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Parallels Desktop for Mac To Be Part Of Microsoft Expression Professional Subscription

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Last week, Parallels announced that its Parallels Desktop for Mac software will be made available as part of the Microsoft Expression Professional Subscription. The company claims this will enable millions of designers using Mac computers to use Microsoft’s Expression Studio to design desktop and web-based graphical interfaces.

“Including Parallels Desktop for Mac in the Microsoft Expression Subscription gives designers a valuable tool for working across platforms,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “It is further evidence of the productivity benefits that our virtualization software offers customers, and strengthens our ongoing partnership with Microsoft.”

The Microsoft Expression Professional Subscription is will be available from Microsoft in June 2008 and will cost $999 ERP.

In addition to the Parallels Desktop for Mac software, the Expression Professional Subscription includes:

  • Expression Studio
  • Visual Studio 2008 Standard
  • Office 2007 Standard
  • Windows XP SP2
  • Windows Vista Business Edition
  • Pre-configured virtualized server environments

For additional information, you’re invited to visit www.microsoft.com/expression.

[Source: VMBlog]

Ericom Releases PowerTerm WebConnect, VDI Solution Based On Oracle VM

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Ericom Software today announced the availability of Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect for Oracle VM, a desktop virtualization (VDI) solution based on Oracle’s server virtualization software.

Ericom

Ericom explains its decision to use Oracle VM like this:

“Oracle VM is scalable, low-cost server virtualization software that supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications. Oracle VM extends Oracle’s support for grid computing by providing the ability to virtualize within as well as across servers.”

“Customers continue to seek better solutions to address shrinking IT budgets and expanding data center costs,” said Monica Kumar, senior director Linux and Open Source Product Marketing, Oracle. “With Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect for Oracle VM, customers gain the benefits of both desktop and server virtualization, which can help dramatically enhance IT resource utilization.”

For more information and to download Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect for Oracle VM, you can click here.

Sun Releases VirtualBox 1.6.0

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The folks at Sun Microsystems didn’t hesitate all too long to start fiddling around with VirtualBox after their acquisition of its maker innotek about 3 months ago. The company has just released version 1.6.0, and its changelog neatly tracks what’s new.

VirtualBox innotek

The following major new features were added:

  • Solaris and Mac OS X host support
  • Seamless windowing for Linux and Solaris guests
  • Guest Additions for Solaris
  • A webservice API
  • SATA hard disk (AHCI) controller
  • Experimental Physical Address Extension (PAE) support

In addition, the following items were ?xed and/or added:

  • GUI: added accessibility support (508)
  • GUI: VM session information dialog
  • VBoxHeadless: renamed from VBoxVRDP
  • VMM: reduced host CPU load of idle guests
  • VMM: many ?xes for VT-x/SVM hardware-supported virtualization
  • ATA/IDE: better disk geometry compatibility with VMware images
  • ATA/IDE: virtualize an AHCI controller
  • Storage: better write optimization, prevent images from growing unnecessarily.
  • Network: support PXE booting with NAT
  • Network: ?xed the Am79C973 PCNet emulation for Nexenta guests
  • NAT: improved builtin DHCP server (implemented DHCPNAK response)
  • NAT: port forwarding stopped when restoring the VM from a saved state
  • NAT: make subnet con?gurable
  • XPCOM: moved to libxml2
  • XPCOM: ?xed VBoxSVC autostart race
  • Audio: SoundBlaster 16 emulation
  • USB: ?xed problems with USB 2.0 devices
  • MacOS X: ?xed seamless mode
  • MacOS X: better desktop integration, several look’n’feel ?xes
  • MacOS X: switched to Quartz2D framebuffer
  • MacOS X: added support for shared folders
  • MacOS X: added support for clipboard integration
  • Solaris: added host audio playback support (experimental)
  • Solaris: made it possible to run VirtualBox from non-global zones
  • Shared Folders: made them work for NT4 guests
  • Shared Folders: many bug?xes to improve stability
  • Seamless windows: added support for Linux guests
  • Linux installer: support DKMS for compiling the kernel module
  • Linux host: compatibility ?xes with Linux 2.6.25
  • Windows host: support for USB devices has been signi?cantly improved; many additional USB devices now work
  • Windows Additions: automatically install AMD PCNet drivers on Vista guests
  • Linux additions: several ?xes, experimental support for RandR 1.2
  • Linux additions: compatibility ?xes with Linux 2.6.25

You can download VirtualBox 1.6.0 free of charge here.

[Source: Virtualization.info]

nSolutions Releases NOVA Into The Wild At Interop

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San-Jose based nSolutions today launched its change and configuration management offering, Network Ontology and Virtualization Appliance (aka NOVA) at Interop 2008. NOVA is a highly scalable, change and configuration management appliance that “auto-discovers infrastructure resource configurations, builds a real-time repository of physical, logical and virtual resources, correlates the interdependencies and controls the changes to ensure continuous operational and security compliance”.

nSolutions

NOVA is essentially a product line of plug-and-play appliances that manages change in global heterogeneous infrastructures through automation and control. The real-time NOVA Repository maintains a virtual construct of the auto-discovered configurations and the interdependencies among the components of the core and the applications infrastructures.

From the press release:

NOVA plug and play appliances have several unique advantages that make them highly cost effective for enterprise customers:

  • Unprecedented visibility into infrastructure resources through auto configuration discovery, based on industry standards.
  • NOVA’s repository is an operational Configuration Management Data Base (CMDB) that maintains real-time information and exchanges configuration data with a federation of CMDBs.
  • An innovative approach to Change Impact Analytics enables operational decisions for managing change from a services perspective.

NOVA is currently shipping with pricing starting at U.S. $20,000.

Parallels Server Reaches Beta 4 Build

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Parallels Server 3.0 Beta4 Build 1990 is now available for download. The build reintroduces Leopard Server virtualization, which had been temporarily removed. The upgraded beta means that Leopard Server can once again be run under a virtual machine on XServe systems, or any other compatible Apple hardware.

As a company employee posts in the Parallels forum, this is what’s new in Beta 4:

Virtualization Engine

  • Guest Mac OS X Leopard Server support (on top of Mac OS X Leopard Server only)
  • General performance improvement
  • Virtual machine density improvement

Virtual devices

  • Networking performance improvement

Server Infrastructure and User interface

  • Separate installer for Parallels Management Console for Linux included
  • Separate installer for Parallels SDK included

[Source: MacNN]

KVM Sponsor Qumranet Ships Solid ICE

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KVM sponsor Qumranet launched (PDF) its long awaited desktop virtualization solution yesterday, just weeks before Citrix launches XenDesktop. Solid ICE (Independent Computing Environment) is a hosted desktop virtualization product that promises desktop-like performance with support for multiple monitors, bi-directional audio and video, streaming video and USB support.

Qumranet

From the press release:

By centrally hosting desktops in KVM on servers in the corporate data center, Solid ICE (Independent Computing Environment) gives IT administrators greater control over desktop image management, provisioning management, policy enforcement and security. Solid ICE also offers IT managers easier access to remote desktops to provide maintenance and support, as well as instant, inherent disaster recovery. In addition, businesses deploying a green IT strategy can achieve a savings of up to two thirds on electric power with Solid ICE.

The company said it prices the product by concurrent virtual machines, $200 per concurrent virtual machine which includes one monitor support and one SPICE display. Qumranet also offers a 30-day trial on its web site, although it seems to have messed up the spelling for the product name a bit 🙂

Solid ICE

[Source: ZDNet Blogs]