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VMware Announces Lab Manager 3

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VMware yesterday announced the general availability of VMware Lab Manager 3, a lab automation solution that provides software development and QA engineers with self-service provisioning of multi-VM environments while giving IT departments increased control over policies. With this new release, VMware Lab Manager now offers support for multiple organizational units, advanced networking capabilities, and tighter integration with VMware Infrastructure.

VMware Lab Manager 3 supports multiple organizations of lab users with a single installation, whether users are local or distributed globally. IT administrators can set up customized user roles and access rights to dedicated or shared resource pools imported from VMware VirtualCenter to provide users with the highest quality of service. Because VMware Lab Manager also integrates with Microsoft Active Directory, both user management and resource administration can be centralized to further simplify lab administration and reduce overall resource consumption.

The tighter integration of VMware Lab Manager 3 with VMware Infrastructure 3 allows lab administrators to take advantage of VMware HA, which provides high availability for VMs, and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), which continuously monitors utilization across resource pools and intelligently allocates available resources among the virtual machines based on pre-defined rules. As a result, system configurations in the lab are more resilient against hardware failures and users are protected from unplanned downtime.

VMware Lab Manager is list priced at $1,295 per processor and is available for purchase through VMware’s global network of distributors, resellers and OEMs starting August 7, 2008. There’s a free download available on the VMware website.

VMware

Denali Bundles I/O Virtualization Technology Solution With PureSpec PCI Express Verification IP

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Denali Software, provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software and intellectual property (IP), today announced that its PureSpec PCI Express (PCIe) verification intellectual property (VIP) product, supports the complete PCI-SIG I/O Virtualization (IOV) specifications, now including Multi-Root IOV (MR-IOV).

The PCI-SIG IOV suite of specifications minimizes system hardware and software requirements, allowing the simultaneous sharing of peripherals across multiple microprocessors and operating systems, increasing the performance of virtualized systems and enabling significant power savings. Denali’s PureSpec VIP allows verification engineers to verify their next-generation designs, ranging from server processors and network chipset to communication systems, for compliance to the latest PCIe standard, and take advantage of the newest set of IOV technologies.

Denali Software

Citrix Announces Public Beta of XenServer 4.2

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Yesterday, Citrix released the public beta of the next version of XenServer, which may or may not be called XenServer 4.2 but is still being referred to as ‘Project Orlando’. Judging by the comments on the Citrix forum, the release was indeed scheduled for end of July, with a final version coming in September.

Citrix XenServer 4.2 comes with Xen 3.2, with Xen 3.3 remaining in final testing stage. On to the Xen.org blog, you can already post feature requests for Xen 3.4.

Virtualization.info broke the news about the release and lists the following additional new features:

  • Automated high availability
  • VM grouping, searching and tagging
  • Real-time and persistent performance monitoring
  • Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, XP SP3, Vista SP1 guest OSes
  • Support for Novell SLES 9 SP4 / 10 SP2, Red Hat RHEL 4.7 / 5.2 guest OSes
  • Support for Fibre Channel / iSCSI multipath (configurable through XenCenter)
  • Support for alerts as email

You can enroll for the public beta program here.

Citrix Systems

Release: VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2

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VMware introduced their latest Beta build of their Apple Mac virtualization product, VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2, nearly three months after releasing the Beta 1 build. The new release is focused on several key areas, mainly to improve the user experience with updated video, data protection and Unity capabilities.

VMware Fusion 2.0 will be made available free to owners of VMware Fusion 1.x.

A rundown of the new features:

  • Multiple Snapshots
    • Save your virtual machine in any number of states, and return to those states at any time
    • Automatically take snapshots at regular intervals with AutoProtect
  • File and URL Sharing
    • Share applications between your Mac and your virtual machines
    • Finder can now open your Mac’s files directly in Windows applications like Microsoft Word and Windows Media Player
    • VMware Fusion can configure virtual machines to open their files in Mac applications like Preview and iTunes
    • Click on a URL in a virtual machine and open it in your favorite Mac browser, or configure your Mac to open its links in a virtual machine
    • Map key folders in Windows Vista and Windows XP (Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures) to their corresponding Mac folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, and Pictures)
    • Greatly improved reliability of shared folders—now compatible with Microsoft Office and Visual Studio
  • Experimental Support for Mac OS X Server Virtual Machines
    • You can create Mac OS X Server 10.5 virtual machines (experimental support). Due to Apple licensing restrictions, the standard edition of Mac OS X 10.5 is not supported in a virtual machine
  • Display Improvement
    • Improved 3D support
    • Use 1080p full high definition video in Windows XP or Windows Vista
    • Freely resize your virtual machine?s window and enter and exit Full Screen view while playing games
    • Run Linux applications directly on your Mac?s desktop under Unity view
  • UI Improvements
    • The New Virtual Machine Assistant has Linux Easy Install in addition to Windows Easy Install
    • Cut and paste files up to 4 MB, including graphics and styled text
    • Status icons glow when there is activity
    • A screen shot of the last suspended state of a virtual machine is displayed in Quick Look and Cover Flow
    • You can remap keyboard and mouse input
    • Keyboard compatibility between the Mac and the virtual machine is improved
    • The vmrun command line interface is available for scripting
  • Broader Hardware and Software Support
    • VMware Fusion supports Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
    • VMware Fusion supports 64-bit Vista Boot Camp; handles activation for Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007
    • Experimental support for 4-way SMP (note: Windows Vista and Windows XP limit themselves to two CPUs)
  • Support for Virtual Hard Disks
    • You can mount the virtual disk of a powered-off Windows virtual machine using VMDKMounter (Mac OS X 10.5 or higher)
    • You now have the ability to resize virtual disks

Here’s a demo video the VMware team put out:

VMware

[Source: VMBlog]

DataSynapse Extends Dynamic Service Management Tools for VMware Infrastructure Support

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DataSynapse, maker of dynamic application service management software, today announced that it is working with VMWare to provide customers with simplified deployment and operational management of application platforms and services to facilitate always-on, always-responsive virtualized applications.

As a member of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program, DataSynapse plans to integrate its FabricServer dynamic application service management software specifically with VMware VirtualCenter. This integration will allow IT organizations to automate deployment and provisioning and optimize service levels of server applications in a virtualized infrastructure, helping them to reduce capital and operating costs while delivering order of magnitude improvement in time to market for critical business applications.
DataSynapse FabricServer software is an enabling platform for standardizing and automating the configuration, activation, scaling and aligning application service levels with planned business policies, which minimizes downtime, automates service level management and improves enterprise application performance. Combined with VMware VMotion technology, VMware’s live migration capability, FabricServer provides responsive horizontal scalability.
DataSynapse

Veeam Releases Backup 2.0 for VMware Infrastructure

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Veeam Software today announced general availability of Veeam Backup 2.0, a product offering both backup and replication for virtual environments. Version 2.0 includes added functionality, as well as a new optimized backup engine that allows for up to five times faster backup and replication performance than the 1.0 version.

Major new features in Veeam Backup 2.0 include:

  • Five times faster — Veeam Backup 2.0 has a new optimized backup
    engine, which allows for up to five times faster backup and replication
    performance than the previous version.
  • Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) support — Veeam Backup 2.0
    leverages VSS to ensure consistent backup and recovery of VSS-aware
    applications, including Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft
    SQL Server.
  • ESXi support — Now customers can back up ESXi servers using VMware
    Consolidated Backup (VCB). File-level recovery is fully supported for
    guests running on ESXi, and full image restore is supported to ESX 3.x
    servers. These images can then be VMotioned to ESXi as needed.
  • Enhanced reporting and notification — Comprehensive real-time job
    statistics are available, including automated e-mail notification of backup
    job status, activity and performance details.
  • Backup portability — Veeam Backup users can now easily import backups
    made using previous versions of the software, or backups that have been
    archived to tape.
  • Support for third-party tape backup systems — Now users can specify a
    script to automatically run when the VMware backup is finished, initiating
    tape backups to begin.

Veeam Backup 2.0 is available immediately, and pricing still begins at $499 USD per socket.

Veeam

[Source: MarketWire]