Simpaticorp announces a new website designed to provide an easier interface for customers to order virtual server products and customize these servers.
"Fast, easy and without even having to enter a credit card," is how Simpaticorp's website designer describes the new website. "I was charged with creating a site which would allow our prospective clients to price our products and services but not make a commitment to their credit card until they were satisfied with our services."
Simpaticorp provides virtual private servers, or VPS, to business clients. Running Windows, Linux or Solaris with any number of server applications, virtual servers run "greener" than traditional servers.
The provisioning of virtual servers, on demand, falls into the space of "cloud computing."
According to Business Week, "It also includes newer avenues such as hardware as a service, a way to order storage and server capacity on demand… What all these cloud computing services have in common, though, is that they're all delivered over the Internet, on demand, from massive data centers."
A sea change in computing? You bet.
Some analysts say cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing is done in corporations. Merrill Lynch (MER) estimates that within the next five years, the annual global market for cloud computing will surge to $95 billion. In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would go to the cloud in that period.
Simpaticorp realizes it is often beneficial for the provisioning engineer to contact the client directly before charging the client. The new website allows prospective clients to specify their needs, submit an order and generally have the new server up and running within one hour.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Create Your Own Webpage Plug-Ins for VMware vSphere Client
Ricky El-Qasem from Virtual Planet has developed a tool to allow you to create your own Webpage plug-ins to the VMware vSphere client.
Do you have a web management tool that you like to use like VMware View Admin Console? Or perhaps you have a favorite Web site? You can easily create a tabbed plug-in to include those in your client.
El-Qasem said it is a two step process. Step 1 involves creating an xml which is the visual configuration and contains the actual url link to plug-in your website. Step 2 requires you to register the plug-in within the VI SDK.
Do you have a web management tool that you like to use like VMware View Admin Console? Or perhaps you have a favorite Web site? You can easily create a tabbed plug-in to include those in your client.
El-Qasem said it is a two step process. Step 1 involves creating an xml which is the visual configuration and contains the actual url link to plug-in your website. Step 2 requires you to register the plug-in within the VI SDK.
Data Strategy Invited to Become a Member of VMware's Partner Technical Advisory Board (PTAB)
Data Strategy, a Central US IT solutions provider, announced today that it has been named to 2009 VMware's Partner Technical Advisory Board (PTAB).
As a member of PTAB, Data Strategy joins an elite group of approximately 15 of VMware's top VAC (VMware Authorized Consultant) partners in the Americas. VMware created PTAB to foster an open communication channel between its top partners and product and service leaders.
The Board meets quarterly to provide VMware with fresh ideas and constructive feedback to help the company grow its product and service offerings and better meet the needs of customers and partners. VMware also encourages communication among the partners that are participating in PTAB.
Invitation to PTAB is strictly by invitation only. "It's an honor to be asked to join VMware's advisory community," said DSI's Vice President of Professional Services, Bill Hussain. "It validates and reinforces our position as a leader in the virtualization space and ensures our broad spectrum of customers both small and large, receive the most complete, comprehensive and highest quality virtual infrastructure solutions."
VMware and virtual technologies are a core part of Data Strategy's solutions portfolio. With 15+ VMware Certified Professionals on staff, the company has established a successful virtualization practice around the products and systems that support the technology.
Data Strategy is also a VMware Premier Partner and one of only a handful of companies in the Central US who have reached VMware's highest partner level. To attain Premier Partner status, companies must demonstrate rigorous technical staff certifications and posses the resources to assess, design, implement, manage, and support virtualized environments. A recognized leader in the virtualization space, Data Strategy was awarded the VMware Central Region Partner of the Year award in 2008.
As a member of PTAB, Data Strategy joins an elite group of approximately 15 of VMware's top VAC (VMware Authorized Consultant) partners in the Americas. VMware created PTAB to foster an open communication channel between its top partners and product and service leaders.
The Board meets quarterly to provide VMware with fresh ideas and constructive feedback to help the company grow its product and service offerings and better meet the needs of customers and partners. VMware also encourages communication among the partners that are participating in PTAB.
Invitation to PTAB is strictly by invitation only. "It's an honor to be asked to join VMware's advisory community," said DSI's Vice President of Professional Services, Bill Hussain. "It validates and reinforces our position as a leader in the virtualization space and ensures our broad spectrum of customers both small and large, receive the most complete, comprehensive and highest quality virtual infrastructure solutions."
VMware and virtual technologies are a core part of Data Strategy's solutions portfolio. With 15+ VMware Certified Professionals on staff, the company has established a successful virtualization practice around the products and systems that support the technology.
Data Strategy is also a VMware Premier Partner and one of only a handful of companies in the Central US who have reached VMware's highest partner level. To attain Premier Partner status, companies must demonstrate rigorous technical staff certifications and posses the resources to assess, design, implement, manage, and support virtualized environments. A recognized leader in the virtualization space, Data Strategy was awarded the VMware Central Region Partner of the Year award in 2008.
ScaleMP Rates Among the Fastest in the World on Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) Benchmarks
ScaleMP, a leading provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing, today announced record-breaking benchmarking results for x86 systems using the company’s vSMP Foundation software. vSMP Foundation claimed top five results for two Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) benchmarks, representing more than a 10x improvement over the best results available for x86 shared memory systems.
ScaleMP benchmarking experts used 16 dual-socket systems, aggregated into a single virtual shared-memory system to achieve the record-breaking results for two SPEC benchmarks for computer systems: SPECint_rate_base2006 which achieved 3150, and SPECfp_rate_base2006 which achieved 2550, receiving top 5 status for both benchmarks and solidifying ScaleMP’s leadership in powering high-end x86 systems. The official results can be viewed on SPEC.org web site (http://www.spec.org).
"vSMP Foundation continues to lead the industry in terms of the performance and savings it offers to high-end virtual environments," said Shai Fultheim, founder and CEO of ScaleMP. "vSMP Foundation outperformed other x86 shared memory systems by an order of magnitude, demonstrating the power of a single virtual system by aggregating multiple, industry-standard x86 systems."
vSMP Foundation enables the creation of a virtual shared memory system by aggregating multiple industry-standard servers, providing up to 32 processors (128 cores) and 4 TB. vSMP Foundation uses x86 servers and InfiniBand to offer price and performance advantages for the HPC market. In essence, it provides a unique way to leverage entry-level systems to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO); delivering the operational simplicity of traditional shared-memory systems while keeping the acquisition cost associated with clusters. It also simplifies cluster deployments by reducing the number of operating systems to one. vSMP Foundation is ideal for applications benefitting from large memory, high core-count coupled with shared memory.
For more information about vSMP Foundation, please visit http://www.scalemp.com/vfs-overview.
ScaleMP benchmarking experts used 16 dual-socket systems, aggregated into a single virtual shared-memory system to achieve the record-breaking results for two SPEC benchmarks for computer systems: SPECint_rate_base2006 which achieved 3150, and SPECfp_rate_base2006 which achieved 2550, receiving top 5 status for both benchmarks and solidifying ScaleMP’s leadership in powering high-end x86 systems. The official results can be viewed on SPEC.org web site (http://www.spec.org).
"vSMP Foundation continues to lead the industry in terms of the performance and savings it offers to high-end virtual environments," said Shai Fultheim, founder and CEO of ScaleMP. "vSMP Foundation outperformed other x86 shared memory systems by an order of magnitude, demonstrating the power of a single virtual system by aggregating multiple, industry-standard x86 systems."
vSMP Foundation enables the creation of a virtual shared memory system by aggregating multiple industry-standard servers, providing up to 32 processors (128 cores) and 4 TB. vSMP Foundation uses x86 servers and InfiniBand to offer price and performance advantages for the HPC market. In essence, it provides a unique way to leverage entry-level systems to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO); delivering the operational simplicity of traditional shared-memory systems while keeping the acquisition cost associated with clusters. It also simplifies cluster deployments by reducing the number of operating systems to one. vSMP Foundation is ideal for applications benefitting from large memory, high core-count coupled with shared memory.
For more information about vSMP Foundation, please visit http://www.scalemp.com/vfs-overview.
Citrix Delivers NetScaler VPX Virtual Appliance and Unveils Citrix Ready Open Networking Program
Citrix Systems, Inc. today announced the general availability of the Citrix® NetScaler® VPX™ virtual appliance (see separate news release titled, “Citrix NetScaler Goes Virtual”) and unveiled a new Citrix Ready™ Open Networking Program to support it. The new program establishes a powerful partner ecosystem to support Citrix NetScaler VPX, the industry’s only leading application delivery and load balancing solution that is available as a virtual appliance. With the introduction of the Open Networking Program, Citrix is making it easier for ISVs, enterprise customers and cloud infrastructure providers to create powerful virtual networking solutions they can confidently integrate with a broad range of partner solutions already verified to work with NetScaler VPX.
“The availability of the NetScaler VPX virtual appliance will put complete web application delivery functionality within the reach of any organization adopting Oracle Applications,” said Tom Herrmann, vice president, global ISV management and programs at Oracle. “Through our Application Integration Architecture for Partners initiative, Citrix and Oracle have worked closely to validate and document how NetScaler appliances enhance the delivery of Oracle Applications. By making NetScaler available as a virtual appliance, Citrix is making it easy for Oracle Applications customers of all sizes to obtain these same benefits.”
Open Networking Program
The Citrix Ready Open Networking Program establishes a broad partner ecosystem to support the deployment of virtualized NetScaler services into nearly any environment. By leveraging the program, Citrix customers can confidently build comprehensive application delivery infrastructures using NetScaler VPX and integrate with a multitude of partner solutions:
Platform Partners - Provide a broad array of deployment options for NetScaler VPX software.
Application Partners - Validate interoperability with NetScaler VPX and deliver turnkey solutions with tightly-integrated NetScaler load balancing and application delivery.
Cloud and Hosting Providers - Offer on-demand application networking to customers in both shared and dedicated service models.
Solution Partners - Complement NetScaler VPX functionality to provide holistic and comprehensive solutions, including cloud-based messaging security and flexible identity management products.
“SoftLayer Technologies is proud to add the Citrix NetScaler VPX virtual appliance to our portfolio of cloud-based services,” said Nathan Day, chief technology officer and co-founder of SoftLayer. “With NetScaler VPX, SoftLayer can now provide our customers with the industry’s best load balancing and application optimization as an on-demand, cloud-based service.”
“Joyent is excited to offer NetScaler VPX virtual appliances on demand,” said David Young, CEO and Founder of Joyent. “Joyent customers with applications running in the Joyent Public Cloud can now benefit from world-class load balancing, application acceleration and security functionality of NetScaler.”
