Virtual machines, containers, functions. Market knowledge for IT decision makers since 2003
VMware has released an update for vCenter Server 5.1. The update contains some bugfixes as described in the release notes. The problems solved are:
Although VMware already released version 5.1 of vSphere it still updates earlier supported versions as well. VMware has released Update 2 for both its hypervisor ESXi and its hypervisor management platform vCenter 5.0. This update can be installed on top of vSphere 5.0 or vSphere 5.0 Update 1.
ESXi 5.0 update 2 adds some support for additional Operating Systems and fixes a long list of issues as described in the release notes:
Login VSI has released version 3.7 of its vendor independent Login Virtual Session Indexer benchmarking utility. Login VSI measures the performance and scalability of Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) and Server Based Computing (SBC) environments by simulating unique user workloads. Eventually developed as a free tool by Login Consultants to benchmark systems for use with Project Virtual Reality Check, Login VSI evolved into a company of its own and has become a commonly used benchmarking tool used by different vendors nowadays. Login VSI is provided for free as an Express Edition, there is also a Pro edition which is supported by Login VSI.
Version 3.7 adds support for Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Office 2012 and Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
VMware has released version 5.1.2. for its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) product View. This version is considered a maintenance release which can be used to upgrade from View 5.1 which was released in May this year or View 5.1.1.
Some of the issues resolved in this release are:
HP has released a paper titled: "HP DBC Reference Architecture technical overview". The paper which contains 55 pages contains a reference architecture solution for database consolidation, provisioning, and running thousands of I/O demanding database workloads in a Microsoft private cloud model. The DBC RA provides a foundation for building a high-performance Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization platform that has been optimized to consolidate and provision hundreds to thousands of database workloads while providing extremely high availability at all levels – from the underlying network and storage fabrics up to the virtual machine (VM) layer.
Trilead has released version 4.1 of its backup solution for Virtual Machines VM Explorer. VM Explorer Backups can be stored on ESX, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD based storage platforms or directly to a SAN. With the release of version 4 Trilead expanded support from VMware to Hyper-V as well, a trend we see with more vendors which traditionally provided VMware-ended solutions.
VM explorer is offered in a Free edition, and a Pro edition which of course has more features as detailed here.
In June last year, Simon Crosby at that time CTO of Citrix and Ian Pratt VP of Advanced Virtualization products at Citrix announced that they were leaving Citrix to start a new company called Bromium. More than a year later, Bromium released the first version of their vSentry product. Now Bromium has released version 1.1. as announced in a blog post today.
vSentry is a security product which uses a so called Microvisor which is a security-focused hypervisor that automatically, instantly and invisibly hardware-isolates each vulnerable Windows task in a micro-VM that cannot modify Windows or gain access to enterprise data or network infrastructure. The Microvisor uses the VT-x functionality from a system allowing tasks running on systems to run only with the strict low privilege rights needed, giving threats no chance to infiltrate the system. The product runs on top Windows XP and the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 7. Support for Mac OSX is expected in early 2013. It now also supports web based protection on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) scenarios running on top of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Citrix XenDesktop or VMware View and Bromium expects to evolve this functionality to all untrustworthy content and services.
VMware has released version 2.5 of its benchmarking framework VMmark. VMmark focuses on measuring the performance of the whole data center, including complex operations like manual and automated (or DRS-initated) vMotion, Storage vMotion, as well as virtual machines cloning and deployment.
Published VMmark results from vendors can be found on the VMware Benchmark Results page, which currently contains 35 entries. Beginning on January 8th 2013, any submission of benchmark results must use the VMmark 2.5 benchmark kit.
HP has released a paper titled: "HP VirtualSystem VS2 for Red Hat". The paper which contains 39 pages contains a reference architecture for building a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) environment on HP Converged Infrastructure with integrated management.
The VS2 RA solution is built on HP Converged Infrastructure, including the HP BladeSystem architecture, HP Virtual Connect Flex-10, and HP LeftHand P4800 SAN Solution for BladeSystem.
Dell has released a new paper titled: "vStart 1000m for Enterprise Virtualization using Hyper-V: Reference Architecture". The paper which contains 34 pages describes a validated reference architecture for running Hyper-V on top of the vStart 1000m infrastructure solution, which is a solution which is available to be partially racked, cabled, and delivered to the customer site, to speed deployment.
The solution includes Dell PowerEdgeTM M620 blade servers, Dell Compellent Storage, Dell Force10 network switches, Brocade Fibre Channel switches, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Datacenter Edition with Hyper-V Role enabled, and two Dell PowerEdge R620 servers that manage the solution by hosting Dell management tools and optionally, System Center 2012 System Center Virtual Machine Manager or other System Center 2012 components.