Year: 2006

The just released Fedora Core 6 introduces a user interface for Xen called Virtual Machine Manager already saw in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 beta.

Among several reviews eWeek published one with some mentions about this new tool:

…
We found virt-manager fairly easy to use, although the tool definitely shows its young age. For example, there’s a promising-looking?but for now inactive?option for connecting virt-manager to a Xen system running on a remote server. There’s another inactive option for managing hypervisors other than Xen.

As virt-manager matures, we’d like to see the tool offer more feedback when operations fail. Generally, when things didn’t function as we expected, the tool was silent regarding error or troubleshooting messages…

I wonder why a product in its early-development has been included in a so-popular distribution and its making its way in an enterprise distribution like RHEL.

With these premises customers will hardly rely on Red Hat for enterprise Xen deployment, preferring dedicated solutions like Virtual Iron or XenEnterprise.

Download Fedora Core 6 here and check from yourself.

Quoting from the rPath official announcement:

rPath, provider of the first platform for creating and maintaining software appliances, announced today the ability to create virtual appliances that run on the Xen 3.0.3 hypervisor using rPath’s rBuilder.

The rBuilder platform allows software developers to combine software applications with Linux and related open source components to create virtual appliances that can be instantly provisioned and run on the Xen hypervisor and XenSource’s XenEnterprise virtualization platform.
…
Reflecting the strong community demand for appliances on the Xen hypervisor, rPath has made many of the most popular projects on rBuilder Online available for download as virtual appliances for Xen 3.0.3. Examples include LAMP, MediaWiki, Gallery Photo Server, Port25 Mail Server, Music Player, OpenFiler, Cacti Network Graphing, MySQL, and PostgreSQL…

Quoting from the IBM official announcement:

IBM, the world’s leading information technology (IT) services provider, today introduced a service product that helps businesses utilize virtualization technologies to simplify computing in the workplace. The new Virtual Infrastructure Access service product enables centralized computing at the server level and provides workers security-rich access to applications, information and resources.

The new Virtual Infrastructure Access service product enables centralized computing at the server level and provides workers security-rich access to applications, information and resources.

As part of the service product introduced today, a highly skilled team of End User Services experts from IBM will provide consultation, assessment, planning, design and implementation to help clients deploy virtual infrastructures for security-rich end user computing…

Microsoft is moving in the right direction about virtual machines licensing in the server space. I cannot say the same for the desktop space.

In any case Windows Product Activation (WPA) and limited number of allowed virtual machines in every product but Windows Server Datacenter Edition will create the biggest management issue in virtual infrastructures.
Blessed will be those provisioning tools (we call them today virtual lab management solutions) integrating a strong licensing management system.

I’m not the only one thinking this way. ComputerWorld published a long article about possible market scenarios and trends:

A recent survey by software management provider Macrovision found that only 28% of organisations surveyed were satisfied with their vendor’s pricing and licensing strategy.
…
And virtualisation will become an issue soon, as it moves out of the test and development phase and into production environments. Lechner says 54% of IBM’s customers plan to start applying virtualisation this year.

Forrester Research believes new licensing models based around virtualisation will be introduced by vendors — and will be accepted by large enterprises — by the end of 2008.
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Tim Grieser, vice president of system management software at IDC, sees two approaches as the favourites for how virtualisation licensing will eventually be decided: either a base licence price based on some average of virtual machine images a user decides to employ, or a tiered per-server hardware price that doesn’t take virtualisation into account.
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“Software vendors are telling us we will have to pay a licence for every single virtual machine, but, if I am still using the same [physical] machine as before why should I do that?” Tang asks. “Vendors are trying to take a free ride with virtualisation, and they can’t do that.”…

The last quote is remarkable.

Read the whole article at source.

Quoting from the Kidaro official announcement:

Kidaro, provider of virtual desktop computing for the enterprise without boundaries, has announced the Kidaro Managed Workspace™ for extending fully operable, managed, secured and easy-to-use work environments for enterprise users anywhere. Kidaro Managed Workspace encapsulates selected corporate resources and tools — OS, applications, IT/IS management software and remote access clients — into a centrally controlled, protected and isolated workspace that can be deployed to any end–user.
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Kidaro’s unique set of technologies go one step beyond any other virtualization platform for enterprise desktops. Leveraging standard, vendor-independent machine virtualization technologies (e.g. VMware Player, VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Microsoft Vista), Kidaro brings the essential elements required to successfully deploy a complete virtualization solution for enterprise end–users:

