Year: 2007

Quoting from TechWorld:

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Expect an API interface between VMware and virtualised storage resource providers for automated and dynamic storage provisioning.

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This was backed up by EqualLogic EMEA VP John Joseph saying: “Stay tuned” when asked if this meant an automated interface between VMware’s virtual infrastructure and EqualLogic PS arrays such that a virtual server could be provisioned automatically with a volume of storage from an EqualLogic iSCSI storage pool.

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This means that VMware will have an API through which storage provisioning commands can be issued and through which storage status messages can be delivered by a storage resource to VMware, such as ‘I’m getting full up.’…

Read the whole article at source.

Microsoft seems to work in the same direction, working with QLogic to integrate N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) in upcoming System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

It was a well-known information Microsoft will deliver its new virtualization platform, Windows Server Virtualization (WSV or codename Viridian), 180 days after Windows Server 2008 (formerly codename Longhorn) RTM. It was also known the new hypervisor will appear as new server role among ones available in the Server Core edition of Windows, a thin version of the operating system with just kernel and few subsystems on top (and GUI will not be one of them).

What was unknown is the delivery method to be used to distribute Vidirian inside Windows Server 2008. At WinHEC 2007 Microsoft clarified the new hypervisor will come through Windows Update, as reported by Bink.nu.

Quoting from SearchServerVirtualization:

Microsoft’s first program to spur creation of Virtual Hard Disk-based appliances is going well, but partners want more out of this good thing. Those attending WinHEC today asked for a number of improvements, including fewer Windows distribution restrictions, VHD (virtual hard disk) format updates and more.

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Panelists also clamored for the ability to distribute mountable VHDs. Microsoft’s Neil said Windows Server Virtualization (“Viridian”) includes that feature, and that the company would consider adding in that capability to its current Virtual Server product. “I think we should definitely do that,” he said.

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One way to make VHDs more useful, panelists said, would be to add metadata to the VHD that described its operating system, resource and application requirements. That, in turn, would make virtual appliances easier to update and catalog.

Another useful innovation would be to integrate the VHD format into software development environments, said Dave McCrory, CTO at Inovawave, a virtual machine performance optimization firm that distributes VHDs of virtual appliances running with or without its software, for comparison purposes.

…Microsoft is working out VHD’s position vis à vis other image formats such as the Composite UI Application Block (CAB) and Windows Imaging (WIM), a packaging format that includes compression, but unlike VHD, cannot be executed.

Look for these issues to be resolved in a second version of VHD to ship in the Longhorn timeframe.

Read the whole article at source.

Metadata addition adn update capabilities for virtual hard drives are not new needs in the virtualization industry: Enomaly pioneered both concepts with its VMcasting technology.

Quoting from the Virtual Bridges official announcement:

Virtual Bridges, a provider of enterprise and SMB solutions using virtualization for business, announced today the release and immediate availability of Win4Solaris Pro Desktop and Win4Solaris Virtual Desktop Server (VDS).

Win4Solaris Pro Desktop runs as an application on x86 systems with the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), allowing users to run Windows applications and desktops on such systems with seamless ease…

Virtual Bridges is leveraging QEMU virtualization platform in all its offering, from Win4Lin o Win4BSD, and this first release for Solaris introduces some interesting features like:

• cut and paste between Solaris 10 and Windows
• support for full desktop mode or floating application mode
• resumable sessions
• headless start for instant user access
• local printing support

Win4Solaris Pro Desktop and Virtual Desktop Server are available immediately, starting for $149.99.

Given the remarkable acceleration Sun had on Solaris 10 adoption thanks to new licensing, and lack of hardware virtualization solutions for this unix platform (Solaris Containers are an OS virtualization technology), Virtual Bridges may have found the most profitable niche in the virtualization market today.

Quoting from Reuters:

Computer data storage company EMC Corp. does not plan to reduce its stake in its VMWare subsidiary for at least two years after an upcoming initial public offering, Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said on Wednesday.

