virtualization.info Editors

Almost one year after the first release VMware is ready to publish the first minor update for its benchmarking framework VMmark.

The biggest change in this new version is the introduction of 32bit and 64bit mixed workloads: now the web server, the database server and the Java server tiles are 64bit.

Download it here.

Against any prediction to see the product at the just started Apple WWDC conference, it seems that Parallels is not ready yet to launch its dual mode (bare metal/hosted) virtualization platform Server.

The product is in beta since one year (despite the company’s original plan was to release it for mid-2006), and so far had four beta builds.

Parallels will release a hosted version of this product for every major platform, Windows, Linux and Mac OS, but only this last one is now in Release Candidate status.
The Windows/Linux one is still frozen at beta 4 stage.

It’s impossible to know when the product will be finally available, but it’s easy to imagine that Parallels wants to have it out in time for the upcoming VMworld 2008 in September.

The US startup ManageIQ is preparing the second version of its products EVM Insight and EVM Control, bundled as EVM Suite.

EVM Insight 2.0 includes a much broader capability to discover the virtual data center elements and track their changes.
The product now discovers both network and storage logical partitions, VLANs and LUNs, it recognizes the new virtual machine format OVF and any VM snapshot.
All these elements, along with other inner details like the virtual hardware metadata or the guest OS registry settings are now tracked and correlated.
The user can visualize how the whole data data center changed over time on revamped Virtual Timelines, and can be even informed of changes over RSS.

EVM Control 2.0 instead includes additional features to simplify the configuration policy management.
Among them a Policy Template Library, a more granular customization for the snapshots and clones policy, support for multiple policy profiles, and role delegation.

ManageIQ plans to release the new products in July 2008.

Sun just announced a new minor release for its recently acquired desktop virtualization solution VirtualBox.

The new version 1.6.2 introduces a lot of bug fixes and performance enhancements.
The only major feature is the support for Intel VT-x and AMD-V CPU extensions on Sun Solaris hosts.

Obviously the product is still open source and free of charge.
Download it here.

VMware just published a 164-pages step-by-step guide to install and configure its new connection broker Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM) 2.1.

The document was written by Douglas Brown, author of popular Methodology in a Box, the step-by-step guide to install a complete Citrix environment.

Download the paper here.

In July 2007 IDC predicted that the virtualization services market would reach $11.7 billion by 2011.
While it’s too early to verify the accuracy of this forecast, there are some evident signs that consulting firms are becoming an interesting acquisition targets as much as the virtualization startups.

In July 2007 Glasshouse Technologies acquired RapidApp, and now INX acquires AccessFlow for an undisclosed sum.

AccessFlow is a top performing firm in the consulting industry: in 2007 won the Rising Star of Americas award at VMware VMworld and in 2008 won the Rainmaker award at VMware Partner Exchange.

The acquisition is specially interesting because INX currently has a major consulting business around Cisco IP communication solutions.
Virtualization can obviously serve IPC needs but seems a far-away area where to invest, so INX must have serious reasons to extend so much its range of activities.

Virtual Iron has just announced the certification of Quantum’s DXi disks and Scalar tapes for virtual machines backup.

Quantum is the latest technology partner included in the small but relevant pool that Virtual Iron managed to build over the last three years.

Last week Virtual Iron announced another partnership with 2X for VDI.

June 25th I’ll be at the Catalyst Conference 2008 in San Diego, giving a lecture on a topic I consider specially important: the security myths and reality of virtualization.

The adoption of virtualization implies a mind shift in the way IT data centers are designed, implemented and managed. But do we also need to change the way they are secured?
Can virtual infrastructures be blindly trusted? Or do they introduce a new level of insecurity that needs protection?
Can we still use the products we invested in, or do we really need a new class of tools?

Easy to imagine, my session will try to answer these key questions.

The virtualization track that Burton Group shaped for this event will feature top speakers like Simon Crosby, CTO at Citrix, Steve Herrod, CTO at VMware, and Winston Bumpus, President of the DMTF, which will demonstrate the OVF support publicly for the first time.

For this reason virtualization.info will report from the conference, publishing interesting news and announcements launched during the sessions (more details about what to expect here).

If you plan to attend and you didn’t register yet there’s a great gift: Burton Group was kind enough to grant virtualization.info readers the Early Bird price.
To use the discount go here and use this code: CAT2008.

And obviously, if you come please stop by and say hello: it’s always a great pleasure to meet virtualization.info readers in person!

Alessandro

(just in case you are interested but cannot attend, I’ll speak at other events this year. My full schedule is here)

virtualization.info Rent-A-Lab is our premier on-demand virtual data center located in Zurich, Switzerland.
Less than one month ago we announced a major expansion, with twenty Intel eight-cores (2 CPUs x 4 cores) servers from HP and four storage arrays from Dell EqualLogic, HP and Pillar.

Now we are proud to announce that NetApp SANs has been added as well: a couple of massive FAS3020 with 14 x 320GB ATA drives + 14 x 144GB FC drives are now occupying half of our sixth rack.
The hardware doesn’t come alone: virtualization.info readers will be able to use some very high-class (and very expensive) software like the MetroCluster and the FlexClone.

Additionally, we’ve extended the HP presence in our facility with a couple of EVA 3000, each featuring 14 x 72GB FC drives.

Here’s a picture of the additions (NetApp on the left, HP on the right):

The Rent-A-Lab overall storage capability now exceeds 35TB.
The entire infrastructure (including the software management products) is worth over $1 million which up to three customers can rent at the same time.

How is the experience from different locations worldwide?
To give you an idea we published few testimonials online. More are coming.

So, if you want to test the upcoming VMware Site Recovery Manager (or any other virtualization product on the market) but you don’t want to visit the VMware offices, virtualization.info Rent-A-Lab sounds like one of the best places to go at today.

Check the full equipment list and a short demo.

In January 2006 virtualization.info published a post titled Virtualization is the first step of a long walk called Grid Computing, stating that VMware could move its virtualization offering to a higher level and go for grid computing.
Over two years later it seems that the time has come.

Diane Greene, President and Co-Founder, at JP Morgan Technology Conference in May 21 and Reza Malekzadeh, Senior Director of Products and Marketing, at Nordic Virtualization Conference in June 2 started to introduce a new VMware mantra.

Both executives presented a five stage vision where virtualization is used first for test and development, then for server consolidation, then for infrastructure on demand, then for data center automation and finally for cloud computing.

In the last year and a half with its EC2 service Amazon demonstrated that there is enough interest for this market and a huge opportunity to innovate. And after Amazon other companies like Desktone (for VDI) and Skytap (for Virtual Lab Automation) are pushing virtualization for cloud computing.
So doesn’t surprise much that VMware is preparing to enter the space.

It must be seen anyway when and how the company will make its move.