• Centralized Management
  Kidaro’s powerful, unified management console streamlines the way IT administrators can create, deploy and update virtual machines, monitor active users, and generate audit trails and reports
• Optimized Delivery
  Patent-pending Trim Transfer technology dramatically accelerates deployment and reduces the network bandwidth needed to transport a virtual machine by an average 90%, allowing fast delivery via any remote network connection
• Seamlessness, Transparent Operation
  Kidaro Managed Workspace is the only solution that does not change the user experience when a virtual machine is introduced. The workspace integrates between the local and the virtualized desktops to create a familiar look-and-feel
• Data protection
  Kidaro Managed Workspace enables policy-based control over any network connection, file transfer, printing, copy-paste or device access, enforcing corporate policies and regulatory compliance

At first sight Kidaro Managed Workspace seems a Sentillion vThere competitior.

After being ported to POWER architecture two weeks ago, OpenVZ is preparing to land on Sun SPARC architectures as well as revealed on the official blog:

…we are now porting to SPARC, thanks to Jonathan Kinney, a data systems specialist from Washington, USA. It all started with his question which he posted to forum back in May 2006:…
A few months later, in October, Jonathan returned again to that forum thread and said that he have the hardware and is willing to assist in porting OpenVZ to it. Kirill Korotaev picked it up from there, and just a few minutes ago I heard from him that he now have the kernel which boots and works. Apparently, the size of patch is just about 1500 lines…

Read the whole article at source.

It really seems OpenVZ is counting on architecture portability as part of its success.

Quoting from the Parallels official announcement:

Parallels and Sentillion vBusiness, a division of Sentillion, Inc., today announced they have entered into a strategic partnership designed to address the costs, complexities and performance of desktop virtualization technology and radically improve the end user experience. As part of the agreement, Sentillion vBusiness, which leverages virtualization technology to support its server-less approach to remote access, will embed Parallels Workstation for Windows into its vThere offering.

The companies are also committed to the co-development of future products and leveraging their respective sales channels and participation in cooperative marketing activities.

…

Integration efforts have already commenced and will be available in the next version, vThere 2.0, which is slated for release at the end of November 2006.
Pricing for Sentillion’s vThere solution is $125 per user. The vThere image creator toolkit is $795 per administrator workstation…

What the press release doesn’t underline is Sentillion adopted Parallels Workstation in place of previously choosen VMware Player.

Benjamin Rudolph, Marketing Manager at Parallels, reveals on the corporate blog reasons of this change in Sentillion strategy:

…Sentillion looked to Parallels as a partner for vThere because VMWare Players it simply wasn’t meeting their customers’ needs. Using the Player-powered product was often too complicated for the average user, and the Player’s performance wasn’t as snappy as they would have liked…

Sentillion vThere has been briefly reviewed by Bob Roudebush this summer.

Quoting from the Scalent official announcement:

Scalent Systems, the leading provider of server infrastructure repurposing software for large enterprise data centers, and DataSynapse, a global provider of application virtualization software, today announced a comprehensive sales and technology partnership.

Scalent will certify DataSynapse FabricServer on the Scalent Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE) platform and the two companies will collaborate in selling their joint solution.
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DataSynapse FabricServer is an application virtualization and provisioning platform that creates a highly adaptive shared computing infrastructure for dynamic scaling of business-critical application deployments.
Scalent V/OE enables data center operations owners to rapidly change entire systems and associated topologies – which servers are operating, what software is running on them and how they are connected to network and storage – without altering physical infrastructure…

Quoting from the uXcomm official announcement:

uXcomm, the leading provider of systems management platforms for device and software system manufacturers, today announced it has joined the XenEnterprise partner program as a premier member. The combination of uXcomm’s XManage platform and XenSource’s core technologies empowers device and software systems manufacturers to easily integrate and deploy standards-based, custom management applications to manage today’s rapidly expanding virtualized data centers.
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uXcomm’s XManage Platform, the “Rosetta Stone of Systems Management,” is the world’s first solution to unite disparate systems and systems management applications into one common infrastructure. XManage is a proven, modular systems management platform that enables any system builder to quickly and easily deploy “out-of-box” management solutions while still having full customization capability. Based upon XML-driven, service oriented architecture (SOA), XManage comes bundled with all major system management interfaces, an integrated development environment based on Eclipse, and a management services engine that can be quickly customized and extended by systems builders to manage any hardware or software subsystem…

In its weekly newsletter Thomson reported a new deal for XenSource:

XenSource Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of open-source virtualization solutions, has secured $15 million of a $21 million Series C round, according to a regulatory filing. Return backers include Accel Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Radar Partners and Sevin Rosen Funds.

XenSource previously had raised around $23 million.