History

This year attendees of VMworld 2007 received a pleasing surprise: a 1GB USB key with a beta version of upcoming ESX Server 3i.

When one of 3i supported servers is not available for a trial deployment, users may want to install the beta inside a virtual machine, which is not exactly an easy goal to achieve.

To simplify the whole operation David Davis, created a nice 16-minutes webcast which explains how to extract the ESX Server 3i image from the USB key and run it inside a Workstation 6 virtual machine.

Watch the whole video here.

InfoWorld published a comparison between the three most popular application virtualization platforms: Microsoft SoftGrid 4.2, Symantec SVS Pro 2.1 (acquired by Altiris) and the just released Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.2.

Winner is Symantec SVS with a score of 7.5/10 but other products received very similar ratings. Bottom lines for each one are:

• Symantec SVS Pro 2.1
  SVS gains in partner AppStream a much needed streaming capability to support its already robust virtualization layer. The combined solution allows applications to be launched from a Web browser, and headless services are supported. However, the level of integration between the OEM components is imperfect and simple deployment tasks require too many steps, not to mention the slow initial response time for virtualized applications. Still, it’s the closest thing to “click ‘n run” on the market today.
• Microsoft SoftGrid 4.2
  SoftGrid has changed little since our previous review. Strong points are tight integration with Active Directory and a well-optimized streaming model. However, it still suffers from usability quirks and an overly complex sequencing process, and it lacks support for headless services. Nevertheless, Microsoft’s acquisition of SoftGrid, and its decision to de-couple the client from the server, point to an important role for the underlying technology in future Microsoft products and services.
• Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.2
  Thinstall continues to deliver a no-frills solution that makes the process of packaging and deploying virtualized applications almost trivially simple. The completely self-contained virtualization environment requires no client agent or back-end server, and it delivers excellent runtime performance. However, the acquisition of competitors Softricity and Altiris has left Thinstall as the lone pioneer in a rapidly maturing market. Previously overlooked deficiencies, like the lack of client-side caching and the inability to stream over non-SMB connection types, will become magnified in the light of this newly competitive landscape.

Read the whole comparison at source.

Quoting from the VMware official announcement:

VMware, Inc., the virtualization leader, today announced a new hardware certification program for storage virtualization devices. Combined with the virtualization-enabling technologies in VMware ESX Server, this program is designed to enable customers to have more choice in deploying virtualized storage solutions with VMware Infrastructure.

By enabling hardware vendors to certify storage virtualization devices for VMware Infrastructure, VMware and hardware vendors together are poised to bring to market the complementary technologies of server virtualization and storage virtualization. As a result of this program, customers will be able to leverage the flexibility of management, cost efficiency and high availability of VMware Infrastructure as well as storage virtualization to create an end-to-end solution.

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VMware is working directly with its Global- and Premier-level Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program members to certify their storage virtualization devices. VMware is also working to expand the certification program to the broader storage ecosystem, including to Select-level TAP members, later this year with testing done by VMware’s authorized testing centers or by AppLabs or Cognizant Technologies. These global IT services companies specialize in testing and are authorized by VMware to test eligible hardware for all standard VMware hardware certification categories…

One common complain about VMware in the SMB market relates to its strict Hardware Compatibility List, so far only limited to servers. With this move also storage has to be certified, possibly creating an unreachable entry cost for most low-budged virtualization adopters.

This strategy also slows down storage startups, which will have to adhere VMware Technology Alliance at all costs to not have much harder time reaching customers’ sites.

The most interesting aspect anyway is that while VMware is locking down customers choices, it’s also working to extend control over hardware vendors without investing too many resources: the company is expected to launch a self-certification program in the near future, allowing every vendor to perform compatibility tests that VMware itself usually takes care of.

Virtual Iron reports that new virtualization enhancement included in Intel Xeon 7300, VT FlexPriority, brings a performance improvement up to 35% in a system with Virtual Iron 4.0 and 32bit Windows guest operating systems. Some details provided by official announcement:

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Intel® VT FlexPriority optimizes and accelerates interrupt virtualization by improving virtual machine access to the Task Priority Register thereby enabling efficient Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) configurations of 32-bit guest operating systems. For users, this translates into more efficient performance in virtual environments for their critical enterprise applications.

