Year: 2008

Recently ZDNet published a skirmish of words between Ian Pratt, Xen founder and chief architect, and Benny Schnaider, CEO of Qumranet (supporting the development of KVM), about the destiny of Xen and the right to be called hypervisor of KVM.

While the debate itself is not too much interesting, one of the reactions that it provoked is much more.

Anthony Liguori, Software Engineer at Linux Technology Center, contributor for both Xen and KVM ( and of Debunking Blue Pill Myth fame), used his personal blog to provide some interesting perspectives of why KVM was preferred over Xen for the integration in the Linux kernel:

…

Xen is a hypervisor that is based on the Nemesis microkernel. Linux distributions ship Xen today and by default install a Linux guest (known as domain-0) and do their best to hide the fact that Xen is not a part of Linux. They’ve done a good job, most users won’t even notice that they are running an entirely different Operating System. The whole situation is somewhat absurd though. It’s like if the distributions shipped a NetBSD kernel automatically and switched to using it when you wanted to run a LAMP stack. We don’t ship a plethora of purpose-built kernels in a distribution. We ship one kernel and make sure that it works well for all users. That’s what makes a Linux distribution Linux. When you take away the Linux kernel, it’s not Linux any more.

…

When people talk about Xen not being merged into Linux, I don’t think they realize that Xen will *never* be merged into Linux. Xen will always be a separate, purpose-built kernel. There are patches to Linux that enable it to run well as a guest under Xen. These patches are likely to be merged in the future, but Xen will never been a part of the Linux kernel…

The consulting firm Login Consultants just opened the beta program of the first benchmarking tool for presentation virtualization: Login Virtual Session Index (VSI).

The product will measures the performance of a remote desktop session served by a Microsoft Terminal Services  / Citrix XenApp server or a VDI virtual machine.

To run the tool it’s required to have a 4 tiers infrastructure: a domain controller for the authentication a file server for logging user sessions, a server to host the TS/XenApp/VDI service and a workstation to launch the user sessions.

The firm is also working to introduce support for application streaming.

Enroll for the beta here.

Rob de Veij published a small Microsoft .NET application to address a big challenge: the mass upgrade of VMware Tools.

Interacting with VirtualCenter 2.x, RVTools is able to list the current version of all VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine and update them to the latest version.

Download it here.

Thanks to Duncan Epping for the news.

Surgient, the US-based startup focused on the virtual lab automation market since 2003, loses today its historical Vice President of Marketing: Erik Josowitz.

Josowitz, which was the public face of Surgient since the early beginning, will continue to work for a while in the company as strategic advisor, will be replaced by Craig Parks.

Parks comes from a completely different industry, covering the Chief Marketing Officer role in Biophysical Corporation since 2005.

So far Surgient didn’t release a press announcement about the take-over and Erik Josowitz profile is still in place.

Update: Surgient just published an official statement about the take-over.

virtualization.info has learned that Mike Grandinetti, Chief Marketing Officer at Virtual Iron, left the company recently.

Grandinetti, in Virtual Iron since the beginning in 2003, was the public face of the company.
His role is now covered by the new Chief Strategy Officer Tony Asaro, appointed this March.

Before Grandinetti also Alex Vasilevsky, co-founder and CTO, left the company in December 2007.
The company management team was further reshuffled in October 2007 with a new CEO, Ed Walsh, and a new Vice President of Sales, John McCarthy.

In January 2008 VMware, a hardware virtualization company, acquired an application virtualization startup called Thinstall.
The plan is to use the Thinstall technology to stream virtualized applications on the virtual desktops that VMware spawns through its connection broker: the Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM).

So fare VMware has been pretty fast in rebranding the Thinstall Application Virtualization Suite: the beta program for the new version is open since end of February and the testers can already download the beta 2.
The final version of the product, temporarily called Project North Star, is expected for the H2 2008.

The only information missing so far was the final name that VMware wants to use.
Now Micheal Keen, Director and Senior Solutions Architect in the Enterprise Architecture group at Alliance Technologies, reveals that the final name is ThinApp.

Duncan Epping further validates the news reporting that a former Thinstall employee confirmed.

The choice is interesting considering that Citrix just renamed its Presentation Server product in XenApp.

