Fortisphere Aims to Control Virtualization 'Sprawl'
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Startup unveils today its Virtual Essentials, tools to track, tag, and monitor virtual machines in the enterprise.
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The promise of desktop virtualization technology is to centralize applications at the datacenter to make them easier to manage and provision -- stretching hardware resources and keeping nagging software conflicts to a minimum in the bargain.
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'Longhorn' improves security and management, but drops virtualization functions.
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Playground SDK to help casual game makers create multiplatform games.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard is upgrading its virtualization software offerings to help data center managers better manage their virtual environments, while VMware is offering a virtualization capability for Web hosting companies. HP on Wednesday announced enhancements to its HP Virtual Server Environment software for its Integrity line of servers, which creates a pool of virtual servers that can expand and contract depending on capacity needs. Virtualization refers to the practice of running multiple software applications on one physical server to enhance utilization. Previously, most servers were dedicated to running only one application, but that kept utilization rates as low as 15 to 20 percent. Virtualization increases server utilization, thus reducing the need to buy, power, cool, and manage additional servers. HP also offers a specific software tool, Integrity Essentials Capacity Advisor, for easing the migration of data from Sun servers to HP servers. Although virtualization improves server utilization, it requires different management tools than a nonvirtual environment. HP says the Integrity Essentials Global Workload Manager, another feature of Virtual Server Environment, specifies which computer workloads can automatically access available capacity in order to maintain service level agreements for key applications. The company also announced a new Partner Virtualization Program, which allows ISVs to test how their software will work in an HP virtualization environment. Testing and fine-tuning can be done for virtualization using HP ProLiant and Integrity servers and with a number of operating systems, including HP-Unix, Windows Microsoft, and Novell and Red Hat Linux. The Virtual Server Environment also works with VMware virtualization software. Meanwhile, VMware announced Wednesday the launch of its VMware Service Provider Program, which allows Web hosting services, telecommunications companies, and other outsourcing businesses to include virtual infrastructure as a service offering. Traditional hosting services use dedicated servers for each client, but virtualization makes it possible to run multiple virtual servers, even for different clients, on one physical server. The Web hosting company can then bill clients monthly based on how many virtual machines they use, not physical ones, VMware said.
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Microsoft has laid out plans to become a bigger force in the market for virtualization software, stepping up its assault on established leaders such as VMware.The plans announced Monday include the acquisition of a startup company, Calista Technologies, whose graphics technology is designed to improve the end-user experience for people who access their Windows desktop remotely from a server, Microsoft said.The company also loosened some of its licensing terms related to virtualization. Consumers who use the Home Basic and Home Premium editions of Windows Vista will now be able to run those OSes in a virtualized environment, Microsoft said. It also announced new licensing rates for corporate users.Finally, Microsoft extended its partnership with Citrix Systems to make that company&#39;s Xen virtualization software work better with Microsoft&#39;s server and desktop software, it said.Virtualization technologies separate the software on a computer from its underlying hardware, allowing it to be deployed in more flexible ways. Virtualization can allow multiple operating systems to run on one computer, for example, or allow application workloads to be shifted between computers more easily to improve hardware utilization.The technology has been around for decades but was popularized in server environments recently by VMware and others. More recently, Apple introduced virtualization for its Macintosh desktops so that users can run both the Mac OS and Windows on the same machine.Microsoft has not been a significant player in virtualization, but it hopes to change that with its announcements this week. It plans to discuss the changes at its Virtualization Deployment Summit, a two-day event for 300 of its customers and partners that starts Tuesday.It argued that the virtualization market remains open for newer players like itself.&#8220;Very few customers are able to reap the benefits of virtualization today,&#8221; Bob Muglia, senior vice present of Microsoft&#39;s Server and Tools Business, said in a statement. &#8220;We estimate that less than five percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s strategy will be to offer a full range of virtualization products, including desktop, server and management software, and do so at a competitive price, Muglia said.Customers with the Home and Home Premium editions of Vista can now run them as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, the company said. Among other things, that should mean that Apple Mac users who want to run Vista alongside the Mac OS can now do so without having to buy a more expensive version of Windows.For businesses, customers who subscribe to Microsoft&#39;s Software Assurance maintenance program can now get an annual subscription to Microsoft&#39;s desktop virtualization software for $23 per desktop, the company said.Citrix is developing a software tool that will make it easier for customers to transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. A test version of the tool will be available in the second quarter, and the final version will be released along with Hyper-V, Microsoft said.The technology from Calista aims to improve the experience for people who access their Windows desktops remotely from a server. It allows people to view multimedia content on a PC or thin client without the media player or software codecs they would normally need installed.Microsoft will add Calista&#39;s graphics technology to future virtualization products, it said. Calista, of San Jose, California, is now a Microsoft subsidiary.
