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eG Innovations Releases eG Enterprise Suite 4.1, Delivers Advanced Monitoring of VMware ESX 3i and Solaris Containers

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eG Innovations announced the immediate availability of version 4.1 of its eG Enterprise Suite with support for monitoring of VMware ESX 3i and Solaris Containers. Later in the year, eG Enterprise plans to include monitoring of servers and desktops running the Citrix XenServer virtualization platform, and is also planning to support virtual environments from Microsoft, IBM, and others.

eG Innovations

eG Innovations first announced its eG Monitor for VMware InfrastructuresT (eG VM MonitorTTM technology, the eG VM Monitor provides a comprehensive view of ) at VMworld 2007 in September 2007. eG VM Monitor is a monitoring solution that provides real-time “inside” and “outside” performance views of a virtual infrastructure.

With version 4.1, eG Enterprise supports both agent-based and agentless monitoring for VMware ESX 3, 3.5 and 3i servers. Complete inside and outside views of the VMs are available with either approach. The guest VMs being monitored can even be in different Microsoft Windows domains, and can be monitored without requiring agents on the guest VMs. Agentless monitoring is performed either from a Windows or a Linux system, and a single system can monitor several ESX servers running versions 3, 3.5, or 3i.

For Sun virtualized environments, an eG agent on a Solaris server can be configured to monitor all the zones on the server. Using the metrics collected, administrators can easily compare resource usage levels across zones on a server.

The eG Enterprise v4.1 is available immediately. Pricing is per ESX server monitored, regardless of the hardware capabilities (CPU, memory) of the ESX server, or the number of virtual machines or the virtual desktops it supports. Pricing for a 25 node VMware-based environment starts at $50,000.

Verari Systems Joins Forces With Xsigo To Deliver Integrated Compute and I/O Density Solution

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Verari Systems, a developer of blade-based computing and storage solutions and Xsigo today announced a high-density blade solution that offers virtualized network and storage connectivity. Available immediately and sold through Verari Systems, the new solution integrates Verari’s BladeRack 2 X-Series computing platform with Xsigo’s VP780 I/O Director.

Verari Systems

The companies claims the integrated solutions increases up to ten times the I/O connections per blade as compared to other solutions available in the market today.

“Blade systems are an ideal complement for server virtualization,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “When you add dynamic virtual I/O to this mix, it takes the value of the entire back-end to a whole new level, compounding all the benefits each derives independently. This kind of packaged functionality is exactly what is required to make the ‘virtual data center’ a reality. When you boil it down, these are root capabilities to make everything from Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to ‘utility’ computing to ‘greening up’ the data center legitimate and not just marketing hype.”

According to the press release, the Verari and Xsigo solution supports green IT by increasing compute density, enabling complete lights-out management, and allowing users to run more virtual machines per blade. Server I/O infrastructure may be reduced by 70 percent, while overall data center efficiency is increased by 100 percent.

“The increasing demand for Web 2.0 applications in the enterprise is driving unstructured data at more than 100 percent growth,” said Dan Gatti, senior vice president of Marketing, Verari Systems. “These applications require more storage and I/O connections, and as IT managers virtualize more servers, system performance is stressed. By working together, Verari and Xsigo are providing the best solution available on the market to address the requirement of high density computing and I/O and redefine the standard in enterprise computing.”

Fujitsu Siemens Now Shipping PRIMERGY BladeFrame With VMware Infrastructure 3

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Fujitsu Siemens Computers recently announced it will be shipping PRIMERGY BladeFrame (powered by Egenera) combined with VMware Infrastructure 3.

Fujitsu Siemens

Here’s how the company explains the move:

“The virtualization boom has revolutionized data centers, accelerating the shift from fixed, unresponsive, locked-down server resources to dynamic data centers of the future, where server resources are allocated according to demand and are reconfigured on-the-fly to guarantee that they always provide the best-possible levels of availability.

Introducing the market leading data center software virtualization platform to the highly-versatile PRIMERGY BladeFrame line means that Fujitsu Siemens Computers and VMware are delivering the industry’s ultimate platform for data center virtualization, bar none.”

[Source: MySolutionInfo]

Native Support for Virtual Hard Disks To Be Added To Windows 7?

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A team at Microsoft is hiring developers to work on adding native support in Windows 7 for Virtual Hard Disks (VHD) – Microsoft’s semi-proprietary specification for single-file virtual machine hard disks, reports the istartedsomething blog.

The job posting reads:

Do you want to join the team that is bringing virtualization into the mainstream? In Windows 7, our team will be responsible for creating, mounting, performing I/O on, and dismounting VHDs (virtual hard disks) natively. Imagine being able to mount a VHD on any Windows machine, do some offline servicing and then boot from that same VHD. Or perhaps, taking an existing VHD you currently use within Virtual Server and boost performance by booting natively from it.

Do you want to have the opportunity to work on a great Core OS team at the heart of Windows? If you have big ideas and want to implement them, if you love writing code, if you love delving into operating system internals, if you want to work on high visibility projects with direct consumer and customer impact and still work in a very technical environment, then you will feel right at home in this team.

Virtualization technology has been a great success with Virtual Server and Hyper-V. With native OS support on the horizon it will become an even greater hit. Our team is making this a reality in Windows 7. Consider the simplicity of backup using a VHD, or the portability of a virtual disk backed by a single file. These are a few reasons why this technology is poised to be one of the greatest features in Windows 7–come help us achieve this goal.

Now, the question is, will Microsoft allow booting from virtual hard disks?

Please comment with your opinion!

Thoughtpolice And Its Library Of VMware Images

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We just stumbled upon Thoughtpolice, a sys-admin’s effort to aggregate all VMware images for Linux (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS) and FreeBSD, as well as a number of Fedora packages.

“Thoughtpolice was born because I kept needing to use the same VMware images over and over again. A Google search later, and I had found no place which provided a variety of VMware images. Thinking others would find these images useful, I made them public. Over the months, more and more VMware images were added, and the range expanded to include FreeBSD, evolving into the current day website.

Less than one year since launch, the website has led to more than 250 terabytes of downloads, the majority through BitTorrent, without which we would be unable to handle the bandwidth requirements.

The website is aimed both at sys admins like myself who need to get an operating system up and running very quickly, and people who just want to try Linux or FreeBSD out.”

Go check it out!

Microsoft Finalizes Kidaro Acquisition, Bullish On Expansion In Desktop Virtualization Field

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Microsoft on Thursday said it has now sold 6.5 million licenses of its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) client-level virtualization software, more than double the total of 3 million licenses that it had sold as of January.

Microsoft

MDOP, which is available only to customers that have volume Windows licenses and Software Assurance maintenance contract, offers a variety of technologies supporting desktop virtualization and application streaming.

Shanen Boettcher, Microsoft’s General Manager of Windows client product management for enterprise users, included the updated sales total for MDOP licenses in a (relayed) post on the software vendor’s Windows Vista blog. MDOP costs between $7 and $10 per license annually, according to Boettcher.

Boettcher also said in the blog post that Microsoft has completed its acquisition of Kidaro Technologies, which sells technology designed to make the desktop virtualization experience more invisible to end users and easier for IT to manage. Kidaro‘s technology is scheduled to be incorporated into MDOP by the first half of next year, with the combination getting a new name: Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization.

Boettcher said Microsoft has invested more than $400 million in developing MDOP and expanding it through acquisitions of virtualization vendors such as Kidaro and Softricity Inc.

[Source: ComputerWorld]