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

Robin Wauters

Parallels And AXIGEN Launch Strategic Partnership

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AXIGEN, a Romanian mail server vendor, and Parallels (former SWSoft), virtualization and automation software provider, yesterday announced the launch of a strategic technological partnership in which the companies will offer an integrated AXIGEN Mail Server and Parallels Virtuozzo Containers solution specifically for service providers offering virtualized hosting environments.

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From the official press release:

The new AXIGEN-Parallels Virtuozzo Containers integration presents a high-end, flexible solution that enables Service Providers the ability to offer customized mail server solutions for customers via an easily deployable, low-maintenance SaaS model. Unlike traditional, generic hosting solutions, in which software must be installed and configured manually, the AXIGEN-Parallels Virtuozzo Containers solution allows Service Providers to offer customers a wide variety of pre-made Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, called templates, that are populated with optimized configurations of the AXIGEN mail server. Customers can choose the template that is right for their business, and have the solution deployed to them with only a few clicks.

“Parallels Virtuozzo Containers’ superior density and manageability, coupled with its ability to rapidly deploy software via pre-configured templates, make it an ideal choice for ISVs to deploy their software via a SaaS model,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels.”The partnership with AXIGEN is an excellent example of a forward-thinking application vendor harnessing the power of SaaS and of Parallels’ continued momentum with Service Providers and SaaS.”

“Given that the AXIGEN Mail server is a service provider oriented solution, we are confident the integrated AXIGEN-Parallels Virtuozzo Containers solution will better address the emerging requirements of this highly competitive environment,” said Oana Bornaz, CEO of AXIGEN. “Moreover, both Parallels and AXIGEN now benefit from an expanded customer base, a fact mutually beneficial to the development of our companies.”

IBM Takes Virtual Servers Into Virtual Worlds

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IBM has long been fascinated with the potential of 3-D virtual worlds and has now taken the next step and created actual 3-D virtual worlds that enterprise companies can use to manage their existing data centers or design new ones, as announced today by the company.

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IBM’s new 3-D Data Center software can create a 3-D replica of servers, racks, networking, power and cooling equipment that communicates with real-world equipment to provide managers with a centralized view of IT operations. The environment is based on the OpenSimulator project and IBM middleware known as the Holographic Enterprise Interface (HEI), which can communicate with building automation systems to replicate physical data center operations in the virtual world.

Is this another novelty experiment in virtual worlds by corporate America, or has IBM found a killer business application for 3D gaming technology? IBM notes that the 3-D Data Center (PDF) can recreate two or more remote data centers, but is a multi-user virtual world, complete with in-world 3D messaging.

“Viewing information about your data center in 2-D text – even in real time – only tells a data center manager part of the story, because our brains are wired for sight and sound,” said IBM Researcher Michael Osias, who architected the 3-D data center service. “By actually seeing the operations of your data center in 3-D, even down to flames showing hotspots and visualizations of the utilization of servers allows for a clearer understanding of the enterprise resources, better informed decision-making and a higher level of interaction and collaboration.”

IBM has given data center managers the ability to replicate their data center assets in an environment much like World of Warcraft, and then work together to manage the environment – kind of like conducting a raid on a heating and cooling challenge. The technology has arrived. Do data center managers want this?

IBM is ready to find out (although it’s not announcing pricing). It will be interesting to track the progress of the 3-D Virtual Data Center and see if new client announcements follow.

[Source: DatacenterKnowledge]

CohesiveFT Opens Up Registrations For Its Elastic Server On-Demand Community Edition

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Cohesive Flexible Technologies today announced open registration for its Elastic Server On-Demand Community Edition which had been in private beta since July 2007.  The free Community Edition has key new capabilities including the ability for users to upload their own software packages and applications for use in assembling, deploying and managing virtual application stacks.

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“ESOD Community Edition is a free Internet platform for independent developers and individual enterprise developers to take advantage of virtualization and cloud computing utilities like Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)”, said Patrick Kerpan, CTO at CohesiveFT.  “It allows them to take their application stack ‘recipes’, capture them, and reproduce them as virtual servers automatically with both speed and quality”, he added.

Craig Heimark, CohesiveFT’s CEO, added: “ESOD is the first service to offer developers and operations complete control of their server assembly independent of which virtualization or cloud technology they require.  The ability to allow the independent developer community to jump into cloud-computing in this way is an important dimension of our overall service offerings.”

