Microsoft details Hyper-V 2.0 Live Migration capabilities and architecture

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Right after releasing the first beta of Hyper-V 2.0 (with Windows Server 2008 R2 and without it), Microsoft continues to feed the potential customers with details about the badly wanted live migration capability.

Last week the company published a couple of interesting resources:

Both are worth a check if you plan to test the feature against VMware VMotion, Citrix XenMotion, etc.

VMware releases Virtual Infrastructure Toolkit 1.5

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The hardcore part of the VMware community got pretty excited last week when the company officially released the new version of its Powershell-powered SDK for VirtualCenter: VI Toolkit 1.5 (build 142961).

The new package includes 32 new cmdlets and several enhancements.
To demonstrate the new features the development team published 6 videos which are worth a visit:

Download the new SDK here.

Release: CiRBA Data Center Intelligence 5.1

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Last week the Canadian company CiRBA released a minor update for its capacity planning tool: Data Center Intelligence (DCI).

DCI 5.1 introduces three interesting additions:

  • a new Capacity Status Analysis module that continuously assesses the virtual infrastructure to ensure that it can meet the capacity planning requirements defined at the beginning of a project
  • a collaboration module which allows members of a project to review and approve the actions suggested after a what-if analysis
  • the capability to customize the dashboard depending on the job role of the user, and the capability to integrate the reports into corporate intranet portals

Reflex Systems updates VMC

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Last week Reflex Systems (formerly known as Reflex Security) updated its new management tool for multiple hypervisors: Virtualization Management Center or VMC.

Nobody knows what’s the current version of the product (it should be somewhere in 1.x branch) as the company barely clarifies what’s new: a performance monitor module.

It’s not clear what aspects of the virtual infrastructure VMC can now monitor, or which hypervisors (Reflex currently supports VMware ESX, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V) can benefit of this new module, but the company claims the capability to correlate configuration changes with performance changes, which is pretty interesting.

Neocleus appoints former Softricity exec as Chief Marketing Officer

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The US startup Neocleus is getting ready to expose its client hypervisor to the largest part of the market, as it’s finally spending some of its $16.4M (the Series B round happened in June 2008) to build a marketing and sales infrastructure.

The first executive joining the company is Bill Corrigan, as Chief Marketing Officer.

Corrigan was the Vice President of Product Management & Marketing in Softricity before the Microsoft acquisition, and once in Redmond he was Director of Product Management in the Windows and Enterprise Management Division.

Virtualization Industry Survey 2008: The Results – Part 2 (you wanna read this)

One week ago virtualization.info published the results of its Virtualization Industry Survey 2008 about the Hardware Virtualization adoption.

Easy to guess, the responses for Q6 – What hardware virtualization platform do you implement? generated concerns among our readers, as Microsoft Hyper-V appeared “more adopted” than VMware ESX.
Some of you demanded a clarification on the methodology used to collect and validate the published data, others simply judged the whole survey as 100% useless.
A few noted that, differently from the usual behavior, there was no comment on the results. It was not a case.

Now that enough buzz was generated it’s time to disclose the real information we collected.

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Virtualization Congress 2009: The first block of sessions is online!

Virtualization-Congress-2009-Logo---284x70 In December 2008 virtualization.info launched a Call for Papers for the first edition of the Virtualization Congress in the United States.

The initiative was so wildly successful that we collected over 120 submissions (and despite the deadline was Dec. 31 we continue to receive new ones every day).

Today we are happy to announce the first round of breakout sessions that will make the Virtualization Congress 2009 agenda.

As you’ll see the sessions we’ve selected cover some of the hottest topics in which a virtualization professional can utilize in today’s market.
We believe that the level the contents and the height of the speakers is remarkable:

  • Automating VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell
    Cody Bunch
    Virtualization Architect at Rackspace
  • Best Practices for Designing and Implementing Large Scale Virtualization Projects
    Ron Oglesby
    Practice Executive, Virtualization at Dell
  • Hypervisor Competitive Differences: What the Vendors Aren’t Telling you
    Richard Jones
    Service Director, Data Center Strategies at Burton Group
  • Lessons from the Real World: Storage in Virtualized Environments
    Scott Lowe
    National Technical Lead at ePlus Technology
  • Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro: The Complexity and Insecurity of the Cloud
    Christofer Hoff
    Chief Security Architect at Unysis
  • Project Virtual Reality Check
    Ruben Spruijt / Jeroen van de Kamp
    Solutions Architect and CTO at PQR / Enterprise Architect and CTO at Login Consultants
  • Simplifying Virtualization Management Using New Industry Standards
    Winston Bumpus
    President at DMTF
  • Virtual Infrastructure Management: Challenges and Best Practices
    Gary Lamb
    Senior Director, Data Center Virtualization at INX
  • Virtual Building Blocks: A Modular Approach to a Comprehensive Solution
    Jason M. Langone
    Director of Virtualization Services at Infinite Group
  • Yes, Automation Does Make Life Better
    Stephen Beaver
    Virtualization Evangelist at Tripwire

The full abstract for each session, which is really worth to read, can be read at this page: http://www.virtualizationcongress.com/sessions.htm

From this first round of sessions it should be clear how the Virtualization Congress is keeping its independence despite its joint location with the Citrix Synergy 2009.

As Simon Crosby, CTO of Virtualization and Management Division at Citrix, said on his corporate blog at the beginning of the year:

Citrix has no influence or control over the Virtualization Congress program whatsoever. Alessandro and his independent program committee (which does not have any representation from Citrix), together with the readers of virtualization.info, will independently develop their agenda, select speakers and run the event.  Like other vendors, Citrix has submitted session proposals, but I have no idea whether or not they will be accepted.

 

P.s.: If you liked the sessions above wait to see the three panels we’ll have at the end of each conference day. Here’s the tentative titles:

  • May 5 – I Was There when Desktop Virtualization went Mainstream
  • May 6 – Securing the Virtual Data Center (on Earth and on Clouds) 
  • May 7 – The Future of Virtualization

Feedbacks about the breakout sessions and the panels are greatly welcome.

VMware vSphere 4.0 will have a vCenter Server for Linux

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VMware Infrastructure 4.0, or vSphere as the company decided to call the platform now, will finally feature a version of vCenter Server (formerly VirtualCenter) for Linux.

This major new capability was not part of the features that virtualization.info published in September 2008 about the upcoming ESX 4.0. But the abstract of a VMworld Europe 2009 session (DC08 here) confirms:

Customer demand for vCenter Server running on Linux has been astounding. While the majority of the Code is inherently cross platform, getting vCenter Server to run on Linux in a manner compatible with the current set of features has its own set of challenges. This presentation will discuss the issues of cross platform development for vCenter, including issues regarding internationalization support, database support, multi-vCenter support, and image customization. The talk will conclude with a live demonstration of the latest development version of vCenter Server running on Linux.

VMware’s former CEO accused of making false and misleading statements concerning the company’s business

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Diane Greene, the former VMware CEO that was suddenly fired in July 2008, is now being accused of the violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the breach of her fiduciary duties by making and/or allowing false and misleading statements concerning the company’s business, operations and prospects.

This is the class-action lawsuit that Holzer Holzer & Fistel LLC is filing against Green and Mark Peek (the VMware’s CFO coming from Amazon).

The extended description is even more interesting:

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