virtualization.info Editors

Quoting from eWeek:

…
Lenovo, for its part, is nearing the introduction of a virtualization appliance-like software module designed to augment its Rescue and Recovery software.

The module, to be unveiled along with a new version of Rescue and Recovery on May 16, is one of Lenovo’s ThinkVantage Technologies. The manufacturer bundles the add-ons in its PCs in an effort to help cut management costs for businesses.

Rescue and Recovery 3.1, like its predecessors, will serve to back up a PC’s data and then restore it upon a crash or after a malware attack.

A feature dubbed Antidote Delivery Engine, which works to patch software before it’s restored on a PC to ensure that a machine won’t become immediately reinfected, will gain a virtualization module, said Lee Highsmith, program manager for ThinkVantage Technologies at Lenovo in Raleigh, N.C.

The module will turn Antidote Delivery Engine into a virtual appliance of sorts, allowing the application to reside in its own partition, making it more resistant to crashes and ensuring it can still be reached by IT managers even if the PC’s operating system has been compromised, Highsmith said.

The engine’s virtualized state can also allow it to act as a gateway of sorts for network traffic and, among other things, allow it to ensure that an infected PC does not get back on to a company’s main network without having been patched and rendered safe, Highsmith said.

Thus, the “virtualization Module is the way to improve the ability to lock down systems and extend the ability to recover them,” he said…

Read the whole article at source.

Enterprise Open Source Magazine published a comparison between Win4Lin 2.7 and VMware Workstation 5.5.1 for Linux.

There are a lot of funny parts with an even funnier conclusion:

While both products behaved as advertised, I had a better feeling about Win4Lin at the end of test. The lukewarm reception I got from VMware left me feeling that if I ever needed support, I might be left hanging.

Despite the fact that VMware performed faster, Win4Lin certainly performed fast enough for me. Also, through no fault of its own, VMware is probably overkill for your average desktop GNU/Linux user. If we desktop users need to use Windows at all, likely a single instance will do.

Lastly, money talks. Since it’s likely that a single Windows instance will do, the $89 Win4Lin Pro price tag is a lot easier to swallow than the $189 tag on VMware.

Read the whole comparison at source.

Summary

With User Mode Linux you can create virtual Linux machines within a Linux computer and use them to safely test and debug applications, network services, and even kernels. You can try out new distributions, experiment with buggy software, and even test security. Now, for the first time, the creator and maintainer of User Mode Linux shows how to put it to work hands-on. Jeff Dike covers everything from getting started through running enterprise-class User Mode Linux servers. You’ll find authoritative advice on bootup, compilation, administration, specialized configurations, and much more.

Contents

• What User Mode Linux is, how it works, and its uses in Linux networks
• Key applications, including server consolidation, development, and disaster recovery
• Booting and exploration: logins, consoles, swap space, partitioned disks, and more
• Copy-On-Write (COW): UML’s efficient approach to storing filesystem changes
• In-depth discussion of User Mode Linux networking and security
• Centrally managing User Mode Linux instances, and controlling their hardware resources
• Implementing clusters and other specialized configurations
• Setting up User Mode Linux servers, step-by-step: small-scale and large-scale examples
• The future of virtualization and User Mode Linux

About the Author

Jeff Dike, an engineer at Intel, is author and maintainer of User Mode Linux. Well known throughout the Linux technical community, he has been active in Linux kernel development for more than five years. He holds a degree in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

Quoting from the Emulex official announcement:

Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the most trusted name in storage networking connectivity, today announced that its LightPulse® Fibre Channel HBAs used within VMware ESX Server are qualified and supported by HP for storage area network (SAN) connectivity to HP StorageWorks XP, EVA and MSA arrays, and HP ProLiant server solutions.

This qualification enables customers implementing VMware virtual infrastructure software – for partitioning, consolidating and managing servers in mission-critical environments – to deploy HP-branded HBAs from Emulex for high performance SAN connectivity to the HP StorageWorks and HP ProLiant server solutions.
…
The Emulex HBAs supported by HP include the LP1050-based models of single- and dual-channel HBAs.
…
In addition to today’s announcement, Emulex is working closely with VMware on a number of initiatives, including the forthcoming release of Emulex’s LightPulse Virtual HBA technology to the broader market.
As more IT managers are looking to virtual infrastructure for consolidation, increased resource utilization and management flexibility, the Emulex LightPulse Virtual HBA technology in conjunction with VMware VMotion technology and VMware ESX Server, enables each virtual machine or guest operating system to own and access a dedicated World Wide Port Name (WWPN), even when several virtual machines are sharing the same physical host bus adapter.
This new capability enables each guest to be managed independently, using SAN best practices for security and configuration management, such as fabric-based zoning and storage Logical Unit (LUN) mapping…

The famous IT Spending Survey from Goldman Sachs research group tracks, among others, which IT vendors are most requested at spending time among top 1000 worldwide companies.

