ESX Server : Advanced Technical Design Guide, created 2 great Microsoft Excel spreadsheets:

• Lunsizes for calculate the number of farms, LUNs per farm, and average LUN size to host your VMs
• VM Oaglator for calculate the price of VMs based on different configurations in your environment

Download them here.

Alexey Shvechkov created an interesting utility for debugging virtual machines operating systems:

To date of this writing there was no terminal client capable of connecting to named pipes on Windows (neither locally nor remotely).

There may be various reasons for such type of access. In my case I was doing some kernel debugging on Linux/Solaris virtual machines that were running under supervision of VMware(or Virtual PC) software and I needed to access Guest OS serial consoles (virtual com ports emulated as named pipes) from the Host OS or remotely using TCP connection.

Named Pipe TCP Proxy is a utility which provides access to named pipes on Windows via TCP/IP. Utility has intuitive GUI and allows to create “tcp port” “named pipe” mappings.

Download it here.

Since the Apple switch on Intel architecture for its MacOS operating system, many developers started to port their community projects.

An interesting one is Wine, already able to run Windows application on Linux, which is being ported on MacOS for Intel (or MacTel as someone calls it) under the name of Darwine.

The last released version is 0.9.6.

Kip Macy just sent an important email on the Xen Mailing List, annoncing nearly complete support for Xen 3.0 in FreeBSD CURRENT branch.

He’s also confident the complete Xen 3.0 x86 support will be ready for the FreeBSD 6.1 launch (expected after 20th March 2006) while the Xen 3.0 x64 support will be there with FreeBSD 6.2 (to be released after 31th July 2006).

VMware just released a small but very interesting paper about ACE encryption feature, detailing involved files.

You can download it here.

Virtual Strategy Magazine is going to host an interesting webinar about virtualization upcoming trends, featuring two special speakers: Elsie Wahlig, Platform Software Architect, AMD, and Michael Grandinetti, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Virtual Iron Software.

The webinar, scheduled for 9th February will be about:

• The latest virtualization technologies being used to manage industry-standard hardware and the latest blade systems.
• The enabling technologies behind data center virtualization including AMD64® and AMD virtualization technology incorporating chip-assisted virtualization.
• Running enterprise-class applications on virtual infrastructure
• Rapidly provisioning and redeploying applications as business needs dictate
• Using virtualization to create dynamic infrastructure to manage workloads and deliver capacity on demand
• Consolidating server hardware and software licenses
• Centrally managing virtual computers and physical servers

Register for it here (and do it fast since there are just 100 seats).

Update: Recorded event is available here.

Quoting from SearchOpenSource:

…So why is Xen so important, and why could it be an open source force in 2006 and beyond?

The people dismissing or touting Xen’s promise need to look at Xen from both sides now, says Tony Iams, senior analyst for Rye Brook, N.Y.-based IDEAS International.
Xen, Iams said, is early in its development and will require at least until the end of 2006 to mature. At that point, it should be able to compete with established commercial virtualization products like VMware.

It’s a mistake to dismiss Xen as just neat technology or compare it to entirely different applications, such as SWsoft’s Virtual Private Servers, according to Iams. “I don’t know anyone involved with virtualization applications who are not taking Xen seriously,” he said. “Yes, Xen just shipped 3.0, but like all open source there is a specific staging process.”…

Read the whole story at source.

This year the largest and most famous virtualization event in the world is coming in Los Angeles, California, USA.
VMware set 3 days for the conference from 7 to 9 November.

At today no details are available on breakout sessions but I’m quite probable the company will officially present the (rumored) delayed ESX Server 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0.
Otherwise they could surprise everybody annoncing an expected GSX Server 4.0…

Monitor the official VMworld 2006 site or read your favorite blog for updates.

Quoting from News.com:

SWsoft is trying to get OpenVZ made part of the mainstream Linux kernel–the software at the heart of the operating system–and a part of the major commercial Linux versions, said Kirill Korotaev, a project manager at the Herndon, Va.-based company.

In this, it has a major ally: Red Hat, the top seller of the open-source operating system, which plans to add the software to its free Fedora version of Linux for enthusiasts.
…
Now an open-source alternative to VMware is arriving, Xen, whose hypervisor is developed by start-up XenSource with support by major server makers and Linux suppliers.

Technically, Xen and OpenVZ are complementary; the first lets several independent operating systems run on a server, while the second subdivides a single instance. But in practice, their similar goals means there is some overlap…

Read the whole article at source.

After speculating few days ago about eventual MacOS X guest virtualization a news about MacOS host virtualization surfaced.

Quoting from MacNN:

…Microsoft said it is working with Apple to bring Virtual PC to the new Intel-architecture, although it didn’t provide details about the release date. The company, however, said that it would not run under Rosetta, Apple’s emulation environment that allows older PowerPC programs to run on Intel-based Macs.

The company said that it would wait on receipt of the new shipping machines to better evaluate Virtual PC for Intel-Macs…

Read the whole article at source.