History

Today UK firm Leostream announces new version of its connection broker.

Unfortunately the company doesn’t provide a single line of text to clarify what’s new in this release, besides that the product is now delivered as a virtual appliance.

Also note that Leostream launched Desktop Connection Broker 1.0 in August 2006 and after one year without public updates they already reached 5.0 version.

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

virtualization.info just received a news from a trusted source revealing VMware has acquired Dunes Technology.

If confirmed VMware achieved two goals: making another step towards virtual datacenter automation, given the great flexibility Dunes VS-O automation framework offers, and further enhancing VDI offering after Propero acquisition (Dunes offers a VDI solution called VD-O since one year).

The acquisition, assuming it’s true, is expected to be announced at VMworld.

Update: VMware just confirmed the acquisition with a press announcement during VMworld 2007 keynote.

Few hours ago WinBeta broke the news Microsoft just released Windows Server 2008 RC0 to TAP customers.

Now virtualization.info has learned from trusted sources that this new version contains first preview version of new Microsoft hypervisor Windows Server Virtualization (WSV), codename Viridian.

As expected the hypervisor comes as a server role, but the surprising news is that virtualization role is available also for complete installations of Windows, not only Server Core one as originally stated by Microsoft.

This may change once started the beta program, but if it stays this way it may imply Microsoft is changing its plans for hypervisor integration, and may even consider embedding a specific version for desktop operating systems (e.g.: Vista).

Once activated the new role will reboot the machine in hypervisor mode, putting Windows operating system in the so called Parent Partition, as Viridian architecture implies.

If TAP customers have access to this preview it means general public will access beta 1 within the end of this year or early 2008.

It’s evident VMware is getting ready to exert its virtualization technologies in another application field after thin computing and datacenter automation: security.

First the company developed a new product for virtual machines patching, Update Manager, which will appear as part of upcoming Virtual Infrastructure 3.5.

Then it almost silently acquired a security firm, Determina, specialized in operating system live patching, which will be integrated in future products releases.

Also, VMware is working on a disaster recovery solution, which may be disclosed at VMworld 2007.

And now Reuters reveals RSA, owned by EMC just like VMware, is working with the virtualization leader to futher enforce virtual machines security:

EMC Corp is working on security products that would work with VMware Inc software, EMC Executive Vice President Arthur Coviello said on Thursday.

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Coviello said RSA is “working with VMware to create virtual security layers for whatever images you are trying to access in a virtual environment.”

In last few years EMC has been frequently asked why it never pursued tight integration between its subsidiaries. Maybe the storage giant finally changed its strategy.

Quoting from vnunet.com:

A group of vendors including Dell is preparing a new standard that will bridge the gap between Intel and AMD servers in virtualised environments, vnunet.com has learned.

Chipmakers currently enable the live migration of virtual machines between processor generations.

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Such cross-generation support, however, is merely a good start, argued Sally Stevens, director of Dell’s enterprise marketing product group.

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However, she warned that, although Intel and AMD are best positioned to allow for migrations between their architectures, it is unlikely that the arch rivals will be able to come to an understanding.

She declined to further specify the technology that will be introduced, how it will work or when it will be made available, other than saying that it will be launched “soon”…

Read the whole article at the source.

The article is referring to Intel FlexMigration technology, introduced with new quad-core Xeon 7300 line, and AMD-V Extended Migration, to appear in quad-core codename Barcellona.

After 3 years, since acquisition of Connectix, Microsoft finally releases an enterprise class management tool for Virtual Server: Virtual Machine Manager 2007, included in System Center management family.

First edition of SCVMM includes several features which definitively improve Microsoft chances to increase its market share in virtualization industry:

• Virtual machines assisted provisioning
• Centralized library for virtual machines master images, scripts and ISOs
• Integrated P2V and V2V migration capabilities (including live P2V for Windows physical targets and V2V for VMware virtual machines)
• Self-service provisioning through a web portal
• Enhanced scripting capabilities through PowerShell integration
• Tight integration with System Center Operation Manager 2007 for virtual datacenter monitoring and capacity planning
• Tight integration with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 for virtual machines offline patching
• Tight integration with System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 for virtual machines live backup

Second edition of the tool, probably called SCVMM 2007 R2, will feature support for upcoming Microsoft hypervisor, Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian), and support for VMware and Xen-based hypervisors. Such version will appear in beta as soon as Q1 2007.

This last informations comes completely unexpected and may become a major problem for all those 3rd parties vendors, which are focusing on cross-virtualization-platforms management tools since more than one year.

The news of also impacts Citrix strategy, which acquired XenSource last month, and stated several times it will focus on interoperability tools between its new hypervisor and Microsoft one.

Last but not least SCVMM 2007 brings in a very aggressive pricing model, aimed at conquering SMB market and hitting VMware strategy on this segment.

In details SCVMM 2007 will be available as licensed component of a comprehensive System Center Management Suite Enterprise (including also SCOM2007, SCCM2007, DPM2007) or as stand-alone application, licensed with a specific SCVMM 2007 Workgroup Edition available in January 2008.

