virtualization.info Editors

Microsoft published its first paper about upcoming Virtual PC 2007:

Virtual PC 2007 is next version of Virtual PC and includes all the previous features and capabilities found in Virtual PC 2004, plus the following improvements:

• Optimized for Windows Vista
  The virtualization architecture has been optimized for Windows Vista to provide improvements in performance, system resource usage, and stability.
• Improved performance based on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
  Virtual PC 2007 leverages the performance improvements introduced in Virtual Server 2005 R2.
• Provides support for 64-bit host operating systems
  You can run Virtual PC 2007 on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. This means you can run 16-bit operating systems (such as Windows 98 SE) which are not supported natively on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista.
• Provides support for sound devices in Windows Vista guest operating systems
  Virtualized sound device drivers are available to Windows Vista guest operating systems. This allows Windows Vista guest operating systems to play sounds through the host operating system sound devices. Other guest operating systems will continue to have sound support as it exists in Virtual PC 2004 today.

Read the whole whitepaper at source as soon as possible: Microsoft inadvertently left some revision comments in the document, suggestion it shouldn’t appear online yet.

Thanks to VirtualServer.tv for the news.

VMware published a very interesting performance study on VMware Infrastructure 3 used as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI):

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The actual number of desktops that a specific configuration of servers can support varies depending on such hardware characteristics as the processor type, the amount of memory installed, the storage configuration, the network configuration, the remote protocol used, and the demands of individual users (typing speed, applications used, frequency of access, and so forth). We ran experiments to study two such workloads with clients using the RDP protocol for remote display…

Read the whole benchmark analysis at source.

Thanks to Puneet Chawla, R&D Engineer at VMware, for the news.

VMware published a technical note about requirements 3rd party tools should meet:

In general, VMware recommends that users avoid running third-party software in the VMware ESX Server service console.
Clear exceptions to this policy are software packages explicitly identified in ESX Server compatibility guides.

This technical note outlines the reasons for this recommendation and guidelines developers should follow when writing software to run in the ESX Server service console.

Read the whole whitepaper at source.

I would stress on the VMware recommends that users avoid running third-party software in the VMware ESX Server service console part.

Thanks to About-Virtualization for the news.

Christian Mohn discovered a critical update in the VMware EULA:

VMware has updated their VMware Tools EULA, effective immediately. This change makes it legal to redistribute the VMware Tools package inside a pre-packaged appliance as long as the base OS is Linux. This is a welcomed change that should make it easier to pre-package the tools package inside distributed appliances.

This change does not, however, allow the tools to be redistributed in an appliance running on Microsoft Windows, but the legal implications of redistributing an appliance with a Windows base is far more involved than just the VMware tools package….

Read the whole article at source.

Quoting from ZDNet:

Analyst group Gartner believes that virtualisation will allow Microsoft to create a more flexible operating system platform in the future based around modularity.
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The claim, which has been rejected by Microsoft, stems from the argument that the current Windows architecture is unsustainable for Microsoft and its customers.
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In a research note released this week, Vista Will Be the Last Major Windows Release as We Know It, the analyst group claims that the trend of building ever more functionality into Windows may be reversed thanks to the virtualisation technology which will soon be integrated into the operating system…

Read the whole article at source.

After bitter statements around Xen maturity of these last weeks from Red Hat, Novell and XenSource itself, the company finally launches its first commercial product based on the open source hypervisor: XenEnterprise 1.0.

The product adds commercial grade features and support to Xen 3.0 and XenSource built around it also a sales channel infrastructure, a technical certification program and a much discussed agreement with Microsoft.

In this first release XenEnterprise introduces following features:

• Simplified installation and physical to virtual (P2V) tools
• Support for Intel Virtualization Technology (VT)
• Multiple Xen hosts management
• Real-time monitoring of server and guest performance
• Administrative console for Microsoft, Red Hat and Novell operating systems

Despite Intel VT help at the moment the product doesn’t support Microsoft Windows virtual machines, which is expected to be introduced in Q4 2006, along with other guests operating systems support and extended P2V capabilities.

Check an introductory demo of management interface here.

XenSource bases its licensing model on host machine processors number, introducing annual and perpetual subscription options, with volume discounts.

It has to be verifed if customers will accept to pay for a product which still doesn’t offer support for all operating systems and which is already expected to change.

At the moment XenEnterprise seems to bet on extended managent support capabilites, but this further exacerbate competition considering threat from upcoming multi-virtualization-platforms management tools, like Enomalism, HyperVM or SWsoft, newest Linux distribution from Novell and Red Hat, and direct competitor Virtual Iron.

