virtualization.info Editors

Microsoft has just opened a new beta program for its almost unknown free capacity planning tool called Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) toolkit.

As for the previous versions, MAP 4.0 can be used to perform a capacity plan for Hyper-V and App-V but also for other, non-virtualization related tasks.
The most significant update of this new version anyway is the support for Hyper-V 2.0/R2 that will be released in late July for Microsoft partners and October 22 for the rest of the world.

On top of that MAP 4.0 can now perform the inventory of VMware hosts and guests:

In details, the new features available with MAP 4.0 are:

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The VDI division of Quest, Provision Networks, is preparing to release the next version of its vWorkspace (formerly Virtual Access Suite or VAS) connection broker.

The beta 1 of vWorkspace 6.2 is mainly a bugfix release but it also enhances the support for multiple monitor configurations, for USB redirection and for the graphic acceleration (which now supports CPU throttling on the client).

Side by side with this beta Quest/Provision Networks also launched a second, more interesting beta program, unveiling its first client for Apple Mac OS X: Mac AppPortal.

In this first beta the only features that have been implemented are:

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Almost one month ago a new startup called Liquidware Labs entered the VDI space. 
Behind it there are the founder and former CEO of Vizioncore (acquired by Quest in January 2008) and the founder of Foedus (acquired by VMware in January 2008).

At the foundation of Liquidware Labs there’s the technology of another startup called vmSight, which has been acquired while in stealth mode and that is now rebranded as Stratusphere.

The new company continues from where vmSight left, using the same Connector ID technology to rate the physical desktop candidates for VDI environments or to identify poor user experience in an existing VDI environment.

On top of that Stratusphere 4.2 introduces the following major features:

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In January 2008 ClearCube decided to spin off its software division under the name of VDIworks to sell in an easier way its agnostic connection broker.

Since that time, VDIworks has been off the radar and yet it has made interesting moves: it released a VDI plug-in that works with System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) rather than System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and announced a plan to offer an offline VDI solution based on VMware Player.

In September 2008 the company even extended its support to the HP RGS protocol, but now it seems like there’s a completely different strategy as VDIworks announces its own desktop protocol: VideoOverIP (VoIP, easily confused with Voice Over IP).

With this new protocol VDIworks enters a dangerous and crowded space that it believes will dominate easily, at least looking at the comparison below:

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A couple of weeks ago Diskeeper released a new disk defragmenter specifically designed to work with Microsoft Hyper-V: V-Locity.

Diskeeper has been one of the first companies to support virtualization (already in 2006) and its flagship product, can be already executed inside a Microsoft and VMware virtual machine or but the new V-locity has some new features that are worth a check:

• a new architecture that synchronize the defragementation process across all the virtual machines and the host (this requires to install a component on the host and one inside each VM)
• a shrinking capability that is automatically invoked as soon as the defragmentation inside the VM is finished

The first version of V-locity supports Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V only (so no Hyper-V 2008 Server) and Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 as guest OSes..

The Register just broke the news about the price of some Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) prices.

The details about the blade system that will turn the networking giant into a x86 server vendor, and potentially into a virtualization vendor as well, are very limited and pricing has been barely mentioned so far.

The Register is now reporting that:

…the UCS B200 M1 blade server, the base two-socket box without the memory extension technology that Cisco hopes will give it differentiation against other providers of blade servers using Intel’s “Nehalem EP” Xeon 5500 processors, has a list price of $2,954…

The original article has additional prices about different components. Unfortunately none of them is related to the software side of the thing, like the UCS Manager (that a company slide seems to list at $0), the BMC automation layer or the VMware vSphere 4.0 platform.

Earlier this month Veeam announced the decision to remove support for the free version of VMware ESXi from its Backup & Replicator (formerly Backup). The company CEO revealed that VMware specifically asked to do so:

…Recently, VMware requested that Veeam discontinue support for ESXi Free in Veeam Backup and Replication in order to comply with VMware’s updated licensing policy.

…

In light of VMware’s request, and our close technical partnership, Veeam Backup and Replication will no longer support ESXi Free. We will still continue to offer support for ESXi Free to existing Veeam customers who purchased Backup & Replication prior to version 3.1…

After the controversial decision to limit the competitors at the upcoming VMworld, with this move VMware took a further step to compromise its image of beloved innovator as the community reactions demonstrate here, here and here.

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When we look at the competition in the IT industry there’s nothing that beats the marketing guerrilla we are experiencing in the virtualization space.

This is perfectly understandable considering that the vendor in control of the hypervisor is able to influence and in many ways able to control all the other companies that provide other pieces of the computing stack.
For the first time ever the absolute domain of the OS vendor is threatened by the hypervisor vendor so that the former tries to turn virtualization into a platform feature while the latter tries to impose the technology as absolutely independent.

It’s also true that compared to ten years ago the vendors have new tools to spread fear, uncertainty and doubts (FUD) against their competitors: paid bloggers, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so much more are available to influence the prospects and build armies of fanboys that are ready to overreact and defend their beloved products no matter what.

Nowadays is becoming increasingly common that marketing departments cross the line.
It’s much more uncommon to see a company that publicly apologies for a bad marketing action.

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In the last two weeks Veeam updated two key products of its portfolio: Monitor and Backup & Replicator (formerly Backup).

Both releases introduce support for VMware vSphere 4.0. On top of that Veeam included the following new features in Monitor 4.0:

• Storage monitoring
• Hardware monitoring (it uses the CIM/SMASH APIs provided by VMware)
• Process monitoring (both Windows and Linux guest operating systems)
• Scheduled reporting

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In the last months the security vendor Tripwire took several steps to shift its business focus on the virtualization market, where its configuration management and compliance technology is badly needed.

At the beginning the company extended the capabilities of its flagship product, Tripwire Enterprise, to support VMware virtual infrastructures, but this approach is rarely the best option to enter a new market.

So the company developed and launched a new solution, just for virtualization, called vWire.
This new product extends the capabilities of two free tools that Tripwire released so far, OpsCheck and ConfigCheck, to offer something that goes beyond the configuration management.

In this first version in fact vWire is able to track changes and critical events in the virtual infrastructure, allowing the user to automate a reaction (like restoring a previous configuration), but in a future release the product will be able to correlate the configuration changes with the performance measurement of the virtual infrastructure, which is much more insightful way to troubleshoot the environment.

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