Year: 2007

Quoting from the Thinstall official announcement:

Thinstall, a leading Application Virtualization Platform Solution for .NET and Windows/Vista environments, and Provision Networks, developers of the Virtual Access Suite (VAS), the market-leading desktop and presentation virtualization solution, today announced an OEM partnership. Provision Networks has licensed the Thinstall application virtualization technology delivering to clients a zero-footprint VAS client, enabling users to access their virtual desktops and applications from any PC without client installation or administrative privileges. Enterprise clients also have the ability to leverage employee-owned PCs without relying on local Java support or client installations…

This is an interesting move. While it’s expected a company focused on hosted desktop (aka VDI) market partners with a hardware virtualization vendor like VMware, Microsoft, etc., it’s less common to see a partnership with an application virtualization vendor like Thinstall.

In this case Provision Networks is taking most benefits from the deal, reaching a new degree of mobility for its solution.

On the other side Thinstall is proving its value, despite upcoming tough competition with Microsoft (after Softricity acquisition) and Citrix (after Ardence acquisition), using OEM partnerships formula. In March 2007 Thinstall achieved a similar agreement with LANDesk.

Quoting from the Surgient official announcement:

Surgient, the leader in Virtual Lab Management Applications for software testing, training and evaluation , today announced the appointment of Tim Lucas to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer. Formerly Surgient’s Chief Financial Officer, Lucas brings more than 18 years of operating, financial and professional services leadership experience and a strong commitment to customer success to the CEO position. Lucas replaces former Surgient CEO Bill Daniel, who remains with the company in an advisory role.

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Prior to joining Surgient as CFO, Lucas held key executive roles throughout the technology industry which broadened the scope of his experience as a management executive. He was director of finance for the fastest growing business unit of SAS Institute, Inc., the largest private software company in the world. In this role Lucas was the lead financial executive responsible for a business with revenues in excess of $200 million dollars per year. Lucas also served as Vice President of Consulting and Senior Director of Operations at Red Hat, Inc., where he reorganized the consulting practice and founded the company’s global professional services practice, changing the delivery approach from technology-centric to one focused on client needs.

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Prior to Red Hat, Lucas was the Vice President and CFO of Akopia, Inc., where he managed finance and operations for the provider of open source e-commerce software and services from the start-up phase through a period of rapid growth, leading to its acquisition by Red Hat. Lucas also brings experience in leading a company through an initial public offering, as he successfully did for Petroglyph Energy…

Beside launch of its new commercial solution, Veeam Configurator, russian startup Veeam also launches a free tool called EsxDiag.

It’s a script able to perform some post-installation checks on any VMware ESX Server host, like verifying network parameters or NTP configuration analysis, and services with failed startup.

Download it here.

Russian startup Veeam continues its endless effort in providing utility solutions for VMware customers, launching a new tool: Veeam Configurator 1.0

This new product is a Microsoft Windows GUI able to interact with VMware VirtualCenter and provide access to ESX Server command line tools, without having to handle with their syntax. At the same time Veeam Configurator allows to issue same command line operation on several ESX Servers at the same time.

Last but not least it simplifies execution of most used commands with pre-configured executions.

Veeam Configurator 1.0 is available immediately, with North American pricing starting at $120 USD per CPU.

Download a trial here.

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

Quoting from the Vizioncore official announcement:

Vizioncore Inc., a leading provider of strategic software solutions for VMware Infrastructure environments, today announced delivery of Virtual Disaster Recovery for SMB (VDR for SMB), an enterprise-class and cost-effective disaster recovery product bundle for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). VDR for SMB is targeted at customers with between five and 50 physical servers who are looking to experience the benefits of virtualization and disaster recovery for the first time.

VDR for SMB is a bundled offering provided by Vizioncore’s channel partners that includes VMware Infrastructure 3 Starter Edition and Vizioncore esxEssentials, which includes modules for hot backup and recovery, replication and virtual machine tuning and performance…

While Vizioncore is simplifying its technology adoption for small companies, it seems it’s complicating first approach for community, silently removing its free bundle esxBasics.

esxBasics used to provide scaled down, free of charge, versions of esxRanger and esxCharter since April 2006, but now solutions is no more linked on company website.

Update: Vizioncore contacted virtualization.info to grant its commitment to community is still full. esxBasics has been removed from website just because existing version is not compatible with VMware Infrastructure 3.

Vizioncore esxBasics for VI3 will be back Q4 2007.

After hiring former Amazon executive as new CFO, VMware makes another big step before launching its Initial Public Offering: Intel involvement.

Quoting from the official announcement:

VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for virtualization solutions today announced that Intel Corporation, through its global investment arm, Intel Capital has agreed to become an investor in VMware.

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Intel Capital will invest $218.5 million in VMware’s Class A common stock subject to customary regulatory and other closing conditions including Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) review. At the completion of VMware’s planned initial public offering and upon closing of the investment, Intel will own approximately 2.5 percent of VMware’s total outstanding common stock (less than one percent of the combined voting power of VMware’s outstanding common stock). Pursuant to the investment, an Intel executive is expected to be appointed to the VMware Board of Directors…

Meanwhile Forbes is reporting VMware could raise up to $741.4M from its IPO.

After just one week since Release Candidate availability, VMware today releases a new minor update of its newest product: Lab Manager.

In this new release (build 405) Lab Manager provides some interesting features like:

• Support for ESX Server 3.0.2 (expected for release in the near timeframe)
• Support for 64-bit guest operating systems
• Support for virtual SMP
• Support for NFS as virtual machines storage

Download a trial here.

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

Almost in same period both Virtual Iron and XenSource started their beta programs for upcoming version 4.0 of their virtualization hypervisors.

While Virtual Iron announced pre-opening of Virtual Iron 4.0 beta on July 1st, XenSource is doing so today, detailing some features expected in XenEnterprise 4.0 (and other Xen-based solutions company is offering today):

• Pooled server and storage resources with XenMotion live relocation, enabling dynamic resource management
• Open management integration via the new XenAPI for investment protection for software, skills and processes
• The new XenCenter virtualization management console, delivering more powerful and unified configuration and administration

Registration form and beta bits are available today here.

As expected Microsoft released a minor update for its application virtualization solution SoftGrid, reaching version 4.2.

This new release only updates client component of SoftGrid infrastructure, introducing support for Windows Vista.

No difference has been introduced in server component (called Virtual Application Server) or in licensing model (SoftGrid is still released inside Microsoft Desktop Optimization for Software Assurance customers).

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

Among sessions available in VMworld 2007 one is particularly interesting because reveals plans to release (or at least announce) a major release of a very popular product: VMware Server 2.0

The session’s description, called VMware Server 2.0: The Onramp to VMware Infrastructure, also discloses some of upcoming features:

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This session describes the architectural evolution of VMware Server and shows how the features of Server 1.0, such as datastore and network management, translate to the corresponding VI features of Server 2.0. This session also provides an overview of the new capabilities of Server 2.0: new platform functionality, VI and VIX APIs for scripting and integration, and an enhanced version of the VI Web Access user interface.