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A Closer Look At VMware Financials

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Zachary Scheidt over at Seeking Alpha penned an excellent analysis of the current financial situation VMware is in. Scheidt correctly notes the corrent virtual monopoly the virtualization industry’s poster child holds, and dissects the company’s latest earnings releases.

A small excerpt:

In addition to the $438 million in revenue, the company announced an increase of $88 million in its deferred revenue which is essentially revenue the company has received for service not yet performed. The total is now $641 million which should help to stabilize future revenue as the company can draw on this balance during future periods. In fact, a Credit Suisse analyst had an interesting theory stating that this quarter was helped significantly by the company drawing on this deferred revenue base instead of new business actually driving the strong revenue number.

Read the whole article.

Sun xVM VirtualBox Downloads Pass The Five Million Mark

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Sun Microsystems today announced that Sun xVM VirtualBox, the free and open source desktop virtualization software it acquired by taking over its maker innotek earlier this year, has surpassed five million downloads in just 18 months.

Sun xVM VirtualBox

The press release touts the xVM VirtualBox 1.6 software to be the first free hypervisor to support all major host operating systems (OS), including Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Solaris and OpenSolaris. Sun unveiled xVM VirtualBox 1.6 earlier this month. Currently downloaded more than 10,000 times a day, the new version includes more than 2,000 enhancements and full support for Mac OS X, Solaris and OpenSolaris host operating systems. It also features newly added support for high performance virtual devices, improved scalability and Web services for remote administration.

xVM VirtualBox software is a key component of Sun’s xVM virtualization and management software portfolio, which includes Sun xVM Ops Center, Sun xVM Server, expected for release in the Summer of 2008, and the Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Software.

Xiotech Introduces Virtual View, Aims To Simplify Storage Management in VMware Infrastructure Environments

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Xiotech today announced Virtual View, a new add-on for its ICON Manager user interface that aims to simplify storage monitoring, management and provisioning tasks in virtual environments. Virtual View enables administrators to manage storage in their VMware infrastructure environments from a single interface. Users can have a global view of the three storage layers (array, VMware ESX and virtual machine) from a single console and then automate configuration across all layers.

Xiotech

The Virtual View plug-in expands the Xiotech’s ICON Manager interface, enabling administrators to explore and map all VMware ESX hosts, storage relationships and properties in a unified view. As a result of Virtual View’s tight integration with the VMware APIs, it can automate the creation and expansion of virtual disks; logical unit number (LUN) assignments; and datastore creations for ESX systems and clusters.

You can watch a Flash demo of the capabilities of Virtual View here.

Xiotech’s development platform for storage management is based on Web services. As a result, Xiotech says it can add new management capabilities faster using industry-standard technology and more easily integrate storage services from other vendors.

Xiotech announced the latest version of ICON Manager in October 2007 with the release of its Magnitude 3D 4000 storage system. ICON Manager is built on a Web services platform and features capabilities as Server View, which simplifies storage provisioning for servers, and Intelligent Provisioning, which enables automatic storage provisioning without the risk of over-subscription.

Microsoft Hyper-V RC1 Now Available Through Windows Update

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A little over a week ago, Microsoft announced that Hyper-V (RC 1) was available through MS Download Center. The company has now let us know that the first Release Candidate for the much anticipated hypervisor is now also available on Windows Update.

“To install the update open the Windows Update control panel and click “View available updates” under the “Install Updates” button. Then check the Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB950049) and click install.”

VMware Releases Virtual Desktop Manager 2.1, ThinApp 1.0 And Server 2.0 Coming Up Next

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VMware has released a minor update for its connection broker Virtual Desktop Manager, technology it aquired by snapping up Propero about a year ago. VDM – download a trial here – has now reached version 2.1 (build 596) and includes the following addition features:

  • Multiple sessions per user within a pool
  • Pools spanning datastores in order to better manage resources
  • VDM Configuration Backup (command-line only)
  • Integrate MMR multimedia extensions DLL with VDM Client (Windows XP)
  • Allow blocking of incoming RDP connections that are not from VDM Clients
  • Allow end users to change password
  • Allow end users to restart their VM

Also, the company expects to ship ThinApp 1.0 (former Thinstall, of which the beta 2 was announced recently) as well as Server 2.0 (currently also in beta 2) during the course of this Summer.

Unisys Introduces New Quad-Core AMD Server, Integrates Virtualization Services

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Unisys is releasing a number of virtualization services and its first server based on AMD quad-core processors, the company announced Wednesday according to Network World.

Unisys

Unisys, historically an Intel-only shop, decided the time was right for an AMD-based server after getting wind of the Rapid Virtualization Indexing technology in quad-core Opteron processors. These chip enhancements allow virtual machines to more directly manage memory, thus improving performance of virtualized applications. The result for Unisys is the new ES7000 Model 7405R, an eight-socket, quad-core server that can support up to 128 virtual machines.

Pricing for the AMD-based server starts at $21,000 and can go up to $50,000 or so depending on the configuration.

Unisys coupled its AMD-based server announcement with new professional services for virtualized servers, storage and Windows desktops. Here’s a quick look at each service:

  • 3D Blueprinting for Virtualization. Utilizing business and systems modeling software, Unisys says this service defines objectives for virtualization, maps business goals to IT objectives and establishes an implementation strategy.
  • Virtualization Operational Readiness Assessment. This is designed to give customers a full understanding of virtualization’s impact on the data center before deployment. “Using a workshop approach, clients can determine how they must change business and IT processes for virtualization, identify gaps, prioritize areas for change and assess technology and people and process issues that can impact implementation,” Unisys states in a press release.
  • Consolidated Desktop Solution. Using Microsoft technologies and a Unisys session broker, this service helps Windows shops host desktops on centralized servers and storage systems and give users access with thin clients.
  • Consolidated Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. With this service, Unisys makes it easier to consolidate hardware devoted to Exchange. Customers often have hundreds of servers for the various Exchange applications, and need a system that can save energy and make sure all servers receive the right patches, says Mark Feverston, general manager of Microsoft solutions for Unisys.
  • Unisys Storage Virtualization. This service helps customers integrate storage into one virtualized pool that can be managed with a single interface.

Read the rest of the article here.