virtualization.info Editors

Quoting from the Novell official announcement:

Novell today announced significant enhancements in the performance of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server when the Linux operating system is running as a virtual machine guest in a VMware environment. To deliver this improved performance, Novell modified the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel to support the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), a communication mechanism between the guest operating system and hypervisor that simplifies the task of virtualization and makes Linux a more efficient guest operating system when running in VMware environments. The VMI modifications, along with the paravirt-ops interface, have been accepted by the upstream Linux development community and will be included in upcoming releases of the standard Linux kernel, as well as future versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell.

… the VMI code is available today to customers who participate in Novell’s beta program…

Novell currently is the most active enterprise distribution provider in virtualization industry. Besides this integration the company it’s also a major contributor of open source hypervisor Xen, which includes in its SUSE Enterprise Linux as well, and it has a long term partnership with Microsoft to grant interoperability with upcoming codename Viridian.

Quoting from the Microsoft official announcement:

Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. today announced the opening of the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass. Announced last fall as part of Microsoft and Novell’s groundbreaking collaboration agreement, the opening of the lab delivers on a promise the two companies made to work together to create a joint development facility at which Microsoft and Novell technical experts will design and test new software solutions and work with customers and the community to build and support technologies that allow Microsoft® Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise to work well together.

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Located in Cambridge, the 2,500-square-foot lab and workspace will be home to a combined team of the best and brightest Microsoft and Novell engineers focused on making Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise work better together. The first priority for the lab team will be to ensure interoperability between Microsoft and Novell virtualization technologies. Additional work will include standards-based systems management, identity federation and compatibility of office document formats…

Microsoft already has an interoperability agreement with Novell in place since one year. It stacks with the new one Microsoft just signed with Sun, and with the implicit one with Citrix.

One year ago, at VMworld 2006 in Los Angeles, VMware launched the Virtual Appliances Marketplace (VAM), detailing its efforts to reach a future made of modular datacenters.

Current implementations of virtual appliances are far away from being attractive for enterprise customers, hiding serious management and security issues.

First step in the right direction must be taken reducing operating system footprint. For this reason VMware partnered with Ubuntu to launch a special Linux distribution called JeOS (Just enough Operating System).

VMware and Ubuntu say JeOS is tailored for virtual appliances and should be used by any vendor wanting to offer its products inside pre-configured virtual machines, but new distro size is still as big as 215MB, plus 65MB from VMware software. More than just enough for all security professionals with a knowledge in plaftorms hardening.

JeOS will be available in the coming weeks. It’s yet to be seen if it will be available for general public or just ISVs/OEMs.

But besides Ubuntu commercial supporter, Canonical, there’s another company supporting VMware and Virtual Appliances Marketplace since its launch. It’s called rPath and offers an enhanced tool to build slim OSes for virtual appliances purposes: rBuilder.

Obviously Ubuntu is much more influencial in open source community but VMware may have discarded rPath because its rBuilder also supports competitive formats from Microsoft, XenSource, Virtual Iron and Parallels.

Quoting from the Virtual Iron official announcement:

Virtual Iron Software, a provider of server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software, today announced the immediate availability of its enterprise-class solution as part of an integrated, Intel-based appliance from the North American Components (NAC) business of Arrow Electronics, Inc.

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Arrow NAC offers the integrated, Intel-based “appliance” with Virtual Iron’s software pre-installed on its white box servers. The Arrow-Virtual Iron appliances are based on predefined and pre-certified solution configurations as part of the Intel Enabled Server Acceleration Alliance (ESAA). It is available to all Intel OEM channel partners worldwide that are members of ESAA…

Quoting from the Verary official announcement:

Verari Systems, developers of platform-independent blade-based computing and storage solutions, today announced that it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Program as a Select Partner. As a VMware Select Partner, Verari is able to work more closely with VMware to provide its customers with high-value virtualization solutions that directly address the complex challenges facing today’s data center.

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The Verari virtual-ready blades offer a variety of processor choices, memory capacity and storage strategies as well as comprehensive management with Verari Command Center™ (VCC). VCC can directly recognize and support virtual machine-based blades and combinations of physical and virtualized servers, seamlessly manageable from a single interface…

Quoting from the SteelEye official announcement:

SteelEye Technology, a leading provider of data replication and application monitoring solutions for business continuity and disaster recovery on Linux and Windows, announced today at VMworld 2007 that it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program.

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VMware’s Technology Alliance Partner program provides tools and information needed by partners to seamlessly integrate with VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 and ESX Server with other solutions, such as SteelEye LifeKeeper Protection Suite for VMware Infrastructure 3. Integrating SteelEye’s products with ESX Server will enable customers to achieve all of the benefits afforded by virtualization technology while ensuring application and data availability…

Quoting from the IGEL official announcement:

IGEL Technology today joined the VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Alliance program bringing a wide range of VDI-supporting hardware and digital services.

Virtual PCs, running almost any operating system, including Microsoft Windows and Linux, can be deployed to the IGEL client using either the ICA, RDP or NX digital services. Customers can then deploy additional server-based applications to the IGEL client that bypass the virtual PC such as VoIP, SAP or mainframe terminal emulation. This unique approach allows IT Managers to select the right digital services for their VMware environments and results in device consolidation, lower costs, simpler management, faster roll outs and more efficient use of the server hardware…

Quoting from the Intransa official announcement:

Intransa, the global leader of scalable, network-centric IP storage solutions, today announced that its StorStac System has been certified with VMware Infrastructure. As part of the certification program, Intransa is listed in the SAN Compatibility Guide for VMware ESX Server under the IP SAN section. The SAN Compatibility guide is the hardware compatibility list (HCL) for VMware ESX Server. As a leader in IP SAN enterprise storage with 1GbE, 2GbE and 10GbE interfaces, VMware certification extends Intransa’s commitment to providing customers with interoperable and open SAN technology…

Earlier this month virtualization.info broke the news that a technology preview of upcoming Microsoft hypervisor (codename Viridian) has been included in Windows Server 2008 RC0 build, distributed to TAP customers.

Now Microsoft confirms the story and informs that the RC0 will be distributed to wide public, possibly on the week of September 17. But most of all the company reveals that final release of Windows Server 2008 will already include Viridian beta 1, as ZDNet is reporting.

Windows Server 2008 RTM is set for Q1 2008, with an official launch set for February 28.

Quoting from the Microsoft official announcement:

Today at VMworld 2007, Microsoft Corp. and Citrix Systems Inc. announced that they have strengthened their longtime integration alliance in the desktop and application delivery market by standardizing on the Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format as a common runtime environment for both virtualized operating systems and applications. This collaboration will result in future versions of Citrix’s Desktop Server and virtual application solutions adopting the Microsoft VHD format. At the same time, Microsoft plans to adapt a future version of Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization for both the desktop and Terminal Services to the VHD format. Microsoft and Citrix will also collaborate on emerging virtualization technologies and virtual infrastructure management tools to help ensure interoperability and simplified administration for end users…

The move itself anyway seems a real waste of energies considering both Microsoft and XenSource (then Citrix is included) are working with VMware and major OEMs to develop a common virtual machines format called OVF. But the announcement further clarifies how Microsoft will use its long term partnership with Citrix to contrast VMware until codename Viridian release.

The real question is: what will happen between these partners after Viridian launch?