Archives for August 2008

Pivot3 Asks: Who Needs Servers Anyway?

August 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Pivot3 today announced a “technology breakthrough”, allowing for the elimination of servers for most applications that store information. Pivot3 Serverless Computing allows customers to absorb compute-intensive workloads, now performed using stand-alone application servers, into Pivot3’s X86-based storage nodes.

Pivot3 Serverless Computing also enables environments that have not typically been considered good candidates for conventional server virtualization deployments, because of the technology’s unique performance characteristics.

“Pivot3 has taken advantage of the openness and high performance of the Xen hypervisor to deliver a powerful new architecture for storage subsystems,” said Ian Pratt, chairman of xen.org. “Xen virtualization is rapidly becoming embedded in all components of enterprise IT architectures, from servers, to storage and network appliances.”

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“As Pivot3 works with its partners to apply Pivot3 Serverless Computing to the general marketplace, we believe we can enable a significant reduction to the carbon footprint of today’s datacenter. We intend to help our customers do more on fixed power and physical space constraints while insuring they are as efficient and responsible as technology will allow,” added Bob Fernander, chief executive officer of Pivot3.

Pivot3 Serverless Computing technology, and products based on the technology will be announced and made generally available this fall.

Pivot3

Elastra Raises $12 Million from Amazon for Cloud Management

August 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Elastra, a startup focused on providing solutions for internet cloud configuration and management, secured $12 million in Series B financing in its second venture round, which was was led by Bay Partners, with Amazon.com and existing investor Hummer Winblad also participating. Elastra had previously raised $2.6 million. If the investment by Amazon makes you raise your eyebrows too, go read the excellent analysis on GigaOM.

Check our previous coverage of the company here.

CEO Kiril Sheynkman says Elastra’s offering is unique because it can manage individual applications, rather than virtual appliances, and because it manages applications across private and public Internet clouds.

Elastra now has more than 40 paying customers running databases on Amazon’s cloud using its technology, and plans to announce support for VMware and additional components such as application and web servers. It’s also planning to support clouds other than Amazon.

Elastra

[Source: VentureBeat]

VirtualLogix Joins LiMo Foundation

August 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

VirtualLogix today announced that it has joined the LiMo Foundation, an industry consortium dedicated to creating the first truly open, hardware-independent, Linux-based operating system (OS) for mobile devices. VirtualLogix joins LiMo to extend the discussion and application of virtualization in the mobile handset space in order to make devices more efficient, secure, powerful and cost-effective.

VirtualLogix’s VLX real-time virtualization technology enables Linux to be deployed on low-cost feature phones by sharing a single core baseband processor with the Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) supporting the wireless protocol stack, thus avoiding the need for an additional application processor and associated peripheral hardware. These low cost VLX-based, and LiMo compliant, Linux feature phone platforms are deployed today by LiMo member companies. In addition, VLX provides Linux-based mobile phones with a standards-conformant advanced security architecture, which enables trusted security services to support m-commerce, financial transactions or DRM protected content distribution. VLX handset solutions are based on ARM, XScale, and Intel Atom processor families.

VirtualLogix

Symantec Acquires nSuite Technologies, Moves Into Endpoint Virtualization Management

August 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

NetworkWorld is reporting that Symantec has agreed to acquire nSuite Technologies, a small firm specializing in virtualization solutions for the healthcare industry, for an undisclosed amount in cash. Symantec aims to build out its portfolio of virtualization security and management technologies.

nSuite makes software called PrivacyShell Virtual Workspace Management, which is primarily used by hospitals for secure desktop management on behalf of physicians and medical staff. The nSuite software works to create a container around an individual’s authorized applications and data. When a user is authenticated, the user’s applications and data can quickly be ported to the Windows-based desktop where the individual is working, and later removed. PrivacyShell Virtual Workspace Management balances centralized control with the flexibility needed to provide tailored user environments. It leverages virtualization and authentication technologies to optimize the way hospitals deliver and manage end user workspaces.

After the nSuite acquisition is completed, which is expected this month, Symantec anticipates integrating the nSuite software with its Altiris SVS and AppStream management consoles in the future. It will announce product updates at ManageFusion, a hands-on lab and training event held in various cities worldwide.

nSuite Technologies

Monitor Your Citrix XenServer Environment With Hyperic HQ

August 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Open source Web infrastructure management provider Hyperic today announced Hyperic HQ for Citrix XenServer management and monitoring software for Citrix XenServer. The new software allows XenServer administrators to quickly and correctly assess IT decisions within their XenServer environment.

“Our customers manage some of the world’s biggest Web environments where every second of downtime can mean losing revenue, users or both. Virtualization software such as Citrix XenServer delivers these organizations the necessary tools to be ultra-responsive to changes in user patterns and application performance,” said Doug MacEachern, CTO for Hyperic HQ. “By adding support for XenServer, we are once again taking the guesswork out of the management side of the equation. In providing management support for all virtualized and non-virtualized systems from one central location, we continue in our mission to make Web-based applications more manageable.”

Hyperic HQ for Citrix XenServer combines performance metrics, log data, configuration and security events in a single view correlated by time. These events can be used to link errors reported in the XenServer logs with other performance and health indicators elsewhere in the environment, generate alerts or trigger automated control actions to remediate the current problem. Additionally, Hyperic HQ for Citrix XenServer allows users to suspend, shutdown, start and reboot directly from the HQ interface and record the action in the event history for future reference.

Currently, Hyperic HQ for Citrix XenServer is available on Hyperic’s community Hyperforge. Hyperic will incorporate this new plugin directly into the core distribution in the upcoming Hyperic HQ 4.0 release, due out later this summer.

Hyperic

InstallFree Secures $8.5 Million in VC Funding

August 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

InstallFree, a provider of Dynamic Desktop Computing, today announced (PDF) it has received $8.5 Million in financing to drive the expansion of its product development and go-to-market teams. This round of financing was led by venture capital firms Ignition Partners and Trilogy Equity Partners. Richard Fade and John Connors of Ignition Partners and Peter van Oppen and Chuck Stonecipher of Trilogy Equity Partners will join InstallFree’s Board of Directors. The round follows a first round of financing of $1.7 Million secured in November 2007.

InstallFree launched its first product in April 2008. The company’s solutions improve IT operational efficiency and increase end-user productivity by eliminating the need to install software applications thus overcoming application conflicts and enabling the delivery of incremental changes on-the-fly and on-demand. All of this occurs without changing the organization’s existing infrastructure. With InstallFree, end-users can access their complete set of personal applications from any computer and work anywhere without limitations, while enjoying local application processing and offline availability—without undermining the IT department’s centralized management capabilities.

Dynamic Desktop Computing is a platform that enables organizations to centrally deploy and manage Windows client applications to end-users in a stateless, flexible and cost-efficient manner across a variety of end-user scenarios such as the office, home or on the road. InstallFree presents an elegant solution, changing application and desktop virtualization from a one-off solution to a standard method of deploying and managing software applications throughout a company’s entire corporate infrastructure.

InstallFree