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Intel VT FlexPriority was designed to accelerate virtualization interrupt handling thereby improving virtualization performance. Intel VT FlexPriority accelerates interrupt handling by preventing unnecessary VMExits on accesses to the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller…

Quoting from the ZDNet:

VMware has traditionally restricted access to its hypervisor code and, while the vendor has made no official announcement about the API sharing program tentatively called “Vsafe”, VMware founder and chief scientist Mendel Rosenblum told ZDNet Australia that the company has started sharing some APIs (Application Program Interfaces) with security vendors.

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Rosenblum said the APIs released as part of the initiative offer security vendors a way to check the memory of a processor, “so they can look for viruses or signatures or other bad things.”…

Read the whole article at the source.

This move was expected and welcome. Allowing security vendors to act at hypervisor level through APIs access addresses in first instance scalability challenge that customers will have face once reaching a high cosolidation ratio. Moving anti-viruses agents, host IDS agents, backup agents, etc. at the hypervisor level is the key to avoid useless memory and storage bottlenecks.

At a later time security vendors can also start correlating events which happen inside every virtual machine from their new hypervisor persepective, creating a new class of network IDS, which track virtual machines’ memories along with their network activity.

Quoting from the SWsoft official announcement:

Parallels, maker of award winning virtualization solutions for the Windows, Linux and Macintosh communities, announced today that it is collaborating with Intel, the world leader in microprocessor development, to deliver new usage models in Workstations and Clients, an effort designed to accelerate adoption of virtualization in production desktop environments. This collaboration will further enhance the value of Intel vPro technology to the end customers.

…The companies are engaged at an engineering level to accelerate the development and implementation of key workstation and desktop technologies, including Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d) and Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT). The two companies will work together with major OEM hardware manufacturers and independent software vendors to develop virtualization-powered workstation and client computing solutions.

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Parallels intends to become the industry’s first virtualization software vendor to provide support for VT-d and TXT in Clients and Workstations…

The news is very interesting, mostly the last claim, considering Intel is already deep involved with VMware, where they intested $218 million at IPO time and gained a seat in board of directors.

Besides VMware, Intel aso already invested in SWsoft (with $12.4 million in 2005, with other VC firms) and in Virtual Iron (with $8.5 million in 2005).

After a preview in summer, the application virtualization startup Thinstall finally releases 3.2 version of its platform.

The new Thinstall 3.2 is mostly interesting because it introduces capability to virtualize Microsoft Internet Explorer, one of the most difficult application to handle because of its tight connection with Windows.

Another important feature of this release is capability to update virtualized applications without deliver the whole package again, and support for 16bit applications (Windows 95 compatible).

Download a 30-days trial of Thinstall 3.2 here.

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

Quoting from the Thinstall official announcement:

Thinstall, a leading Application Virtualization Platform Solution, today announced a strategic relationship with BMC as a Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) member. The alliance enables BMC and its resellers to directly offer Thinstall to customers using the BMC Configuration Management solution.

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Henrik Rosendahl CEO of Thinstall said, “This agreement with BMC is a major milestone in our strategy to establish a partner network with forward looking, industry leaders to add market strength to our momentum. The alliance helps us continue delivering the best solutions for application virtualization to the broadest customer base. We are committed to the success of our relationship with BMC and to the mutual benefit our combined solutions offer to BMC’s customers.”…

BMC is not the only company embedding Thinstall technology inside its solutions. Before them LANDesk did the same in March, as well as Provision Networks in July.

Quoting from the IronKey official announcement:

IronKey Inc., a provider of data and Internet security products, announced today a partnership with Moka5, a desktop virtual computing company targeting consumers and small to medium-sized businesses, to allow Moka5 to bundle and resell IronKey Secure Flash Drives with the Moka5 Engine loaded on the devices. The combined technologies now give consumer and business users the freedom to securely take their computing environment with them anywhere they go.

To formalize this partnership, Moka5 has joined the IronKey Enterprise Security Alliance, a partners program that brings together vendors from different parts of the security and portable computing infrastructure to help create new highly secure enterprise and government solutions that can work across a variety of computing platforms including Windows, Mac, and Linux…

Quoting from the PlateSpin official announcement:

PlateSpin Ltd., a leading provider of data center automation and optimization solutions, today announced that it has been ranked among the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, a ranking of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in Canada, based on the percentage of revenue growth over five years. PlateSpin’s overall revenue growth rate of 21,519 percent over the past five years resulted in a second place ranking…

Earlier this year PlateSpin was recognized as one of the fastest growing canadian company in Branham300 and in Backbone Magazine.