Robin Wauters

Welcome To The New Virtualization.com

February 14, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

We’re excited to announce we’ve completely revamped our website and turned it into a real blog, based on the WordPress platform, along with a brand new logo.

Our archived content, starting from 2006, has been migrated to the new platform. We’ve also made some significant changes to better serve you, our readership, enjoy and interact with the content we bring. We’re excited about the virtualization industry, where things are moving fast and maturity has been reached.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on further developments, including new product releases, acquisition and funding news, special reports, rumours, people profiles, etc. Expect refreshing content, video and audio interviews, reports from the best events and the occassional guest post from industry experts.

Why not subscribe to our RSS feed straight away?

Note that we’re working hard on implementing a custom event and career board for Virtualization.com, and we’re also going to develop a resource center for you to find relevant white papers easily and quickly.

If you want to know more about us, or you want to advertise on Virtualization.com, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us ASAP!

We would also like to add that you’re welcome to comment on all articles and join the conversation about one of the hottest areas in IT.

Sun Acquires innotek, VirtualBox Desktop Virtualization To Extend The Sun xVM platform

February 12, 2008 by Robin Wauters 5 Comments

Sun Microsystems has just announced , in a surprising move, the acquisition of German desktop virtualization technology provider innotek , makers of the well-known VirtualBox family.

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is one of the only professional-quality virtualization solutions built on Open Source technology.

The acquisition by Sun, in essence a stock purchase agreement with undisclosed financial details, is a definite winner. With over four million downloads since January 2007, innotek’s VirtualBox product has been quickly established as one of the leading developer desktop virtualization platforms. As part of the Sun xVM portfolio, VirtualBox will have the support of Sun’s global development community, field resources and partners to make VirtualBox “even more compelling to developers and end users, driving greater adoption across a broad set of communities”.

From the press release:

“By enabling developers to more efficiently build, test and run applications on multiple platforms, VirtualBox will extend the Sun xVM platform onto the desktop and strengthen Sun’s leadership in the virtualization market.”

“VirtualBox provides Sun with the perfect complement to our recently announced Sun xVM Server product,” said Rich Green, executive vice president, Sun Software. “Where Sun xVM Server is designed to enable dynamic IT at the heart of the datacenter, VirtualBox is ideal for any laptop or desktop environment and will align perfectly with Sun’s other developer focused assets such as GlassFish, OpenSolaris, OpenJDK and soon MySQL as well as a wide range of community open source projects, enabling developers to quickly develop, test and deploy the next generation of applications.”

The acquisition is also another sign EMEA is marking its territory in virtualization land.

You Know Virtualization Is Big When It’s On … Dilbert (Update: 4 Times Even!)

February 12, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Our favorite comic hero Dilbert, created by Scott Adams , is summoned by his boss to deploy virtualization on the ‘Strip of the Day’ at Dilbert.com today. Further prove that virtualization is on its way of going mainstream, but at the same time the comic humorously illustrates it’s not an ‘out-of-the-box’ technology yet. It takes a bit more planning and experience to succesfully virtualize your infrastructure …

Update: there’s ~~two~~ three more!

Verizon Business Wants A Piece Of The Virtualization Pie Too

February 4, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

After 3 years of supporting VMWare ESX Server in a staging and development environment, Verizon Business today announced it’s entering the virtualization space with a proper enterprise offering.

“Verizon Business is all about empowering our customers,” said Michael Marcellin, vice president of product marketing for Verizon Business. “With our newest virtualization option, customers can run leaner and meaner, while out-tasking the management of these complex environments. What’s more, this offering can even help companies to be ‘greener,’ which is a big plus in today’s eco-friendly business environment.”

In essence, Verizon Business is deploying a shared VMware Virtual Center management infrastructure to configure and operate this virtualized environment, enabling customers to take advantage of Verizon Business’ expertise and best practices in managing this technology.

