virtualization.info Editors

BladeLogic updates datacenter software

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Quoting from The Web Hosting Industry:


Data center automation software developer BladeLogic (bladelogic.com) announced on Monday that it has released BladeLogic Operations Manger 6. The latest version of the company’s flagship data center automation software allows organizations to simplify the management of data center environments by modeling and managing services so that provisioning, change and compliance actions are executed at the service level while the underlying devices and associated configuration settings are automatically managed in the background.

The latest release also features support for VMWare ESX and SUSE Linux, architectural enhancements that allow management of servers across multiple data centers, new APIs and the availability of BladeLogic Configuration Connector, which allows IT organizations to manage configuration information stored in external repositories such as SQL and LDAP or non host-based devices such as load balancers and firewalls.

“Organizations today need to evolve their IT environment to a state where resources can be easily and quickly re-purposed to meet changing business requirements,” says Dev Ittycheria, president and CEO of BladeLogic. “With the availability of Operations Manager 6, BladeLogic dramatically extends its leadership position by delivering the most complete solution in the marketplace today.”

BladeLogic Operations Manager 6, available immediately, is priced at $1,500 per server.

Microsoft rethinks virtual machines licensing?

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Quoting from TechWorld:

Microsoft is pondering how to license when multiple instances of an application are run on a single computer. The company, however,is not eyeing a plan for utility-based computing, in which charges are based on individual usage.

The company is re-examining its options after yesterday’s announcement that multi-core processors would be treated as a single processor for purposes of software licensing.

Company officials discussed Microsoft’s positions at this week’s SoftSummit conference in California. In the area of virtualisation, in which multiple, virtual machines might be running on the same system, the company is considering strategies, according to Andrew Lees, corporate vice president for server and tools marketing at Microsoft.

Right now, Microsoft charges based on hardware capabilities irrespective of software partitioning or virtualisation. A user site might have 1,000 virtual machines running 1,000 instances of the same application, deployed on a four-processor computer, he said. Under current policy, the user would be charged for four processors, not for running the application 1,000 times.

“We’re currently looking at that now, and the whole virtualisation scenarios that are enabled are really mind-blowing,” Lees said.

The company is seeking feedback on how to proceed, he said. “We ideally want it to be simple,” Lees said. Whether or not Microsoft would generate more or less revenue based on a virtualisation licensing scheme is not now known, said Lees.

In the area of utility computing, Microsoft officials said the definition of the term fluctuates. “We all agree, I don’t think anybody in here can have a consistent definition of what utility computing actually is,” said Cori Hartje, director of worldwide licensing and pricing at Microsoft. She added she hears it described as usage-based or feature computing.

“We don’t really have a utility model today. We don’t see ourselves building one,” Hartje said.

While utility computing might be a good model for some applications, Microsoft applications such as Office and Exchange do not lend themselves to that kind of model and customers do not have the infrastructure to support it, Hartje said.

“(Utility computing) is not really something that we’re rally working on,” said Hartje.

A SoftSummit attendee from Hitachi Data Systems said he could understand why Microsoft would not want to use utility computing, but that the concept is being studied by his company for possible use in selling storage systems.

“We’re seeing customer demand for a utility model,” said Steve Eckersley, an official with pricing and reseller operations at Hitachi.

Microsoft does offer Exchange on a per-email box pricing plan, for example, but charging per email would provide a disincentive to use the application, Lees said.

VMware opens up its key beta programs: ESX Server 2.5 and Virtual Center 1.2

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Quoting from official announcement:


Dear VMware Community Member,

VMware invites you to participate in the beta program for VMware ESX Server, version 2.5 and VirtualCenter version 1.2. As members of the VMware Community, your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

How to participate in the betas
**********************************************************
To request license keys for VMware ESX Server 2.5 and VirtualCenter 1.2 beta, please send an e-mail to [email protected]. You will receive a reply with the beta keys and a download link.

