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Archives for December 2009

Elastra Cloud Server 2.0 for Enterprises Now Supports VMware vSphere 4

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Elastra has announced expanded virtualization platform support for VMware vSphere 4 in Elastra Cloud Server 2.0 (ECS) Enterprise Edition.

In this release, ECS lets customers compose, orchestrate and deploy application infrastructure to virtualization environments managed with vSphere 4. ECS already supports private clouds based on VCenter from VMware or XEN from Citrix as well as the public cloud available from Amazon. Systems created for one virtualization environment are portable to another.

Elastra offers a free edition of ECS running on Amazon Web Services and an Enterprise Edition for private data centers.

icomasoft, Fujitsu Aim To Simplify Virtual Server Management

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icomasoft, the Swiss provider of software applications for automated support and management of virtual IT infrastructures, and Fujitsu today announce  the global availability of simplified virtual server management with integration of automated functions.

The new release of the VI PowerScripter Professional FT v1.6 plug-in for the Fujitsu PRIMERGY ServerView Suite provides unprecedented ease-of-use and simplification by automating many administrative tasks around managing virtual servers in VMware vCenter, ESX and ESXi environments. In doing so, time and effort spent on routine tasks is freed up to focus on more important priorities.

As virtualization moves into the mainstream, more enterprises are taking advantage of transforming their IT into dynamic infrastructures that can adjust to varying workload demands. Through server virtualization, enterprises benefit from price-performance gains and enjoy added application flexibility. However, virtualization also adds complexity to server administration and management.

This challenge is addressed by the icomasoft VI PowerScripter Professional FT plug-in, which collects and packages server information from Fujitsu’s PRIMERGY ServerView management suite, allowing the scripting of secure, automated administrative procedures for managing multiple Virtual Machine images on a server network.

Icomasoft estimates VI PowerScripter Professional FT v1.6 can save busy virtual infrastructure administrators up to two hours per day due to scheduling and automation of administrative tasks.

The VI PowerScripter Professional FT v1.6 plug-in for Fujitsu PRIMERGY ServerView is available immediately, priced at €1750, plus tax, for an Administrators Pack including five administrator licenses. Additional licenses are available for €350 per license. Volume discounts and site licenses are available upon request. The plug-in is available direct from icomasoft, from Fujitsu, and will shortly also be available from authorized Fujitsu resellers.

Par 4 Technology Group Acquires Flytrap Technologies

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Par 4 Technology Group, a provider ofvirtualization and data management IT solutions has acquired Flytrap Technologies, a virtualization, storage, professional services and managed/cloudservices company.

The acquisition will be a stock only transaction and the combined company will operate under the Par 4 Technology Group name.

“Despite economic uncertainty – we’re growing simply because we understand ourcustomers business challenges and we develop a solution to solve the problem quickly and with a goal of immediate “return on investment”. Customer success is our #1 priority. The complementary disciplines [Par 4 sales and Flytrap consulting/managed services] will allow us to provide more value to our customers and prospects.” Gary Halloran – Par 4 President.

Beginning Q1 2010, all sales operations will continue to run from Par 4’s Amesbury, MaHQ location. Corporate marketing and operations will be managed at Flytrap’s Tolland,CT HQ while engineering, managed and cloud based services will continue to operatefrom Flytrap’s Willimantic, CT Datacenter and Network Operations Center.

Lanamark Partners Up With South Africa’s First Distribution

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Lanamark today announced a partnership with First Distribution, IBM’s largest distributor in Africa.

First Distribution is a value-added distributor with a focus on data centre and virtulisation solutions. The partnership will enable VARs, system integrators and consultants working with First Distribution to use Lanamark Suite to design and deliver desktop virtualisation, server virtualisation and storage solutions to enterprises in South Africa.

Lanamark Suite enables VARs, system integrators and consultants to accelerate design and delivery of cross-vendor virtualisation solutions to enterprises looking to virtualise applications, desktops and servers. Solution providers can gather vital information about enterprise environments, analyse desktops, servers and storage to identify most suitable candidates for virtualisation, and then design optimal end-to-end virtualisation solutions. Once virtualisation solutions are implemented, solution providers can continue profiling physical and virtual infrastructure to identify further optimization and virtualisation opportunities.

IDC: Worldwide Server Market Stabilizes in Third Quarter, Improvement Ahead

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According to IDC‘s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market declined 17.3% year over year to $10.4 billion in the third quarter of 2009 (3Q09).

