History

Oracle is one of the biggest companies in the IT world creating problems to virtualization adopters because it refuses to adjust support policy and licensing model for virtualization environment.

Several customers are working to move away from Oracle because of that and this may be a reason why the company is now changing its message:

As server virtualization continues to grow in popularity in government data centers, enterprise software provider Oracle will increasingly put its weight behind Xen open-source virtualization software, Charles Phillips, president at Oracle, told GCN in a recent interview.

“We’re big proponents of Linux and standard technologies, so we’re going to put the time toward Xen,” Phillips said. “Our strategy will be around Xen.”

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“We have not certified our products for VMWare,” Phillips said, adding that “people do that on their own.” Oracle will, instead, put more of its efforts behind Xen.

The company’s efforts at grid-enabling its software would benefit by Xen, he said. Adding a node to a grid cluster might still involve manual work, such as configuring the network addresses. Virtualization could help automate such processes, he said…

This is another strange move from Oracle: XenSource, which is one of the major contributors of Xen, has been acquired by Citrix, and Xen main architect is now a Citrix employee. Citrix has a very tight relationship with Microsoft and it’s hard to believe Oracle may fit this scenario in an easy way.

Less than two months the popular Center for Internet Security (CIS) released first part of a new security benchmarking guide for virtual infrastructures.

This first part covered general security measures to take for enforcing guest operating systems.

Now the CIS released the second part, covering security measures to take with VMware ESX Server 3.0 in 70 pages.

Suggested hardening measures cover various topics, from NTP configuration to use of CHAP to connect iSCSI devices, passing by logging facility fine tuning and boot services minimization.

In its complex it’s a valuable document which will help ESX administrators until the new 3i architecture (which get rid of Red Hat based service console) will be deployed, but as always hardening procedures have an impact on any given environment. Customers which want to follow this guide should first ask VMware if they support the hardened ESX host.

Download both guides at the source.

Thanks to Christofer Hoff for the news.

After announcing new product XenDesktop and its virtualization strategy after XenSource acquisition, Citrix now unveils major distribution agreements with popular OEMs.

First one is with Dell:

Citrix Systems, Inc., the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, and Dell Inc. today announced a partnership to make server virtualization technology a reality for customers of all sizes. By offering Citrix XenServer OEM Edition across Dell’s PowerEdge server line in the coming year, the companies will bring built-in, easy-to-use virtual machine installation and management to millions of Dell customers worldwide.

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As part of the agreement, Citrix XenServer will support Dell OpenManage and Dell will offer the more comprehensive multi-server Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition as a standalone product or as an easy software license key upgrade from the embedded XenServer OEM Edition. Additionally, XenServer OEM Edition and XenServer Enterprise will be tested, qualified and supported by Dell.

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Dell expects to begin shipping servers embedded with Citrix XenServer OEM Edition in Q1 2008.

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Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition can also be purchased directly from Dell or an authorized reseller…

Second one is with HP:

Today at Citrix iForum, the world’s largest application delivery conference, Citrix Systems, Inc. announced an agreement with HP to qualify and sell Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition (formerly XenSource XenEnterprise) on industry-standard HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers.

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HP ProLiant servers provide optimum operational efficiency and virtualization performance for consolidation and energy efficiency. HP and Citrix’s expanded relationship provides customers the ability to purchase an entire virtualization solution, from server to software, from HP with the added benefit of interoperability and HP support…

Price is identical in both agreements and doesn’t change from the one announced for XenEnterprise 4.0.

After less than two months since first announcement Sun is already able to release first version of Solaris 8 branded zone (formerly project Etude).

This new branded zone is a special Solaris Container able to host a Solaris 8 instead of Solaris 10 partition, just like Solaris Container for Linux Applications exposes a container to host CentOS and Red Hat Linux partitions instead of Solaris 10 ones.

But differently from its Linux counter-part, this branded zone is offered along with a P2V migration tool, so that Solaris 8 customers (only ones adopting SPARC architectures) just have to migrate their physical boxes to complete the whole process.

While Sun Solaris 10, Solaris Containers and new Solaris Containers for Linux Applications are free, this product doesn’t come free as well. After a 90-days trial you have to buy and subscribe support services, which price is still unknown at the moment.

Download the trial here.

Microsoft just updated its Virtual Machine Additions for Linux guest operating systems introducing support for Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux 10.

The partnership between Microsoft and Novell is critical here, allowing Novell to have its OS supported much earlier than competitor Red Hat (Microsoft support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is still frozen at RHEL 4.0).

Download the new package here.

Microsoft finally releases RTM version of its System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) 2007, which introduces live backup for virtual machines hosted by Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1, through the Windows Server 2003 Volume Shadow Service (VSS).

SCDPM is not free of charge but has been included in the System Center Management Suite Enterprise, along with Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2007, Operation Manager (SCOP) 2007 and Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007, priced at $860 per virtualization host (with unlimited virtual machines on top).

Read a whitepaper about the integration with SCVMM here and download the trial product here.

This release finally gives the opportunity to partially address the critical challenge of reliability in virtual infrastructures. Now customers should expect (and demand for) official support statements by third party ISVs, recognizing the virtual machine live backup through VSS as a valid one for their applications.

