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Virtuon announced today it has unveiled a Virtual Desktop service based on cloud computing and virtualization technology.

The desktops are accessible from any web browser and deliver full functionality of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Starting at $39.95 per month, the desktops are offered through a subscription service and are available with Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7.

Users of the Virtual Desktops can install any number of applications and configure desktop personal preferences. As a “follow-me” application environment, users access the desktop from any device with internet access such as an Apple iPad, thin client, or traditional desktop to find the applications and personal settings just as they left them previously.

As part of the service, Virtuon offers several desktop options for processor speed, memory, and hard disk space. An optional Data Engine package is geared for users who need heavy number crunching and data processing.

The non-profit Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) has released SPECvirt_sc2010, the first vendor-neutral benchmark to measure the performance of datacenter servers used for virtualized server consolidation. The new benchmark also includes options for measuring power consumption and power/performance relationships.

SPECvirt_sc2010 uses a realistic workload and SPEC’s proven performance- and power-measurement methodologies to enable vendors, users and researchers to compare system performance across multiple hardware, virtualization platforms, and applications. It was developed by the SPEC virtualization subcommittee, whose members and contributors include AMD, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Red Hat, Unisys and VMware.

SPECvirt_sc2010 provides an overall workload based on applications that are commonly used for virtualized server consolidation. Workloads of various sizes are injected into the benchmark at different time periods during the benchmark run, representing the typical spikes experienced in real-world server environments. Scaling is achieved by running additional sets of virtual machines (called “tiles”) until overall throughput reaches a peak or workloads fail to meet required quality of service (QoS) criteria.

Three categories of results can be generated by SPECvirt_sc2010:

• Performance-only results, where the overall score is calculated by taking each component workload in each tile and normalizing it against its theoretical maximum for the predefined load level.
• Power/performance for the total system (server and storage).
• Power/performance for the server only.

SPEC’s latest benchmark comes at a time when virtualization is becoming integral to datacenter management: The analyst firm International Data Corp. (IDC) reports that 18.2 percent of all new servers in the fourth quarter of 2009 were virtualized, an increase of three percent over the same period in 2008.

SPECvirt_sc2010 is available immediately from SPEC for $3,000; discounts are available for qualified non-profit and educational institutions.

VMware today announced VMware vSphere 4.1, the latest version of the VMware virtualization platform, as well as an expanded portfolio of virtualization management solutions.

VMware vSphere 4.1 and the VMware vCenter product family are cornerstone solutions for customers and service providers building private and public cloud environments. As such, these technologies have attracted a broad partner ecosystem of industry leaders that support and extend this foundation.

With groundbreaking new memory management and expanded resource pooling capabilities, VMware vSphere 4.1 promises to accelerate the evolution of datacenters and service providers into cloud computing environments, setting the standard for key tenets of cloud computing:

• 2X larger resource pools with 3X the management power. Already the most powerful virtualization platform on the market, VMware vSphere 4.1 includes dramatic scalability enhancements, enabling customers to aggregate twice the computing resources within a single pool. VMware vCenter Server can now manage up to 10,000 concurrently powered on VMs — three times as many as before.
• Up to 25% better performance and reduced cost per application. With the addition of new memory compression technology, VMware vSphere 4.1 preserves the performance of systems under heavy load, resulting in up to 25% better performance over previous approaches. Memory compression also contributes to further increased consolidation ratios in VMware vSphere. Already the highest consolidation levels in the market, this increase reduces customers’ cost-per-application, a critical measure of value delivered through virtualization.
• 5X faster virtual machine migrations for increased agility. Speed and scale enhancements to VMware vMotion™ deliver superior platform response and availability by migrating virtual machines up to five times faster and enabling up to eight concurrent vMotion events per server pair.
• New network and storage I/O controls deliver Quality of Service guarantees.VMware vSphere 4.1 introduces new controls that allow better alignment of storage and network I/O resources to business priority. VMware vSphere network and storage I/O controls provide granular control over how applications access shared storage and network resources. Administrators can set quality of service priorities per virtual machine and VMware vSphere 4.1 automatically manages resource allocation accordingly.
• Increased performance through open integration with storage environments.VMware vSphere 4.1 already supports more operating systems, devices, applications, and service providers than any other virtualization solution. With the introduction of new VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI), VMware vSphere 4.1 enables tighter integration with solutions from VMware’s storage partners to increase the efficiency and performance of the platform in cloud environments.

VMware vCenter helps customers further reduce complexity of their IT environment while increasing operational efficiency through policy-based management of provisioning, deployment, and performance optimization. VMware has broadened its management portfolio to deliver a complete set of solutions to automate the management of dynamic virtualized systems.