What’s New in ESX Server 2.5:
**********************************************************
ESX Server 2.5 improves upon ESX Server 2.1.x, and will include the following:

– Boot from SAN
o ESX Server can now run on diskless servers by booting off of a disk on the SAN. This greatly enhances support for common blade and rack mount configurations.

– Support for additional storage and server hardware

– Improved support for raw LUNs as virtual disks using Raw Disk Maps (RDMs) and pass-through RDMs
o Allows raw disks to be managed as easily as virtual disk files
o Pass-through RDMs enable SAN replication software to run inside of virtual machines
o Pass-through RDMs enable backup offloading solutions so that ESX Servers can be backed up faster without any load placed on the virtual machines or the on Service Console
o Allows REDO logs to be added to raw disks

– Enhanced support for scripted installations
o Allows 3rd party systems management products to remotely install and configure ESX Servers

– Improved Support for Clustered virtual machines
o MSCS in virtual machines using shared disk more reliable

– Additional support for DR backups or virtual disks
o Virtual disk snapshot scripts added to the Service Console to enable crash consistent backups of entire virtual machines

What’s New in VirtualCenter 1.2:
**********************************************************
VirtualCenter 1.2 is intended as a minor, maintenance release to improve upon VirtualCenter 1.1.1, and will include the following:

* Additional support for upcoming ESX 2.5 release
* Improved support for use of raw LUNs as virtual disks
* Enhanced reporting and data export capabilities
* New features in the Web Services SDK
* Extra logging for security auditing
* Additional performance improvements
* Updated SNMP support
* Resolved issues & bug fixes
* Documentation updates

Release Notes, Reviewer’s Guide & Documentation
**********************************************************
Release notes for the ESX Server 2.5 Beta release can be accessed via:

URL: http://www.vmware.com/releasenotes_esxbeta
Username: esxbeta
Password: atherton

A beta reviewer’s guide, release notes, and a revised users manual for VirtualCenter can be accessed via the following:

URL: http://www.vmware.com/support/vc12/
Username: vc12beta
Password: makalu

Please review the VirtualCenter 1.2 Beta Reviewer’s guide prior to installing the software. It contains an overview of the new features, issues resolved, and highlights documentation updates.

We will periodically update the support site with new information.

How to Provide Feedback
**********************************************************
Please feel free to e-mail [email protected] at any point throughout the beta program with questions, issues, or ideas for improvement regarding ESX Server 2.5 beta and [email protected] for similar comments on the VirtualCenter 1.2 beta – your comments will be received and seriously considered by our developers and product managers.

Beta Support:
**********************************************************
You will be entitled to basic Beta support as a part of this program. Beta support does not guarantee responses to SRs, but all requests are directed to the Development and Product Management teams for consideration.

To file an SR, please visit:
http://www.vmware.com/support/.

You may need to register for entitlement using the beta Serial Keys provided to you when you request the beta.

Thank you for your participation, we hope you have a positive experience using the ESX 2.5 and VirtualCenter 1.2 beta release.

Best Regards,
The VMware Team

Release: Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1

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Quoting from Microsoft:


Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains the latest software updates for Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 that improve the reliability, performance and manageability of Virtual PC. Updates have been made to improve the performance of Windows XP Service Pack 2 as a guest in Virtual PC, to improve the manageability of virtual machines when used with SMS 2003 Service Pack 1, and to provide support for running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition as the host operating system.

Some of the fixes included with SP1 have been previously released as separate updates. This service pack combines them into one update.

You can download it here.

Cherry OS lets PCs emulate Macs

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Quoting from MacCentral:

Microsoft Corp.’s Virtual PC software has been lauded by critics as a convenient way for Mac users to run Windows applications on their Macs, but what if you need to do the opposite? Maui, Hawaii-based MXS announced Tuesday the release of Cherry OS, an emulator that does the exact opposite — its developer says Cherry OS lets PCs run Mac OS X instead.

