Year: 2006

Quoting from the Avamar official announcement:

Avamar Technologies, Inc. a leading provider of enterprise data protection software, today announced support for VMware, eliminating customer challenges around quickly and efficiently backing up and recovering critical data from VMware virtual machines.
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Avamar identifies redundant sub-file data segments within and across multiple virtual machines, host servers, and sites. Using patented data de-duplication and global single instance storage (SIS) technology, Avamar ensures that backup data segments are stored only once on a global basis. This effectively reduces the amount of data moved and stored by up to 300x, while providing daily full backups and rapid restores across existing LAN/WAN links…

Quoting from the Atempo official announcement:

Atempo, Inc., the leader in data protection and storage security for trusted information lifecycle management (ILM), today announced the release of Time Navigator 4.1.
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This latest version features the second generation of Time Navigator’s integrated storage security module– Security and Compliance Manager–and features new support for VMware ESX Servers.
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Time Navigator for VMware is designed as a complement to the standard Time Navigator backup agent installed on each virtual machine. Using VMware snapshot technology, Time Navigator can backup entire virtual machines without interrupting the work on these machines and can restore a complete virtual machine or just one disk. The restore interface provides administrators with a graphical view of all ESX Servers and virtual machines, with no need to install or configure complex scripts. In a few mouse clicks, administrators can quickly restore data with Time Navigator’s unique VMware GUI.

Key features of Time Navigator for VMware include:

• Full Support of ESX
  This includes server backups, virtual machine backups and support of VMFS
• User-friendly Restore Interface
  No need to install or configure complex scripts
• Platform-independent Archive Module
  For long-term data retention and regulatory compliance
• Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape Backups
  Backup the VMware ESX Server data to disk, then to tape for the most efficient backup architecture
• Advanced Reporting
  For monitoring backup and recovery activities and performance

Quoting from the RingCube official announcement:

RingCube Technologies, Inc., the creator of truly portable personal computing, announced today it is offering software that for the first time allows any storage device, including iPods, USB flash or hard drives, or even cell phones, to mirror the capabilities and functionality of a private and secure PC.
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With MojoPac, users can take all their information, settings, and applications such as Microsoft Office, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, and top PC games such as World of Warcraft with them wherever they go, on any portable storage device, including ones many consumers carry with them every day. Mojopac transforms any computer into a personal computer, instantly.
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To use MojoPac, consumers simply install the MojoPac software on their favorite device, install their applications and copy their files, select their settings and environment preferences, and then take it with them wherever they go. Whenever they plug their MojoPac enabled device into a Windows XP based PC, they can launch MojoPac, turning the host PC into a customized and private computing environment that recreates the same computing experience the consumer enjoys at home or work…

Quoting from the VirtualLogix official announcement:

VirtualLogix, Inc., the Real-Time Virtualization company, formerly known as Jaluna, Inc., today announced the completion of a revised corporate identity and extensive change to its product strategy. These changes will continue to drive the company’s leadership position in the real-time virtualization market and deliver its new vertical market product solutions.
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VirtualLogix, Inc. is the global leader in Real-Time Virtualization technology for connected devices. VirtualLogix VLX enables multiple operating system environments to run concurrently on shared hardware and provides a range of performance, fault tolerance and security options to address specific market requirements…

LinuxDevices has a very good introduction to the company and its technology.

A new beta enrollment appeared on Microsoft site Connect: Virtual PC 2007 Beta Program.

The program itself will start on October 11th and will end March 30th, and nominations will be accepted during the whole period.
This detail, along with appearence on Connect means Microsoft will open the beta program to general public.

While it’s already known VMware will preview the upcoming Workstation 6.0 at VMworld 2006, it’s unclear if the popular product will reach RTM for the event.

But at beginning of this week VMware advertised a serie on new online webcasts scheduled for the whole fourth quarter of this year, and one of them, scheduled for December 7th, is titled VMware Product Demonstration – Workstation Beta.

This should confirm the new Workstation version will not be ready for VMworld in November.

A new section appeared on the XenSource website inviting visitors to signup for an early access to XenEnteprise for Windows.

According to documentation available at XenEnteprise launch, and still published on the site, support for Windows virtual machines is expected for Q4 2006, so this should the related beta program.

Richard Garsthagen, Technical Marketing Manager at VMware, unofficially announced the company is developing a new Perl library to programmatically control VMware Infrastructure 3.

The work, called VMware Infrastructure Perl Toolkit, still in alpha, is being released as open source and it’s already hosted on SourceForge.

Download it here.

Update: VMware will host a webcast about the new Perl Toolkit on October 11th.

Enroll for it here.

Two months after starting an invitation-based beta program for a new product called LivePC, moka5 extends the program to public.

LivePC brings the rising concept of service virtualization (or Software as a Service, aka SaaS), these days so much hyped thanks to VMware Virtual Appliances, at its maximum.

Being delivered in two versions, for Windows and for bare metal installations (like VMware ESX Server does), LivePC enterely depends on VMware Player.
It’s able to import existing virtual machines or to create new ones with a very basic .vmx generator, but final product are always pure VMware virtual machines.

moka5 wrapper doesn’t add anything to the execution of the virtual machine, so we can’t consider LivePC a real virtualization platform, but introduces the concept of virtual machine subscription:

LivePC technology allows a LivePC creator to deliver new PC content to many users instantly and effortlessly. Users simply subscribe to LivePCs they are interested in, just like updating a music play list or changing a TV channel, and the LivePCs are streamed over the network to them.
Every time a user brings up a LivePC, it has the latest features provided by the LivePC creator: new software, new data, security patches or even a new operating system.

LivePCs can be run on any Windows PC using the free moka5 LivePC Engine. moka5’s streaming technology enables users to start running a LivePC long before it has completely downloaded. LivePCs even work when disconnected from the network.

Download the beta here.

Quoting from the Novell official announcement:

Novell today announced the industry’s first enterprise Linux-based virtualization solution built on Xen, optimized for Intel* Virtualization Technology.
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With the integration of Intel Virtualization Technology within Xen, Novell also announced plans to offer enterprise support for virtualized SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and Red Hat* Enterprise Linux 4 running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, allowing Red Hat customers to migrate to Novell service and support while still running Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a virtualized environment.
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Novell will support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Intel Virtualization Technology, up through and including Level 3 (or core engineering) support. That means Novell will provide technical support for the Xen hypervisor if a customer uncovers an issue running a virtual instance of Red Hat Linux and that issue is not reproducible in a native, or non-virtualized, environment. If the customer runs a virtual SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 or 10 instance, Novell will offer Level 3 support for the host operating system, the Xen hypervisor and the guest operating system. In addition, Intel and Novell will work together to fix all issues which are related to the hypervisor and Intel VT hardware.
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Novell will begin a pilot program in late October with several large enterprise customers. General availability of this solution is expected by the end of the year…

The fun thing is Novell is supporting virtualized Red Hat Linux before Red Hat itself. It’s even funnier considering how much Red Hat criticized Novel for including Xen in SUSE Linux so early.