Charter members of the new Citrix Ready Open Networking Program partners include Ankeena, Apere, Arista, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Joyent, Oracle, SoftLayer, Trend Micro and Vyatta. A complete list of certified partners and solutions can be found at http://www.citrix.com/ready/list/products?family=netscaler%20VPX.
NetScaler VPX Virtual Appliance
Since its May 2009 debut as a publicly available tech preview release, NetScaler VPX has been downloaded and evaluated by thousands of enterprise customers and cloud infrastructure providers eager to bring needed flexibility and efficiency to their datacenters. Now available for general purchase, NetScaler VPX is poised to expand the market for advanced web application delivery technology.
“Availability of software-based application delivery controllers (ADCs), especially those offering advanced feature sets, will drive a significant expansion of the overall ADC market,” said Joe Skorupa, research vice president, Gartner, Inc. “Soft ADCs will emerge as a strategic platform for enterprise architects to optimize the delivery of mission-critical applications.”
NetScaler VPX makes it simple and cost effective for organizations of all sizes to deploy market-leading application delivery capabilities for every web application. By combining broad platform support, affordable licensing and gigabit performance, NetScaler VPX brings advanced application delivery technology to both common and emerging customer scenarios not addressed by appliance-only deployments:
Making Shared Services Work in Cloud and Enterprise Datacenters - NetScaler VPX enables next generation multi-tenancy architectures, bringing application-specific and tenant-specific acceleration, security and traffic management close to the application in a flexible software tier. This complements NetScaler MPX hardware appliances at the data center edge that are handling large-scale services common to all tenants.
On-demand Load Balancing and Application Delivery - For the first time, industry-leading application delivery and load balancing can be provisioned as an on-demand service by cloud and hosting providers seeking to enhance the elasticity and profitability of their offerings. Datacenter architectures are freed from the inherent rigidity of appliance-only solutions.
Moving NetScaler Upstream in the Application Lifecycle - NetScaler VPX makes critical application optimization, security and management technology capabilities readily accessible to development teams so that application delivery can be “baked” into the application. Additionally, it addresses thorny configuration support and change management issues by allowing evaluation of application delivery policies in test and stage environments, before promoting into production environments.
Free NetScaler VPX Express Edition
For easy evaluation and limited production deployments, Citrix is offering NetScaler VPX Express Edition, which can be downloaded and activated at no cost. NetScaler VPX Express provides all IT professionals - including networking managers and application development and test teams - a simple, risk-free option to evaluate advanced web application delivery technology. It also provides an affordable option for inserting NetScaler technology into non-production test and development environments, allowing policy and configuration changes to be tested before they are promoted into a live environment.
“The overwhelming customer response to our NetScaler VPX solution validates our strategy to expand the overall market for NetScaler technology by making it available as a virtual appliance,” said Klaus Oestermann, vice president and general manager of the NetScaler Product Group, Citrix Systems. “The Open Networking Program is a powerful ecosystem around which customers can confidently build integrated, efficient application delivery infrastructures using leading technologies and products.”
Pricing and Availability
NetScaler VPX is available today from Citrix Solution Advisors worldwide. In addition to being available with Standard, Enterprise and Platinum Edition feature sets, NetScaler VPX Express Edition can be downloaded for free from http://www.citrix.com/netscalervpxexpress. NetScaler VPX is also available as an on-demand, cloud-based service from cloud vendors such as SoftLayer.
“The availability of the NetScaler VPX virtual appliance will put complete web application delivery functionality within the reach of any organization adopting Oracle Applications,” said Tom Herrmann, vice president, global ISV management and programs at Oracle. “Through our Application Integration Architecture for Partners initiative, Citrix and Oracle have worked closely to validate and document how NetScaler appliances enhance the delivery of Oracle Applications. By making NetScaler available as a virtual appliance, Citrix is making it easy for Oracle Applications customers of all sizes to obtain these same benefits.”
Open Networking Program
The Citrix Ready Open Networking Program establishes a broad partner ecosystem to support the deployment of virtualized NetScaler services into nearly any environment. By leveraging the program, Citrix customers can confidently build comprehensive application delivery infrastructures using NetScaler VPX and integrate with a multitude of partner solutions:
Platform Partners - Provide a broad array of deployment options for NetScaler VPX software.
Application Partners - Validate interoperability with NetScaler VPX and deliver turnkey solutions with tightly-integrated NetScaler load balancing and application delivery.
Cloud and Hosting Providers - Offer on-demand application networking to customers in both shared and dedicated service models.
Solution Partners - Complement NetScaler VPX functionality to provide holistic and comprehensive solutions, including cloud-based messaging security and flexible identity management products.
“SoftLayer Technologies is proud to add the Citrix NetScaler VPX virtual appliance to our portfolio of cloud-based services,” said Nathan Day, chief technology officer and co-founder of SoftLayer. “With NetScaler VPX, SoftLayer can now provide our customers with the industry’s best load balancing and application optimization as an on-demand, cloud-based service.”
“Joyent is excited to offer NetScaler VPX virtual appliances on demand,” said David Young, CEO and Founder of Joyent. “Joyent customers with applications running in the Joyent Public Cloud can now benefit from world-class load balancing, application acceleration and security functionality of NetScaler.”
Charter members of the new Citrix Ready Open Networking Program partners include Ankeena, Apere, Arista, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Joyent, Oracle, SoftLayer, Trend Micro and Vyatta. A complete list of certified partners and solutions can be found at http://www.citrix.com/ready/list/products?family=netscaler%20VPX.
NetScaler VPX Virtual Appliance
Since its May 2009 debut as a publicly available tech preview release, NetScaler VPX has been downloaded and evaluated by thousands of enterprise customers and cloud infrastructure providers eager to bring needed flexibility and efficiency to their datacenters. Now available for general purchase, NetScaler VPX is poised to expand the market for advanced web application delivery technology.
“Availability of software-based application delivery controllers (ADCs), especially those offering advanced feature sets, will drive a significant expansion of the overall ADC market,” said Joe Skorupa, research vice president, Gartner, Inc. “Soft ADCs will emerge as a strategic platform for enterprise architects to optimize the delivery of mission-critical applications.”
NetScaler VPX makes it simple and cost effective for organizations of all sizes to deploy market-leading application delivery capabilities for every web application. By combining broad platform support, affordable licensing and gigabit performance, NetScaler VPX brings advanced application delivery technology to both common and emerging customer scenarios not addressed by appliance-only deployments:
Making Shared Services Work in Cloud and Enterprise Datacenters - NetScaler VPX enables next generation multi-tenancy architectures, bringing application-specific and tenant-specific acceleration, security and traffic management close to the application in a flexible software tier. This complements NetScaler MPX hardware appliances at the data center edge that are handling large-scale services common to all tenants.
On-demand Load Balancing and Application Delivery - For the first time, industry-leading application delivery and load balancing can be provisioned as an on-demand service by cloud and hosting providers seeking to enhance the elasticity and profitability of their offerings. Datacenter architectures are freed from the inherent rigidity of appliance-only solutions.
Moving NetScaler Upstream in the Application Lifecycle - NetScaler VPX makes critical application optimization, security and management technology capabilities readily accessible to development teams so that application delivery can be “baked” into the application. Additionally, it addresses thorny configuration support and change management issues by allowing evaluation of application delivery policies in test and stage environments, before promoting into production environments.
Free NetScaler VPX Express Edition
For easy evaluation and limited production deployments, Citrix is offering NetScaler VPX Express Edition, which can be downloaded and activated at no cost. NetScaler VPX Express provides all IT professionals - including networking managers and application development and test teams - a simple, risk-free option to evaluate advanced web application delivery technology. It also provides an affordable option for inserting NetScaler technology into non-production test and development environments, allowing policy and configuration changes to be tested before they are promoted into a live environment.
“The overwhelming customer response to our NetScaler VPX solution validates our strategy to expand the overall market for NetScaler technology by making it available as a virtual appliance,” said Klaus Oestermann, vice president and general manager of the NetScaler Product Group, Citrix Systems. “The Open Networking Program is a powerful ecosystem around which customers can confidently build integrated, efficient application delivery infrastructures using leading technologies and products.”
Pricing and Availability
NetScaler VPX is available today from Citrix Solution Advisors worldwide. In addition to being available with Standard, Enterprise and Platinum Edition feature sets, NetScaler VPX Express Edition can be downloaded for free from http://www.citrix.com/netscalervpxexpress. NetScaler VPX is also available as an on-demand, cloud-based service from cloud vendors such as SoftLayer.
Oxford University's Network Systems Management Services (NSMS) Group Uses esXpress for Low Cost VMware Backup and Recovery
PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of the pioneering esXpress VMware backup and recovery solution, today announced that Oxford University’s Network Systems Management Services (NSMS) group relies on esXpress to provide data protection and recovery for its VMware environment of 14 ESX servers. esXpress delivers scalable, highly available and cost effective VMware backup and restore capabilities for Oxford University without added hardware or software investments.
Oxford University has been educating people from all walks of life and all parts of the world for more than nine centuries. The first university in the English-speaking world, Oxford University today remains at the forefront of learning, teaching and research. Students from more than 140 countries and territories make up a student population of over 20,000, with over a third coming from outside the United Kingdom. These students are educated by 38 independent and self-governing colleges and six permanent private halls.
The Oxford University NSMS supports the expansive information services for these colleges and halls through an elaborate information technology infrastructure that is offered as a shared managed service to each of the university’s colleges and departments. At the backbone of this infrastructure is Oxford NSMS’ VMware virtualization environment including a dual-site setup with 14 ESX servers, and a single-site ESX cluster based on 10 blades. This virtual environment serves as the central computing center for the entire Oxford University system including support for student records, university email services, web servers, content management systems and university databases.
To assure reliable data protection for its virtual infrastructure, Oxford University selected PHD Virtual’s esXpress for its simplicity, scalability and unique Virtual Backup Appliance architecture which enables the virtual environment to back itself up. As such, Oxford University NSMS is able to meet its data protection and recovery requirements for high availability without added hardware or software costs.
