Virtual machines, containers, functions. Market knowledge for IT decision makers since 2003
virtualization.info Editors 
At the end of January VMware released a couple of minor updates for its desktop virtualization platforms for Windows and Linux: Workstation and Player.
For some reasons we missed this product update, so we are reporting about it now.
The new build (227600) is primarily for bug fixing but it also introduces support for a number of guest and host operating systems:
After releasing Capacity Modeler to counter the new VMware CapacityIQ, last week VKernel released another free tool to keep the virtualization community engaged.
This one is called Capacity View. It is an extremely simple dashboard for Windows that summarizes the virtual infrastructure elements (data centers, clusters, hosts, virtual machines, resource pools, data stores), the resources allocation (both physical and virtual) and the amount of alerts that VMware vCenter is raising at any given moment.
The approach is quite brilliant: under each alert group (Performance Problems, Available Capacity and Over-allocated Resources) there’s a link to a relevant product that VKernel sells.
Many administrators may desire to monitor the virtual infrastructure with this single-window, essential console during the day, jumping on the fully-featured vCenter control panel only when it’s truly needed.
And while they may have no interest in the other VKernel products, there’s a daily reminder that those products exist under their nose. This is more than enough to develop a strong brand awareness and instill doubt that those products may be actually useful.
ConVirt (formerly XenMan) is an open source management console that supports multiple hypervisors, including Xen and KVM.
Originally started in 2006, the product was relaunched in March 2009, demonstrating a significant potential.
One year later, the company behind ConVirt, Convirture, releases version 2.0, which once again features notable capabilities:
Last week VMware released a patch specifically for the version of Update Manager (VUM) that is included in vSphere 4.0 Update 1.
The new version (build 231675) is needed to fix a couple of bugs affecting capability to upgrade the Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch and the time required to scan and patch hosts in a cluster.
Thanks to Yellow Bricks for the news.
Last week VMware updated its disaster recovery solution Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to version 4.0.1.1 (build 236215).
The new version is primarily for bug fixing and features enhancements. There are no new capabilities. Yellow Bricks published the complete list.
This version of SRM supports storage replication adapters from:
Trilead is a Swiss startup that entered the virtualization market in Q3 2008 with a backup solution for VMware virtual machines.
Its product, VM Explorer, reached version 1.5 in November 2008. After long time, the company released version 2.0 last week.
This build introduces support for ESX 4.0 and for vCenter, which means that protected VMs are tracked even when they are moved on different hosts with vMotion or DRS.
Trustware is a US startup that entered the virtualization market in August 2006.
The company offers an application virtualization engine, BufferZone, that primarily targets consumer market.
The company released version 2.0 in January 2007 and version 3.0 in June 2008.
Now, after no less than one year and a half, Trustware launches version 3.30.
The new build is primarily for bug fixing but it also introduces support for Windows 7 (32bit only).
BufferZone key selling point is that it keeps your computer secure (more than an anti-virus) because of the isolation that application virtualization offers.
Maybe it’s true, but if Trustware can’t update its engine more frequently than once per year, it’s hard to believe that this product can defend itself against software exploits.
A couple of weeks ago, VMware released the second minor update for its desktop virtualization platform for the Apple market: Fusion.
Fusion 3.0.2 (build 232708) only fixes a bug that prevents latest build of Mac OS X 10.6 Server from running as a guest OS.
The interesting thing anyway is that with this release VMware introduced two versions of the product:
Oracle just released its first updated for VirtualBox after the acquisition of Sun.
The list of bugs corrected in version 3.1.4 is long but there are no new features .
An interesting thing is that the company decided to change the default behavior of the engine: now VirtualBox tries to leverage hardware virtualization acceleration by default, and this includes both VPDI and nested paging, provided by Intel VT-x and AMD-V RVI enhancements.
Last week, along with the acquisition of RTO Software assets, VMware also announced the acquisition of several assets from its parent company EMC.
The $200M deal includes Server Configuration Manager (formerly Configuresoft), FastScale, Application Discovery Manager (formerly nLayers), and Service Manager (formerly Infra), all parts of the EMC Ionix infrastructure management portfolio.