Robin Wauters

NextIO has announced it is working with IBM to offer customers integrated cluster solutions that incorporate NextIO technology, with availability in 2010.

The solution will enable reconfigurable and on demand GPU compute capabilities for IBM iDataplex customers.

The reference architecture for the solution is based on NextIO’s I/O virtualization technology, which provides a flexible, agile, scalable, open and energy efficient platform that supports a variety of GPUs. For example, IBM and NextIO will deliver modular “hot plug” sleds for servicing or upgrading GPUs without incurring system downtime.

The GPU virtualization solution will offer the ability for a single IBM iDataPlex™ server to access from one to eight double-wide GPUs or up to 16 single-wide GPUs in the appliance. Users can quickly and easily enable more or less GPU resources on demand, depending on application requirements. Each iDataPlex rack supports 10 GPU appliances providing up to 160 GPUs and over 80TFlops of compute processing per rack.

Elastra Corporation, a provider of application infrastructure automation software, has announced the immediate availability of Elastra Cloud Server (ECS) 2.0, Enterprise Edition.

In this release, ECS lets customers compose, orchestrate and manage systems made up of Oracle databases, WebLogic Application Servers and other Enterprise-grade software as well as open-source applications like MySQL, Apache, and Tomcat. ECS integrates with enterprise tools such as Tivoli, OpenView, Patrol, CA Spectrum, Zenoss, and Splunk. ECS can be used on private clouds based on VCenter from VMware or XEN from Citrix as well as the public cloud available from Amazon. Systems created for one environment are portable to another.

Elastra brings an unprecedented level of automation to IT organizations seeking to leverage the economics of cloud computing while staying true to existing architectural practices and corporate policies. ECS addresses some of the fundamental challenges faced by IT organizations today:

• Make IT LEANER: ECS automatically generates deployment plans and provisions sophisticated systems that are optimized to minimize operational and capital expenses. At the same time, applications are deployed to be compliant with the customers’ own sets of policies, procedures, and service level agreements.
• Make IT AGILE: ECS dramatically cuts the lead times IT needs to create complex development, testing, and production environments by automating the processes traditionally managed by hand or via hand-crafted scripts.
• Keep IT MANAGEABLE: ECS lets IT organizations maintain control of their operations using familiar tools and technologies while delivering on-demand, self-service system provisioning to their users.

The beta program for the Enterprise Edition of Elastra Cloud Server involved customers from a variety of industries including: a large European Telecommunications company, a leading US Federal Government systems integrator, and a major IT services and outsourcing company. This beta program has now concluded with the general availability of the product.

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

Zenoss, a commercial open source provider of IT enterprise management products, today announced the general availability of version 2.5 of its commercially licensed Zenoss Enterprise product.

This latest version includes several new enterprise-grade scalability features targeted at managing today’s datacenter as well as expanded management support for next generation datacenter technologies and platforms that include virtualization and public clouds.

The latest Zenoss Enterprise release includes new enterprise-grade features for scalability, reliability, and security such as:

• A redesigned agent-less distributed collector architecture that provides all of the fault-tolerant benefits of an agent-based architecture without the penalties of having to deploy an agent.
• Support for distributed collector non-root installs that make it easy to install Zenoss Enterprise while still being in compliance with corporate security policies.
• Enhanced security features including encrypted passwords used for monitoring devices as well as preventing security vulnerabilities related to SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
• An updated Event Console with a new look and feel that will make it even easier for IT operators to complete their most common tasks. The primary design features were based on a set of usability interviews and include streamlined navigation, inline event filtering and a preview pane.

Beyond delivering on enterprise-grade enhancements this latest release also focuses on key next generation data center management features that include:

• New Amazon EC2 monitoring that provides dynamic snapshots of both the individual and collective performance of the instances within an account. Key features also include the ability to immediately track performance without user intervention and to drill deep on performance issues with “inside-the-instance” monitoring.
• VMware Ready support that offers customers the ability to manage both physical and virtual infrastructure through a single pane of glass by delivering certified integration and interoperability with VMware vSphere.
• The monitoring of many new technologies and platforms including SSH-based monitoring for Solaris. This monitoring combined with 40 new community-built ZenPacks adds to the growing list of hundreds of next generation technologies, platforms and management products that Zenoss already integrates and manages.

Hyper9 has announced the release of its Virtual Environment Optimization solution to provide better data, faster diagnosis and more reliable remediation associated with the virtualization of high performance applications.

The critical nature of tier-1 business applications puts high demands on IT organizations to maintain predictable service levels and fast response times – standards that can be hard to live up to in a virtualized environment where constant change, blurred boundaries and an inherent state of mobility are the norm.

In response, a new paradigm for virtualization management is emerging that interprets the performance of resources in-context with their virtual environment.

Hyper9’s Virtual Environment Optimization suite consumes unstructured data and renders it up to the business in a structured way, improving visibility, collaboration, control and reporting around virtualization management issues.

Highlights include:

• Business-level reporting – deliver at-a-glance summary inventory and configuration data filtered by any resource, as well as business-level reporting custom-filtered by unit, department, user and application
• Global trends – track resource CPU, memory and storage usage, and configuration changes over time across departments, owners and applications
• Performance analyzer – perform capacity planning functions to understand when resources will run out by cluster, host and datastore; troubleshoot performance issues from a virtual infrastructure or application perspective
• Datacenter analyzer – understand the breakdown of VM and host configuration across the data center; sort information by labels (e.g. department or line of business)
• VMDNA and Host DNA – support historical performance and configuration tracking, comparison, analysis and trending to manage configuration drift

To request an evaluation trial of Hyper9’s Virtual Environment Optimization solution, visit: http://downloads.hyper9.com/h9ds/scheduleeval.jsf.

LiveTime Software, a provider of Web based ITIL 3 Service Management and Help Desk software, today announced the release of the LiveTime Virtual Appliance 6.0.

The new virtual appliance has been specifically designed for SaaS-based Service Management providers, offering full isolation and a simple menu driven interface. Each appliance can operate in as little as 512Mb of RAM and can scale the number of virtual processors and memory to meet the needs of any customer.

As a standalone platform, the LiveTime Virtual appliance also includes an auto update facility so customers can automatically remain current with the latest LiveTime release. Simply choose the update option and LiveTime will automatically download and install the latest release direct from the console.

Designed around open standards the LiveTime Virtual Appliance includes Apache 2.2, Tomcat 6.0, Java 6 and LiveTime 6.0, optimized for LiveTime service delivery. Version 6.0 includes an updated kernel and support for VMware vSphere 4.0 and Citrix XenServer 5.5 with guest tools for each environment. In addition, LiveTime supports the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) and Microsoft’s Hyper-V environment.

Organizations can now leverage LiveTime’s highly scalable ITIL Service Management software with the ease of installation of traditional software. The virtual appliance provides the necessary scalability and security that is difficult to achieve when deployed on existing hardware and operating systems. Since the system has been hardened at the operating system layer, LiveTime provides Just Enough Operating System for its needs. This makes the system easy to update and maintain and provides a very small footprint and a 200Mb download.