“esXpress is a reliable, easy to use backup solution that fits seamlessly into our VMware environment,” said Jon Hutchings, senior system administrator, Oxford University NSMS. “It has saved us a tremendous amount of time and money by using the power of our virtual machines to protect themselves. Now, we no longer need to spend hours locating backup tapes like we did with our previous tape backup solution. Backups are performed seamlessly to disk making restores faster and much more reliable.”
esXpress is a revolutionary VMware backup and data protection solution that uses the virtual environment itself to perform the backup, in less time, and at a lower cost. Key benefits of esXpress for Oxford University include:
• Fault-Tolerance – esXpress is VMware DRS/HA-aware and VMotion compatible making it more reliable and more stable than other solutions
• Backs Up More Data in Less Time – With up to 16 concurrent backup streams per ESX host, esXpress enables Oxford to significantly reduce their backup window
• Leverages Existing Infrastructure Investments – esXpress’ Data Smart Dynamic Export enables Oxford to leverage its investment in existing physical backup solutions to minimize total cost of ownership
To learn more about esXpress or to download a free trial version, please visit:http://www.phdvirtual.com/products/esxpress-virtual-backup
Oxford University has been educating people from all walks of life and all parts of the world for more than nine centuries. The first university in the English-speaking world, Oxford University today remains at the forefront of learning, teaching and research. Students from more than 140 countries and territories make up a student population of over 20,000, with over a third coming from outside the United Kingdom. These students are educated by 38 independent and self-governing colleges and six permanent private halls.
The Oxford University NSMS supports the expansive information services for these colleges and halls through an elaborate information technology infrastructure that is offered as a shared managed service to each of the university’s colleges and departments. At the backbone of this infrastructure is Oxford NSMS’ VMware virtualization environment including a dual-site setup with 14 ESX servers, and a single-site ESX cluster based on 10 blades. This virtual environment serves as the central computing center for the entire Oxford University system including support for student records, university email services, web servers, content management systems and university databases.
To assure reliable data protection for its virtual infrastructure, Oxford University selected PHD Virtual’s esXpress for its simplicity, scalability and unique Virtual Backup Appliance architecture which enables the virtual environment to back itself up. As such, Oxford University NSMS is able to meet its data protection and recovery requirements for high availability without added hardware or software costs.
“esXpress is a reliable, easy to use backup solution that fits seamlessly into our VMware environment,” said Jon Hutchings, senior system administrator, Oxford University NSMS. “It has saved us a tremendous amount of time and money by using the power of our virtual machines to protect themselves. Now, we no longer need to spend hours locating backup tapes like we did with our previous tape backup solution. Backups are performed seamlessly to disk making restores faster and much more reliable.”
esXpress is a revolutionary VMware backup and data protection solution that uses the virtual environment itself to perform the backup, in less time, and at a lower cost. Key benefits of esXpress for Oxford University include:
• Fault-Tolerance – esXpress is VMware DRS/HA-aware and VMotion compatible making it more reliable and more stable than other solutions
• Backs Up More Data in Less Time – With up to 16 concurrent backup streams per ESX host, esXpress enables Oxford to significantly reduce their backup window
• Leverages Existing Infrastructure Investments – esXpress’ Data Smart Dynamic Export enables Oxford to leverage its investment in existing physical backup solutions to minimize total cost of ownership
To learn more about esXpress or to download a free trial version, please visit:http://www.phdvirtual.com/products/esxpress-virtual-backup
IP Expo '09: Meet the UK's leading virtualisation and cloud technology experts from the 7th – 8th of October 2009, Earls Court Two, London
Latest news, Stephen Herrod, CTO and Senior VP of R&D at VMware will be delivering the virtualisation keynote address at 1pm on Wednesday, 7th of October in which he will discuss the latest virtualisation trends and technologies solutions.
This year’s IP Expo offers two onsite hands-on lab areas so visitors can receive training in the very latest technologies. Last year’s virtualisation labs was a huge success so this year VLabs is twice the size and we’ve also introduced a new lab for cloud computing, Cloud Labs where attendees can discover what cloud technology can do for their organisation.
The VMware Partner Zone is also bigger and better this year, offering first hand strategic and technical advice on your virtualisation journey from VMware itself as well as over 30 VMware partners.
Other seminars of particular interest to the virtualisation community include:
· Open Standards for Virtualised Environments, Wednesday 7th, 11:10 – 11:40 by Jah Wildboer, Red Hat UK
· Maximizing the Business Benefits of Virtualization, Wednesday 7th, 14.30 – 15.00pm and Thursday 8th, 11.50 – 12.20pm by Christoph Dobroschke (Product Marketing EMEA) - VMware
· Case Study: Learn How Virtualisation Can Save you millions, Wednesday 7th, 12:30 – 13:00, by Keith Cark, Head of Business Improvement, Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead & Andy Cooke, Principal Consultant, Intercept
· Choosing a Virtual Desktop Strategy, Thursday 8th, 13.50 – 14.20 by Richard Flanders (Group Manager – EMEA Desktop Product Marketing) - VMware
In addition to housing the leading experts in Virtualisation, IP Networks, Cloud Computing and Wireless Networks, the year’s IP Expo offers over 160 educational seminars spread across 10 technology areas including:
Network Optimisation & Infrastructure
Fixed and Wireless Infrastructure
Teleworking and Mobility
Communication & Collaboration Infrastructure
Security & Business Continuity
Desktop Virtualisation
Server Virtualisation & Infrastructure
Datacentre Management
Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud Services & Applications
This year’s IP Expo offers two onsite hands-on lab areas so visitors can receive training in the very latest technologies. Last year’s virtualisation labs was a huge success so this year VLabs is twice the size and we’ve also introduced a new lab for cloud computing, Cloud Labs where attendees can discover what cloud technology can do for their organisation.
The VMware Partner Zone is also bigger and better this year, offering first hand strategic and technical advice on your virtualisation journey from VMware itself as well as over 30 VMware partners.
Other seminars of particular interest to the virtualisation community include:
· Open Standards for Virtualised Environments, Wednesday 7th, 11:10 – 11:40 by Jah Wildboer, Red Hat UK
· Maximizing the Business Benefits of Virtualization, Wednesday 7th, 14.30 – 15.00pm and Thursday 8th, 11.50 – 12.20pm by Christoph Dobroschke (Product Marketing EMEA) - VMware
· Case Study: Learn How Virtualisation Can Save you millions, Wednesday 7th, 12:30 – 13:00, by Keith Cark, Head of Business Improvement, Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead & Andy Cooke, Principal Consultant, Intercept
· Choosing a Virtual Desktop Strategy, Thursday 8th, 13.50 – 14.20 by Richard Flanders (Group Manager – EMEA Desktop Product Marketing) - VMware
In addition to housing the leading experts in Virtualisation, IP Networks, Cloud Computing and Wireless Networks, the year’s IP Expo offers over 160 educational seminars spread across 10 technology areas including:
Network Optimisation & Infrastructure
Fixed and Wireless Infrastructure
Teleworking and Mobility
Communication & Collaboration Infrastructure
Security & Business Continuity
Desktop Virtualisation
Server Virtualisation & Infrastructure
Datacentre Management
Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud Services & Applications
Friday, September 4, 2009
Microsoft Touts Virtualization Management for Smaller Businesses
Microsoft may be blocked from advertising its virtualization offerings on the convention floor at VMworld 2009, but Redmond has nonetheless announced a virtualization management package for SMBs along with partners Fujitsu and Lenovo. As the virtualization market increases and becomes the scene of fiercer competition, Microsoft, VMware and Citrix could all benefit financially.
Microsoft is offering a new software license, called Microsoft System Center Essentials Management Suite, which combines Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 into a virtualization management package for small to medium-size businesses.
"We're helping midsize organizations optimize IT productivity and manage desktops and servers through a single management console," said Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of the Management and Services Division at Microsoft. "We’re partnering with Fujitsu, Lenovo and other OEMs so customers can work with familiar and proven solution providers.
"Together," he added, "we’re delivering a solution that has been built and packaged to address the needs of these customers—an easy-to-use, integrated solution that helps reduce IT costs and streamline control of physical and virtual desktops and servers."
The license will also allow customers to acquire System Center Essentials 2010, when released in the second quarter of 2010, without needing to repurchase that program. System Center Essentials 2010 "will include functionality of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2," according to Microsoft.
Microsoft’s Sept. 1 announcement came in the midst of VMworld 2009, where VMware has rolled out a number of virtualization services—including Go, a zero-cost service intended to help both SMBs and larger companies install ESXi, VMware’s free hypervisor. ESXi is intended to help those organizations streamline the virtualization of their IT infrastructure.
Microsoft, while present at the event, is contractually muzzled from competing directly with VMware on the convention floor. Its competitive solution, it seems, is to attempt to persuade customers to sign on for a software license that, in turn, will on-ramp into Redmond’s next-generation offering.
Nonetheless, clearly viewing VMware as a major force within the virtualization space, Microsoft has taken steps in the past to support the company’s technology. Its System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 includes support for VMware ESX infrastructure.
According to a March report from research firm Gartner, the worldwide revenue for hosted virtual desktops, which are run as virtual machines on an enterprise server and accessible by end users via a remote device, will grow from around $1.5 billion in 2009 to $65.7 billion in 2013. The report suggested that VMware, Citrix and Microsoft will all benefit from this growth.
Microsoft is offering a new software license, called Microsoft System Center Essentials Management Suite, which combines Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 into a virtualization management package for small to medium-size businesses.
"We're helping midsize organizations optimize IT productivity and manage desktops and servers through a single management console," said Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of the Management and Services Division at Microsoft. "We’re partnering with Fujitsu, Lenovo and other OEMs so customers can work with familiar and proven solution providers.
"Together," he added, "we’re delivering a solution that has been built and packaged to address the needs of these customers—an easy-to-use, integrated solution that helps reduce IT costs and streamline control of physical and virtual desktops and servers."
The license will also allow customers to acquire System Center Essentials 2010, when released in the second quarter of 2010, without needing to repurchase that program. System Center Essentials 2010 "will include functionality of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2," according to Microsoft.
Microsoft’s Sept. 1 announcement came in the midst of VMworld 2009, where VMware has rolled out a number of virtualization services—including Go, a zero-cost service intended to help both SMBs and larger companies install ESXi, VMware’s free hypervisor. ESXi is intended to help those organizations streamline the virtualization of their IT infrastructure.
Microsoft, while present at the event, is contractually muzzled from competing directly with VMware on the convention floor. Its competitive solution, it seems, is to attempt to persuade customers to sign on for a software license that, in turn, will on-ramp into Redmond’s next-generation offering.
Nonetheless, clearly viewing VMware as a major force within the virtualization space, Microsoft has taken steps in the past to support the company’s technology. Its System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 includes support for VMware ESX infrastructure.
According to a March report from research firm Gartner, the worldwide revenue for hosted virtual desktops, which are run as virtual machines on an enterprise server and accessible by end users via a remote device, will grow from around $1.5 billion in 2009 to $65.7 billion in 2013. The report suggested that VMware, Citrix and Microsoft will all benefit from this growth.
Red Hat Bolsters Virtualization Play with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4
Red Hat has released the fourth update to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, which lays the foundation for the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio of solutions.
Red Hat has released the fourth update to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, which lays the foundation for the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio of solutions.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 delivers expanded virtualization capabilities with the inclusion of kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) technology and Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d).
