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Parallels, HP, NVIDIA virtualize GPUs with Workstation Extreme

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Parallels is launching “Parallels Workstation Extreme”, a desktop workstation virtualization offering developed jointly with HP and NVIDIA.

Workstation Extreme is aimed at graphic workstations such as those used on stock trading floors (think: massive multimonitor support) and in 3D animation studios (where several power hungry applications usually don’t like to share resources).

Parallels Workstation Extreme offers desktop virtualization with near-native performance (backed by impressive SPECviewperf numbers) and support for very large VMs (Up to 12 virtual CPUs and 64 GB of RAM per VM). It is built around the latest technology from Intel and NVIDIA. It uses the Intel Xeon 5500 series of CPUs, better known as the “Nehalem” line, which increases the amount of physical RAM that’s supported per machine, and VT-d to allow direct I/O paths to be passed through a hypervisor.

This technology used by the NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS technology incorporated in the latest NVIDIA Quatro cards, also announced today. Using SLI Multi-OS the multiple GPUs available on the system can be virtualized just like traditional CPUs. This allows high-end graphics programs like CAD, CAE and 3D rendering applications to be virtualized and still use the raw geometric number crunching chips provided by the machine. (In traditional desktop virtualization products, the video adapter is emulated, dramatically reducing 3D graphics power.)

Parallels blends this all together with its FastLane architecture, and offers this as a bundled solution on HP Z800 workstations.

Target audiences for this product are digital content creators, design engineers, software developers and testers, sales and training professionals and those working with data modeling in a range of vertical sectors, including finance, government, science, engineering, manufacturing, and oil and gas.

Parallels Workstation Extreme runs on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, Windows XP or Vista (all 64-bit). Supported Guest Operating Systems at the time of release are RHEL 4.7 & 5.3 64-bit, Fedora 10 64-bit and the same 64 bit Windows flavors.

More info can be found on the Parallels website.

PHD Technologies Becomes PHD Virtual, Gives Away Virtualization Tools Free Of Charge

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PHD Virtual Technologies, provider of the esXpress high availability data protection solution for virtual IT, was unveiled today as the new corporate brand for PHD Technologies. Along with the new corporate identity, PHD Virtual is also introducing its new website, featuring free virtualization utility downloads (originally developed by xtravirt).

They include:

  • VMNetBac 1.2.0 – VMNetBac allows customers to backup and restore the network configuration of a virtual machine. VMNetBac is a quick recovery tool to minimize the risk of losing network configurations when intrusive or mass-upgrade type tasks are performed.
  • Virtual SAN 1.0.0 – This Virtual SAN appliance for VMware ESX 3 Server provides the benefits of shared VMFS storage without the cost of a SAN. It utilizes, otherwise unused, local storage in the ESX server to facilitate enterprise-level features such as vMotion, DRS and HA.
  • SnapHunter 0.5.3 – SnapHunter is an ESX 3 Service Console utility which reports back on the Snapshot status of virtual machines from multiple ESX Servers.
  • KS QuickConfig 1.3.0 – KS QuickConfig is a Windows GUI utility that reduces the time needed to deploy and configure VMware ESX 3 servers, and to eliminate inconsistencies that can arise with manual operations.

The new PHD Virtual site also provides a full-featured trial download of the company’s award winning, scalable esXpress data protection solution for virtual IT. esXpress enables companies to perform autonomous, fault-tolerant backup and restoration of an entire virtual environment in less time at lower cost with a virtual backup appliance (VBA). These small virtual machines can be deployed in minutes on an ESX server to autonomously conduct hot full or “virtual full” backups of virtual machines. esXpress can be deployed with minimal impact on virtual server, console or network performance and requires no additional hardware or software investment.

Veeam Debuts New Versions Of Reporter And Reporter Enterprise Products

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Veeam Software, award-winning provider of systems management tools for VMware virtual datacenter environments, today delivers new executive management reporting, integration with corporate CMDBs (change management databases), new change management capabilities, and numerous technical enhancements in version 3.5 of its Veeam Reporter and Veeam Reporter Enterprise products. Veeam Reporter is a favorite of virtualization consultants and systems integrators for documenting customer engagements. Veeam Reporter Enterprise is ideal for documenting large ESX and ESXi environments over time for capacity planning and chargeback.

