virtualization.info Editors

Eight months after its previous major release, XenoCode is ready to launch its new application virtualization platform: Virtual Application Studio 2010.

This new edition seems more consistent than the previous one, introducing some must-have features and welcome additions:

• Capability to define expiration date (time bomb) on virtual applications
• Capability to create a single virtual application package for multiple target operating systems
• Capability to publish virtual applications online on the XenoCode content deliver network (CDN) Silver Spoon
• Support for Windows 7

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The startup 5nine is back with its third tool.
Launched in June, the company already released a capacity planning solution that includes a P2V migration tool and a firewall for virtual infrastructures.

The third product, currently in beta and scheduled for release later in Q4, is called Optimizer.

While P2V Planner performs what-if analysis and capacity planning on physical server that need to be converted in virtual machines, Optimizer does the same on already virtualized infrastructures.

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A week ago virtualization.info introduces a new comment system powered by Disqus.
It has a number of features we were really keen to offer: it allows our readers to log-in with their Facebook, Twitter or OpenID profile, it allows threaded conversation (and subscription to them by email and RSS), it allows to vote and flag for review comments, etc.
It even exposes a trackback URL so that our readers know which websites are continuing the discussion started here.

There’s no way to know if this new system helped or if it’s just because of the articles we recently published, but for sure the number of comments we are receiving skyrocketed. 
Some of the last ones are very interesting like one coming from Simon Crosby, CTO of Virtualization and Management Division at Citrix.

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A few weeks ago the well known virtualization expert and author Mike Laverick decided to offer for free its first book about VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 1.0.

The 298-pages book is available online at Lulu (you pay only if you want a printed copy).

While it’s true that VMware just released SRM 4.0 (which should be 2.0), the book is certainly worth a read, at least to have an independent point of view on the product before adopting it.

Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager covers everything about the implementation and has a couple of interesting additional chapters, the first one on the LeftHand Networks Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA), that Laverick used for his research, and the last one on how to do site recovery without VMware SRM.

In July VMware released a must-read 51-pages paper that is definitively worth a read: Performance Troubleshooting for VMware vSphere 4 and ESX 4.0.

The document, which is continuously updated, doesn’t just describe all the aspect of the product (CPU, memory, storage and network) that should be checked to troubleshoot performance. It also provides a much needed troubleshooting methodology:

So far the Microsoft customers that wanted to convert their physical boxes into Hyper-V virtual machines had to buy and use System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and its physical to virtual (P2V) migration tool.
Or buy and use a third party P2V migration tool like the ones offered by Novell/Platespin or Quest/Vizioncore.

Other less expensive (free in some cases) tools allow to perform the P2V migration as well but they usually don’t permit to convert the machine while it’s running.
Now there’s a free tool that performs a live migration: Disk2VHD.

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Just in case you don’t fill overwhelmed by dozen of proprietary remote desktop protocols and RDP enhancements, here’s a new one: Ericom Blaze.

The company launched it last month, claiming impressive performance:

• RDP compression up to 98%
• graphics-rich content 10-25 times faster than RDP
• RDP bandwidth consumption by up to 25 times

Clearly Blaze is not a new protocol but rather an RDP enhancement that can compete against the Quest/Provision Networks Experience Optimization Pack (EOP).

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Last week Novell released version 3.7 of its capacity planning tool PlateSpin Recon.

This new version focuses much on storage (local disks as well as FC/iSCSI arrays), tracking its usage over time in physical and virtual machines.  
Even if the available documentation doesn’t clarify much about the new feature, the effort in this area is always welcome because of the strong investment in storage required to build a virtual infrastructure.

Recon 3.7 also introduces support for AIX workloads.
This is probably the only tool on the market able to analyze AIX machines and include them in the capacity plan.

A couple of months after its first minor update, Vizioncore is ready to introduce Virtualization EcoShell 1.2.

The tool, used in conjunction with Quest PowerGUI, is a powerful environment to develop and execute complex scripts, so far just for VMware VI 3.5 and vSphere 4.0.

This new minor update, available in beta, introduces a major change, which clarifies once again how Vizioncore will slowly open its product portfolio to VMware competitors: the support for Hyper-V.

Specifically, Virtualization EcoShell 1.2 introduces a Hyper-V PowerPack, which allows administrators to manage individual Hyper-V installations using PowerShell.

In July VMware attempted to win those Virtual Iron customers left in the cold by Oracle with an aggressive discount program.

Now it seems that VMware has to defend against a similar move from Citrix, which launches today the Open Door program.

The rules are simple:

The Project Open Door promotion will be effective worldwide from October 1 – March 31, 2010. Customers who decommission five or more VMware vSphere 4 or VI3 servers and replace them with XenServer or Hyper-V plus the Citrix Essentials solution, receive the following: 

• A free five incident support pack (5 by 8 hours) for every five servers converted
• A voucher for six hours of online training for every five servers converted
• Free migration tools for seamlessly transferring virtual machines from VMware to XenServer or Hyper-V

The attempt doesn’t seem particularly aggressive and in normal circumstances we won’t cover it on virtualization.info. But there’s one thing that makes the announcement worth the mention: Citrix is investing its support and training money even if customers switch to Hyper-V (plus Essentials).

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