The new virtualization technology enables multiple virtual machines in an Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series-based platform to directly share I/O devices. The new release also features improved I/O throughput and the inclusion of additional tools for developers. Red Hat announced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 at the Red Hat Summit 2009 in Chicago on Sept. 2.
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays a significant role in Red Hat's virtualization strategy, and the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 with the same virtualization technology base as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization today is a significant step in our delivery of virtualization to the market,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Red Hat. “The release also features advances in performance, security and storage that span virtual and physical environments. With this update release, Red Hat Enterprise Linux aims to raise the bar once again, offering compelling software technologies with impressive quality and reliability.”
At the processor chipset level, the new Red Hat release includes optimizations for Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series platforms as well as AMD Istanbul platforms. Network advancements include Generic Receive Offload (GRO) that utilizes new processing components in advanced network adapters to offload portions of the receive stack. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) performance enhancements and hardware support are also included.
“Red Hat and Intel have long collaborated on technology advancements to provide joint customers with reliable, high-performance and cost-effective technology for their IT infrastructures that runs great on Intel Xeon processor based platforms,” said Doug Fisher, vice president of the Intel Software and Service Group and general manager of the company’s System Software Division. “With today's update of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating platform, customers can take advantage of the latest Intel processor and chipset advances in physical and virtual environments. It's clear that the combination of Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series and Red Hat Enterprise Linux using Intel VT-d and SR-IOV removes I/O virtualization bottlenecks to deliver increased performance, efficiency and scalability with high performance I/O devices.”
Meanwhile, new developer support includes enhancement to the Systemtap performance monitoring toolset, including support for profiling and monitoring C++ applications, as well as inclusion of a large number of static kernel tracepoints to simplify performance observation for the highest profile kernel subsystems, the company said.
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 is certified on the Cisco Unified Computing System," said David Lawler, vice president of the Product Management, Server Access and Virtualization Business Group for Cisco. "We continue to work closely with Red Hat to optimize both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platforms for the scalable Cisco Unified Computing System to help enable our customers to grow their virtualized environments, improve business agility and provide coherent security and network policies."
IBM, HP and Dell also expressed support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 platform.
"IBM is pleased to support the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 with the inclusion of KVM technology for our clients,” said Daniel Frye, vice president, IBM Systems Software Development and Open Systems Development Executive, in a statement. “KVM is an important emerging open virtualization environment that IBM has contributed to and will support.”
"As companies continue down a path of server consolidation, there is an increasing desire to derive cost savings from virtualization," said Paul Miller, vice president of marketing for enterprise storage and servers at HP, in a statement. "The combination of HP BladeSystem and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, now with the performance of KVM virtualization, provides customers with the low-cost, high-performance combination customers demand, backed by two industry leaders."
"Red Hat and Dell continue to deliver joint solutions to reduce complexity and lower operational costs for enterprises," said Judy Chavis, director of business development in Dell's Enterprise Product Group. "With today's delivery of the foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, certified with Dell PowerEdge servers, joint Red Hat and Dell customers are offered expanded scalability and performance, as well as the next generation of virtualization technology."
Red Hat has released the fourth update to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, which lays the foundation for the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio of solutions.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 delivers expanded virtualization capabilities with the inclusion of kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) technology and Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d).
The new virtualization technology enables multiple virtual machines in an Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series-based platform to directly share I/O devices. The new release also features improved I/O throughput and the inclusion of additional tools for developers. Red Hat announced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 at the Red Hat Summit 2009 in Chicago on Sept. 2.
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays a significant role in Red Hat's virtualization strategy, and the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 with the same virtualization technology base as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization today is a significant step in our delivery of virtualization to the market,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Red Hat. “The release also features advances in performance, security and storage that span virtual and physical environments. With this update release, Red Hat Enterprise Linux aims to raise the bar once again, offering compelling software technologies with impressive quality and reliability.”
At the processor chipset level, the new Red Hat release includes optimizations for Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series platforms as well as AMD Istanbul platforms. Network advancements include Generic Receive Offload (GRO) that utilizes new processing components in advanced network adapters to offload portions of the receive stack. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) performance enhancements and hardware support are also included.
“Red Hat and Intel have long collaborated on technology advancements to provide joint customers with reliable, high-performance and cost-effective technology for their IT infrastructures that runs great on Intel Xeon processor based platforms,” said Doug Fisher, vice president of the Intel Software and Service Group and general manager of the company’s System Software Division. “With today's update of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating platform, customers can take advantage of the latest Intel processor and chipset advances in physical and virtual environments. It's clear that the combination of Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series and Red Hat Enterprise Linux using Intel VT-d and SR-IOV removes I/O virtualization bottlenecks to deliver increased performance, efficiency and scalability with high performance I/O devices.”
Meanwhile, new developer support includes enhancement to the Systemtap performance monitoring toolset, including support for profiling and monitoring C++ applications, as well as inclusion of a large number of static kernel tracepoints to simplify performance observation for the highest profile kernel subsystems, the company said.
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 is certified on the Cisco Unified Computing System," said David Lawler, vice president of the Product Management, Server Access and Virtualization Business Group for Cisco. "We continue to work closely with Red Hat to optimize both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platforms for the scalable Cisco Unified Computing System to help enable our customers to grow their virtualized environments, improve business agility and provide coherent security and network policies."
IBM, HP and Dell also expressed support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 platform.
"IBM is pleased to support the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 with the inclusion of KVM technology for our clients,” said Daniel Frye, vice president, IBM Systems Software Development and Open Systems Development Executive, in a statement. “KVM is an important emerging open virtualization environment that IBM has contributed to and will support.”
"As companies continue down a path of server consolidation, there is an increasing desire to derive cost savings from virtualization," said Paul Miller, vice president of marketing for enterprise storage and servers at HP, in a statement. "The combination of HP BladeSystem and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, now with the performance of KVM virtualization, provides customers with the low-cost, high-performance combination customers demand, backed by two industry leaders."
"Red Hat and Dell continue to deliver joint solutions to reduce complexity and lower operational costs for enterprises," said Judy Chavis, director of business development in Dell's Enterprise Product Group. "With today's delivery of the foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, certified with Dell PowerEdge servers, joint Red Hat and Dell customers are offered expanded scalability and performance, as well as the next generation of virtualization technology."
VMware Puts New Muscle into vSphere Cloud Platform
The world's largest virtualization software and services company will be adding four new modules to the vSphere 4.0 platform that was launched last May. These are new tools for capacity planning, storage configuration, operational expense planning and data recovery/business continuity.
SAN FRANCISCO -- VMware CEO Paul Maritz, in his Day 1 keynote Sept. 1 to most of the 12,488 attendees of VMworld 2009 here at Moscone Center, revealed that his company is putting new and more powerful resources into its front-line vSphere 4.0 Cloud OS virtualization manager -- features that will become available in the next few months.
The world's largest virtualization software and services company, in its quest to virtualize all aspects of data centers, will be adding four new modules to the vSphere 4.0 platform that was launched last May. These comprise new tools for capacity planning, storage configuration, operational expense planning and data recovery/business continuity.
The capacity planning and storage configuraion modules are expected to be available for purchase by December. The operations-expense planning and data recovery modules wll be made available in Q1 2010; Maritz didn't offer details.
Most of these new features, which involve storage and security, will be supplied in some fashion by parent company EMC.
The new tools will introduce many of the attributes of a "true distributed cloud operating system, including storage and networking, and not just compute and memory. It also works with encapsulated applications to give them new abilities, Maritz said.
"We've always had these pillars of complexity in the data center that sort of work, and we've all learned how to deal with them," Maritz said. "But they're problematic. With VMware, we can slide in underneath the applications in the data center; that is what vSphere is all about -- making it easier to manage all this complexity. Virtualization is the key to enable this journey."
With its vCenter development platform, the vSphere 4.0 operating system and all the new and forthcoming management controls, VMware is producing "the building blocks for what in effect will be a virtual data center -- whether it's in your shop or not," Maritz said.
Users will be able to pick and choose which features to keep in-house and which ones to rent as a service, yet keep it all under one VMware management roof, Maritz said.
In the future, Maritz said, IT administrators will be able to take a virtual data center and "slide it under an external cloud. While you will probably have some inside data center functionality and some outside functionality, you'll still have a single pane of glass to manage it," Maritz said.
"We can't force you to work in a schizophrenic world. The user interface should always be the same, and the functionality should be good for getting data into the cloud and back out again," Maritz said.
"Otherwise, you'll have the ultimate 'California hotel,' where you can check your apps in but not be able to get them out. It is important for us to bridge these two environments," Maritz said with a laugh, in a reference to the Eagles' well-known anthem, "Hotel California."
Maritz offered an update on the adoption of vSphere 4.0, noting that about 1,000 servers, 1,000 storage devices and several hundred networks devices have been certified in the first four months it has been generally available.
"We're seeing about 20,000 to 30,000 downloads per week of vSphere," Maritz said "About three-quarters of our customers are planning to upgrade their existing infrastructures by end of this year. So the response has been excellent."
For smaller companies that want to experiment with adding virtualization to their IT system mix, Maritz pointed out VMware's new vSphere Enterprise Essentials package.
"This is a do-it-yourself basic platform, with management of fault tolerance, security, data protection, et cetera," Maritz said. "We're trying to make it very simple to reach a small organization. It is easy to run, like IT in a box. We see a very strong demand for this, and it's competitively priced [at $166 per processor]."
Maritz also talked about VMware Go, a service the company launched Aug. 31 that walks newcomers through the installation process of the freely downloadable ESXi hypervisor.
"Our ESXi has been downloaded 360,000 times, but up to now we haven't had too much of a relationship with those customers," Maritz said. "We just hoped they would find it useful. However, now we can walk them through the process to help make them more successful. This is a platform that will engage the community and make it a more satisfying experience in general.
"Then we can offer them more services to help them start the new journey we're now on."
SAN FRANCISCO -- VMware CEO Paul Maritz, in his Day 1 keynote Sept. 1 to most of the 12,488 attendees of VMworld 2009 here at Moscone Center, revealed that his company is putting new and more powerful resources into its front-line vSphere 4.0 Cloud OS virtualization manager -- features that will become available in the next few months.
The world's largest virtualization software and services company, in its quest to virtualize all aspects of data centers, will be adding four new modules to the vSphere 4.0 platform that was launched last May. These comprise new tools for capacity planning, storage configuration, operational expense planning and data recovery/business continuity.
The capacity planning and storage configuraion modules are expected to be available for purchase by December. The operations-expense planning and data recovery modules wll be made available in Q1 2010; Maritz didn't offer details.
Most of these new features, which involve storage and security, will be supplied in some fashion by parent company EMC.
