Sun christens its Xen-based virtualization xVM
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xVM will be built into the Linux-like version of Solaris due in March, Project Indiana.
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Sun Microsystems today took aim at two core pieces of its server strategy, announcing a new generation of UltraSPARC processors and a key software win for Solaris x86.
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The trials and tribulations of application dependency in a virtualized, hosted world.
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(InfoWorld) - Virtual Iron and XenSource both are introducing new virtualization software to undercut on price the dominant player in the field, VMware. On Monday, Virtual Iron is set to start offering Version 3.1 of its enterprise-class virtualization platform for a license price of $499 per socket, which is less than 20 percent of the $2,875 per socket price for a comparable VMware license, according to Virtual Iron. Virtual Iron argues that VMware's pricing is a barrier to more widespread adoption of virtualization in data centers, citing IDC research that only 6 percent of data center operators deploy any type of virtualization. Also Monday, XenSource introduced new and upgraded virtualization products, also at sub-$1,000 prices. Both XenSource and Virtual Iron build their proprietary products on top of the open-source Xen platform for virtualization hypervisors. A hypervisor is technology that makes it possible for one computer to run multiple operating systems at the same time. VMware's products are not based on open source. Virtualization refers to software and other system management tools that are used to better utilize servers. Virtualization makes it possible for one physical server to run multiple applications simultaneously. Advanced virtualization features include tools to seamlessly move computing workloads from one physical server to another, set up infrastructure and test new software. Revenue at VMware, a wholly owned subsidiary of storage vendor EMC, grew 86 percent in EMC's fiscal third quarter to $188.5 million. If that pace keeps up, VMware's annualized revenue would be $750 million, VMware said. Virtual Iron and XenSource intend to slow that pace. "We are taking a very aggressive stand on pricing," said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer for Virtual Iron. The Charlotte Observer newspaper in North Carolina uses Virtual Iron. It took 45 minutes to run a particular job on its legacy Unix-based servers, said Geoff Shorter, the Observer's IT infrastructure manager. VMware completed the same job in 11 to 13 minutes, but so did the less expensive Virtual Iron. The license for the high-end VMware product costs $5,750 to run on a dual-socket server, Shorter said. Virtual Iron's license is $499 per socket, so the total cost for a dual-socket machine license would be $998. Pricing for XenSource's XenEnterprise starts at for $488 for an annual subscription license for a dual-socket server or $750 for a perpetual license. XenServer for Windows, introduced Monday, sells for $99 per dual-socket server, per year. It has fewer features than XenEnterprise. "Our intention is to dramatically shift the landscape under VMware," said Simon Crosby, XenSource's chief technology officer. Virtualization is following a classic economic model of an early mover dominating a market and charging a premium, soon followed by challengers competing on price, said Gordon Haff, principal IT advisor at Illuminata Inc., a technology research company. Haff said enterprises that have deployed VMware are seeing a positive return on their investment despite the price and he doesn't think price alone is keeping enterprises from adopting virtualization. "Even if virtualization software were free, it wouldn't become ubiquitous because of the complexity of the implementation," he said.
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The new machines support service oriented architecture and virtualization.
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SableVM is a robust, extremely portable, efficient, and specifications-compliant Java Virtual Machine that aims to be easy to maintain and to extend. It features a state-of-the-art and efficient interpreter engine. Its source code is very accessible and easy to understand. It also has many robustness features that have been the object of careful design.     SableVM is a clean-room implementation of the publicly available specifications.    In this version, we added an experimental generational garbage collector, we imported a new GNU Classpath snapshot, we added handling of Jar/Zip files on boot classpath, we added user-friendly failure messages for bootstrap problems, we added added a profiling switch, we made sablevm-classpath install its files in standard locations, we made jikes and gcc be less verbose by default, and we made several important bugfixes and improvements.  You can download the SableVM from: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5523&release_id=281502
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New virtual-machine technology can be used to test software patches and migrate aging Windows NT applications. By John Foley, Paula Rooney, CRN.