The 2006 survey, conducted in mid-April on a 100 IT executives sample (half of them CIOs) and published on 5th May, still reconfirms VMware as the most purchased technology in US, after being at first position on 4 surveys of 6:

Server Watch published a nice article about needs of server consolidation:

Listen closely to the vendor community,and it sounds like everybody is ditching their small servers and either consolidating onto a few larger machines or buying a bank of blades that can be more tightly controlled.

We wondered how rampant this consolidation really is. Turns out, here, too, it depends on whom you ask.
…
“Server consolidation does not appear to be that rampant,” says Chip Nickolett, president of Comprehensive Solutions, a systems integrator and consulting firm with experience in server consolidation based in Brookfield, Wisc. “It is mainly performed by larger companies with a complex and robust infrastructure that have been looking at this as a way to reduce cost and provide more flexibility and ease of management.”
…
There are times, however, when it may be prudent not to engage in server consolidation. IDC analyst Kelly Quinn points out that it takes careful preparation to conduct such a project, and that a vital part of that step is defining what – if any – value will actually be derived from it.

“Don’t engage in a server consolidation project until you’ve proven you can derive benefits from it and have thoroughly prepared both your personnel and resources for the process,” says Quinn. “It’s like the old adage goes, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”…

Read the whole article at source.

Microsoft just updated his recently released Virtual Server 2005 R2 Management Pack to include support for SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services.

The new version maintains same build version 05.0.4000.0000.

Download it here.

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

Thanks to Virtualserver.tv for the news.

Ben Armstrong published another script in his endless serie, this time aimed to gather informations about Virtual Server 2005 virtual networks:

Set vs = CreateObject(“VirtualServer.Application”)

For Each vn in vs.VirtualNetworks
Wscript.Echo
Wscript.Echo “Virtual Network: ” & vn.name
Wscript.Echo “Packets sent: ” & vn.packetsSent
Wscript.Echo “Packets received: ” & vn.packetsReceived
Wscript.Echo
Next

Be sure to read the original post for updates and comments.

Update: Ben posted a little modification of the above script to collect historical statistics.

This script below will go through each virtual network on a physical computer and enumerate the amount of traffic seen each second for the last 60 seconds:

Set vs = CreateObject(“VirtualServer.Application”)

For Each vn in vs.VirtualNetworks
Wscript.Echo
Wscript.Echo “Virtual Network: ” & vn.name

Wscript.Echo
Wscript.Echo “Packets sent history: ”
For Each stat in vn.PacketsSentHistory
Wscript.StdOut.Write stat
Wscript.StdOut.Write “,”
Next

Wscript.Echo
Wscript.Echo “Packets received history: ”
For Each stat in vn.PacketsReceivedHistory
Wscript.StdOut.Write stat
Wscript.StdOut.Write “,”
Next
Wscript.Echo
Next

Also in this case be sure to read the original post for updates and comments.

Dennis Zimmer, owner of german blog VMachine.de, wrote a book in german language about VMware ESX, GSX servers and Microsoft Virtual Server.

VMware and Microsoft Virtual Server Release Date: September, 2005 ISBN: 3898427013 Edition: 1 Pages: 612

You can read a sample chapter here.

Note: this book will not appear on the Virtualization Bookshelf cause is not in English language.

On February 27th 2006 VMware launched one of the coolest challenge IT communities ever saw in modern times: creating the slimmest, fastest, most useful and open source virtual machine ever. Something which can be used by anyone worldwide for free, simply downloading powering on the VMware Player, and which the company calls Virtual Appliance.

The challenge, originally called VMware Ultimate Challenge, is so cool surely for the high objective but most of all for final prize: $200,000 for winners (half of them only for the first place).

The first phase of the challenge, the virtual machine submission, is going to close (the final day is set for May 26th) and, even if it propagated in the IT world like an earthquake, until now there are no news at all.

It’s quite understandable every competitor is afraid of disclosing his idea too early and permit others to get in at last minute and, with enough manpower, clone it, but at this point quite everybody is asking how many registrations VMware recorded and how many submissions they received…

A partial answer has been given by Michael Blonsky, Senior Manager of Virtual Appliances and ISV Solutions at VMware, which revealed on a VMTN forum, at the end of April, his company recorded almost 1,200 registrations but not even a single submission.

This means that VMware will have to face a massive upload near the deadline, and have to work hard to publish all submissions on the Virtual Appliances Directory.

If really all 1,200 (maybe more since another 15 days have passed) registrants will submit one virtual machine (but I heard some of them wanting to submit more than one) VMTN Community readers and official judging panel will have a huge work to recognize top virtual appliances.

The winners will be announced on August 14th: will 2,5 months be enough to choose?