The new tools will introduce many of the attributes of a "true distributed cloud operating system, including storage and networking, and not just compute and memory. It also works with encapsulated applications to give them new abilities, Maritz said.
"We've always had these pillars of complexity in the data center that sort of work, and we've all learned how to deal with them," Maritz said. "But they're problematic. With VMware, we can slide in underneath the applications in the data center; that is what vSphere is all about -- making it easier to manage all this complexity. Virtualization is the key to enable this journey."
With its vCenter development platform, the vSphere 4.0 operating system and all the new and forthcoming management controls, VMware is producing "the building blocks for what in effect will be a virtual data center -- whether it's in your shop or not," Maritz said.
Users will be able to pick and choose which features to keep in-house and which ones to rent as a service, yet keep it all under one VMware management roof, Maritz said.
In the future, Maritz said, IT administrators will be able to take a virtual data center and "slide it under an external cloud. While you will probably have some inside data center functionality and some outside functionality, you'll still have a single pane of glass to manage it," Maritz said.
"We can't force you to work in a schizophrenic world. The user interface should always be the same, and the functionality should be good for getting data into the cloud and back out again," Maritz said.
"Otherwise, you'll have the ultimate 'California hotel,' where you can check your apps in but not be able to get them out. It is important for us to bridge these two environments," Maritz said with a laugh, in a reference to the Eagles' well-known anthem, "Hotel California."
Maritz offered an update on the adoption of vSphere 4.0, noting that about 1,000 servers, 1,000 storage devices and several hundred networks devices have been certified in the first four months it has been generally available.
"We're seeing about 20,000 to 30,000 downloads per week of vSphere," Maritz said "About three-quarters of our customers are planning to upgrade their existing infrastructures by end of this year. So the response has been excellent."
For smaller companies that want to experiment with adding virtualization to their IT system mix, Maritz pointed out VMware's new vSphere Enterprise Essentials package.
"This is a do-it-yourself basic platform, with management of fault tolerance, security, data protection, et cetera," Maritz said. "We're trying to make it very simple to reach a small organization. It is easy to run, like IT in a box. We see a very strong demand for this, and it's competitively priced [at $166 per processor]."
Maritz also talked about VMware Go, a service the company launched Aug. 31 that walks newcomers through the installation process of the freely downloadable ESXi hypervisor.
"Our ESXi has been downloaded 360,000 times, but up to now we haven't had too much of a relationship with those customers," Maritz said. "We just hoped they would find it useful. However, now we can walk them through the process to help make them more successful. This is a platform that will engage the community and make it a more satisfying experience in general.
"Then we can offer them more services to help them start the new journey we're now on."
Mellanox, Blade Products Aimed at Virtualized Data Centers
At the VMworld 2009 show, Mellanox rolled out ConnectX-2, the next generation of its networking solution, which offers IT administrators greater efficiency and performance in their data center and virtualized infrastructures. Blade Network Technologies announced that its VMready software can be used with HP’s 1:10Gb Ethernet BL-c switch.
Mellanox Technologies and Blade Network Technologies are pushing the virtualization capabilities in their respective networking offerings.
At the first two days of the VMworld 2009 show in San Francisco, Mellanox unveiled new capabilities in its VirtualConnectX networking offering, which offers support for multiple networking, operating system and virtualization solutions.
On Sept. 1, Mellanox announced its ConnectX-2 VPI (Virtual Protocol Interconnect) adapter card, which offers InfiniBand and Ethernet connectivity and performance enhancements of applications in data center, HPC (high-performance computing) and embedded environments.
ConnectX is designed to bring a more consolidated networking environment to data centers, and ConnectX-2 VPI’s unified I/O technology offers a one-wire solution for any networking, clustering, storage and management application.
The VPI adapter card includes a 40G-bps InfiniBand QSFP port and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ port. Users with both technologies in their data centers can save space and power costs while consolidating their networking infrastructure, according to Mellanox officials.
The VPI announcement came a day after the company rolled out its ConnectX-2 line of I/O adapter device products. The offering supports 40G-bps InfiniBand, 10GbE, and FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) or FCoIB (Fibre Channel over InfiniBand).
“The goal is efficiency, consolidation and performance,” John Monson, vice president of marketing at Mellanox, said in an interview.
ConnectX-2 consumes 30 percent less power than its predecessor, and its use of integrated NIC (network interface card) and PHY brings additional cost and power savings by reducing the amount of board real estate, officials said.
ConnectX-2 also brings a number of improvements aimed at virtualized environments, including enhanced security and performance through support of PCI-SIG SRIOV (PCI-SIG Single Root I/O Virtualization). The support and other virtualization technologies within ConnectX-2 let multiple operating systems running simultaneously in a single server share PCI Express devices. In addition, virtualization capabilities within ConnectX-2 free up CPU resources, which improves the performance of the virtual machines, and offer greater security through resource isolation and protection.
For its part, Blade Network announced Sept. 1 that its VMready networking software, which supports thousands of virtual switch ports, is available for use with Hewlett-Packard’s 1:10Gb Ethernet BL-c switch.
Blade’s software is part of the company’s Cloud Ready Network Architecture, which helps IT administrators build and manage virtual infrastructures by enabling virtualization across the data center infrastructure—rather than on a single-server basis—for improved productivity, resource utilization and energy efficiency, officials said.
Mellanox Technologies and Blade Network Technologies are pushing the virtualization capabilities in their respective networking offerings.
At the first two days of the VMworld 2009 show in San Francisco, Mellanox unveiled new capabilities in its VirtualConnectX networking offering, which offers support for multiple networking, operating system and virtualization solutions.
On Sept. 1, Mellanox announced its ConnectX-2 VPI (Virtual Protocol Interconnect) adapter card, which offers InfiniBand and Ethernet connectivity and performance enhancements of applications in data center, HPC (high-performance computing) and embedded environments.
ConnectX is designed to bring a more consolidated networking environment to data centers, and ConnectX-2 VPI’s unified I/O technology offers a one-wire solution for any networking, clustering, storage and management application.
The VPI adapter card includes a 40G-bps InfiniBand QSFP port and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ port. Users with both technologies in their data centers can save space and power costs while consolidating their networking infrastructure, according to Mellanox officials.
The VPI announcement came a day after the company rolled out its ConnectX-2 line of I/O adapter device products. The offering supports 40G-bps InfiniBand, 10GbE, and FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) or FCoIB (Fibre Channel over InfiniBand).
“The goal is efficiency, consolidation and performance,” John Monson, vice president of marketing at Mellanox, said in an interview.
ConnectX-2 consumes 30 percent less power than its predecessor, and its use of integrated NIC (network interface card) and PHY brings additional cost and power savings by reducing the amount of board real estate, officials said.
ConnectX-2 also brings a number of improvements aimed at virtualized environments, including enhanced security and performance through support of PCI-SIG SRIOV (PCI-SIG Single Root I/O Virtualization). The support and other virtualization technologies within ConnectX-2 let multiple operating systems running simultaneously in a single server share PCI Express devices. In addition, virtualization capabilities within ConnectX-2 free up CPU resources, which improves the performance of the virtual machines, and offer greater security through resource isolation and protection.
For its part, Blade Network announced Sept. 1 that its VMready networking software, which supports thousands of virtual switch ports, is available for use with Hewlett-Packard’s 1:10Gb Ethernet BL-c switch.
Blade’s software is part of the company’s Cloud Ready Network Architecture, which helps IT administrators build and manage virtual infrastructures by enabling virtualization across the data center infrastructure—rather than on a single-server basis—for improved productivity, resource utilization and energy efficiency, officials said.
Virtualization Adoption Growing, but Security a Concern: Survey
Businesses are rapidly adopting server virtualization in their data centers, and plan to continue the high growth rate, according to a survey conducted by Centrify. More than half of the respondents said they use VMware technologies, though many also use solutions from such vendors as Citrix, HP, IBM, Sun and Microsoft. Still, the rush to save money through virtualization has not dampened concern over the security of these virtualized data centers.
The rate of adoption of server virtualization technologies is growing rapidly in businesses large and small, though security concerns remain the largest hurdle to deployment, according to a recent survey by identify and access management vendor Centrify.
In a survey of 480 IT professionals released Sept. 1, Centrify found that almost 26 percent of those surveyed had virtualized at least half of their systems and that by the end of 2010 that number will double to 51 percent.
Not surprisingly, VMware has the deepest penetration into these businesses, with a 60 percent presence, and 32 percent said they use VMware exclusively. Half of those who use VMware said they plan to increase their use of the vendor’s technology, and half said they will probably evaluate other technologies as well.
However, most businesses—58 percent—have a mixed environment, using virtualization technology from a number of sources, not only from VMware and Citrix Systems, but also offerings built into such operating systems as Windows, HP-UX, IBM’s AIX, Sun Microsystems’ Solaris and Linux. Twenty-four percent of respondents said they don’t use VMware products at all, choosing to use technologies from Citrix, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, HP and others, either together or exclusively.
However, though the use of server virtualization is growing rapidly, IT administrators continue to have concerns over security. One respondent told Centrify that there was a rush at his business to adopt virtualization for the cost savings, but that not enough attention was paid to security issues.
At 46 percent, security was the leading reason virtualization adoption could be slowed, according to the survey. Seventy percent of respondents said they thought they had orphan accounts in their Unix or Linux environments, 44 percent shared root passwords, and 55 percent were unsure whether they were managing privileged user accounts.
"The diversity of virtual platforms in organizations will create new vulnerabilities," Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and product management at Centrify, said in a statement. "Because creating a new server in a virtual environment is as easy as copying a file—and in some instances, the software is free—the rigor that used to accompany setting up a server has been bypassed."
Businesses are using a variety of technologies to secure their data centers, from directory-based solutions—such as Active Directory and LDAP Directory—to passwords to role-based controls with user authentication.
Still, 28 percent of respondents said they were confident in the security of their servers, and less than 20 percent were strongly confident about their virtualized data centers.
The rate of adoption of server virtualization technologies is growing rapidly in businesses large and small, though security concerns remain the largest hurdle to deployment, according to a recent survey by identify and access management vendor Centrify.
In a survey of 480 IT professionals released Sept. 1, Centrify found that almost 26 percent of those surveyed had virtualized at least half of their systems and that by the end of 2010 that number will double to 51 percent.
Not surprisingly, VMware has the deepest penetration into these businesses, with a 60 percent presence, and 32 percent said they use VMware exclusively. Half of those who use VMware said they plan to increase their use of the vendor’s technology, and half said they will probably evaluate other technologies as well.