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Hardy Heron flies against the tide Canonical has confirmed it will use Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) as its primary virtualisation software in its latest Ubuntu Linux server release.â¦
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The new xVM Ops Center can automate operations workstations running Linux and Solaris.
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HP has moment of Xen as well Citrix Systems has wrangled Dell as the first Tier 1 server vendor to embed the Xen hypervisor in its x86 servers.â¦
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The company behind the popular Mac desktop virtualization software, Parallels, is now offering what it calls the first virtualization server software for Intel-based Apple hardware.
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VMware Inc., known for its virtual machine technology for servers and workstations, is turning its attention to the client space. The Palo Alto, Calif.
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Novell and Intel develop software that speeds Xen's ability to run Windows as a virtual machine.
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(InfoWorld) - With an incremental update to its Solaris 10 OS, Sun is extending the platform's virtualization capabilities to accommodate Linux and Solaris on the same computer. Sun will add to the Solaris Containers capability, which has bolstered server usage by allowing for multiple instances of Solaris on the same server, said Dan Roberts, Sun director of marketing for Solaris. With Solaris 10 8/07, being announced Tuesday, users can run Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Linux, and Linux applications via Solaris Containers for Linux Applications. "You can now consolidate your Solaris and Linux apps onto one chassis," Roberts said. Solaris Containers debuted in Solaris 10 two-and a half years ago. Virtualization, Roberts noted, has become a popular way to get more out of servers that had been running commonly at only a 10- to 15-percent utilization rate. Because Red Hat and CentOS are only supported on Intel x86 systems, the new Solaris Containers for Linux capability is only supported on that hardware. Customer demand will dictate whether this functionality is extended to other Linux distributions. Sun's accommodation for Linux helps Solaris in its battle for users with Linux, said analyst Richard Jones, vice president at Burton Group. "I see this as a way for [Solaris] to definitely continue to survive in the market because they're now allowing for a greater level of interoperability with Linux," Jones said. The move expands the number of applications and services that could run in a Solaris environment, said Jones.Â  Sun, naturally, sees Solaris as superior to Linux. "You would want to go with this over Linux because you want the most reliable, most secure operating system," as well as features like Solaris Containers, said Roberts. Sun views the upgrade as making it easier to migrate to Solaris. Also with version 8/07, Solaris can be used to manage resources within a container at a finer grain level. "For example, you can now define how much memory or CPU you want a particular app or container to use," said Roberts. This prevents one container from overwhelming an entire system. Users can assure that high-priority applications get the CPU cycles needed. Sun will include separate IP stacks for each container with Solaris 10 8/07 to enable administrators to know how much network bandwidth is being consumed by a container. Determinations could be made on whether to move an application to another server. A Large Send Offload feature reduces CPU workload by offloading networking processing operations to a network interface card. Jumbo Frames support in the 8/07 release means the OS supports very large network packages beyond the 1,500 bytes limit specified in Ethernet. This is useful for applications shipping high volumes of data. Version 8/07 will include a copy of the open-source PostgreSQL 8.2 database, a high-capacity transactional system with performance enhancements for Solaris and support for DTrace probes. These probes provide the ability to observe application performance. Users theoretically could replace an Oracle database with PostgreSQL 8.2 "We fundamentally believe Solaris is the best OS for running databases," Roberts said. Solaris 10 8/07 does not include any technologies from Project Indiana, which is Sun's project to make Solaris more palatable to Linux users by adding capabilities like distribution of Solaris binaries. The project is part of the OpenSolaris effort, which offers Solaris in an open source format. Sun's Solaris is a commercial distribution of the platform.
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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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Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are both building storage virtualization tools and storage grid technology to help customers drive adaptable intelligence and unified management deeper into multivendor storage environments.
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New management, new credo, same old enemy Interop The virtualization hypervisor belongs in server hardware - not in the operating system. So says Xensource, friend and partner of the operating system giants Microsoft, Red Hat and Novell.â¦