Virtualization.com

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

Robin Wauters

VMLogix Also Sells a Lab Manager, Releases Version 3.6

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VMLogix has released VMLogix LabManager 3.6 – not to be confused with VMware Lab Manager 3.0, released on the same day – carrying support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. VMLogix LabManager is hypervisor agnostic and with the introduction of Hyper-V now supports all standard server virtualization platforms.

VMLogix LabManager enables software companies, SMBs and enterprise IT organizations to leverage virtualization to consolidate and automate lab IT infrastructure in order to deliver and maintain software applications more quickly, cost-effectively and reliably. VMLogix LabManager allows development, test and support teams to build, snapshot, share and deploy production-like environments on-demand across Citrix, Microsoft and VMware virtualization platforms.

VMLogix LabManager 3.6 is available starting today and includes the beta version of support for the Microsoft Hyper-V platform. The product will be generally available in September 2008.

VMLogix

VMware Announces Lab Manager 3

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VMware yesterday announced the general availability of VMware Lab Manager 3, a lab automation solution that provides software development and QA engineers with self-service provisioning of multi-VM environments while giving IT departments increased control over policies. With this new release, VMware Lab Manager now offers support for multiple organizational units, advanced networking capabilities, and tighter integration with VMware Infrastructure.

VMware Lab Manager 3 supports multiple organizations of lab users with a single installation, whether users are local or distributed globally. IT administrators can set up customized user roles and access rights to dedicated or shared resource pools imported from VMware VirtualCenter to provide users with the highest quality of service. Because VMware Lab Manager also integrates with Microsoft Active Directory, both user management and resource administration can be centralized to further simplify lab administration and reduce overall resource consumption.

The tighter integration of VMware Lab Manager 3 with VMware Infrastructure 3 allows lab administrators to take advantage of VMware HA, which provides high availability for VMs, and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), which continuously monitors utilization across resource pools and intelligently allocates available resources among the virtual machines based on pre-defined rules. As a result, system configurations in the lab are more resilient against hardware failures and users are protected from unplanned downtime.

VMware Lab Manager is list priced at $1,295 per processor and is available for purchase through VMware’s global network of distributors, resellers and OEMs starting August 7, 2008. There’s a free download available on the VMware website.

VMware

Denali Bundles I/O Virtualization Technology Solution With PureSpec PCI Express Verification IP

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Denali Software, provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software and intellectual property (IP), today announced that its PureSpec PCI Express (PCIe) verification intellectual property (VIP) product, supports the complete PCI-SIG I/O Virtualization (IOV) specifications, now including Multi-Root IOV (MR-IOV).

The PCI-SIG IOV suite of specifications minimizes system hardware and software requirements, allowing the simultaneous sharing of peripherals across multiple microprocessors and operating systems, increasing the performance of virtualized systems and enabling significant power savings. Denali’s PureSpec VIP allows verification engineers to verify their next-generation designs, ranging from server processors and network chipset to communication systems, for compliance to the latest PCIe standard, and take advantage of the newest set of IOV technologies.

Denali Software

Citrix Announces Public Beta of XenServer 4.2

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Yesterday, Citrix released the public beta of the next version of XenServer, which may or may not be called XenServer 4.2 but is still being referred to as ‘Project Orlando’. Judging by the comments on the Citrix forum, the release was indeed scheduled for end of July, with a final version coming in September.

Citrix XenServer 4.2 comes with Xen 3.2, with Xen 3.3 remaining in final testing stage. On to the Xen.org blog, you can already post feature requests for Xen 3.4.

Virtualization.info broke the news about the release and lists the following additional new features:

  • Automated high availability
  • VM grouping, searching and tagging
  • Real-time and persistent performance monitoring
  • Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, XP SP3, Vista SP1 guest OSes
  • Support for Novell SLES 9 SP4 / 10 SP2, Red Hat RHEL 4.7 / 5.2 guest OSes
  • Support for Fibre Channel / iSCSI multipath (configurable through XenCenter)
  • Support for alerts as email

You can enroll for the public beta program here.