However, most businesses—58 percent—have a mixed environment, using virtualization technology from a number of sources, not only from VMware and Citrix Systems, but also offerings built into such operating systems as Windows, HP-UX, IBM’s AIX, Sun Microsystems’ Solaris and Linux. Twenty-four percent of respondents said they don’t use VMware products at all, choosing to use technologies from Citrix, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, HP and others, either together or exclusively.
However, though the use of server virtualization is growing rapidly, IT administrators continue to have concerns over security. One respondent told Centrify that there was a rush at his business to adopt virtualization for the cost savings, but that not enough attention was paid to security issues.
At 46 percent, security was the leading reason virtualization adoption could be slowed, according to the survey. Seventy percent of respondents said they thought they had orphan accounts in their Unix or Linux environments, 44 percent shared root passwords, and 55 percent were unsure whether they were managing privileged user accounts.
"The diversity of virtual platforms in organizations will create new vulnerabilities," Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and product management at Centrify, said in a statement. "Because creating a new server in a virtual environment is as easy as copying a file—and in some instances, the software is free—the rigor that used to accompany setting up a server has been bypassed."
Businesses are using a variety of technologies to secure their data centers, from directory-based solutions—such as Active Directory and LDAP Directory—to passwords to role-based controls with user authentication.
Still, 28 percent of respondents said they were confident in the security of their servers, and less than 20 percent were strongly confident about their virtualized data centers.
Microsoft Adds Virtualization to Its Data Center Software Mix
At VMworld 2009, Microsoft introduces a new option, available immediately, for midmarket enterprises and small businesses: a new, discounted software license that includes both System Center Essentials 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Most people don't yet equate Microsoft with data center management or virtualization software, but the fact is, the world's largest software company has been developing these for a few years in the form of its System Essential data center wares.
At VMworld 2009, Microsoft on Sept. 1 introduced a new option, available immediately, for midmarket enterprises and small businesses: a new, discounted software license that includes both System Center Essentials 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.
"With the latest version of System Center VMM, what people now have is a full set [of virtualization management controls] and parity in terms of performance, when compared to what VMware has," David Greschler, director of virtualization and management marketing of Microsoft's server and tools business, told eWEEK.
"The difference is, of course, that we're about one-sixth the price," Greschler said, without qualifying the statement. "Let's face it: This is my comparison. For example, when GPSes came out, you have to pay separately for them. Now, cars more and more have them as standard equipment. That's what we offer -- virtualization included within the data center [software] package."
With VMware, you still have to buy a separate system, Greschler said.
"That was great when you had a niche solution, but we believe virtualization should be as ubiquitous as connected to the Internet," Greschler said. "Everybody's going to want to do it; it should just be part of the whole system. You shouldn't need separate training or certification. If you know Windows, you will know virtualization."
When people buy Windows Server now, Greschler said, "it's [Hyper-V] just in there. Customers can now find out what the value of virtualization is and build a foundation for this concept of IP, or infrastructure as a service, which is the whole sort of cloud picture."
System Center Virtual Machine Manager, in combination with System Center Essentials 2007, enables the following: improved physical server utilization, live migration of virtual machines between servers, remote software distribution and update management to servers and clients, inventory management, and centralized management of all physical and virtual machines, Greschler said.
Midmarket enterprises typically have 10 to 200 computers and five to 30 servers, according to industry analysts. They also generally have no more than a few (one to three) IT staff members who cover the entire IT system. According to a recent industry survey by AMI-Partners, only about one-third of midrange-size businesses with servers are currently using network management applications.
This, of course, represents a major market opportunity for Microsoft, Greschler said.
Dell, Lenovo and Fujitsu announced Sept. 1 that they will offer a new technology upgrade for midmarket organizations that acquire the System Center Essentials 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 license starting today and continuing until the final release of System Center Essentials 2010 in Q2 2010, Greschler said. The license also will allow customers to get System Center Essentials 2010 without having to repurchase it.
The license includes an upgrade program in the OEM channel and software assurance via Microsoft's volume licensing channel -- starting Oct. 1 -- so that midmarket organizations have upgrade rights to Microsoft's next version of systems management tools, Greschler said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Most people don't yet equate Microsoft with data center management or virtualization software, but the fact is, the world's largest software company has been developing these for a few years in the form of its System Essential data center wares.
At VMworld 2009, Microsoft on Sept. 1 introduced a new option, available immediately, for midmarket enterprises and small businesses: a new, discounted software license that includes both System Center Essentials 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.
"With the latest version of System Center VMM, what people now have is a full set [of virtualization management controls] and parity in terms of performance, when compared to what VMware has," David Greschler, director of virtualization and management marketing of Microsoft's server and tools business, told eWEEK.
"The difference is, of course, that we're about one-sixth the price," Greschler said, without qualifying the statement. "Let's face it: This is my comparison. For example, when GPSes came out, you have to pay separately for them. Now, cars more and more have them as standard equipment. That's what we offer -- virtualization included within the data center [software] package."
With VMware, you still have to buy a separate system, Greschler said.
"That was great when you had a niche solution, but we believe virtualization should be as ubiquitous as connected to the Internet," Greschler said. "Everybody's going to want to do it; it should just be part of the whole system. You shouldn't need separate training or certification. If you know Windows, you will know virtualization."
When people buy Windows Server now, Greschler said, "it's [Hyper-V] just in there. Customers can now find out what the value of virtualization is and build a foundation for this concept of IP, or infrastructure as a service, which is the whole sort of cloud picture."
System Center Virtual Machine Manager, in combination with System Center Essentials 2007, enables the following: improved physical server utilization, live migration of virtual machines between servers, remote software distribution and update management to servers and clients, inventory management, and centralized management of all physical and virtual machines, Greschler said.
Midmarket enterprises typically have 10 to 200 computers and five to 30 servers, according to industry analysts. They also generally have no more than a few (one to three) IT staff members who cover the entire IT system. According to a recent industry survey by AMI-Partners, only about one-third of midrange-size businesses with servers are currently using network management applications.
This, of course, represents a major market opportunity for Microsoft, Greschler said.
Dell, Lenovo and Fujitsu announced Sept. 1 that they will offer a new technology upgrade for midmarket organizations that acquire the System Center Essentials 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 license starting today and continuing until the final release of System Center Essentials 2010 in Q2 2010, Greschler said. The license also will allow customers to get System Center Essentials 2010 without having to repurchase it.
The license includes an upgrade program in the OEM channel and software assurance via Microsoft's volume licensing channel -- starting Oct. 1 -- so that midmarket organizations have upgrade rights to Microsoft's next version of systems management tools, Greschler said.
Kace, Vizioncore Lead Cadre of New Virtualization Management Offerings
Virtualization management software vendors, including Kace, Vizioncore, Reflex Systems and Sychron, are using VMworld 2009 to launch new and enhanced offerings touching on everything from server and desktop virtualization to application virtualization. The offerings are all designed to make it easier to manage the growing virtualized environments and lower costs.
With the adoption of server, desktop and application virtualization gaining ground in enterprises, a host of vendors are looking for ways to help companies manage their growing virtualized environments.
Many of these vendors—including Kace, Vizioncore, Reflex Systems and Sychron—are unveiling new offerings at the VMworld 2009 show, which runs Aug. 31-Sept. 3 in San Francisco.
Kace Aug. 31 rolled out the latest version of Kace Virtual Kontainers, its application virtualization technology. Kace Virtual Kontainers 2.0 offers greater application compatibility and easier patching and updating capabilities.
Lubos Parobek, vice president of product management at Kace, said in an interview that the vendor is looking to make it easier and less costly for businesses to adopt application virtualization, where the application is separated from the operating system.
Kace Virtual Kontainers 2.0 offers a signature update service that enables businesses to more easily add support for changes to Windows, middleware and new applications. The new version also makes it easier to directly update, patch and modify existing packages of virtualized applications without having to start over with each change.
It also offers command-line capabilities, enabling IT professionals to create Kontainer packages from the command line, and a self-service user portal, accessible through a Web browser.
“This is really helpful for administrators who have to deal with a lot of ad hoc deployments,” said Bob Kelly, senior product manager at Kace.
Vizioncore is bundling its entire solutions set into a single package called vEssentials Complete. The offering covers the entire life cycle of virtual machine management, according to company officials. The company announced the new offering Aug. 31.
Vizioncore already offered vEssentials, through which customers can pick any three Vizioncore management products. With vEssentials Complete, businesses get all six stages of VM management. The latter is for SMBs that run VMware’s virtualization platform, vSphere Standard Edition or higher, according to the company.
Reflex Systems Aug. 31 rolled out VMC Version 2.0, which offers a host of new security and management capabilities as well as features aimed at the cloud. Focusing on security as well as management makes sense, Reflex CEO Pete Privateer said in an interview.
“Security and management are just two faces of the same coin,” Privateer said.
Reflex’s policy enforcement technology, vTrust, now includes infrastructure and compliance policy settings, to go along with the network policy capabilities that already were in place. Storage, memory and CPU levels now can be used to set policies that can then be leveraged to provision virtual machines, mete out resources and respond to security events.
The management software also now can keep track of applications on each VM without having to have an agent or system scanning, making for easier management of the virtual machines.
VMC 2.0 also includes role-based access control for VMs and other virtual infrastructure, and administrators can determine access levels based on the infrastructure and security policies managed by Reflex VMC.
On the cloud computing side, Reflex’s new version of VMC comes with an optional API for the cloud, which enables service providers and larger businesses to manage security and compliance for each cloud tenant without the need for external hardware.
Sychron is expanding its OnDemand Desktop VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) management offering with a new interface for its Enterprise Manager, a single place where users can handle everything from portals to groups of users to clusters across a variety of hypervisor environments for tasks such as provisioning, according to Sychron officials.
OnDemand Desktop 4.0 is highly agnostic. It works with virtualization technology from both VMware’s ESX and Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisors, and will be adding XenServer support from Citrix Systems in the future, Paul Sexauer, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Sychron, said in an interview.
“There are no limitations from a hypervisor perspective,” Sexauer said.
It also works with any device type, from traditional desktops to thin clients.
Sychron’s new offering also comes with an integrated connection broker, which offers a provisioning engine and load balancing capability in the same place, which removes the need for other software components.
In addition, OnDemand Desktop 4.0 lets businesses scale their virtualized desktop environments, which will be important as enterprises look to move those environments from controlled tests to wider production employment, Sexauer said.
With the adoption of server, desktop and application virtualization gaining ground in enterprises, a host of vendors are looking for ways to help companies manage their growing virtualized environments.
Many of these vendors—including Kace, Vizioncore, Reflex Systems and Sychron—are unveiling new offerings at the VMworld 2009 show, which runs Aug. 31-Sept. 3 in San Francisco.
