Year: 2006

Qlusters already offers an open source enteprise management product, OpenQRM, able to support physical machines as well as virtual machines hosted on VMware and Xen platforms.

Now Qlusters extend its support introducing a web-based provisioning system able to interact with these platforms:

Qlusters, Inc. the leading provider of open source data-center provisioning and management software for physical and virtual environments, today announced the availability of openQRM Pro. The offering allows users to request hardware and software resources via a Web portal and then automates the approval process, provisioning and monitoring of the resources maintaining detailed reporting along the way and de-provisioning the resources once they are no longer needed by the user.

openQRM Pro also supports complex network topologies including those with virtual LANs, multiple storage islands and virtualization technologies such as VMWare and Xen.
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openQRM Pro is available immediately under Qlusters’ enterprise subscription program which provides 24/7 support for $750 per server, per year…

Qlusters is also working on another feature called Transparent Application Migration (TAM), actually in beta, which allows migration of processes running inside a Linux environment between different machines (no matter if physical or virtual), without interruption of service, resembling VMware VMotion feature available with ESX Server and VirtualCenter.

The TAM beta program, now closed, is expected to last 4-8 weeks before Qlusters launches the product.

Quoting from the Voltaire official announcement:

Voltaire announced a software solution for the management and automation of dynamic Grid computing environments in the datacenter. The software enables true automation of repetitive IT tasks associated with network, server and storage provisioning. Provisioning tasks that used to take days and involve multiple groups within IT can now be reduced to seconds.
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Employing an innovative abstracted object model, an intuitive graphical user interface and an open Web services API, GridVision Enterprise integrates with server and storage virtualization solutions, as well as provisioning and scheduling tools, creating a single, logical datacenter environment consisting of both physical and virtual resources.
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Voltaire is working with partners such as AMD, FalconStor Software, IBM, Intel, Mellanox Technologies, Novell, Platform Computing, United Devices, VMware and XenSource to integrate GridVision Enterprise with their Grid computing and virtualization solutions…

Microsoft released an hotfix for customers applied in Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 beta program which are using the product on a AMD powered machine with SVM virtualization enhancement enabled.

Download it from the beta program site.

Thanks to Ben Armstrong for the news.

The much rumored minor update for ESX Server 3.0.1 has been finally confirmed: VMware announced ESX Server 3.0.1 will be released in October, but the only feature mentioned is 64bits support for some Windows, Linux and Solaris editions.

Rumors before this announcement revealed much more than 64bits support, including a brand new zero downtime migration feature.

Update: A virtualization.info reader shared link of VMware Infrastructure 3.0.1 Release Notes, which reveal the update is already in Release Candidate (RC) status.

Apart disclosed support for 64bits guest OSes, the document details other new features:

• Support for servers based on the AMD 2000/8000 series processors and Intel Xeon 7100 (codename Tulsa) series of processors
• A self-certification program for iSCSI arrays
• Support for iSCSI arrays such as EqualLogic PS300 and NetApp FAS3000
• Experimental support for iSCSI 4050/4052 HBA from Qlogic.
• Support for Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) on Windows XP virtual machines
• Improved upgrade support from Virtual Infrastructure 2 to VMware Infrastructure 3

The last feature links to the new Installation and Upgrade Guide, which details the new zero downtime migration capability:

The migration upgrade is more of a managed transition than a strict upgrade. The migration upgrade reduces virtual machine downtime to the bare minimum by moving virtual machines directly from a production host running ESX Server version 2 to a production host running ESX Server version 3.

If you are upgrading from a supported ESX Server 2.x version to ESX Server 3.0.1, you can migrate powered�]on virtual machines from an ESX Server 2.x host to an ESX Server 3.0.1 host while simultaneously relocating the virtual machine files from a VMFS2 to a VMFS3 datastore. This allows you to completely avoid virtual machine downtime associated with the host and datastore upgrade.

Read the whole Release Notes at source.