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EMC’s April filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the IPO would raise up to $100 million…

Read the whole article at source.

Dell published a new 14-pages whitepaper detailing setup and performances of VMware VMotion and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) on PowerEdge 2950 and 1955 Servers:

Servers are increasing in performance at an exponential rate and customers are discovering that they are able to run many applications on a single server through the use of virtualization. This means that customers run the risk of multiple virtual server downtime if a single physical server goes down.

To mitigate this risk, it makes sense to use industry standard based Dell PowerEdge servers running VMware Infrastructure 3 to create a virtualization farm or virtualization cluster to host these virtual servers and the applications running on them. This solution provides server virtualization with load-balancing and high availability features that make it possible to manage a large number of
virtual systems across a cluster and also provide a mechanism to make the applications running on these virtual machines highly available in the case of a physical server failure…

Read the whole whitepaper at source

Thanks to VMTN for the news.

XenSource and Cassatt arranged a new webcast for June 6th, to introduce datacenter automation capabilities virtualization can offer:

What you will learn:

• How virtualization prevents over-provisioning resources, offering clear, easily quantified economic advantages
• How service-level automation uses shared resource pools to assign and re-assign resources to applications based on the real-time performance of the services they support
• How a combined virtualization and automation solution can maximize flexibility while minimizing the resource expenses for both the software and hardware

Register for it here.

TechWorld reports EMC silently acquired Indigo Stone (just like VMware did with Propero), a UK firm focused on hardware agnostic backup solutions.

This acquisition may be irrelevant for VMware business: in this years EMC added to its portfolio at least a couple of backup solution (NetWorker, obtained by Legato acquisition, and Retrospect, obtained by Dantz acquisition) without reaching any kind of serious integration with subsidiary virtualization plaforms. But a statement from Todd Cadley, PR Manager at EMC, perspects a new opportunity:

Indigo Stone is complimentary today to Avamar, NetWorker and VMware. HomeBase – the product from Indigo Stone – provides profiling and protection for server system state, while Avamar and NetWorker provide protection for user and application data. In VMware environments, Indigo Stone provides server recovery from physical to virtual and from virtual to physical.

Read the whole article at source.

In August 2006 SWsoft announced next version of Virtuozzo, its OS virtualization solution, will provide management tools also for other virtualization platforms, including VMware, Xen and Microsoft ones.

Today Ilya Baimetov, Director of Technology at SWsoft, in a new post on its corporate blog announced this support will include also upcoming Microsoft hypervisor: Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian).

There are several reasons explaining why his move, announced so early, makes perfectly sense:

• SWsoft recently tightened its relationship with Microsoft, signing a support agreement so to cover its customers when running Virtuozzo for Windows.
• SWsoft wants to enter server virtualization market with its subsidiary Parallels, which is expected to launch a couple of server products this summer. To be able to compete with VMware these new products will have to provide serious enterprise management tools, and it’s relatively easier and less expensive developing a multi-platform one rather than two.
• Server virtualization is slowly becoming a free commodity. Profit for virtualization vendors will come by management tools only within few years. Developing one able to support all existing hypervisor on the marke seems a good investment at this moment.

Quoting from the QLogic official announcement:

QLogic Corp., the leader in Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), stackable switches and blade server switches, today announced that it is working with Microsoft to integrate N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) technology with Microsoft’s virtualization management solution, System Center Virtual Machine Manager. The result is that Virtual Machine Manager, part of the Microsoft System Center management suite, will have the capability to create and provision virtual SANblade HBA ports across multiple physical servers.

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The Microsoft System Center VMM tool initiates systems calls to the HBA to create, delete, modify and query virtual ports. Storage administrators can create virtual HBA ports within multiple zones and assign them to virtual machines (VMs) for migrations, without having to reconfigure any zoning or LUN masking settings.

The solution will be available to customers during the second half of 2007…