virtualization.info Editors

Network virtualization is one of the hot topics within the OpenStack community. Last week japanese startup Midokura focused on network virtualization announced the assignment of Takashi Yamamoto as OpenStack engineer.

Yamamoto is an expert of Linux kernel, virtualization and has worked on various open source software projects in the past. He joined the OpenStack Neutron core reviewer team after having worked as a cloud infrastructure expert at VA Linux Systems Japan where he was in charge of developing the OFAgent which uses the open source component-based SDN framework for implementation Ryu.

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On June 18 Red Hat announced its financial results for its fiscal year 2016 and for the first quarter of 2015.

Total revenue for the first quarter ended May 31, 2015 was $481 million, with an increase of 14% from the same quarter last year. Total revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2016 also included an additional $5 million of subscription revenue earned from Red Hat’s Certified Cloud Providers (CCP). Looking at the financials details we can see that subscription revenue was of $425 million, up 14% year-over-year. Operating cash flow for first quarter was of $209 million, up 27% year-over-year, full fiscal year operating cash flow of $623 million, up 15% year-over-year.

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Japanese startup Midokura focused on network virtualization announced the availability of Midokura Enterprise MidoNet (MEM). MidoNet is a scalable network virtualization solution integrated with OpenStack Kilo networking project and (obviously) specifically designed for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The solution also comes with new support for container-based environments such as Docker.

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Red Hat yesterday announced the release of version 3.2. of its cloud management software, CloudForms. CloudForms allows the management of hypervisors from Red Hat, VMware and Microsoft as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform (RHELOSP) and Amazon EC2. Red Hat will make CloudForms 3.2 available to customers in June, and since the capabilities require the OpenStack Kilo capabilities, it will require Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform version 7 which will be released in a short timeframe as well.

This version has a focus on managing OpenStack using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, mainly because its now also part of the Cloud Suite for Applications which Red Hat announced last Tuesday.

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A day before the start of Citrix annual Synergy conference, rival VMware announced project Enzo. Project Enzo is the name of a new Software as a Service offering from VMware which will help customers build, deliver and manage desktops and applications. Enzo will run on vCloud Air, A qualified public beta of Project Enzo will be available later in the summer of 2015.

Enzo consists of a so called Control Plane providing a single pane of glass which works in combination with Smart Nodes, an orchestration layer that sits on hyper converged infrastructure appliances from VMware and its partner ecosystem.

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Last week, Citrix held its annual Synergy conference in Orlando. During the conference Citrix made several announcements which will be summarized in this blogpost.

Citrix Workspace Cloud, which is a Software as a Service offering is capable of managing what Citrix calls workspace services, both on-premises or in the cloud. The Workspace Services consists of:

• Applications and Desktops, providing secure access to virtual Windows, Linux, web apps, and desktops using XenApp and XenDesktop
• Mobility Management, providing mobile app delivery and device security based on XenMobile
• Secure Documents, which provides share, sync and secure content from cloud and on-premises storage services based on ShareFile
• Lifecycle Management, providing blueprinting, automation and management for the design and deployment of enterprise workloads such as XenDesktop, XenApp, XenMobile, NetScaler and Citrix WorkSpace Suite
• Concierge, providing real-time support and service for workspace subscribers allowing for remote support of mobile and web applications.

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Last Friday, Storage Newsletter published an article written by Jared Rinderer a senior research analyst at the Equity Capital Research Group stating that Cisco is planning to acquire Nutanix. While the news isn’t officially announced by either Cisco or Nutanix, Rinderer provides an extensive analysis detailing the reasoning behind this expected acquisition.

Nutanix, provider of converged infrastructure, basically a physical server containing both compute and storage driven by an Installed Hypervisor of choice, this server, called a node can be stacked allowing storage to be shared in a single storage pool. Nutanix was founded in 2009 and since then was funded for a total of more than 312 million dollar. The latest funding round was in September last year where Nutanix raised 140 million dollar. Besides Nutanix also SimpliVity and VMware with its EVO:RAIL solution provide similar solutions.

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During its annual Synergy conference last week, Citrix announced the availability of Service Pack 1 for version 6.5 of its virtualization platform XenServer. Version 6.5 of XenServer was released in January this year, as covered by virtualization.info at that time.

Service Pack 1 provides the following new functionality:

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12 years ago, in 2003, virtualization.info started to track virtualization market and, in 2010, cloudcomputing.info was launched as a sister publication with a focus on the cloud computing market.

In these 12 years .info News team evolved as these markets themselves have done.

Alessandro Perilli, founder and former chief editor of both publications, joined Gartner as Research Director and now is GM of Cloud Management Strategy at Red Hat where has been recently joined by Massimo.

Claudio has been hired from Google and others were also absorbed from Fortune 500 companies or founded their own. These successes confirm the talent of those who contributed and are still contributing to our mission: tracking the evolution of virtualization and cloud computing markets, as well as their technology impact in the IT world, offering ahead of the curve, exhaustive coverage of both industries.

Today we are pleased to welcome Alessandro Fontana as the latest addition to our team.

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Last week, Microsoft held its annual Ignite conference in Chicago, Illinois. Ignite is the new name for a series of technical conferences targeted to IT Professionals, which replaces the earlier Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) and TechEd conferences among others.

During this technical event, several announcements were made which are summarized below.

Windows Update for Business

Windows Update for Business will be a free service for Windows Pro and Enterprise devices. Windows Update for Business is build on top of Windows Update and targeted towards end-user devices within business. Windows Update for Business will provide Distribution rings, maintenance windows, peer to peer delivery and will integrate with existing management tools like System Center. More information about Windows Update for Business can be found here.

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