Year: 2006

Let’s Talk Computers published an interview with Acronis Marketing Director, Stephen Lawton, about backup and recovery strategies in virtual infrastructures.

Read the complete transcript here. Listen to the interview in RealAudio or Windows Media format.

Ben Armstrong published a nice script to verify at host level how large Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 virtual disks are and how much space they already took:

‘Connect to Virtual Server
Set virtualServer = CreateObject(“VirtualServer.Application”)

‘Create a VHD object with the .VHD file specified on the command line
Set aVirtualHardDisk = virtualServer.GetHardDisk(WScript.Arguments(0))

GuestSize = clng(cdbl(aVirtualHardDisk.SizeInGuest) / 1048576)
HostSize = clng(cdbl(aVirtualHardDisk.SizeOnHost) / 1048576)

‘Display information about the disk size
wscript.echo “The virtual hard disk, ” & WScript.Arguments(0) & ” is “&_
GuestSize & ” MB to the virtual machine. It is using ” & _
HostSize & ” MB space on the host operating system”

Be sure to check the original post for updates and comments.

In an interview with VMBlog Benjamin Rudolph, Marketing Manager at Parallels, redefined dates for availability of company’s enteprise products:

…
We’re going to be releasing our Parallels Server and Parallels Enterprise Server products in beta later this year, with an intended GA launch in early 2007.

Parallels Server is going to be a powerful, out of the box server virtualization product that is designed to give growing companies access to the same virtualization technologies that the “big boys” are using, at a price that won’t cripple their budget.

Parallels Enterprise Server is a high-end server virtualization product that is designed for larger companies with significant server resources. This product will include a number of our productivity enhancing management tools and offer several high-end features like dynamic load balancing and automatic fail-over protection. They’re going to be a great compliment to the client-side virtualization solutions that we have now.

Read the whole interview at source.

In an older interview with virtualization.info, Rudolph announced Server to available for mid year and Enterprise Server for late 2006.

I have some difficulties understanding which product will compete with Parallels Server, since both VMware and Microsoft offers Server 1.0 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free.
It cannot be VMware ESX Server, the only virtualization server solution with a retail price, since it’s expected to be addressed by Parallels Enterprise Server.

The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.

SearchServerVirtualization wrote an interesting article about thin computing, now more interesting with VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) initiative and its partners, and application virtualization approaches.

The most interesting part pushes the idea application virtualization solutions could be more appreciated than thin clients and could grab existing market quotes:

…
In the long run, application virtualization may make a much deeper impression on the desktop than thin clients because it doesn’t require the use of proprietary hardware.
Like application virtualization today, thin computing of yore had as a mantra to “make the client system more flexible and secure,” said Michael Dortch, principal business analyst and IT infrastructure management practice leader at the Robert Frances Group Inc. in Westport, Conn. “But the way to do it was never to take away existing hardware and replace it with something far less functional – that was never going to fly.”

By using on the same desktop PC hardware that users have come to know and love – or at least tolerate, said Dortch, “[app virtualization] takes today’s thick client and instead of trying to make it thin, makes it more fit and agile.”

Read the whole article at source.

Altiris released the first hotfix for its application virtualization product, Software Virtualization Solution (SVS) 2.0, already reached the Service Pack 1 status.

The hotfix only solves 7 bugs.

Read the release notes here. Download it here.

After Oracle critics to VMware and Xen folks about the efforts they put so far in finding a common agreed approach for hypervisor standardization, both VMware and XenSource wanted to reply.

VMware did it through the Vice President of Technology Development, Steve Herrod.

XenSource did it through a podcast with ZDNet, where the company CTO, Simon Crosby, suggested Oracle’s comments are nonsense.

Listen the podcast at source.

Surgient arranged a new webcast for August 8th, this time focusing on virtualization tips & tricks:

Attendees will learn:

• Practical tips for planning, deploying and optimizing virtual infrastructure
• Best practices for scaling virtual infrastructure environments
• Emerging uses of virtualization to support pre- and post-production needs

Register for it here.

Quoting from InfoWorld:

VMWare will be launching a product on the opening day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The specific product is a secret, but the folks at VMWare were mightily torqued by my Parallels Desktop review’s unchallenged reference to Parallels’ claim of a hypervisor approach.
That’s a debate for another day; probably tomorrow in a phone call with VMWare. But VMWare’s efforts to make sure I come to WWDC with a firm understanding of what a hypervisor is and is not takes some of the mystery out of the Monday announcement…

Read the whole article at source.

The announcement of VMware Workstation (and Player), and possibly the new Server, at WWDC is probable: VMware disclosed was working on products for Intel-based Mac OS X since April.

During last days VMware and Xen have been under fire for how they conducted works to create a standard hypervisor interface for Linux kernel.

At Ottawa Linux Symposium VMware approach has not mentioned among viable solutions and Oracle lamented both companies have been too slow in reaching an agreement on how to proceed.

VMware Vice President of Technology Development, Steve Herrod, now speaks from its corporate blog, to answer critics and definitively clarify company position about Xen and standardization efforts:

Despite the headlines, the various groups focusing on Linux paravirtualization are actually working together well.
…
First and foremost, some have implied VMware is trying to slow down virtualization competition in the Linux space. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
…
The motivation for proposing VMI as an alternate approach to Linux paravirtualization was to help ensure that Linux gets a sustainable, customer- and ISV-friendly set of interfaces. We think this is in the best long-term interest of the community. Obviously we’re also quite interested in making sure that Linux’s paravirtualization implementation is independent of any specific hypervisor implementation allowing VMware, Xen, and others to compete in this space.
…
Overall, we believe the VMI-Linux is an excellent approach, but it’s more important that the community as a whole quickly converges on an interface that maintains the main principles of the transparent paravirtualization approach. On this note, VMware, IBM, XenSource, and others are actively cooperating on a merged approach to kernel integration using an approach called “paravirt-ops”.
…
In the end, paravirt-ops may or may not end up being very similar to today’s VMI-Linux approach. Regardless, we remain committed to working with the community to come up with a publicly designed Linux interface that works well for both existing and future hypervisors.

Read the whole article at source.

While hypervisors standardization and inclusion in Linux kernel are progressing very slowly, OpenVZ finds its way in one of most trustworthy distribution: Debian.

Quoting from the OpenVZ official announcement:

The OpenVZ project today announced its operating system-level server virtualization software technology is incorporated into Debian GNU/Linux giving users full access to OpenVZ software, which helps increase server utilization rates.

At the same time, the OpenVZ project revised licensing terms for its user-level utilities under the GNU GPL license to comply with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Also, OpenVZ software now conforms with the LSB/FHS (Linux Standard Base/File Hierarchy Standard)…

Check OpenVZ kernel patches here.