From the company management blog, The Console, Bogomil Balkansky, Director of Product Marketing at VMware, talks about a rarely discussed benefit of virtualization, power saving, and provides some interesting numbers:

We estimate conservatively that for every workload moved from a physical to virtual environment, customers can save about $290 in electricity costs, and about $360 a year in cooling costs. The more important thing is that these savings accrue year after year.
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Beside the company bottom line effect, there is something to be said about the environmental impact of virtualization. The $650 per virtualized workload represents 8,000 kWh of electricity saved. With more than 1 million workloads running in VMware virtual machines, the aggregate power savings are about 8 billion kWh, which is more than the heating, ventilation, and cooling electricity consumed in New England in a year…

Read the whole article at source.

Dennis Zimmer, owner of german blog VMachine.de, wrote his second book in german language about virtualization.

VMware Server und VMware Player Release Date: August, 2006 ISBN: 3898428222 Edition: 1 Pages: 360

Note: this book will not appear on the Virtualization Bookshelf because is not in English language.

IBM RedBook department released another book about virtualization. This time about the z/VM engine and how to use it with RHEL 4:

In this IBM Redbook, we assume that you have a general familiarity with IBM zSeries technology and terminology. We do not assume that you have an in-depth understanding of z/VM and Linux. This book is written for those who want to get a quick start with z/VM and Linux on the mainframe.

This book describes how to set up your own Linux virtual servers on zSeries and IBM System z9 under z/VM. It adopts a cookbook format that provides a clearly documented set of procedures for installing and configuring z/VM in a logical partition (LPAR) and then installing and customizing Linux.

You require a zSeries LPAR with associated resources, such as a z/VM 5.2 media, and a Linux distribution. This book is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 for zSeries and it addresses both 31-bit and 64-bit distributions.

In addition, there are a few associated REXX EXECs and Linux scripts to help speed up the process. These tools, which are on the Web, are not IBM products, but they are informally supported. They are available on the Web.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1 – Introduction to z/VM and Linux
• Chapter 2 – Planning
• Chapter 3 – Configuring a desktop machine
• Chapter 4 – Installing and configuring z/VM
• Chapter 5 – Servicing z/VM
• Chapter 6 – Configuring an NFS server
• Chapter 7 – Installing Linux interactively
• Chapter 8 – Installing Linux with kickstart
• Chapter 9 – Cloning Linux
• Chapter 10 – Three virtual servers
• Chapter 11 – Miscellaneous recipes
• Chapter 12 – Monitoring systems
• Chapter 13 – Red Hat Network and up2date

Download it here.

Massimiliano Daneri, of VMBK fame, did it again: this time released a very simple SSH console for the new VMware ESX Server 3.0, which is reachable by any browser.

vmSSHjwc (Virtual Machine SSH Java Web Console) is based on the popular AppGate MindTerm and has been modified to run on the ESX Server 3.0 console.

Download it at source for free.

VMware and Provision Networks arranged a webcast for November 1st:

Provision Networks solutions embrace and extend the Microsoft Terminal Services platforms, delivering resilient and scalable on-demand access for enterprises worldwide. A charter member of the VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure alliance, Provision Networks is at the forefront of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

The Virtual Access Suite (VAS) from Provision Networks is a comprehensive framework that leverages the VMware Virtual Infrastructure to transform the physical desktop computer and its applications into on-demand virtual services. More than a traditional connection broker, VAS empowers a hosted desktop infrastructure with extensive VM management and monitoring capabilities, as well as a complete access and application delivery infrastructure.

Register for it here.

Thanks to Thincomputing.net for the news.

Quoting from the Insystek official announcement:

…INSYSTEK CTO, Richard Carlsen, stated publicly Monday that virtualization management will be an enabled technology to all INSYSTEK solutions.
Initial support for VMware VirtualCenter is expected to be in beta with in the next couple of months.

INSYSTEK Virtualize IT technology provides the ability to effortlessly manage complex virtual infrastructures from the same console used to manage the physical one.
Automatically discover virtual assets, determine resource usage and performance.

This year we can expect the Virtual IT enabled solutions with several features:

• Enterprise management support for thousands of physical and virtual machines
• Discover virtual infrastructure systems and resources
• Create virtual servers and desktops
• Automatically track and manage physical and virtual relationships
• Deploy software applications to your virtual environment
• Run reports for virtual resource configurations and usage
• Audit all virtual machines for resource configurations
• Audit guests for operating system and software configurations

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