The virtual machine emulated by Cherry OS sports full network capabilities and has complete access to the host computer’s hardware resources — hard drive, CPU, RAM, FireWire, USB, PCI, PCMCIA bus, Ethernet networking and modem. It purportedly runs at about 80 percent of the performance of the host CPU, according to the developer.

“Now about 600 million PC users can have the MAC advantage,” said the software’s developer, Arben Kryeziu. “One computer to use all software and if PC users would use MAC software to get email, perhaps they would avoid viruses, Trojans and spy-ware.”

Cherry OS is being distributed as an online download, and costs US$49.95. Mac operating system software and application software is not included.

Whitepaper: Introducing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 on xSeries servers

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IBM Redbooks department just released another virtualization redpaper, this time on Microsoft new product Virtual Server 2005.

Here the abstract:


Businesses continually seek ways to reduce cost and risk while increasing quality and agility in their IT infrastructure. Virtualization is a key enabling technology that can be leveraged to achieve these business benefits. Virtualization technology enables customers to run multiple operating systems concurrently on a single physical server, where each of the operating systems runs as a self-contained computer.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 hosted on Windows Server 2003 and IBM xSeries servers delivers the performance necessary to carry out time- and cost-saving tasks through virtualization technology in an enterprise-ready computing environment with advanced levels of scalability, manageability, and reliability.

This redpaper introduces Virtual Server and describes the main features and functions, the product’s architecture, and the typical customer uses. It also introduces the management tools available, including IBM Director with Virtual Machine Manager, and Microsoft Operations Manager.

This redpaper is targeted at IT specialists who need to understand this new product and how it can be used in their environment

You can download it (still draft) here.

HP moves to a more modular real-time infrastructure approach

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Quoting from Gartner:


– Event
On 20 September 2004, HP announced a change in its Adaptive Enterprise (AE) product strategy. HP has retired the high-cost, low-volume UDC and will move toward a more modular strategy, with more individual products and services.

– Analysis
UDC was HP’s first solution in its AE strategy, which focused on integrating software, hardware and services and reducing the costs of managing scale-out architectures. HP customers and prospects embraced the vision behind UDC, but did not buy into its “rip out and replace” philosophy. Its approach was hardware-centric, and Gartner has always believed that its cost of entry was too high. After several years, HP realized it could not make a positive return on its large investment in UDC without changing its course. Now HP has shifted toward a more evolutionary, software-centric approach, similar to the direction IBM took in 2003 after several software acquisitions.

With UDC, HP became the first major IT supplier to act upon the RTI vision and introduce it widely to CIOs. HP plans to exploit these relationships as it introduces more modular, lower-cost solutions. Rather than replacing UDC, these solutions will serve as entry points that may eventually lead to UDC-like functions:

HP OpenView Server Provisioning and Configuration Management Software: Novadigm, which HP acquired in April 2004, provides scale-out provisioning and configuration management in software. Unlike UDC, it can start small and grow as needed.
HP BladeSystem: HP has improved its blade manageability, providing UDC-like functions, including scale-out provisioning, support for virtualization and patch management. Like UDC, HP’s BladeSystem is a hardware replacement.
HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE): UDC was optimized for scale-out architectures (which enable clustering or splitting up the workload), but customers wanted it to handle scale-up (increases in size and power), as well. HP will enhance VSE in 2004 and 2005 to support automatic scaling of partitioned Integrity and HP 9000 server resources based on changing business priorities.
Finally, HP will continue to offer outsourcing services with utility pricing. Its consulting services will remain focused on moving customers toward the AE vision.

– Bottom Line
If you’re interested in the AE strategy, consider this the right move for HP and its customers. HP will be able to invest its resources in more modular, less disruptive solutions for RTI. HP has a sound OpenView software base to use as a foundation for a growing and competitive IT operations management software business. The company’s infrastructure strategy now more closely resembles IBM’s. Its success will depend on its execution.