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An Update On The New Virtualization.com

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After having soft-launched the new Virtualization.com, here’s a few updates on what we’ve been up to so far:

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We’ve started our Virtualization Video Series featuring interviews with Matt Rechenburg (openQRM), Frank Kohler (Suse Novell, now Citrix XenSource), Werner Fisher (Thomas-Krenn.AG), John Abbott (The 451 Group) and Tarry Singh (Avastu Research). Loads of new video interviews coming after VMWorld Europe!

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Former Microsoft Executive Paul Maritz Joins EMC To Head Cloud Computing Initiatives

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Microsoft’s cloud computing team will not be happy to learn about this: Paul Maritz, former senior executive at Microsoft, is to become president of EMC‘s cloud computing initiative, which competes directly with the Redmond-based software giant.

Maritz is rejoining the corporate world after seven years of dabbling in startups and philanthropy, now that his company Pi Corporation, a Seattle-based information management provider, has been acquired by EMC. The 100-person company will continue to operate as a standalone entity, similar to the way EMC lets VMWare run independently.

When the deal is finalized, Maritz will become president and general manager of EMC’s new Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division reporting to CEO Joe Tucci.The release reads:

“He will continue to directly oversee development and operations for Pi, along with other key elements of EMC’s cloud computing strategy, which include the EMC Fortress SaaS infrastructure, the Mozy online backup service and other upcoming EMC cloud infrastructure systems and software offerings under development.”

EMC wouldn’t say how much it paid in the all-cash deal, but said it should be done within the first quarter of 2008 and will “be dilutive by $.01 per diluted share in 2008.”

[Source: The Seattle Times]

Gartner: Server Market Doing Fine Until Further Notice

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A new report from Gartner shows the server market did great during all of 2007, including the fourth quarter. Server shipments rose 11 % during the fourth quarter, while revenue rose almost 3 %. The world’s server vendors combined to ship 2.4 million boxes during the fourth quarter and brought in $ 15.5 billion for their efforts. In all of 2007, shipments rose 7 %, while revenue jumped 4 %. For the entire year, vendors moved more than 8.8 million units and generated $ 54.8 billion in revenue, according to Gartner.

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The rise of virtualization and the general economic slowdown, combined with trimmed budgets at the financial services companies, has left a lot of analysists proclaiming a big slowdown and even downfall in hardware sales. But so far, the sky seems blue.

Out of the top vendors, Hewlett-Packard enjoyed the strongest fourth quarter in terms of shipments. It grew 12 % year-over-year, while Dell grew at 9 %, IBM grew at 7 % and Sun declined by 6 %. Fujitsu-Siemens also enjoyed a super quarter with 18 % growth.

Vendor Q4 Shipments Gain/Loss
1) HP 702,100 12%
2) Dell 499,687 8.8%
3)IBM 372,701 7.4%
4)Sun 84,778 -6.3%
5)Fujitsu/Siemens 75,882 17.9%

Almost all of the vendors saw their revenue rise during the fourth quarter. IBM stood out as the lone laggard, despite it talking an awful lot lately about how strong its server business is.

Vendor Revenue Gain/Loss
1) IBM $5.3bn -0.8%
2)HP $4.4bn 7.6%
3)Dell $1.6bn 4.1%
4)Sun $1.49bn 1.0%
5)Fujitsu/Siemens $616k 2.1%

For the full year, HP stood out with 17 % growth in shipments, leading the herd. Sun was the biggest loser, dropping 8.3 %. In revenue, Dell was the main gainer, showing sales growth of 13.2 %. HP notched 9 % growth as well, while the rest of the vendors were in the low single digits.

Everyone moved a ton of x86 boxes and benefited from double-digit growth in terms of shipments. HP, Fujistu-Siemens and Sun had double-digit revenue growth as well, while Dell came in at 4 % and IBM hit 7 % growth.”Blade servers continue to be a high-growth segment with a revenue increase of 44.5 % and a shipment increase of 19.9 % for the year,” Gartner said. “HP was the 2007 leader with blades at a 41.7 % shipment share, with IBM being in second place at 30.9 %. These two vendors continued to dominate this form factor and totaled almost 78 % of the worldwide blade revenue share for 2007.”

[Source and tables: The Register]

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]

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]

EMC & SAP Heading Into Cloud Computing Together?

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According to Reuters, EMC and SAP are about to team up to deliver computer programs over the web. The news company cites a senior executive from German software provider SAP AG, President of SAP Labs North America and member of the SAP Executive Board Doug Merritt, predicting an upcoming partnership whereby the companies will use virtualization technology centralizing computing and storage functions at data centres (‘cloud computing’).

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Merritt chose not to discuss specifics, such as the expected launch date for the new venture and the financial details involved. Moreover, EMC, while openly betting hosting software and services will be a key to growth over the coming years, declined to comment on Merritt’s statements. A blog post by Chuck Norris Hollis, an EMC VP, doesn’t shed more light on the potential alliance but hints at the possibility of a partnership.

If EMC eventually enters the web hosting game through its partnership with SAP, it will be entering a market filled with household name competitors like HP, Symantec, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and IBM.

So far EMC has only announced one key services product, namely MozyEnterprise, an upgraded version of automated backup service Mozy that it acquired last year. EMC reportedly said earlier this month it plans to sell Mozy’s services to large corporations, through a recently upgraded EMC infrastructure dubbed ‘Fortress’.

SAP has also been noisy about launching its own flavor of SaaS program BusinessByDesign to combat Salesforce.com. At an announcement in September, SAP said it would look to partner with companies to provide applications and hosting, which it now seems to have found in EMC.

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