The comprehensive Enterprise bundle will cost $860 / virtualization host (with unlimited virtual machines on top), while the SCVMM alone will cost $499 / virtualization host (with unlimited virtual machines on top) with a limitation to maximum 5 virtualization hosts.

A 120-days trial of SCVMM 2007 Workgroup edition will be available here shortly.

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

In a short post introducing upcoming Solaris 8 Branded Zone for Solaris Containers, Marc Hamilton, Vice President of Solaris Marketing, reveals how upcoming Sun hypervisor, based on Xen engine, will be called: xVM.

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Of course Solaris Containers is just one of the many virtualization technologies from Sun that can help you reduce cost and complexity in your data center. Our CoolThreads servers support a hypervisor based virtualization technology called LDoms (Logical Domains) and we will soon introduce the Solaris x86 Virtual Machine (xVM) hypervisor for Solaris running on systems with x86 processors from Intel and AMD…

Read the whole post at the source.

Just a couple of days after release of Solaris Containers for Linux Applications (aka Linux Branded Zone), included in new Solaris 10 Update 4, Sun is ready to unveil a second extension for its OS virtualization technology: Solaris 8 Branded Zone.

This time instead of allowing run of unmodified Linux applications inside one zone, Solaris admins will be able to run old Solaris 8 applications.

To further simplify this operation Sun is working on a physical to virtual (P2V) migration tool called Solaris 8 Migration Assistant (codename Etude).

At the moment no informations are available about release timeframe for this new technology.

Virtugo is ready to release first product since its merge with uXcomm in April.

The new version of virtualSuite brings in two important features: integration of existing products and a new VDI solution.

In details the suite includes:

• Virtugo Perform
  A performance management tool specifically designed for IT organizations to discover and monitor virtualized environment vital statistics. Perform incorporates host server and virtual machine knowledge to show real-time variables such as CPU, memory and disk usage within a comprehensive user interface. Graphs and charts make the data easy to understand.
• Virtugo Optimize
  An application performance tuner for virtual environment. By dynamically adjusting CPU, memory and disk resource allocations in real-time, the virtual environment can handle more work while decreasing application response time. Optimize was designed to maximize utilization and increase productivity of existing systems, enabling companies to dynamically manage workloads and ensure business priorities are met.
• Virtugo Capacity
  A reporting tool to monitor and document vital statistics about a company’s virtualized environment. It tracks a comprehensive set of host server and virtual machine metrics, stores them in a database and generates reports that identifies bottleneck and trends. These capabilities enable the IT administrator to plan the right amount of virtualization capacity to meet current and future demands of the organization.
• Virtugo Meter
  A chargeback tool which provides utilization measures for tracking resource use within physical and virtualized environments. This allows businesses to allocate costs, validate intended usage levels and perform accurate chargeback.
• Virtugo VDI
  A connection broker that manages, supports, and configures physical and virtual desktops in a single easy-to-use console, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership for virtualization desktop infrastructures. Administrators can now take a proactive, centralized approach to Virtual Desktop Infrastructures and deploy necessary software applications, patches and critical updates. virtualSuite VDI enables automated asset discovery, audits and reporting for hardware and software configurations in virtual and physical environments.

virtualSuite 6.0 is available immediately with pricing starting at $349 per CPU socket. The price includes one year of support and upgrades.

Many of virtualSuite features put Virtugo in direct competition with Vizioncore, which just integrated Invirtus offering.

Entering the crowded VDI space, Virtugo will also have to compete against VMware (which is preparing to enter ther market after Propero acquisition) and other popular vendors like Provision Networks, Leostream, Dunes.

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

Since this release Virtugo is listed among vendors addressing technology adoption challenges in virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Challenges report.

Quoting from the Intel official announcement:

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The six new Quad-Core Xeon® 7300 series processors can deliver more than twice the performance and more than three times the performance per watt over the company’s previous generation dual-core products.

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In addition to twice the cores, the 7300 series and Intel 7300 chipset offer up to four times the memory capacity of Intel’s previous MP platforms, enabling very large consolidation ratios that can reduce space, power and operation costs.

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With the introduction of the Xeon 7300, users will now be able to pool all of their Intel Core microarchitecture based server resources, whether they are single-, dual- or multi-processor based, into a dynamic virtual server infrastructure that allows live virtual machine migration that can improve usage models like failover, load balancing, disaster recovery, or server maintenance. The previously announced Intel VT FlexMigration will assist the seamless addition of Intel’s next generation 45nm Core microarchitecture-based platforms to such resource pools.

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Pricing of these new quad-core processors depends on the speeds, features and amount ordered, and ranges from $856 to $2,301 in quantities of 1,000…

Virtual Iron is the first company to announce support this new processor in just released Virtual Iron 4.0 platform.

AMD announced a similar technology under the name of AMD-V Extended Migration.