Quoting from the Vyatta official announcement:

Vyatta, the leader in Linux-based networking, today announced that its open-source networking software has received VMware Virtual Appliance Certification, thereby providing customers with a solution that has been optimized for a production-ready VMware environment. The company also announced it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) Program. As a member of TAP, Vyatta will offer its solutions via the TAP program website. With the Vyatta virtual appliance for VMware environments, organizations can now include Vyatta’s router, firewall and VPN functions as part of their virtualized infrastructure…

Vyatta offers an open-source software platform which can be installed on any x86 computer and which provides most routing capabilities currently available only through well-known vendors like Cisco, Nortel, etc.

Cisco is expected to release a virtual version of its networking devices inside VMware ESX Server, as virtualization.info revealed in July. Despite the companies didn’t make an official announcement during VMworld 2007, the informations has been confirmed by several parts.

So emerging competitor Vyatta has all interests in partnering with VMware and have same opportunity Cisco has.

Quoting from the Embotics official announcement:

Embotics, the Virtual Machine (VM) Lifecycle Management Company, today announced the appointment of Eric Courville as vice president of Sales and Business Development. In his new role, Courville is responsible for worldwide sales and will oversee the company’s go-to-market efforts and the development of Embotics’ partner programs. Courville brings over 17 years of experience in sales, sales management and business development within enterprise software and hardware markets.

Previously as PlateSpin’s vice president of Global Alliances, Courville was responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with all worldwide channel, OEM and alliance partners. Courville also served as PlateSpin’s vice president of Sales and Business Development before his Global Alliances role, where he helped lead PlateSpin to well over 200 percent revenue growth annually over the last three years; increasing the number of customers from less than 60 to more than 3500 globally. Prior to PlateSpin, Courville held management positions with MediSolution, Platform Computing and Silicon Graphics…

Today Citrix announces that XenSource acquisition is completed, and confirms that Xen development will still be led by Ian Pratt, co-founder of XenSource.

Citrix also reveals that Ian Pratt is now an employee, which implies a remarkable impact on how the open source hypervisor will evolve.

So the question is not just about how much committment Citrix will have in open source, but how much support thet will continue to receive by other Xen contributors, like IBM and Red Hat, which probably don’t feel too comfortable about company’s deep relationship with Microsoft.

One week ago virtualization.info broke the news that Citrix was about to transform its VDI connection broker, Desktop Server, into something different. Now the company officially confirms it, exposing its new virtualization strategy now that XenSource acquisition is completed:

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With the completion of the XenSource acquisition, Citrix now adds two new product lines to its portfolio, Citrix XenServer for server virtualization and Citrix XenDesktop for desktop virtualization. Combined with the company’s existing application virtualization products, these two new additions give Citrix the industry’s most comprehensive end-to-end virtualization portfolio:

• Server Virtualization with Citrix XenServer
  The new Citrix XenServer product line is an enterprise-class platform for managing server virtualization in the datacenter as a flexible aggregated pool of computing and storage resources. Based on the high-performance Xen virtualization engine, Citrix XenServer combines comprehensive server virtualization capabilities with unparalleled scalability, performance and ease-of-use. The new product line ranges from Citrix XenServer Express Edition, an easy-to-use single-server solution available for free download, to the more comprehensive Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition (formerly XenEnterprise).
• Application Virtualization with Citrix Presentation Server
  With more than 70 million users and 99 percent of the global Fortune 500 as customers, Citrix Presentation Server is the industry’s de facto standard for delivering Windows applications with the best performance, security and cost savings. Presentation Server stores all Windows applications in a single central store in the datacenter, then delivers them to end users on-demand via innovative application virtualization technology. Server-side app virtualization stores applications on the server and virtualizes the presentation layer to end users, while client-side app virtualization streams applications to the desktop and runs them in a protected virtualization environment at the end point.
• Desktop Virtualization with Citrix XenDesktop
  Citrix XenDesktop, scheduled to ship in the first half of next year, will be a groundbreaking new product line designed to overcome the challenges of cost, complexity and user experience that have prevented virtual desktops from becoming a mainstream enterprise reality in the past. Citrix XenDesktop will be the industry’s first comprehensive, fully integrated desktop delivery system, moving beyond the limitations of existing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) point solutions to ensure the simple, secure, fast delivery of Windows desktops to any office worker over any network. Citrix XenDesktop will combine a powerful desktop delivery controller (based on Citrix Desktop Server with native ICA protocol support), Xen virtualization infrastructure for hosting any number of virtual desktops in the datacenter, and virtual desktop provisioning to stream a single desktop image on-demand to multiple virtual machines in the datacenter (based on Citrix Provisioning Server).

XenDesktop will be released in H1 2008, but a Technical Preview Kit is available today here.

What happened to Citrix Desktop Server support for VMware ESX Server? At the moment no informations are available.

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

Update: The Citrix FAQ page about XenDesktop reveals VMware support strategy:

Does Citrix XenDesktop support VMware environments?

Yes. Citrix XenDesktop supports VMware environments. VMware ESX customers can use Citrix XenDesktop for delivering their virtual desktops hosted on VMware ESX.

Do I have to replace VMware to implement Citrix XenDesktop?

No. Citrix XenDesktop was built to integrate with a variety of VM infrastructures including VMware, XenSource and Microsoft.