Year: 2006

Ecora, US company known for compliancy automation and change management products, just started the beta program of its Enterprise Auditor for VMware ESX Server:

Auditor for VMware is powerful, configuration reporting and change management software. It automates the collection and detailed reporting of critical VMware configuration settings for cost-effectively sustain regulatory compliance, control changes, and improve security.

Download it here.

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

CRN published this news:

VMware plans to announce imminent availability of its ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter 2 platform, along with a new per-user pricing model during the first week of June, sources said.
…
Sources close to the Palo Alto, Calif., virtualization giant said VMware plans to offer aggressive pricing on its ESX Server 3 and launch a new per-user pricing model, in part to monetize its increasingly popular enterprise hosted desktop model.

They said VMware plans to disclose pricing to premier partners over the next two weeks…

The mentioned pricing disclosure to partners already happened as I learned from anonymous source.

The article continues with more details:

…VMware’s price per desktop is expected to be about $200 per user.
…
VMware also is expected to announce a price cut for ESX Server 3, but it may not reduce overall costs for the combined platform since VirtualCenter 2’s advanced and sought-after services, Distributed Availability Service and Distributed Resource Scheduling, will be add-ons and priced separately from the overall platform price, sources said…

Read the whole article at source.

A short note on the Altiris community blog informs the Software Virtualization Solution (SVS) 2.0 Service Pack 1 beta program has started.

Just 2 new features are included:

• Support for WISE Package Studio (already anticipated in early May)
• OnEvent actions support

Read the whole Release Notes and download it here.

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

Anthony Liguori posted an interesting note about instructions that impact on virtualization performances:

One surprising thing about x86 virtualization is that while there is a small number of instructions that require special effort (around 17 depending on what you count), there are an even smaller number that make 95% of all the calls to these instructions.

These four instructions are cli, sti, pushf, popf (which probably isn’t all that surprising). An interesting result of this is that you only really have to focus on making these instructions fast…

Quoting from CRN:

Microsoft is in talks to buy application virtualization software vendor Softricity of Boston, CRN has learned.
…
The deal with Softricity — which hit the rumor mill earlier this week — is expected to be finished before the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle next week. Sources say Microsoft at WinHEC also will unveil Virtual DLL, a feature for Windows Vista developed in conjunction with Softricity.

The feature will not enable full application virtualization offered by Softricity’s SoftGid platform but it will allow users to virtualize application registries and “end DLL hell once and for all,” one source said…

Read the whole article at source.

Parallels is approaching final mission of being the first in bringing desktop virtualization to Apple Mac OS X for Intel architetures.

The new build, labeled release candidate, sports a lot of bug fixes, a new look & feel and an uninstaller, and a new name, moving from Parallels Workstation to Parallels Desktop.

I personally believe this is a good move since the word Workstation in virtualization is sinonimous of VMware, and could damage Parallels image instead of powering it.

Download it here.

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

Parallels expect to ship the final product next month.

Quoting from LinuxDevices:

Hypervisor specialist Trango Systems has joined the OMTP (Open Mobile Terminal Platform), in order to contribute to Trusted Processors and Trusted Environment specifications.
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Trango believes mobile phones are increasingly in need of advanced security capabilities, given rapidly increasing capabilities that include music, movie, and game downloads, as well as broadcast media reception. It says its Trango hypervisor technology can help protect service providers and end-users from “trojans, viruses, and other malicious attacks.”…

Read the whole article at source.

TechNewsWorld interviewed Marty Seyer, Senior Vice President at AMD about new trends in semiconductors market:

The semiconductor market is thriving again — and the future looks bright. Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled US$235 billion in 2005, a 6.9 percent increase from 2004, according to Gartner Group data. It was the first time the semiconductor industry surpassed its record-setting year in 2000 when revenue reached $223 billion.
…
TNW: What big developments are on the horizon?

Seyer: Virtualization is going to be big in 2006. We’re going to hear a lot about it … we already are hearing a lot about it. Virtualization is going to be broadly analyzed and adopted in 2006, but the ramp is 2007-2008 for real virtualization. So on one hand, it’s hot…

Read the whole interview at source.

Quoting from the IBM official announcement:

IBM today announced it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Rembo Technology, a privately held software company based in Geneva, Switzerland. Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2006.

Rembo is a leading provider of software that helps organizations automatically install or upgrade operating systems on thousands of servers, laptops and desktop computers simultaneously, which eliminates the need for IT specialists to spend days or weeks installing software manually on each physical or virtualized computer.
…
Rembo will also extend IBM’s virtualization capabilities, covering software, hardware and services. Virtualization helps make it simpler and less expensive for companies to integrate and improve the performance of hardware, software, storage and networks in open and heterogeneous environments. It enables governments, banks, retailers and other organizations to view and manage many virtual IT resources as one, and dynamically change them as needed.

Rich Lechner, vice president, virtualization, IBM, said, “Adding Rembo to the IBM Virtualization Engine portfolio will help improve the economics of a virtualized infrastructure. Rembo’s automated management tools will further enhance IBM solutions and enable clients to reduce management costs, increase resiliency and enhance security in heterogeneous, distributed environments.”…

Quoting from the PHD Technologies official announcement:

PHD Technologies, Inc. , today officially announced the release of esXpress 2.2 for VMware ESX Server.

By combining its revolutionary Intelligent Delta Technology with 256-bit encryption, esXpress 2.2 brings a new level of security, speed, and dependability to the VMware backup industry. And esXpress with encryption is the only virtualization-specific backup product which helps companies in achieving compliance with regulations defined by SOX, HIPAA,FDA, SEC, etc.
…
esXpress is the only backup solution designed specifically for the VMware ESX virtual infrastructure and the only one capable of differential backups. Using Intelligent Delta Technology, esXpress is on average 70+% faster than the competitors offerings. Often backup speeds can exceed 165GB/hour per ESX host. And now it’s the only secure solution with encryption options such as AES, 3DES, Blowfish and others.

Download it here.

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