New features in Reporter Enterprise 3.5 include:
  • Executive Management Reporting — documentation of the virtual environment looks better than ever, with new Visio diagram formats, new pre-defined reports, and a new ability to create and save custom report templates, including corporate logo and formatting.
  • CMDB Integration — provides integration of the VMware environment into common configuration management processes by exporting data into an existing centralized CMDB. Reporter Enterprise 3.5 provides a new PowerShell Extension to run scripts to automatically export Virtual Infrastructure data (both for the current state and earlier points in time) into a company’s centralized CMDB. This eliminates the manual work of     creating inventory spreadsheets, and keeps the central CMDB up-to-date automatically. In addition, running PowerShell scripts against the Reporter Enterprise server instead of vCenter allows users to offload script     processing activities from vCenter, providing for better availability of this critical Virtual Infrastructure element.
  • Change Management — because Veeam Reporter Enterprise gathers virtual infrastructure data periodically on a scheduled basis and stores it in a central Microsoft SQL database, administrators can see point-in-time views  or generate reports to analyze changes over time for configuration drift, security auditing and troubleshooting. In addition or instead of that, administrators can simply opt to receive an e-mail with all changes to the virtual infrastructure since the last data collection.

Veeam Reporter Enterprise 3.5 is available immediately, with North American pricing at $375 USD per socket.

KACE Introduces Virtual Kontainers

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KACE today announced KACE Virtual Kontainers to help companies dramatically simplify the distribution and management of applications. This announcement comes on the heels of new Forrester Business Data Services (BDS) research that reported a whopping 74 percent of small- to medium-sized businesses are looking to desktop and application virtualization to solve their costly PC management challenges.

Application virtualization solutions are notorious for their high cost and complexity. KACE Virtual Kontainers, the first technology innovation resulting from KACE’s acquisition of Computers in Motion, provides users with an easier, faster, and significantly less expensive alternative for creating, deploying, and managing virtual applications. What’s more, KACE offers all these functions via a single, integrated Web-based console. KACE Virtual Kontainers is the newest addition to KACE’s award-winning KBOX family of systems management and deployment appliances and the latest technology innovation that saves customers significant time and money.

With KACE Virtual Kontainers, KACE pushes traditional application virtualization technologies to a new level by extending the benefits beyond the features typically associated with these solutions. Some of the new features of KACE Virtual Kontainers include:

  • Application Isolation – isolated applications eliminate the need for traditional application installation and removal to avoid the decay that occurs when installing and removing application files over time;
  • Simple and Fully Automated Creation – KACE Virtual Kontainers are easily created without the need of specialized skills so experienced (and more expensive) personnel need not waste time learning yet another way of doing business;
  • Centralized Appliance-Based Management – centralized management provides an intuitive Web-based console that allows management of the entire application lifecycle from anywhere via an easy-to-deploy appliance;
  • Active Metering and Control – in order to better manage the use of applications across a corporate network, active metering enables complete control of where and when applications may be executed based on location, hours used, and even on the number of available licenses to enforce concurrent license limits.

KACE Virtual Kontainers will be generally available in April.

Citrix Project Satori Sees Light Of Day

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From the Xen blog:

Citrix Project Satori is the result of a collaborative agreement between XenSource and Microsoft, and was carried forward after XenSource was acquired by Citrix Systems. The base Satori components are released by Microsoft as the Linux Integration Components for Hyper-V, and provide support for paravirtualized XenLinux guests running on Hyper-V. The Linux Integration Components can be downloaded here.

The complete source code and license information (GPL version 2) on this project is now available here.

Sun Microsystems Releases Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software 3

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Sun Microsystems today announced the availability of Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Software 3, which provides new enhancements and features to help companies maximize their IT infrastructure utilization and improve manageability of desktop deployments. Sun VDI Software 3 offers VDI storage economics, built-in virtualization capabilities, and support for a wide variety of virtual desktop operating systems.

The open architecture of Sun VDI Software 3 now gives users access to a broader choice of client devices and virtualization hosts — increasing flexibility, management efficiency and data security. Sun VDI Software 3 is available for purchase immediately and a free trial of the software can be downloaded here.

Sun VDI Software 3 represents a seamless solution, leveraging core open source technologies including Sun’s Open Storage, OpenSolaris, VirtualBox and MySQL. With Sun VDI Software 3, customers can deploy a number of virtual desktop operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, OpenSolaris and Ubuntu, and access these operating systems from a variety of client devices — such as traditional PCs or Macs, energy-efficient Sun Ray thin clients, or thin clients from other vendors. In addition, to host virtual desktop environments, IT architects can opt to use the improved integration with VMware Infrastructure, leverage Sun built-in virtualization, or use a mixture of the two.

Sun VDI Software 3 has exceptional management capabilities, resulting in lower equipment costs, less energy consumption, reduced system cooling requirements, simplified system administration and reduced e-waste. Since desktops are centrally hosted, only the display is sent to the client device; critical data never leaves the corporate network and can be managed and backed up by IT. Moreover, built-in Sun Ray technology support takes advantage of the excellent performance and inherent security features of Sun Ray thin clients, which contain no resident operating system or applications — making them virtually immune to client-side viruses.

Sun VDI Software 3 is available today and offers subscription-based pricing starting from $40 per user/per year, as a discounted price off the U.S. list price for pre-pay and multi-year purchases.