CohesiveFT’s platform allows customers to build and manage applications for virtualized infrastructure.  Using a “built to order” process, customers assemble a downloadable, cloud-deployable, application container in the virtualization format of their choice.

[Source: Virtual Strategy Magazine]

Incipient Raises $ 15.6 Million Venture Capital Funding In Series E

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Incipient, a provider of enterprise-class storage virtualization and automated data migration software solutions, announced today that it has closed a $15.6 million Series E round of funding from existing investors including Globespan Capital Partners, GrandBanks Capital, HLM Venture Partners, Greylock, QuestMark Partners, Sigma Partners, and Wasatch Advisors, as well as a new investor.

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Incipient says it will use this new funding to expand global sales and marketing initiatives for its enterprise-class award winning storage virtualization and automated data migration software solutions now being used by leading financial services organizations to automate and virtualize their data center operations.

“We are pleased with the continued steadfast support and confidence of this storage-savvy investor group participating in this latest round of funding,” said Ric Calvillo, CEO and co-founder of Incipient. “Over the last year we have seen a dramatic increase in customer traction and interest in both our storage virtualization and automated data migration solutions within the financial services market segment. We see this interest accelerating globally over the upcoming year as we uniquely address the desire by large financial services accounts to automate and virtualize data center operations to manage complexities associated with storage growth and business service requirements.”

“The need to automate and virtualize data center operations is a top priority for global financial services entities and Incipient is uniquely well-positioned to capitalize on this rapidly evolving market opportunity,” said Bill Helman, general partner, Greylock. “We look forward to working with and continuing to support Incipient as they execute on the major market opportunity they are now prepared to exploit with their enterprise-class solutions.”

[Source: VMBlog]

ManageSoft Integrates Enterprise Compliance Manager into VMWare ESX Server

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Boston-based ManageSoft announced today it now supports VMware ESX Server with its Enterprise Compliance Manager software that enables its customers to fill the license compliance chasm created by the virtualization wave. This software provides a path to resolution for companies embracing application and server virtualization, but concerned about software publishers’ licensing policies.

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ManageSoft claims vendors’ application licensing rules have gotten so complex that most enterprise customers can expect to be out of license compliance without an automated tracking system.

“Virtualization of servers and applications has created a large productivity and efficiency leap, but by the same measure has grown into a viral license compliance liability that customers must address,” noted Steve Butler, president and CEO of ManageSoft. “ManageSoft is the cure to get customers back in the driver’s seat for enterprise license compliance.”

Enterprise Compliance Manager’s license tracking now spans all corners of the physical and virtual enterprise from laptops, desktops, to the data center,” added Alan Swahn, ManageSoft’s vice president of marketing and business development. “Proper license entitlement has always been our strength and our competitors’ weakness. We have built an even higher wall by seamlessly handling both physical and virtual systems.”

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Company Index: VMWare

[Source: VMBlog]

 

Tech Data & VMWare Take Their Partnership To A New Level

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virtualization-techdata.pngTech Data has announced it will start selling VMWare’s desktop and data center virtualization solutions, in addition to its existing offer including virtualization solutions from Virtual Iron, Parallels, and Citrix’s XenServer (ex-XenSource).

Tech Data previously worked with VMware only through OEM agreements with HP and IBM. As of now, it can separately sell the desktop and data center virtualization solutions including VMware Infrastructure suite, VMware VirtualCenter, VMware Capacity Planner, VMware Lab Manager, VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and VMware Fusion.

Senior VP and General Manager of Tech Data Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Pete Peterson got his first official certification and thus became one of 200 TD employees who can call himself a VMWare Sales Professional (VSP).

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VMware will fall under Peterson’s Advanced Infrastructure Solutions division. In addition to 200 VSPs, Tech Data also has 10 VMware Certified Professionals (VCP) and hopes to double both numbers in the next 90 days, Peterson said.

“We’re really excited about this new partnership. They’re a $1.3 billion software virtualization company. Clearly, they are the market leader in this space. Virtualization is a huge opportunity for most IT shops today and a focus for our resellers,” Peterson said. “They say 5 percent of all servers globally that have virtualization software on them. Our goal is to make sure when we include it when we initially sell servers, but there’s also a huge install base that we have an opportunity to sell into as well.”

Tech Data joins Avnet, Arrow Electronics, Ingram Micro Inc. and Lifeboat Distribution as VMware distributors in the U.S.

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Company Index: VMWare

[Source: ChannelWeb]