Year: 2006

On a 30 minutes public webinar, VMware Solutions Marketing Director, Eric Horshman presented ESX Server 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0.

The webinar reached 1073 attendees (which completely saturated phone lines), demonstrating how high the interest on this products wave is (and as further confirmation Richard Garsthagen reports the VMware TSX event is already full).

As expected one of the most asked question is about support of products on virtual machines, indicating people are planning to migrate several kind of enterprise applications on virtual infrastructure but may be blocked by vendors supporting policies.

Below some meaningful slides from the event (all of them are avaiable in several VMworld 2005 presentations):

Today’s blade servers are not directly related to virtualization but are often considered since the concept involves several kind of consolidation (physical, logical, partitioning, etc.).

Quoting from SearchDataCenter.com:

Blade servers, which are deemed the next big thing in hardware, are also a big energy drain in an enterprise, according to a recent study that looks at the latest advances in server technology.

The results of the study by TheInfoPro (TIP) Inc., a New York research firm, reveal that these new server technologies have not provided heating and cooling advantages. TIP recently released the second half of a server study it conducted in 2005. The research examined the concerns of 133 server professionals.
…
Despite their intense heat production, the slim servers are indeed a priority for IT managers. According to TIP’s survey, 62% of the respondents said they will spend more money on blade servers in the next year.

Gill said blade vendors are realizing that excess power is a problem in terms of energy efficiency, and there is an initiative among them to create blades that are more energy-efficient. A number of groups have suggested that vendors should develop a standard for measuring energy efficiency and then develop technology accordingly. He also noted that virtualization technology would alleviate some problems with power efficiency and consolidation…

Read the whole article at source.

Following the already annonced virtualization strategy Red Hat is going to offer a dedicated version of Red Hat Enteprise Linux just for Xen virtualization.

Quoting from Computer Business Review Online:

RHEL is currently available in ES, AS and WS versions, as well as the Red Hat Desktop, and the company’s president of engineering and chief technology officer, Brian Stevens, said it will likely add another version that will enable unlimited use as a virtualized operating system.

“Enterprise Linux 5.0 should allow unlimited use,” he said. “It will very likely be a different profile. It’s very likely that there’ll be a virtualization profile that will allow pervasive and unlimited use. Sitting beside ES and AS it’s a new package, and it’s a new package you don’t have to track.”
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Red Hat’s approach to the problem is a little different from rival Novell Inc, which is also introducing support for Xen 3.0 in its SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. Novell has stated that if SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is used as the Xen host, any number of SLES instances can run as a guest on that server for the price of a single host.

Read the whole article at source.

Software Virtualization Solution 2.0, announced this month, is under great attention for the free personal edition released by Altiris.

Both lifehacker and PC Magazine briefly reviewed it.

Quoting from PC Magazine review:

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Anybody can use Altiris Software Virtualization Solution 2.0 to put a safety wrapper around software installations and to package installations for import on other computers. Power users can do quite a bit more by manipulating advanced properties and using the commandline interface. Give SVS a try! Just remember that if you later uninstall it, you’ll have to reinstall any virtualized applications — at present there’s no way to merge them into the underlying base system.

In my insight Microsoft, the big absentee of virtualization I evaluated several scenario related to annonced Windows Vista delay.

One of them contemplated the chance of massive delay of Windows codename Longhorn Server and subsequently the expected Windows Hypervisor (codename Viridian), leaving Microsoft customers with no new virtualization technologies for another 2-3 years.

Now ZDNet reports the expected Service Pack 1 for Virtual Server 2005 R2 is officially shifted to 2007.
This almost confirm the above scenario.

Microsoft was expected to introduce within this Service Pack support for AMD/Intel virtualization extensions and virtual machines hot backup, but I would expect a features re-plan, to fill the technological gap that will exist with VMware products.
I would also expect a name change, maybe introducing the brand new concept of Released 3 (R3).

Meanwhile, trying to limit damage, Microsoft is expected to release actual Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free next week.

Quoting from the SWsoft official announcement:

SWsoft, the leading provider of operating system virtualization and automation, today announced former VMware employee and 15-year IT veteran Darren Harvey has joined as Director of Enterprise Channel Sales in North America.
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“Darren is a significant addition to our leadership team, with his intimate knowledge of the virtualization market and strategic North American-channel and OEM relationships. His experience, coupled with our superior technology and roadmap, positions SWsoft for continued market share and corporate growth in 2006 and beyond,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO, SWsoft…

Isn’t strange VMware is loosing such a key person right now, when they are totally dominating the market?

Quoting from the rPath official announcement:

rPath, provider of the first platform for creating and maintaining Linux software appliances, today announced that it will offer additional cash awards to winners of the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge who use its rBuilder Online to build their virtual appliance entry.

In addition to VMware’s prize offerings, rPath will offer winning entries that use rBuilder Online the following awards:

• First Prize – $10,000
• Second Prize – $ 5,000
• Third Prize – $ 5,000
• Five Best of Category Prizes – $ 1,000 each

Contest entries must be submitted by May 26, 2006 and winners will be announced in August. For more information regarding VMware’s Ultimate Appliance Challenge and complete rules for the additional rBuilder Online awards, please visit www.rpath.com/vmware.

I tried rBuilder Online and found it very innovative. I covered it in a previous post.

Since the release of VMware Player and the Community Virtual Machines (which now morphed in Virtual Appliances) project the whole community is embracing the concept so deeply that new optimizations and businesses are rising.
This process is (and will for many months) further accelerated by the launch of the VMware Challenge.

A good example is the new site Virtual Appliances, not endorsed by VMware in any way, committed to produce very small footprints virtual machine assolving specific tasks.

It’s actually offering for free a a beta virtual appliance of 15Mb doing web server, but I bet it will soon provide a complete commercial offer.
Who will come next?

Thanks to OSNews for the news.

Several reliable sources reported me Microsoft is expected to released Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition for free during next week, possibly on Monday.

If true with this move Microsoft will try to embank actual VMware strategy, based on VMware Player, upcoming Server and virtual appliances.

Just yesterday I wrote how Microsoft is actually the big absentee of virtualization market. I doubt this move will help much.

Note: this information didn’t come from any Microsoft channel and although I’m a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) I was completely ignoring the move.

Quoting from the Softricity official announcement:

Softricity, the on-demand application virtualization company, today announced the launch of the Softricity User Group program. The program is intended to help the company’s more than 500 customers share expertise and knowledge about Softricity application virtualization and on-demand streaming technologies with other users in their region.

Global Softricity customers who attend the user groups will be able to:

• Learn best practices in implementation, administration and use of Softricity products
• Obtain answers, advice, tips and suggestions from experts
• Gain access to a network of peers for collaboration and information exchange
• Receive information about new and upcoming Softricity products
• Participate in beta programs
• Influence the direction of Softricity future products
• Enhance skill sets with technical content created for users by users