Although this is the fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue decline, the market grew sequentially for the first time since 4Q08. Server unit shipments declined 17.9% year over year in 3Q09, a significant improvement over the 30.1% year-over-year decline experienced in 2Q09, but grew a healthy 12.4% quarter over quarter – the largest sequential unit growth since 2005.

All three server segments – volume, midrange enterprise, and high-end enterprise – experienced year-over-year revenue decline in 3Q09, marking the fourth consecutive quarter in which this has happened. However, the market for volume servers improved sequentially in the quarter as demand is returning to the low end of the market. Volume systems revenue declined 14.7% year over year in the third quarter, the smallest decline for this important market segment since 3Q08. Revenue for midrange enterprise servers declined 23.4% year over year while revenue for high-end enterprise servers declined 19.3% year over year.

IBM and HP ended the third quarter in a statistical tie with 31.8% and 30.9% of overall factory revenue market share respectively. IBM’s overall factory revenues declined 12.9% year over year helped in part by healthy System x and System p sales. HP experienced a 16.8% year-over-year factory revenue decline in 3Q09. Dell experienced a 6.8% revenue decline and maintained third place with 13.5% overall market share in 3Q09, helped in part by strong server sales growth from its Datacenter Solutions business unit.

Sun maintained its fourth place position by posting a 35.0% year-over-year revenue decline and holding 7.5% market share for the quarter as many customers wait for additional product roadmap detail following Oracle’s pending acquisition of Sun. Fujitsu maintained its fifth-place standing in terms of factory revenue, with 5.7% market share in the quarter, an improvement over its 3Q08 market position.

Top-Level Server Market Findings

  • Microsoft Windows server revenue was $4.5 billion in 3Q09 showing a 12.8% year-over-year decline and comprising 43.0% of all server revenue in the quarter. Windows servers account for the single largest segment, by operating system, in the worldwide server market.
  • Linux server revenue declined 12.6% year over year to $1.5 billion in the quarter. Linux servers now represent 14.8% of all server revenue, up slightly from 14.0% a year ago.
  • Unix servers experienced a 23.4% revenue decline when compared with 3Q08. Worldwide Unix revenues were $2.8 billion for the quarter, representing 26.9% of quarterly server spending. IBM gained 5.1 points of share year over year and holds the 3Q09 leadership position, posting 39.5% share in this segment, followed by Hewlett Packard (29.2%) and Sun Microsystems (23.4%) respectively, based on factory revenue.

x86 server factory revenue declined 12.3% year over year in 3Q09 to $6.1 billion. However, x86 factory revenues increased a healthy 18.7% when compared with 2Q09. This is the largest sequential improvement in x86 server revenue in nearly 5 years (since 4Q05). On a year-over-year comparative basis, shipments also continued to slip when compared to 2008 market highs, dropping 17.0% to 1.6 million units. HP led the market with 37.7% factory revenue share as Dell held second place with 23.2% factory revenue share and IBM maintained the third position with 18.5% factory revenue share. Overall, IBM exhibited the strongest x86 performance of the top 3 OEMs, gaining 2.5 points of market share on a 1.2% improvement in year-over-year factory revenue.

After two consecutive quarters of declining year-over-year revenues, the blade server market segment returned to quarterly revenue growth with factory revenue increasing 1.2% year over year on a 14.0% year-over-year shipment decline. Overall, bladed servers, including x86, EPIC, and RISC blades, accounted for $1.4 billion in the third quarter, representing 13.6% of quarterly server revenue. IBM exhibited the strongest blade server performance of the top 5 OEMs, gaining 6.0 points of market share on 27.2% year-over-year factory revenue growth. HP led the market with 50.7% revenue share as IBM held second place with 29.4% revenue share and Dell maintained the third position with 8.9% revenue share.

Xen Optimization Group Joins Neptuny’s Business Partner Program

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Neptuny, provider of Performance Optimization and IT Resource Management solutions for large data centers and networks, today announced that Xen Optimization Group, a consulting firm offering professional services mainly in performance management and the capacity planning area, has joined the Neptuny Business Partner Program.

The Neptuny Business Partner Program is designed to support partners in reselling its solutions and providing their consulting and support services on Caplan. This is the company’s Capacity Planning solution that allows customers to safely optimize, rationalize and consolidate their data-centers. Caplan has been adopted by major companies in several industries (such as Telco, Finance, Energy, Retail, Travel, etc) around the world.

Xen Optimization Group markets capacity planning and performance management services that enable customers to move from physical Windows servers to virtualized environments.  The firm delivers competitively-differentiated virtualization and IT assessments that help customers accelerate adoption of virtualization through the application of prudent capacity management.