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

Robin Wauters

Corticon Technologies Embeds Composite Information Server in EDC-Multi Source

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Corticon Technologies and Composite Software today announced Corticon has embedded the Composite Information Server in the Corticon Enterprise Data Connector (EDC)-Multi Source.

Corticon’s EDC-Multi Source enables access to relational databases, legacy data sources, web services, XML, message queues as well as leading packaged applications such as SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft and Oracle through Composite Application Data Services.

Corticon’s EDC-Multi Source provides a direct connection from the rules engine to relational databases and other enterprise data sources. This allows it to automatically retrieve data required to execute a decision service or update data sources directly during rules processing, improving performance and simplifying integration. Consistent with Corticon’s model-driven approach, Corticon EDC features code-free modeling in defining data access connections, providing a level of abstraction that accelerates the creation and maintenance of decision services.

Corticon Technologies

DataSheet Proposal for Xen 3.3 Hypervisor Published

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Stephen Spector published a post yesterday on the Xen blog featuring a proposed data sheet (PDF) for the upcoming Xen 3.3 release, which we said was in final testing stage in the beginning of this month.

Update 26 August: Xen 3.3.0 is available for download.

The complete list of new features in Xen 3.3 includes:

Performance and Scalability

  • CPUID Levelling
  • Shadow 3 Page Table Optimizations
  • EPT/NPT 2MB Page Support
  • Virtual Framebuffer Support for HVM Guests
  • PVSCSI — SCSI Support for PV Guests
  • Full 16-bit Emulation on Intel VT
  • Support for memory overcommit allowing more VMs per physical machine for some workloads

Security

  • PVGRUB Secure Replacement for PYGRUB
  • IO Emulation “stub domains” for HVM IO
  • Green Computing
  • Enhanced C & P State Power Management
  • Graphics Support
  • VT-d Device Pass-Through Support

Miscellaneous

  • Upgrade QEMU Version
  • Multi-Queue Support for Modern NICs
  • Removal of Domain Lock for PV Guests
  • Message Signalled Interrupts
  • Greatly improved precision for time-sensitive SMP VMs
XenSource

Dell Fails to Trademark Term ‘Cloud Computing’

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The US Patent and Trademark Office has already denied Dell‘s request to trademark the term “cloud computing” , according to consultant Sam Johnston. This comes as no surprise.

According to Johnston, the USPTO has issued a “non-final action” that denies the application, ruling that the term cloud computing is “a descriptive term of art in the relevant industry” and also “generic in connection with the identified services and, therefore, incapable of functioning as a source-identifier for applicant’s services.”

Remains to be seen of Dell will dispute the decision.

Anyone care to file a trademark request for ‘virtualization’ in the meantime?

[Source: DataCenterKnowledge]

Platform Computing Releases VM Orchestrator 4

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Platform Computing has announced the next version of its virtual environment management product for the enterprise data center, Platform VM Orchestrator (VMO) 4. Platform VMO 4 provides faster delivery of virtual computer environments to end users while optimizing resource utilization, availability, and power consumption, to improve an enterprise’s return on investment from its virtualization environment. The solution offers a cost-effective enterprise virtualization management solution for Citrix XenServer, with support for virtualization platforms from other vendors to be delivered in the coming months.

Platform says VMO 4 increases IT productivity and responsiveness to business service levels through a Self-Service portal that supports delegated administration and allows end users to request and control usage of their own VMs without administrator involvement. At the core of VMO’s automated management is the multi-host dynamic resource management engine, which increases resource utilization across the virtual environment to remove bottlenecks and server silos according to flexible configurable policies that map to business priorities.

Platform VMO 4 will be available later this month.

Platform Computing

Will Unidesk Bring Anything New to the VDI Table?

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VMBlog is reporting that a new desktop virtualization management startup called Unidesk is about to break out of stealth mode. (note: the Unidesk website is still under construction as some titles and text snippets appear to be missing)

Founded in December of last year, Unidesk raised a total of $8.1 million this year from Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. It has a strong management team, and recently opened up a second office in India next to their existing Marlborough offices. Their core offers are named “Composite Virtualization“ and “Desktop Management 2.0” and they claim it will dramatically simplify desktop management for enterprise IT organizations.

“Building on a core invention called Composite Virtualization™, Unidesk will offer IT organizations the desktop control they’ve been seeking to reduce costs, improve service levels, and tighten security, while, at the same time, give lines of business the desktop freedom they require to maximize knowledge worker innovation and productivity. Unidesk’s family of “Desktop Management 2.0™” solutions will provide the highly efficient image management, application delivery, and personalization capabilities that are currently missing from Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products from VMware and Citrix, and extend these same capabilities to non-VDI-based laptops and thick desktops so IT can easily support off-network computing. By eliminating the barriers to VDI adoption and enabling all desktops to be virtualized under a common management platform, Unidesk’s game-changing technology will accelerate the multi-billion dollar desktop virtualization market, and deliver significant returns to employees, investors, customers, and business partners.”

There’s not much else we can gather from the website, apart from the fact that the company is planning a free trial version, and that they’re hiring a bunch of people who will get – at least- a free mug (see here).

Unidesk

Big in Japan: NEC Soft and DataCore Renew OEM Agreement

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NEC Soft and DataCore Software today announced the renewal of their OEM relationship under which NEC Soft builds and markets its MelodiousStor storage virtualization appliance.

Japan is moving to server virtualization. The benefits are undeniable and cannot be resisted in a competitive, global economy. It has been observed elsewhere that the rise in adoption of server virtualization causes customers to think differently about their storage. They want their storage to become as mobile and efficient as their virtual machines, and they are very interested in how they can build excellent flexibility and storage provisioning efficiency into their existing storage environments, while at the same time addressing increased requirements for storage protection, availability and performance inherent in a virtual server environment.

NEC Soft and DataCore believe that Japan’s adoption of storage virtualization will occur in parallel to its adoption of server virtualization, which is currently well underway. By combining NEC Soft’s expertise and acceptance in the Japanese market with DataCore’s storage virtualization and advanced storage management, the two companies are offering Japanese customers the opportunity to integrate into their existing storage environment important advances in thin provisioning capacity allocation, high performance data caching, high availability, disaster recovery and data migration.

NEC Soft, which through its related companies also offers VMware and Microsoft solutions, will market the DataCore, VMware and Microsoft virtual server solutions separately and as part of a Total Enterprise Virtualization solution offering.

DataCore Software