Kace Aug. 31 rolled out the latest version of Kace Virtual Kontainers, its application virtualization technology. Kace Virtual Kontainers 2.0 offers greater application compatibility and easier patching and updating capabilities.
Lubos Parobek, vice president of product management at Kace, said in an interview that the vendor is looking to make it easier and less costly for businesses to adopt application virtualization, where the application is separated from the operating system.
Kace Virtual Kontainers 2.0 offers a signature update service that enables businesses to more easily add support for changes to Windows, middleware and new applications. The new version also makes it easier to directly update, patch and modify existing packages of virtualized applications without having to start over with each change.
It also offers command-line capabilities, enabling IT professionals to create Kontainer packages from the command line, and a self-service user portal, accessible through a Web browser.
“This is really helpful for administrators who have to deal with a lot of ad hoc deployments,” said Bob Kelly, senior product manager at Kace.
Vizioncore is bundling its entire solutions set into a single package called vEssentials Complete. The offering covers the entire life cycle of virtual machine management, according to company officials. The company announced the new offering Aug. 31.
Vizioncore already offered vEssentials, through which customers can pick any three Vizioncore management products. With vEssentials Complete, businesses get all six stages of VM management. The latter is for SMBs that run VMware’s virtualization platform, vSphere Standard Edition or higher, according to the company.
Reflex Systems Aug. 31 rolled out VMC Version 2.0, which offers a host of new security and management capabilities as well as features aimed at the cloud. Focusing on security as well as management makes sense, Reflex CEO Pete Privateer said in an interview.
“Security and management are just two faces of the same coin,” Privateer said.
Reflex’s policy enforcement technology, vTrust, now includes infrastructure and compliance policy settings, to go along with the network policy capabilities that already were in place. Storage, memory and CPU levels now can be used to set policies that can then be leveraged to provision virtual machines, mete out resources and respond to security events.
The management software also now can keep track of applications on each VM without having to have an agent or system scanning, making for easier management of the virtual machines.
VMC 2.0 also includes role-based access control for VMs and other virtual infrastructure, and administrators can determine access levels based on the infrastructure and security policies managed by Reflex VMC.
On the cloud computing side, Reflex’s new version of VMC comes with an optional API for the cloud, which enables service providers and larger businesses to manage security and compliance for each cloud tenant without the need for external hardware.
Sychron is expanding its OnDemand Desktop VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) management offering with a new interface for its Enterprise Manager, a single place where users can handle everything from portals to groups of users to clusters across a variety of hypervisor environments for tasks such as provisioning, according to Sychron officials.
OnDemand Desktop 4.0 is highly agnostic. It works with virtualization technology from both VMware’s ESX and Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisors, and will be adding XenServer support from Citrix Systems in the future, Paul Sexauer, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Sychron, said in an interview.
“There are no limitations from a hypervisor perspective,” Sexauer said.
It also works with any device type, from traditional desktops to thin clients.
Sychron’s new offering also comes with an integrated connection broker, which offers a provisioning engine and load balancing capability in the same place, which removes the need for other software components.
In addition, OnDemand Desktop 4.0 lets businesses scale their virtualized desktop environments, which will be important as enterprises look to move those environments from controlled tests to wider production employment, Sexauer said.
VMware Free Service Simplifies ESXi Hypervisor Use
VMware Go is a free service designed to help first-time customers—mainly in the small-to-medium-size business market—get started with virtualization. The Web-based service automates the installation and configuration of VMware's freely downloadable ESXi hypervisor.
SAN FRANCISCO—Because VMware only three months ago released the latest version of its bread-and-butter product—vSphere 4.0, the so-called Cloud Operating System—the world's largest virtualization software maker is turning to other news to talk about on the first day of VMworld 2009 here at Moscone Center.
VMware on Aug. 31 launched the beta version of VMware Go, a free service designed to help first-time customers—mainly in the small-to-medium-size business market—get started with virtualization.
The Web-based service automates the installation and configuration of VMware's freely downloadable ESXi hypervisor, VMware ESXi.
VMware Go will enable SMB customers to "fly through the ESXi setup process with just a few mouse clicks," Bogomil Balkansky, VMware's vice president of product marketing for servers, told eWEEK.
VMware ESXi already claims hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, but it is tricky to install and provision and needs a trained IT person to do it. VMware Go is a simple, wizard-based service with templated choices that enables a nontrained user to get up and running on virtualization in short order, Balkansky said.
VMware Go will be made available as a beta offering on Aug. 31, 2009, to customers at a special Website. It is scheduled to become generally available in the fourth quarter of 2009, Balkansky said.
"SMBs stand to benefit tremendously from virtualization," said Dan Chu, vice president of emerging products and markets at VMware. "VMware Go will simplify virtualization for SMBs to a few easy online steps. We want SMBs who may be sitting on the fence to realize all the benefits of virtualization without burdening their limited IT resources."
Most industry people agree that virtualization represents the biggest sea change in the industry since the Internet gained critical mass in the mid-1990s. And now that this valuable software layer has attained trusted status in most large enterprise data centers (some studies claim 85 percent Fortune 1000 market penetration) for regular production use, the word is spreading that smaller IT setups—meaning anywhere from 1 to 1,000 servers—can also take advantage.
If there is an underlying message from this show to the IT world, it's this: Enterprises of all sizes now can share in the values and efficiencies of using a virtualized system, and, yes, you can save bottom-line cost and help the environment—all at the same time.
vSphere 4.0 Gets Traction with 360,000 Downloads
VMware offered an update on how the new vSphere is performing in its tests with current users.
"By and large, vSphere is a hit with customers," Balkansky told eWEEK. "It has been downloaded a total of 360,000 times, and based on the poll we took, the upgrade is pretty quick. A majority of customers plan to upgrade within the next six months.
"For this kind of infrastructure software, that's a fairly quick time horizon."
Jeff Boles, a senior analyst and director of technology validation services at Taneja Group, said that VMware's technological superiority with the release of VMware vSphere 4 continues to be apparent.
"We've validated in a number of tests that VMware vSphere 4 virtualized servers can not only run twice as many applications than other hypervisors at equal or even greater performance levels, but also deliver much more predictable performance," Boles said.
"Just as we've validated in the past, this VM Density metric has a tremendous impact on cost of acquisition, and can make VMware as much as 30 percent less expensive on a per-application basis than other solutions."
SAN FRANCISCO—Because VMware only three months ago released the latest version of its bread-and-butter product—vSphere 4.0, the so-called Cloud Operating System—the world's largest virtualization software maker is turning to other news to talk about on the first day of VMworld 2009 here at Moscone Center.
VMware on Aug. 31 launched the beta version of VMware Go, a free service designed to help first-time customers—mainly in the small-to-medium-size business market—get started with virtualization.
The Web-based service automates the installation and configuration of VMware's freely downloadable ESXi hypervisor, VMware ESXi.
VMware Go will enable SMB customers to "fly through the ESXi setup process with just a few mouse clicks," Bogomil Balkansky, VMware's vice president of product marketing for servers, told eWEEK.
VMware ESXi already claims hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, but it is tricky to install and provision and needs a trained IT person to do it. VMware Go is a simple, wizard-based service with templated choices that enables a nontrained user to get up and running on virtualization in short order, Balkansky said.
VMware Go will be made available as a beta offering on Aug. 31, 2009, to customers at a special Website. It is scheduled to become generally available in the fourth quarter of 2009, Balkansky said.
"SMBs stand to benefit tremendously from virtualization," said Dan Chu, vice president of emerging products and markets at VMware. "VMware Go will simplify virtualization for SMBs to a few easy online steps. We want SMBs who may be sitting on the fence to realize all the benefits of virtualization without burdening their limited IT resources."
Most industry people agree that virtualization represents the biggest sea change in the industry since the Internet gained critical mass in the mid-1990s. And now that this valuable software layer has attained trusted status in most large enterprise data centers (some studies claim 85 percent Fortune 1000 market penetration) for regular production use, the word is spreading that smaller IT setups—meaning anywhere from 1 to 1,000 servers—can also take advantage.
If there is an underlying message from this show to the IT world, it's this: Enterprises of all sizes now can share in the values and efficiencies of using a virtualized system, and, yes, you can save bottom-line cost and help the environment—all at the same time.
vSphere 4.0 Gets Traction with 360,000 Downloads
VMware offered an update on how the new vSphere is performing in its tests with current users.
"By and large, vSphere is a hit with customers," Balkansky told eWEEK. "It has been downloaded a total of 360,000 times, and based on the poll we took, the upgrade is pretty quick. A majority of customers plan to upgrade within the next six months.
"For this kind of infrastructure software, that's a fairly quick time horizon."
Jeff Boles, a senior analyst and director of technology validation services at Taneja Group, said that VMware's technological superiority with the release of VMware vSphere 4 continues to be apparent.
"We've validated in a number of tests that VMware vSphere 4 virtualized servers can not only run twice as many applications than other hypervisors at equal or even greater performance levels, but also deliver much more predictable performance," Boles said.
"Just as we've validated in the past, this VM Density metric has a tremendous impact on cost of acquisition, and can make VMware as much as 30 percent less expensive on a per-application basis than other solutions."
Midrange Enterprises, SMBs Are Key Topics at VMworld 2009
CES in Las Vegas and CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, certainly have the inside track on all the new gadgets; nobody is going to argue that point. Dozens of smaller events staged by Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others are also not to be sneezed at for their news and innovations. But for overall IT news value this year, VMworld appears to stand on its own.
SAN FRANCISCO—People are saying that the VMworld 2009 conference, which opens Aug. 31 at Moscone Center here and has attracted some 200 vendors and more than 11,000 attendees, might be the newsiest IT show of the year. And they could be right.
CES in Las Vegas and CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, certainly have the inside track on all the new gadgets; nobody is going to argue that point. Dozens of smaller events staged by Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others are also not to be sneezed at for their news and innovations.
But for overall IT news value this year, VMworld appears to stand on its own.
After all, just about every IT company worth its salt is hooked up in some way to virtualization, either as a product/service provider, as a reseller of services or as a user. All the major software and systems providers will have news of some sort to announce at this event.Resource Library:
VMware itself will make an announcement on Monday around simplification of virtualization software for midrange and small-to-medium-size businesses. IBM and HP will be releasing their news Sept. 1; we'll have it all here on eWEEK. The conference continues through Sept. 3.
Even VMware competitors such as Microsoft, with its Hyper-V hypervisor, and Citrix, with XenServer, will have booths at the event and will be issuing news releases.
Most industry people agree that virtualization represents the biggest sea change in the industry since the Internet gained critical mass in the mid-1990s. And now that this valuable software layer has attained trusted status in most large enterprise data centers (some studies claim 85 percent Fortune 1000 market penetration) for regular production use, the word is spreading that smaller IT setups—meaning anywhere from 1 to 1,000 servers—can also take advantage.