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InfoWorld - Hoping to keep the heat on archrival Microsoft, VMware on Wednesday will give developers a glimpse of an early version of its Virtual SMP product that allows a single virtual machine to work with as many as four processors, which in turn can more effectively drive mission-critical applications.
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Microsoft Corp. , seeking to preserve the dominance of its Windows franchise, launched a new software application that takes aim at VMware Inc. , the leader in "virtualization" technology that allows a single computer server to operate like many machines.
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(Source: VMWare) Download this IDC white paper and learn more about how VMware is changing traditional desktop deployment and management.
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Over the next two years network based storage virtualization will remain a niche, while thin provisioning will enjoy rapid adoption in the enterprise. And, applying network-based storage virtualization to pool arrays isn't likely to improve this environment if efficient utilization hasn't already been achieved.
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Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 handles the new server chips optimized for virtualization, takes regular backups snapshots, is easier to use and costs less, says reviewer Jonathan Hassell.
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3.0 already? Better toss the 2.0 rubbish Virtualization has become somewhat of a Wild West for the data center market, promising streets paved with gold for IT groups - and endless riches for the vendors hawking this new-age server slicing technology.â¦
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In a move to compete against XenSource and Virtual Iron, VMware on Monday announced a new bundle of virtualization tools for small companies. The new set of tools is designed to provide SMBs using the free VMware Server with an easy and cost-effective way to manage it. For $1,500, SMBs can get a bundle that includes the VMware Server platform with the VirtualCenter management tool.
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(InfoWorld) - SWsoft, the company behind theÂ Parallels DesktopÂ virtualization software for Macintosh, expects to release a beta version of a server edition of the software in the next four to six weeks. It is also working on new management tools for the datacenter that will control other vendors' virtualization products. The company sees Parallels Server as a product for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) or for departmental use in larger companies, filling the niche between its desktop products andÂ Virtuozzo, its OS-level virtualization systemÂ for datacenters. Where Virtuozzo allows multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on one machine using a single instance of the same operating system kernel -- either all Windows 2003, or all Linux -- Parallels Server will allow disparate operating systems to run on the same server. While large companies tend to have the power to force standardization on a single operating system, making Virtuozzo's virtual environment approach appropriate for them, SMEs need the flexibility that true virtualization offers, according to Benjamin Rudolph, director of corporate communications at SWsoft. Some of the features of Parallels Server, such as full 64-bit support for host and guest operating systems, and support for multiprocessor VMs, should also appear in the next major version of the desktop edition, due in the first half of next year, said Rudolph. Supporting 64-bit operating systems "is not really necessary on the desktop, but on the server it is," said Rudolph. The feature will take away one of the advantages ofÂ Fusion, a rival desktop product from VMware, which already has the capability. Both products continue to evolve and add features: Parallels offered a downloadable feature update for its version 3 desktop software earlier this month, and VMware began beta testing version 1.1 of Fusion on Tuesday. SWsoft's planned addition of SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) support in Parallels Desktop will allow Mac OS X users to get the best performance from multiprocessor-aware applications such as PhotoShop running in either operating system. Currently, virtual machines in Parallels Desktop run on (and emulate) just one processor core, with other cores in the system occupied by the host operating system. The company's new datacenter management tools will debut in Virtuozzo 4, now in beta testing, where they will allow management only of Virtuozzo virtual environments. But SWsoft intends to extend the capabilities in future versions to allow management of other virtualization systems, including VMware, Xen, and Microsoft's Veridian, said Rudolph. That move would come as no surprise to IDC research director Chris Ingle. As virtualization technology itself becomes more of a commodity, virtualization vendors will be forced to develop innovative management tools in order to remain competitive, he said recently. An IDC study found that while cost is the prime reason in deciding whether or not to virtualize, it is less important than the availability of management tools when choosing a virtualization vendor. Rudolph also hopes that other vendors will offer management tools for Parallels Server when it is released: SWsoft plans to open up the APIs (application programming interfaces) to allow that, and some of the software tools in its SDK (software development kit) will effectively be open source, he said. SWsoft hasn't yet chosen the license under which it will release that code, he said.
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Data center management software pulls in more pieces of the infrastructure--virtual machines and virtual networks.
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SWsoft is preparing a beta version of Parallels Server virtualization and management tools.
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Cisco has announced that it&#39;s integrating its VFrame Data Center with VMware Virtual Infrastructure. The networking company called it &quot;a key solution for the Cisco vision of next generation data centres, called Data Center 3.0&quot;.