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Trigence Signs Strategic Partnership with Virtualization Consolidation Academy

January 31, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Trigence , another provider in application virtualization solutions, today announced a partnership with the Virtualization Consolidation Academy to utilize the academy’s facilities to make application virtualization technology visible and understandable to end-users. VCA evaluates different technologies and tests solutions for feasibility, compatibility, implementation and user-friendliness. Additionally, VCA trains partners and large enterprises throughout the region on virtualization technology and best practices.

The VCA is a new endeavor that includes many virtualization solutions that are proving the value of the virtual data center. VCA’s virtual data center is an initiative that presents the data center as a centrally managed service which virtualizes all hardware and software resources at the backend. Recent variations of the virtual data center model include grid, fabric, and utility computing. The ultimate goal in all variations is a cost effective solution with an uninterrupted quality-of-service.

“Our partnership with the Virtualization Consolidation Academy is further proof of our global commitment to provide the solutions data center managers need to get control of their applications in ways that simplify operations and require fewer resources,” said John Hamilton, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Trigence. “The European market is becoming an important focus for us, and we are excited to leverage all that the VCA has to offer to reach those companies in need of a comprehensive application virtualization solution for their data centers.”

Trigence claims companies around the world use them to:

— Manage and migrate Solaris, Linux and Windows applications throughout the data center

— Consolidate both Physical and Virtual server environments

— Do a better job of managing all applications throughout their lifecycle from development and delivery to maintenance and modernization

Trigence is different from hyper-visor and other virtualization technologies because it encapsulates the application at a level above the OS. The result is a completely virtualized environment where application capsules now have the freedom to be moved and managed without reconfiguration to either the application or the server.

To be watched!

Update: Tarry Singh has an interview with COO & EVP of Trigence, John Hamilton .

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Another Day, Another Funding Deal: VirtenSys Raises 8.1 Million Euro

January 31, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

UK-based virtualization company VirtenSys has secured a Series B funding round to the tune of € 8.1 million (USD 12 million). The syndicate consists of existing shareholders Scottish Equity Partners, Celtic House Venture Partners and the Belgian GIMV. VirtenSys will use the new funds to expand operations in the UK and US, and to launch its products and begin revenue generation.

“That the original investors subscribed fully to the Series B round is significant,” said Andy Roberts, chairman of the board of directors of VirtenSys. “It validates our strategy and demonstrates their confidence in the market opportunity and the demand for our products.”

VirtenSys is developing I/O virtualization solutions for data centers. VirtenSys’ technology enables data centers to better adapt to dynamic workloads, self-configure, and self-heal at a lower total cost of ownership and higher utilization than currently available systems.

VirtenSys predicts a growing demand for its solutions as workloads on data centers keep increasing and the dynamics of the IT workload are changing. According to the company these dynamics call for greater corporate agility in response to changing business conditions and require an IT infrastructure that can adapt equally fast. Organizations are trying to find new ways to increase data center utilization while reducing the total cost of ownership. This again requires greater dynamism in the management of the IT workload.

VirtenSys’ strategy is to protect IT investments with a standards-compliant migration path for servers to virtualized I/O resources. The I/O virtualization solutions are based on the industry-standard PCI Express I/O interface which is natively available on all servers.

Stuart Paterson, a partner at lead investor SEP said, “SEP is confident that VirtenSys has an excellent future. Virtualization is very much at the top of CIO agendas. VirtenSys virtualization solutions increase utilization, while lowering power and cooling requirements by as much as 50 percent. This is very attractive to many organizations seeking to optimize their data centers.”

Just recently, VirtenSys appointed a new CEO (Ahmet Houssein ), a new chairman (Andrew Roberts ), expanded its sales and engineering executive teams and opened its US headquarters in Oregon. The company was founded in December 2005 and raised its first round of funding in October 2006. Scottish Equity Partners, Celtic House Venture Partners and GIMV then invested a total of €9.5 million.

[Via Tornado-Insider ]

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