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News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

Robin Wauters

Piston Cloud Computing Scores $4.5 Million In Funding For Open Source Cloud

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Piston Cloud Computing, a software company developing commercialized OpenStack software for businesses, has raised $4.5 million in funding in a round led by Hummer Winblad and True Ventures, with Divergent Ventures and others participating.

Lars Leckie from Hummer Winblad, and Puneet Agarwal from True Ventures will join Piston’s board of directors.

Launched by NASA and Rackspace in 2010, OpenStack is the fastest-growing open-source project in the world, with over 1,100 contributors and 82 participating companies, including Rackspace, NASA, Citrix, Intel, Cisco, Arista Networks and Dell.

Piston’s co-founders actually came from the technical teams at NASA and Rackspace, and helped to create the OpenStack project in 2010.

Piston’s CEO, Joshua McKenty, was the Cloud Architect of NASA’s Nebula Cloud infrastructure, the precursor of OpenStack’s cloud computing component, and holds an appointed seat on OpenStack’s Policy Board.

Piston’s CTO, Christopher MacGown, was a Technical Lead at SliceHost, acquired by Rackspace in 2008. In addition, the team has recruited some of the best talent from the OpenStack community, including core contributors from NASA and other participating organizations.

Piston Cloud technology is currently in limited beta, with a public release expected in Q4 2011.

Diskeeper’s Virtual Platform Optimiser V-locity 3.0 Slated For Release This Quarter

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Diskeeper‘s virtual platform disk optimiser V-locity has its third edition currently in the final phase of field testing.

Tipped for release this quarter, there is no official statement yet of what new features are included, but what can be confirmed is V-locity 3.0 will support VMware ESXi – VMware’s bare-metal hypervisor.

V-locity improves performance of virtual platforms, such as VMware vSphere, and allows them to operate more efficiently. This results in cost savings and facilitates virtualization initiatives in enterprises.

Release: Parallels Desktop 6 For Mac Enterprise Edition

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Parallels has announced the availability of Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac Enterprise Edition, software for running Windows and Mac applications side-by-side on a Mac without rebooting.

The new Parallels Desktop 6 Enterprise Edition enables IT departments to support Windows-based business applications for Mac users with a configurable, policy compliant solution that easily fits into existing business processes.

Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac Enterprise Edition fits into existing business processes and helps the IT department to reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining client-based software. IT can simplify administration with the Parallels mass deployment package builder, which dramatically reduces the time and expense of rolling out the solution. IT teams may also choose to deploy and manage Parallels client software and virtual environments through standardized software distribution and systems management tools, extending existing investments.

Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition is available as an annual subscription service that simplifies licensing compliance and auditing across an organization through a unified Parallels volume license key.

Release: Parallels Automation For Microsoft Services (And More)

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Parallels, the hosting and cloud services enablement provider, has announced expanded support for Microsoft technologies and tools to help service providers become full-service cloud service providers.

Parallels Automation for Microsoft Services and the enablement tools for ISVs will help Microsoft independent software vendors (ISVs) profit from the cloud.

To allow for efficient integrated delivery of cloud services based on Microsoft technologies with other complementary offerings, Parallels Automation for Microsoft Services (PA 5.2) enables service providers of all sizes to profit from the Cloud by automating delivery of the most complete set of cloud services, including Office 365 Syndication, Hyper-V Cloud, Exchange Server 2010 SP1, and SharePoint Foundation 2010.

With Parallels Automation for Microsoft Services, service providers will be able to resell Microsoft offerings and increase the average revenue per user. With support for the n-tier resell business model, Parallels Automation allows system integrators and VARs to extend the range of cloud services without investment in infrastructure.

Within the Microsoft Services suite, Parallels has also upgraded Parallels Automation support for Microsoft’s System Center Hyper-V Cloud, enabling service providers to offer an IAAS solution either directly or through resellers.

Parallels is now deployed with 10 Cloud Service Providers in Americas, Europe and Asia offering reseller services to the Microsoft VAR and SI community.

Desktone Teams Up With mindSHIFT Technologies For Virtual Desktops In The Cloud

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Desktone, which specializes in cloud-hosted Desktops as a Service (DaaS), has announced that it is partnering with mindSHIFT Technologies, an IT outsourcing and cloud services provider for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs).

The companies are working together to bring a premium cloud-hosted virtual desktop solution to mindSHIFT customers.

This new cloud-based offering combines Desktone’s virtual desktop infrastructure technology with mindSHIFT’s cloud portfolio and MSP services to provide SMBs with a comprehensive IT solution.

Egenera Signs Reseller Agreement With HP Solutions Provider

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Egenera, a provider of open converged infrastructure software for data center management, announced that the company has entered into a reseller agreement with HPM Networks, a provider of enterprise IT solutions and professional services with specialized virtualization and networking practices.

HPM is an HP Preferred Partner and one of HP’s largest solution providers.

The company has a significant presence in northern California and other west coast business centers. Both Egenera and HPM Networks are members of HP AllianceONE, a comprehensive partner program focused on HP’s Converged Infrastructure strategy of providing a shared services model to deliver secure, best-in-class applications.

With more than 20 years of experience in virtualization and IT architecture, HPM’s practice excels in communicating and delivering technical and strategic solutions at all organizational levels. Core competencies include data center consolidation, business continuity, desktop and server virtualization, data protection and cloud computing.