Virtual machines, containers, functions. Market knowledge for IT decision makers since 2003
Quoting from the SWsoft official announcement:
SWsoft today announced it has joined the HP ProLiant Partner program – bringing together award-winning SWsoft Virtuozzo server virtualization software and HP ProLiant servers to help optimize customers’ IT infrastructures.
The two companies have validated Virtuozzo operating system (OS) virtualization software running on HP ProLiant servers.
After announcing it before IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy last year, University of Michigan and Microsoft Research published its research paper about an experimental rootkit for virtualization platforms called SubVirt:
…
We evaluate a new type of malicious software that gains qualitatively more control over a system. This new type of malware, which we call a virtual-machine based rootkit (VMBR), installs a virtual-machine monitor underneath an existing operating system and hoists the original operating system into a virtual machine.
Virtual-machine based rootkits are hard to detect and remove because their state cannot be accessed by software running in the target system. Further, VMBRs support general-purpose malicious services by allowing such services to run in a separate operating system that is protected from the target system. We evaluate this new threat by implementing two proof-of-concept VMBRs. We use our proof-of-concept VMBRs to subvert Windows XP and Linux target systems, and we implement four example malicious services using the VMBR platform. Last, we use what we learn from our proof-of-concept VMBRs to explore ways to defend against this new threat. We discuss possible ways to detect and prevent VMBRs, and we implement a defense strategy suitable for protecting systems against this threat…
Read the whole paper at source.
This study extends discussion started with much popular Blue Pill technique, which some notable virtualization experts consider just a speculation.
RapidApp consulting firm published a new book (177 pages) about upgrading from VMware ESX Server 2.x to new VMware Infrastructure 3.
Table of Contents
Preview and buy it here.
This book has been published as with indipendent service Lulu so it doesn’t appear on Amazon and it’s not included in virtualization.info Bookstore.
Vincent Vlieghe published an interesting article about how to setup a semi-automated patching system for VMware ESX Server.
At the same time he leaks the information VMware is preparing better patching capabilities for upcoming ESX Server 3.1 and VirtualCenter 2.1.
Read it here.
From a security point of view it’s worth to remember that blind patching is strongly discouraged in production systems (even with official methods), more than ever if we are talking about a mission critical environment like a virtual one.
When budget allows it, testing new patches on lab environments is always the best solution. This imply a complex and expensive infrastructure replicating the production one, even if virtualization mitigates issues in building it.
The application virtualization startup Thinstall is looking for a talended Windows developer willing to work in San Francisco, CA [US].
If you are looking for a new job in the emerging application virtualization market you should take a look.
And by the way: the virtualization.info Job Board has been fully revamped thanks to SimplyHired aggregation engine.
If you are looking for new virtualization professionals in your company, you should take a look as well.
After announcing its efforts in October 2006, Sun is preparing to really deliver its new virtualization technology for SPARC processors called Logical Domains (LDom).
On Sun official website is in fact available Logical Domains Manage 1.0 Early Access (corresponding to Release Candidate 3).
Logical Domains are a different approach to virtualization than Solaris Containers introduced with Solaris 10: they are partitions handled directly by Sun T1 UltraSPARC CPUs through the sun4v hypervisor, with a current limitation to maximum 32 fully isolated domains (on 8-cores CPU) depending on a so-called control domain.
Sun plans to release this technology for free to its customers even if they will have to pay for a support contract.
Enroll the beta program here.
At the same time Sun published a 95-pages introductory guide on this new technology, Understanding and Deploying Logical Domains, which is worth to read.
Thanks to Tony Kay for the news.
In a Microsoft official email between Ben Waldman and Bill Gates (dated June 27, 1997) about destiny of Mac Office 2007 circulating these days on the web, a postscript from Waldman reveals Gates early interest in Connectix and possibly first report he had about virtualization:
P.S.: I owe you some info on connectix virtual PC – short answer is that it’s a cool product that emulates hardware (Trition chip set, IDE controller, Ethernet card, soundblaster, etc.) rather than Windows (like SoftWindows does), and so can run any OS – Win95, NT, Linux,DOS, etc. They are OEM-ing Win95 and DOS from us; we get money for every copy sold. I know the people there very well, and could easily arrange a demo for you. I also have a copy of the product they sent me, and could show it to you. Performance seems adequate on high-end Macs.
Watch a scan of original document here.
Dennis Damen and Rodney Medina, Senior Consultants at Login Consultants, have developed a free tool for converting application setups in Microsoft SoftGrid sequences.
Download it here.
In its effort to push communities for advent of Windows hypervisor (codename Viridian) Microsoft opened a new web forum where company representatives (including General Manager for VIrtualization Strategy Mike Neil) are answering questions.
Check it here.
It will be interesting see if this place will be as liberal as VMware VMTN Forums, where customers can freely talk about competitors (including Microsoft) since ever.
Thanks to Andrew Dugdell for the news.
VMware methodically continues to apply its aggressive strategy at 360 degrees and, after attacking Microsoft on Windows licensing, it’s now directly challenging other OS vendors.
Quoting from TechWorld:
Operating systems vendors who jump on the bandwagon have missed the point, according to VMware’s president, Diane Greene.
…
Vendors including Microsoft and Red Hat, who are integrating virtualisation functionality into their operating systems, are sacrificing the value proposition of a hypervisor independent of the operating system, she said at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco, yesterday.
…
“Traditionally, the operating system manages the hardware and manages the application. Once you virtualise with a hypervisor, that is now what is managing the hardware, not the OS,” Greene said. “Now the operating system is just managing the application. So certainly Windows and Red Hat are moving to integrate virtualisation into their OS, but part of the value proposition seems to be lost when you do that.”…
Read the whole article at source.
With these statements, which express a known position anyway, VMware is indirectly hitting the Linux community as well, since the new KVM virtualization project appears as a kernel module and could put back Linux in key position on the virtualization stack.