Today VMware is introducing:

• VMware vCenter Configuration Manager (formerly EMC Ionix Application Stack Manager and EMC Ionix Server Configuration Manager) ensures policy based compliance and avoids configuration drift by automating manual configuration tasks across virtual and physical servers and workstations.
• VMware vCenter Application Discovery Manager (formerly EMC Ionix Application Discovery Manager) quickly and accurately maps application dependencies to accelerate datacenter moves, precisely plan infrastructure consolidations, and confidently virtualize business-critical applications.

VMware is also introducing a new per VM licensing model for the VMware vCenter management solutions. This new model aligns licensing costs to the number of virtual machines being managed, rather than to the physical hardware. As virtualization and cloud computing become more prevalent models of IT infrastructure, the virtual machine is rapidly becoming the standard measure of infrastructure deployments.

In a virtualized environment, the hardware configuration is abstracted and changes frequently due to virtual machine migrations across the datacenter, making hardware-based licensing complex. The new virtual machine-based licensing model for VMware vCenter offers customers better alignment between software costs and benefits delivered.

This new model will also better support customers’ needs to port computing environments across diverse hardware configurations, including multiple CPU scenarios, without incurring additional costs.

This new licensing model will be in effect on September 1, 2010 for VMware vCenter products only.

VMware vSphere 4.1 is currently available in packages and prices that address the widest range of customer requirements, from Small and Mid-size Business solutions starting at $83 per processor to full enterprise editions for the most demanding environments at $3,495 per processor.

VMware vCenter AppSpeed, VMware vCenter Chargeback, and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager will be sold in VM packs on a per VM basis starting on September 1, 2010. VMware vCenter Application Discovery Manager and VMware vCenter Configuration Manager are already licensed on both a per VM and physical server model. Per VM licensing for VMware vCenter CapacityIQ will take effect in the fourth quarter of 2010.

VMware introduced new VMware vSphere 4.1 solutions for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with prices starting at $83 per processor.

VMware also announced today the availability of VMware vSphere 4.1, with key performance and efficiency enhancements for virtualization and cloud computing environments.

According to an independent survey of North American and European SMB x86 server virtualization decision-makers conducted by Forrester Research, 74% of the virtualized environments in those SMBs surveyed utilize VMware technologies. In the same survey, “60% of SMBs rated standardizing on virtualization for server deployment, disaster recovery, business continuity capabilities, and infrastructure consolidation as a high or critical priority.”

Small and midsize businesses represent the fastest growing segment of VMware’s customer base.

In the last two years alone, VMware has tripled the number of customers in the SMB segment by introducing solutions and services aimed specifically at this market. VMware vSphere delivers the most complete virtualization offering for businesses of all sizes. Today’s announcement expands VMware’s portfolio of SMB solutions, bringing the most advanced virtualization capabilities to the broadest range of customers.

With the release of VMware vSphere 4.1, VMware has enhanced its virtualization portfolio for SMBs, bringing advanced capabilities to this market segment and introducing new price points:

• VMware vMotion now included in VMware vSphere 4.1 Essentials Plus and Standard editions. VMware vMotion delivers the most advanced live migration capability, enabling customers to rapidly migrate virtual machines across hardware environments without interrupting business operations. Live migration allows customers to effectively consolidate physical systems and utilize resource pools by moving workloads to the optimal environment. vMotion is in use in over 70% of VMware vSphere customers. For the first time, VMware is making this capability available in the VMware vSphere Essentials Plus and Standard editions, targeted for SMB customers. In vSphere 4.1, vMotion is enhanced to deliver a 5X increase in migration speed while supporting up to eight simultaneous migrations.

• New, lower price for VMware vSphere 4.1 Essentials. The most popular VMware vSphere kit for businesses with fewer than 30 applications, VMware vSphere 4.1 Essentials provides an all-in-one solution for small businesses at $495 for six processors, approximately $83 per processor.

• ESXi rebranded as VMware vSphere Hypervisor, still available at no cost. VMware vSphere Hypervisor (formerly ESXi single server edition) delivers the proven foundation of VMware’s virtualization technology to customers of all sizes at no cost. Composed of the same underlying hypervisor architecture as the entire VMware vSphere product portfolio, VMware vSphere Hypervisor enables customers to rapidly implement production virtualization environments to take advantage of server consolidation, cost savings and reduced power and cooling consumption. VMware vSphere Hypervisor has been rapidly adopted by the market and has been proven to run even the most resource-intensive applications with the highest performance. The free solution provides a rapidly deployed platform to begin adopting virtualization across the organization.

VMware vSphere 4.1 is currently available, with edition prices starting at $495 for six processors, approximately $83 per processor.

During his keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2010, Bob Muglia, President of Server and Tools Business division, announced the release candidate of a new add-on for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2: Self-Service Portal 2.0.

Redmond also released the betas of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 for virtualized infrastructure and a foundation for cloud computing.

The company also introduced the Microsoft Management and Virtualization Solution Incentive and the Private Cloud Deployment Kit, which offers financial rewards and guidance to partners as they build virtualization and private cloud solutions.

More information is available here: