Virtualization.com
News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing
VMware has announced the availability of its free server class virtualization product, VMware Server 2.0, a free hosted virtualization product for Microsoft Windows and Linux servers that has been around for quite some time.
Workstation 6.5, its long running desktop virtualization platform has also hit the wires, and finally ACE hit the 2.5 mark.
(VMblog gives a run-down of the new stuff in VMware Server 2.0, Workstation 6.5 and ACE 2.5)
Alternative Technology, an Arrow Electronics company and specialty distributor of thin-client/server-based computing, edge infrastructure, virtualization, storage and security solutions, today announced that they will distribute Oracle VM software and sell Oracle VM server virtualization support for both Oracle and non-Oracle applications.
Oracle VM software is available to download for free and consists of open source server software and an integrated Web browser-based management console. Oracle VM provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for creating and managing virtual server pools, running on x86 and x86-64-based systems across an enterprise. Users can create and manage virtual machines that exist on the same physical server but behave like independent physical servers. Each virtual machine created with Oracle VM has its own virtual CPUs, network interfaces, storage and operating system. With Oracle VM, users have an easy-to-use browser-based tool for creating, cloning, sharing, configuring, booting and migrating virtual machines.
Backed by Alternative Technology and Oracle’s world-class support organization, solution providers now have a single point of support for their customers’ entire virtualization environments including the Linux operating system, Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Application software. Customers who want to deploy Oracle products in a faster, lower cost server virtual environment can now use Oracle VM and subscribe to Oracle VM support.
Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, today announced a comprehensive solution to assist partners in targeting the emerging virtual desktop market in the US and Canada. Avnet Technology Solutions’ new solution combines VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) software with the services and enablement resources needed to develop market expertise and effectively implement virtual desktop environments. Partners can use virtual desktop solutions to help their customers improve manageability, increase control and enhance the security of their enterprise desktops. The centralization of desktop management through virtualization also helps companies more effectively leverage their IT resources.
Avnet’s new solution is based on VMware VDI, which includes VMware Virtual Desktop Manager and provides simplified management and secure provisioning of virtual desktops and manages user access to the virtual desktops from a wide range of devices such as Windows, Linux and Mac computers, and thin clients. By deploying the VMware platform, partners can extend business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities to their customers’ desktops and streamline desktop management to reduce operating costs, increase control and deliver complete desktop environments with greater application compatibility.
When the industry blog Virtualization.info announced its first event, the completely independent Virtualization Congress 2008, back in March, we wrote that it would prove to become one of the most interesting events of the year. The congress was to be held from 14 to 16 October at the ExCel centre in London.
Now it seems the event has been postponed, at least according to the event website. VMblog earlier reported that the event was actually cancelled due to ‘low registration numbers and a tough macro-economic climate’. It couldn’t have helped a lot that there was a similar event going on in London only 2 weeks before Virtualization Congress, namely VM08, which to date has not been cancelled and seems to have much of the same topics and sponsors as the congress did.
We have an e-mail in for a confirmation and more clarity on the matter, we’ll update this post as soon as we get a response.
UPDATE: we got an e-mail back saying “the number of delegates that were registered when we decided to cancel (around 300) was too low to match the sponsors expectations and cover the conference costs expenses. Thus we decided to cancel this edition.”. The event has effectively been postponed, with no clarification on a later date so far.
Whatever the reason may be behind the cancellation / delay, we would like to give Alessandro Perilli, who writes about the industry with great passion and knowledge, a heads-up. Organizing an event of this size is no easy feat. Next to blogging, I organize a conference of my own about the European Web 2.0 industry (Plugg) and I know how stressing it can be and how much effort, time and money goes into the organization prior to the event.
We wish Alessandro all the best for the future.
Thanks for reading us. We are bundling all our VMworld 2008 coverage in one handy page, go check it out now for more reports and videos!
Microsoft had people dressed up like medieval Venetian models at the hotel entrance of last week’s VMworld conference in Las Vegas. They distributed dollar chips and flyers to anybody wearing a VMworld bag, with on it the website address VmwareCostsWayTooMuch.com, which led VMware customers and partners to a landing page, on which the headlines all redirect to the Microsoft Hyper-V portal.
The guerilla marketing tactics actually worked, with coverage from publications like NetworkWorld, ZDNet Blogs, Channel Marker, Virtualization Information, Burton Group’s Data Center Strategies blog, and others.
We ignore whether this smear marketing stunt was inspired by the US presidential campaign, but it was certainly not the first time Microsoft engages into heads-on advertising. Last time around it was targeted against Linux. However, we were never aware of Microsoft distributing any leaflets with GetTheFacts.com at the entrance of LinuxWorldExpo or LinuxTag. It is also quite funny to observe that Linux distributions (starting with SUSE) are now supported as Guest Operating Systems on Hyper-V and that Redmond advertises this feature extensively.
Microsoft even provides integration components and technical support for customers running select Linux distributions (limited to SUSE for the moment) as guest operating systems. IF history repeats itself, VMware can be reassured that in a few years this type of Microsoft campaign results in supporting a competing technology.
It took the VMware conference staff a little while to get notified about the leaflets and some more time before they got the hotel staff at The Venetion to stop the flyers from being handed out at the entrance of their annual user conference, attracting over 14.000 attendees to Las Vegas. It is estimated at least 4.000 flyers were distributed in the elapsed time.
The distributed 1 dollar chips were actually valid inside The Venetian Casino. This guerilla marketing initiative has cost at least 4.000 dollars in casino money, but the website and distribution must have cost a lot more.
It is hard to believe The Venetian did not make the connection between selling a few thousand ‘Dollar chips’ to Microsoft and concurrently renting their entire event facilities and rooms to VMware. Especially with those video cameras and security personell all over, it can be assumed Microsoft had obtained some sort of permission before handing out those free chips at the hotel entrance.
What do you think about this remarkable anti-VMware propaganda? Does it make MS look desperate as the new kid on the hypervisor block? Does it suit a multinational that runs entirely on ‘expensive‘ licenses to attack a ‘partner’ at its annual user conference over that very cost element? Do the facts that they present on their marketing website actually make sense? What boomerang effect can they expect? How would Microsoft react if Sun would hand out flyers at the gates of TechEd or DevDays with a catchy URL: GetOfficeForFreeAndStopPayingMicrosoft.Com. We look forward to seeing who will register that available domain. 🙂
As we all know, hypervisors are a commodity nowadays and just like Xen and Hyper-V, it must be said that ESX comes free of license cost too. At Virtualization.com, we like to think the value and related cost are no longer in that free naked hypervisor, but in the integrated management and extended tool sets that surround it.
If you were among those first 4.000 VMworld attendees, feel free to tell us how much you made with your Microsoft dollars on the gambling tables and if that was enough to cover/upgrade a VMware license?
AppleInsider has taken a close look at a few features of the upcoming Parallels Desktop 4, which will be Parallels’ answer to the latest release of VMware Fusion 2.0.
“Those aware of the changes say the new release will be Parallels’ first to make good on promise made in early January that it would enable virtualization of Mac OS X Server on Macs already running the operating system, making use of a change in licensing terms with Leopard’s release late last year that permits more than one copy to run at the same time.
Such features have been frequently requested by IT administrators, who on Linux and Windows have already been able to segregate individual apps away from the main operating system in the event of a crash or a security breach.”
Ars Technica adds:
“Desktop 4’s performance will also be beefed up by adding DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2 support, an improved virtualization engine, and support for multiple cores and more RAM.
A makeover for the new version of Parallels Desktop is also in the cards, including a redesigned and simplified interface and more Terminal-based controls. In addition, the team is working on improving the ACPI interface (used for shutdowns and sleeping), and should be adding virtual machine resizing and 64-bit support. Based on those features, the software shouldn’t have a hard time catching up to Fusion, but I hope the team has something else waiting in the wings.”
