VMware announces Network Virtualization platform NSX

In May last year, VMware acquired Nicira a company specialized in software defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization. Now VMware has announced that the Nicira NVP and VMware vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) will become one unified platform naming it VMware NSX.

VMware NSX exposes a complete suite of simplified logical networking elements and services including logical switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, VPN, QoS, monitoring, and security; arranged in any topology with isolation and multi-tenancy through programmable APIs – deployed on top of any physical IP network fabric, resident with any compute hypervisor, connecting to any external network, and consumed by any cloud management platform (e.g. vCloud, OpenStack, CloudStack).

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Cisco releases beta of Nexus 1000V virtual switch for Microsoft Hyper-V

In September 2011 Cisco announced that it would extend support for its Nexus 1000V virtual switch in order to support the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor. Now Cisco has announced a public beta of the Nexus 1000V virtual switch for Hyper-V 3.0, part of Windows Server 2012. Also System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager is needed to use and manage the beta release.

The beta bundle on the Nexus 1000V community page consists of:

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Paper: VDI Smackdown – solutions overview and feature comparison matrix version 2.0

Ruben Spruijt, CTO at PQR and one of the two founders of the Virtual Reality Check (VRC) project has announced the release of version 2 of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) smackdown. VDI Smackdown – solutions overview and feature comparison matrix version 2.0 contains 92 pages and compares the VDI solutions from the following vendors: Citrix, Microsoft, RedHat, Dell/Quest/Wyse, Virtual Bridges, VMware, Ericom, HP, Oracle, Teradici, Double Take, Cisco, Unidesk, Juniper, Cameyo, Spoon, Symantec, IBM, LANDesk, Novell, RES and Framehawk.

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Paper: Hyper-V Replica and Riverbed

Microsoft has released a paper titled: "Hyper-V Replica and Riverbed". The paper which contains 14 pages and details how Hyper-V replica works in conjunction with the WAN optimazation solution from Riverbed using the Steelhead appliance. Hyper-V Replica provides the ability to perform asynchronous and frequent replication of virtual machines to another server running Windows Server 2012 with the Hyper-V role installed.

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Paper: DVS Enterprise – Active System 800v with VMware Horizon View 5.2: Reference Architecture

Dell has released a paper titled: "DVS Enterprise – Active System 800v with VMware Horizon View 5.2: Reference Architecture".
The paper which contains 60 pages details a reference architecture for running VMware Horizon 5.2 desktop virtualization on top of Dell converged infrastructure solution, the Active System 800v.
The Active System 800v includes Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis with Dell PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator, Dell PowerEdge M620 blades, Dell EqualLogic Storage and Dell Force10 network switches.

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PHD Virtual Technologies raises $4M funding

Philadelphia based company PHD Virtual Technologies, a well known player in virtual machine backup and recovery market, today announced it has raised $2M in Series C funding from Citrix and Insight Venture Partners, both current investors in the company, and $2M in Growth Capital from Wellington Financial.

The funds will be used to boost technology R&D and the expansion in the european market.

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Survey: Veeam Virtualization Data Protection Report

Today, March 4, Veeam announced the release of its annual Virtualization Data Protection Report.

According to the report, which is a survey of 500 CIOs (Chief Information Officers) into the impact of virtualization on data protection, backup and recovery strategies, reveals that apparently enterprises are still not experiencing fully the possible benefits of a virtualization.

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