If there is an underlying message from this show to the IT world, it's this: Enterprises of all sizes now can share in the values and efficiencies of using a virtualized system, and, yes, you can save bottom-line cost and help the environment—all at the same time.
VMware Customers Mostly SMBs
Who's going to dispute any of that?
"I agree that the trend [in virtualization] is moving to more smaller companies, but it's not like SMBs are just getting started," Bogomil Balkansky, VMware's vice president of product marketing for servers, told eWEEK.
"VMware has about 150,000 customers, and we believe about 97 percent of the Fortune 1000 are using our software. Well, guess what? The remaining 149,000 [companies] aren't the Fortune 1000. The overwhelming majority of our customers, in just sheer numbers, are small and medium-size companies."
At least 100,000 of VMware's customers are "really small businesses," Balkansky said. It's difficult to determine how many small businesses—in the United States anyway—use at least one server, he said, but "it's definitely less than a million. It's probably no more than a half a million."
Oracle claims about 300,000 customers in about 30 years in business, Balkansky said, giving a relatively solid number about businesses that at least use a server and a database.
"This gives you some approximation for how far down the pyramid, so to speak, IT is actually permeating," Balkansky said. "If Oracle has 300,000 customers, that means that there are perhaps 500,000 businesses with servers worldwide. Certainly there are no more than a million."
A lot of them will be watching what happens this week in San Francisco. Go here for more information on VMworld 2009.
SAN FRANCISCO—People are saying that the VMworld 2009 conference, which opens Aug. 31 at Moscone Center here and has attracted some 200 vendors and more than 11,000 attendees, might be the newsiest IT show of the year. And they could be right.
CES in Las Vegas and CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, certainly have the inside track on all the new gadgets; nobody is going to argue that point. Dozens of smaller events staged by Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others are also not to be sneezed at for their news and innovations.
But for overall IT news value this year, VMworld appears to stand on its own.
After all, just about every IT company worth its salt is hooked up in some way to virtualization, either as a product/service provider, as a reseller of services or as a user. All the major software and systems providers will have news of some sort to announce at this event.Resource Library:
VMware itself will make an announcement on Monday around simplification of virtualization software for midrange and small-to-medium-size businesses. IBM and HP will be releasing their news Sept. 1; we'll have it all here on eWEEK. The conference continues through Sept. 3.
Even VMware competitors such as Microsoft, with its Hyper-V hypervisor, and Citrix, with XenServer, will have booths at the event and will be issuing news releases.
Most industry people agree that virtualization represents the biggest sea change in the industry since the Internet gained critical mass in the mid-1990s. And now that this valuable software layer has attained trusted status in most large enterprise data centers (some studies claim 85 percent Fortune 1000 market penetration) for regular production use, the word is spreading that smaller IT setups—meaning anywhere from 1 to 1,000 servers—can also take advantage.
If there is an underlying message from this show to the IT world, it's this: Enterprises of all sizes now can share in the values and efficiencies of using a virtualized system, and, yes, you can save bottom-line cost and help the environment—all at the same time.
VMware Customers Mostly SMBs
Who's going to dispute any of that?
"I agree that the trend [in virtualization] is moving to more smaller companies, but it's not like SMBs are just getting started," Bogomil Balkansky, VMware's vice president of product marketing for servers, told eWEEK.
"VMware has about 150,000 customers, and we believe about 97 percent of the Fortune 1000 are using our software. Well, guess what? The remaining 149,000 [companies] aren't the Fortune 1000. The overwhelming majority of our customers, in just sheer numbers, are small and medium-size companies."
At least 100,000 of VMware's customers are "really small businesses," Balkansky said. It's difficult to determine how many small businesses—in the United States anyway—use at least one server, he said, but "it's definitely less than a million. It's probably no more than a half a million."
Oracle claims about 300,000 customers in about 30 years in business, Balkansky said, giving a relatively solid number about businesses that at least use a server and a database.
"This gives you some approximation for how far down the pyramid, so to speak, IT is actually permeating," Balkansky said. "If Oracle has 300,000 customers, that means that there are perhaps 500,000 businesses with servers worldwide. Certainly there are no more than a million."
A lot of them will be watching what happens this week in San Francisco. Go here for more information on VMworld 2009.
VMware Competitors Microsoft, Citrix Will Exhibit at VMworld
VMware has changed its rules and is limiting its two biggest competitors to 10-foot-square booths at VMworld, the world's largest virtualization show. VMware also is restricting the movement of Microsoft and Citrix Systems employees by requiring them to remain within the boundaries of their booths.
Despite a published report Aug. 27 suggesting that Microsoft and Citrix Systems might be skipping VMworld, held Aug. 31 to Sept. 3 in San Francisco, both companies told eWEEK that they will have booths at the conference, which is expected to attract about 200 vendors and more than 11,000 V-curious folks.
Microsoft with its Hyper-V and Citrix with XenServer are hard-nosed competitors for VMware when it comes to hypervisors, and the VMworld conference—the largest virtualization event in the world—is controlled by a company with a protective and proprietary outlook.
VMware is limiting its two biggest competitors to 10-foot-by-10 foot booths and is restricting the movement of their employees—requiring them to remain within the boundaries of their booths.
In the revised VMworld sales information, it reads: "To sponsor or exhibit at VMworld, your company must be a VMware partner in good standing in our TAP, Strategic Global Partner or VIP Partner programs. Sponsors or exhibitors that are not VMware partners may be allowed under exception."
When non-partners are sanctioned to exhibit at the show under exception, those approved are limited to participating at the exhibitor level only and cannot be included as a sponsor of any kind.
VMware did change up the rules from its previous four shows, apparently aiming the new regulations directly at its competitors.
"It has been incorrectly reported that we pulled our sponsorship—VMworld's new guidelines for next week's show actually prohibited us from sponsoring," Citrix spokeswomen Julie Geer told eWEEK. "We will still be exhibiting at the show. While we wish we had the opportunity to sponsor VMworld as we have had in the past, it's their proprietary event, and we will comply with whatever policies they impose."
"VMworld is a proprietary event run by one vendor," said Kim Woodward, Citrix's vice president of corporate marketing. "At the end of the day, they have every right to change the rules in any way they wish.
"Citrix respects that and will fully comply with the terms of our show contract with them. When it comes down to it, if customers want a more open event, they will have to give that feedback directly to VMware or vote with their feet by attending other shows that don't restrict competitors."
Microsoft Group Product Manager Patrick O'Rourke wrote the following on the Microsoft Virtualization Team Blog: "Microsoft will be exhibiting at VMworld 2009 ... If you have a chance, please stop by [the] booth. It's right next to the Blogger lounge. ... Unlike prior VMworld conferences, we're no longer allowed to sponsor the event. We can only be an exhibitor."
The rules require all exhibitors to market and demonstrate products that are complementary to VMware products and technologies, O'Rourke wrote.
"As a result ... we don't believe we have the right to demo our products in the booth. This decision runs counter to Microsoft's geek culture, as you can imagine, but we've also become more pragmatic over the years," O'Rourke wrote.
"We've learned over the course of four years attending VMworld ... that there are many attendees who use, admin, manage, sell, support Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, Windows XP/Vista, System Center, etc. They want the opportunity to engage and receive information from Microsoft virtualization experts. So we'll have Microsoft virtualization experts in the booth. These experts will be there to answer your questions."
VMware Global Public Relations Director Mary Ann Gallo told eWEEK that the VMworld sponsorship contracts contain industry-standard language.
"You should ask what those guys [Microsoft and Citrix] have in theirs [conference contracts]. It's probably pretty similar," Gallo said.
Despite a published report Aug. 27 suggesting that Microsoft and Citrix Systems might be skipping VMworld, held Aug. 31 to Sept. 3 in San Francisco, both companies told eWEEK that they will have booths at the conference, which is expected to attract about 200 vendors and more than 11,000 V-curious folks.
Microsoft with its Hyper-V and Citrix with XenServer are hard-nosed competitors for VMware when it comes to hypervisors, and the VMworld conference—the largest virtualization event in the world—is controlled by a company with a protective and proprietary outlook.
VMware is limiting its two biggest competitors to 10-foot-by-10 foot booths and is restricting the movement of their employees—requiring them to remain within the boundaries of their booths.
In the revised VMworld sales information, it reads: "To sponsor or exhibit at VMworld, your company must be a VMware partner in good standing in our TAP, Strategic Global Partner or VIP Partner programs. Sponsors or exhibitors that are not VMware partners may be allowed under exception."
When non-partners are sanctioned to exhibit at the show under exception, those approved are limited to participating at the exhibitor level only and cannot be included as a sponsor of any kind.
VMware did change up the rules from its previous four shows, apparently aiming the new regulations directly at its competitors.
"It has been incorrectly reported that we pulled our sponsorship—VMworld's new guidelines for next week's show actually prohibited us from sponsoring," Citrix spokeswomen Julie Geer told eWEEK. "We will still be exhibiting at the show. While we wish we had the opportunity to sponsor VMworld as we have had in the past, it's their proprietary event, and we will comply with whatever policies they impose."
"VMworld is a proprietary event run by one vendor," said Kim Woodward, Citrix's vice president of corporate marketing. "At the end of the day, they have every right to change the rules in any way they wish.
"Citrix respects that and will fully comply with the terms of our show contract with them. When it comes down to it, if customers want a more open event, they will have to give that feedback directly to VMware or vote with their feet by attending other shows that don't restrict competitors."
Microsoft Group Product Manager Patrick O'Rourke wrote the following on the Microsoft Virtualization Team Blog: "Microsoft will be exhibiting at VMworld 2009 ... If you have a chance, please stop by [the] booth. It's right next to the Blogger lounge. ... Unlike prior VMworld conferences, we're no longer allowed to sponsor the event. We can only be an exhibitor."
The rules require all exhibitors to market and demonstrate products that are complementary to VMware products and technologies, O'Rourke wrote.
"As a result ... we don't believe we have the right to demo our products in the booth. This decision runs counter to Microsoft's geek culture, as you can imagine, but we've also become more pragmatic over the years," O'Rourke wrote.
"We've learned over the course of four years attending VMworld ... that there are many attendees who use, admin, manage, sell, support Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, Windows XP/Vista, System Center, etc. They want the opportunity to engage and receive information from Microsoft virtualization experts. So we'll have Microsoft virtualization experts in the booth. These experts will be there to answer your questions."
VMware Global Public Relations Director Mary Ann Gallo told eWEEK that the VMworld sponsorship contracts contain industry-standard language.
"You should ask what those guys [Microsoft and Citrix] have in theirs [conference contracts]. It's probably pretty similar," Gallo said.
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