Microsoft just opened the beta program for a new tool, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool, which aims addressing a concrete challenge: keep updated a large amount of virtual machines stored in a VM library and acting as templates for cloning operations.

Since these virtual machines are not supposed to be powered on the task is challenging.

To solve it, the new Microsoft tool uses PowerShell, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2007 and a patch management product between Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007.

Thanks to PowerShell scripts, each VM is powered on by SCVMM and temporary deployed on a virtualization host available. At that point the patch management procedure is started and the VM is powered off as soon as it completes.
The last step implies moving the patched VM back to the Library.

This process is identical to the one performed by the new VMware Update Manager (VUM) included in VI 3.5.
Unfortunately, in both cases, there are major issues in case the administrator has applied the Sysprep to the VM: as soon as the virtual machine starts the Sysprep mini-setup starts as well, customizing the VM.

Enroll for the beta program here.

Yesterday, opening its new conference for partners, the Partner Exchange 2008, VMware announced a new technical certification for VAC partners: the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX).

The VCDX targets virtualization architects who already achieved the VCP certification and it’s made by two exams:

• the VMware Enterprise Administration Exam (which include live labs)
• the VMware Design Exam (which includes simulations and questions about design scenarios)

Additionally, the candidates have to present and discuss a VMware design and implementation plan (it’s not clear if this one must be a real-world, already implemented one).

To have an idea of which kind of challenges this new certification implies candidates may want to check the blueprint that VMware just published online.

The exam will go live later this month.

On April 22 the application virtualization firm Endeavors Technologies announced that was about to offer a streamed version of Office according to the new Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) that allows 3rd party vendors to do so.

Unable to find a confirmation in the available SPLA, virtualization.info contacted Microsoft asking for a clarification.

The answer was surprising: while Office can now be streamed through Application Virtualization (as announced in January 2008), the current SPLA doesn’t extend the capability to any 3rd party, and Microsoft was completely unaware of the Endeavors announcement.

The Endeavors attempt joins the Fasthosts one, a UK hosting company which started to offer a streamed version of Microsoft Office using AppStream technology in February.

If any of the two companies release an official statement about this story this post will be updated accordingly.

Update: This story is more complex than expected.
Endeavors provided evidence of an existing Microsoft pilot program to offer streamed Office through SPLA, but Microsoft replays that the invitation for such program was sent by mistake and that such opportunity doesn’t exist at today.

Now it’s very probable that Endeavors will be obliged to pull all its press announcement and wait for an official call from Microsoft.

What it sure is that Microsoft is at least evaluating the opportunity to allow 3rd parties to stream Office.

Second update: It seems that Endeavors is not the only company which was mistakenly involved in the SPLA affair.
The UK company Click Manageware, a subsidiary of Remote IT, announced the adoption of the new Microsoft SPLA program on May 4.

Click Manageware resells the capability to stream Office through AppSense instead or Endeavors application virtualization technology, but the substance doesn’t change.
The company was so sure about the new initiative that opened an entirely new section of its website.

The program description reveals that Microsoft plans to disclose the new program by early June 2008.

At this point there are only two possibilities:

1. Microsoft wants to keep the news secret until that time by denying it (mission failed)
2. Microsoft changed its mind completely and delayed the program (forgetting to tell everybody)

Third update: On May 19 (maybe even earlier), all the mistakes are corrected.
Nor Endeavors neither Click Manageware publish anymore news about the secret SPLA update that Microsoft refused to recognize.
Click Manageware even modified its press release where possible.

Both companies removed their materials without issuing any official announcement or explanation.
Besides the statements that were sent to virtualization.info, Microsoft didn’t officially comment as well.

A license for 3rd parties to stream Office will definitively come, but not today.

Proxmox Server Solution GmbH is building an open source management tool for virtualization platforms: Proxmox Virtual Environment.

The product, still in beta (0.9), has some interesting capabilities:

• Bare-metal installation (based on Debian Etch 64bit, which includes the supported virtualization platforms)
• Support for KVM and OpenVZ
• Web-based management console (AJAX based)
• Host-level backup (OpenVZ containers only)
• Support for host-level clustering (Proxmox VE Cluster)

Additionally, the developer is implementing also a live migration capability.

Since both KVM and OpenVZ don’t have a GUI it’s worth a try even if it’s still in early development.

Download it here.