In any case it’s a kind of ironic the company offers a product called Xen-Enterprise and its CEO claims just before the commercial launch the underlying engine isn’t ready for datacenter deployments.

The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.

After collecting huge success on Apple community for its Desktop 1.0, Parallels come back on the Windows/Linux front and open its Workstation 2.2 beta program, introducing support for AMD SVM virtualization extension.

Quoting from the Parallels official announcement:

Parallels announced it is beginning public beta testing for Parallels Workstation 2.2 for Windows and Linux, which delivers faster performance, better OS stability and stronger virtual machine isolation than previous versions.
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Key upgrades and new features in this Workstation 2.2 Beta include:

• A redesigned, more user-friendly interface
• Full support for AMD Secure Virtual Machine Technology (AMD SVM) that drives unmatched virtual machine speed, performance, stability and isolation on SVM-powered computers.
• Improved overall performance and stability.
• Support for primary OSes running on machines with up to 32 CPUs
• Shared Folders – easily share files and folders between operating systems
• Improved fullscreen mode that automatically resizes virtual machines to match your screen’s native resolution
• Support for dynamic primary OS video modes, custom video modes and 32 bpp video modes
• Full Unicode support lets users name files in any language
• Support for multi interface USB devices
• Full support for Windows Mobile 2005 devices
• The default network adapter automatically bridges to the most readily available network
• Change network and bridge type on the fly
• WiFi support for Linux primary OSes
• Better sound recording and playback
• Smoother mouse synchronization for primary Linux OSes
• Improved performance for Sun Solaris running in virtual machines
• NetBSD can now be run in a virtual machine as a guest OS
• Better USB support and performance
• A more powerful, easier to use Image Tool
• Easier installation on Linux primary OSes

Enroll the beta here.

The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.

Just a couple of weeks after announcing OpenVZ support in its HyperVM 1.2, Lxlabs today announces extended support for Xen and will further enlarge it to include previously unannounced Sun Solaris Containers and VMware products :

Lxlabs, a leading vendor of hosting related software, today announced that they have added full xen management capabilities to their virtualization software HyperVM, and claims that hyperVM is the first and only product offering both software level and hardware level virtualization in the industry today.
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The company also announced that it will support Solaris containers and Vmware in addition to MS Virtual Server, and thus offer the one umbrella solution that can handle every kind of virtualization scenario. The Solaris container support is expected to be released later this year.
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The company hopes that the key feature of hyperVM–the absolute transparent way in which it handles all the different technologies, enabling the customer to switch from one to another without even realizing that that their core technology has changed–will keep it unique in the market, stiff competition from more established players notwithstanding…

Quoting from the AppStream official announcement:

AppStream, Inc., a leader in on-demand application deployment and management, today named industry veteran, Gene Bonacci, as its new vice president of sales.

Bonacci is responsible for building and managing sales efforts and establishing sales and distribution channels throughout North America and Europe.
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Prior to joining AppStream, Bonacci was vice president of sales at Wyse Technology and has over 20 years proven sales management experience in the Information Technology industry.

SearchServerVirtualization published a good article about a never exposed benefit of virtualization: power saving and environmental impact reduction.

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The amount of electricity used, of course, depends upon the server. An efficient low-end server might use as little as 200 watts an hour, while a newer, more powerful server can consume 450 watts. Older servers can use well over 500 watts. In order to calculate the cost of running a server, we need to know the cost per kilowatt hour (KWH). Pacific Gas and Electric says that a good average for businesses in northern California is 15 to 17 cents, and rising. Because servers usually run 24 hours a day, seven days per week, that means the total electric cost per month (at 15 cents per KWH) to operate just one low-end server comes to $22; a newer server costs $38 and an inefficient server costs more than $50.
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Consider, for example, a data center populated with a mix of old and new servers of varying configurations with an estimated average total energy cost per month of $75 each. If the organization consolidates 100 physical servers onto six new two-CPU dual core servers, the net electric/power savings for the 94 virtualized servers comes to approximately $423,000 over five years. If the organization pays $6,000 for each physical server (including tax, shipping and set-up) and commonly refreshes servers once every five years, then additional savings of approximately $560,000 are realized over a five-year period for 94 servers that don’t need to be replaced. This is a combined savings over five years of almost $1 million.

There are additional long-term cost reductions with virtualization. New applications will reside on cost-effective virtual servers instead of new physical servers. This results in lower electric/power requirements and a reduction in network cards, network switches, SAN HBAs and maintenance contracts — not to mention a potential reduction in data center components such as air conditioners, PDUs and UPS devices. Because virtual machines require only about 33% of administrative time as their physical servers, there is a further significant reduction in the IT staff time required to support them….

Read the whole article at source.