virtualization.info Editors

During its annual Build conference, Microsoft shared some information about the upcoming versions of its flagship product Windows. As virtualization.info already reported the client version of Windows, dubbed Windows 8 will contain the Hyper-V hypervisor technology, besides other new functionality.

Microsoft also showed a glimpse of the new features for its upcoming server OS, dubbed Windows Server 8. Windows Server 8 will contain the next version of Hyper-V, version 3.0. and will provide the following new features from a virtualization and VDI point of view:

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VMware has released version 8 of its virtualization platform Workstation. While normally in-line with Workstation also Player and ACE are updated, no information on an updated version for these two products can be found (yet).

This version of Workstation includes the following new features:

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After releasing a beta in March this year, Microsoft today announced the release of the Release Candidate (RC) of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 as publicly available. The Release Candidate will be upgradable to the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version when it will be released.

SCVMM will transform from a centralized Virtual Machine management tool, to a Service Management and Fabric Management tool, by providing lifecycle management of VMs and the applications inside them and by providing configuration management of computing, networking and storage.

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In July last year, virtualization.info reported about the first details for the upcoming successor of Hyper-V called Hyper-V 3.0, at that time there were signals that the Hypervisor would be integrated in Windows 8 as well. In February this year, virtualization.info reported on the fact that more details about Microsoft’s upcoming client Hypervisor appeared online, pointing to patents which Microsoft claimed hinting at an upcoming client hypervisor. In June, Robert McLaws, got his hands on a leaked Windows 8 build (7989) which apparently provides the option to install Hyper-V as a feature on the upcoming OS on 64-bit versions of the Operating System.

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Last week during VMworld, VMware announced two new end-user computing technologies, called project AppBlast and Octopus.

AppBlast will enable any use of any application, running on any platform to be delivered remotely to any device supporting HTML5. Which makes this solution quite different solution compared to other solutions which require some kind of software in order to remotely display applications.

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In November 2008, VMware acquired Trango Virtual Processors announcing its plans to release a type-2 hypervisor for mobile phones called Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). Development didn’t go as planned though, forcing VMware to delay the solution for at least one year. In December last year, VMware announced a partnership with LG to deliver MVP on LG phones with the Android OS.

During VMworld last week, VMware announced Horizon Mobile, consisting of Horizon Mobile Manager and VMware’s Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). Horizon Mobile Manager, which will be a separate SaaS application hosted by VMware provides a management console that securely provisions, monitors, updates and de-provisions the virtual workspace residing on mobile devices.

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Last year, during VM2010, Dr. Stephen Herrod, CTO and Senior VP of R&D at VMware announced Project Horizon, a single-sign-on (SSO) portal for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), powered by the TriCipher technology, which VMware acquired around that time. Horizon is capable of federating SaaS applications with the on-premise Microsoft Active Directory service or other directory services and can be considered a key component of the long-term VMware desktop virtualization strategy.

In May this year, VMware released version 1.0 of the Horizon App Manager, the first product in the suite of product to be released under the Horizon brand. Horizon App Manager is a SaaS application hosted by VMware, sold on a per-user subscription. Using a so called Consolidated Horizon Connector, federation is accomplished. At that time cloudcomputing.info branded the solution 1.0, but as it turned out VMware released several updates branding it in a monthly release, the last update being in July this year.

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In November last year, virtualization.info covered the release of a paper titled:"Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.1" , providing performance tips covering the most performance-critical areas of vSphere 4.1.

Now that vSphere 5.0 has been released, also this paper has been updated, titled: "Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 5.0". The paper contains 76 pages and covers the new vSphere 5.0 features from performance perspective including:

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Parallels has released version 7.0 of its Desktop Virtualization platform for Mac; Desktop. Desktop provides a type-2 hypervisor for running Windows or OS X Lion virtually on top of OS X Leopard 10.5.8 or later, Snow Leopard 10.6.8 orlater or Lion 10.7 or later.

This version also provides an improved Parallels Mobile App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch which allows remote management and use of Parallels Dekstop VMs and is available from the iTunes App Store.

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Microsoft has released a public beta of its backup product,System Center Data Protection Manager 2012. This version will be the follow up of Data Protection Manager 2010 which was released in April last year.

Data Protection Manager 2012 will contain the following new functionality:

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