Citrix Systems

Release: VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2

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VMware introduced their latest Beta build of their Apple Mac virtualization product, VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2, nearly three months after releasing the Beta 1 build. The new release is focused on several key areas, mainly to improve the user experience with updated video, data protection and Unity capabilities.

VMware Fusion 2.0 will be made available free to owners of VMware Fusion 1.x.

A rundown of the new features:

  • Multiple Snapshots
    • Save your virtual machine in any number of states, and return to those states at any time
    • Automatically take snapshots at regular intervals with AutoProtect
  • File and URL Sharing
    • Share applications between your Mac and your virtual machines
    • Finder can now open your Mac’s files directly in Windows applications like Microsoft Word and Windows Media Player
    • VMware Fusion can configure virtual machines to open their files in Mac applications like Preview and iTunes
    • Click on a URL in a virtual machine and open it in your favorite Mac browser, or configure your Mac to open its links in a virtual machine
    • Map key folders in Windows Vista and Windows XP (Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures) to their corresponding Mac folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, and Pictures)
    • Greatly improved reliability of shared folders—now compatible with Microsoft Office and Visual Studio
  • Experimental Support for Mac OS X Server Virtual Machines
    • You can create Mac OS X Server 10.5 virtual machines (experimental support). Due to Apple licensing restrictions, the standard edition of Mac OS X 10.5 is not supported in a virtual machine
  • Display Improvement
    • Improved 3D support
    • Use 1080p full high definition video in Windows XP or Windows Vista
    • Freely resize your virtual machine?s window and enter and exit Full Screen view while playing games
    • Run Linux applications directly on your Mac?s desktop under Unity view
  • UI Improvements
    • The New Virtual Machine Assistant has Linux Easy Install in addition to Windows Easy Install
    • Cut and paste files up to 4 MB, including graphics and styled text
    • Status icons glow when there is activity
    • A screen shot of the last suspended state of a virtual machine is displayed in Quick Look and Cover Flow
    • You can remap keyboard and mouse input
    • Keyboard compatibility between the Mac and the virtual machine is improved
    • The vmrun command line interface is available for scripting
  • Broader Hardware and Software Support
    • VMware Fusion supports Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
    • VMware Fusion supports 64-bit Vista Boot Camp; handles activation for Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007
    • Experimental support for 4-way SMP (note: Windows Vista and Windows XP limit themselves to two CPUs)
  • Support for Virtual Hard Disks
    • You can mount the virtual disk of a powered-off Windows virtual machine using VMDKMounter (Mac OS X 10.5 or higher)
    • You now have the ability to resize virtual disks

Here’s a demo video the VMware team put out:

VMware

[Source: VMBlog]

There We Go Again: EMC Shares Rise On Acquisition Rumors

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This is one rumor that just keeps coming back: Reuters is reporting that EMC shares rose as much as 6.3 percent yesterday on market speculation that the world’s largest maker of corporate storage equipment could be acquired. The company stills holds a majority stake in virtualization juggernaut VMware.

Shares of EMC rose as high as $14.92 in trade on the New York Stock Exchange, before retreating to $14.75 in afternoon trading.

EMC spokesman Dave Farmer declined to comment, saying the company never responds to market rumors or speculation. Pacific Growth Equities analyst Kaushik Roy said the most likely company to be interested in buying EMC would be Cisco Systems. Last May, we reported on rumors of a possible merger.

A popular phrase says there is fire where there is smoke, but we’re getting a bit skeptical. These rumors have been floating for years now, and although a Cisco-EMC combo would seem like a pretty logical combination, you can ask yourself if it why a deal would be in the works now, when a merger or full acquisition should have already happened if both companies and their shareholders agreed.

EMC Corporation

Cisco Systems