News

Elastra Corporation, a provider of application infrastructure automation software, has announced the immediate availability of Elastra Cloud Server (ECS) 2.0, Enterprise Edition.

In this release, ECS lets customers compose, orchestrate and manage systems made up of Oracle databases, WebLogic Application Servers and other Enterprise-grade software as well as open-source applications like MySQL, Apache, and Tomcat. ECS integrates with enterprise tools such as Tivoli, OpenView, Patrol, CA Spectrum, Zenoss, and Splunk. ECS can be used on private clouds based on VCenter from VMware or XEN from Citrix as well as the public cloud available from Amazon. Systems created for one environment are portable to another.

Elastra brings an unprecedented level of automation to IT organizations seeking to leverage the economics of cloud computing while staying true to existing architectural practices and corporate policies. ECS addresses some of the fundamental challenges faced by IT organizations today:

• Make IT LEANER: ECS automatically generates deployment plans and provisions sophisticated systems that are optimized to minimize operational and capital expenses. At the same time, applications are deployed to be compliant with the customers’ own sets of policies, procedures, and service level agreements.
• Make IT AGILE: ECS dramatically cuts the lead times IT needs to create complex development, testing, and production environments by automating the processes traditionally managed by hand or via hand-crafted scripts.
• Keep IT MANAGEABLE: ECS lets IT organizations maintain control of their operations using familiar tools and technologies while delivering on-demand, self-service system provisioning to their users.

The beta program for the Enterprise Edition of Elastra Cloud Server involved customers from a variety of industries including: a large European Telecommunications company, a leading US Federal Government systems integrator, and a major IT services and outsourcing company. This beta program has now concluded with the general availability of the product.

Elastra offers a free edition of ECS running on Amazon Web Services and an Enterprise Edition for private data centers.

Zenoss, a commercial open source provider of IT enterprise management products, today announced the general availability of version 2.5 of its commercially licensed Zenoss Enterprise product.

This latest version includes several new enterprise-grade scalability features targeted at managing today’s datacenter as well as expanded management support for next generation datacenter technologies and platforms that include virtualization and public clouds.

The latest Zenoss Enterprise release includes new enterprise-grade features for scalability, reliability, and security such as:

• A redesigned agent-less distributed collector architecture that provides all of the fault-tolerant benefits of an agent-based architecture without the penalties of having to deploy an agent.
• Support for distributed collector non-root installs that make it easy to install Zenoss Enterprise while still being in compliance with corporate security policies.
• Enhanced security features including encrypted passwords used for monitoring devices as well as preventing security vulnerabilities related to SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
• An updated Event Console with a new look and feel that will make it even easier for IT operators to complete their most common tasks. The primary design features were based on a set of usability interviews and include streamlined navigation, inline event filtering and a preview pane.

Beyond delivering on enterprise-grade enhancements this latest release also focuses on key next generation data center management features that include:

• New Amazon EC2 monitoring that provides dynamic snapshots of both the individual and collective performance of the instances within an account. Key features also include the ability to immediately track performance without user intervention and to drill deep on performance issues with “inside-the-instance” monitoring.
• VMware Ready support that offers customers the ability to manage both physical and virtual infrastructure through a single pane of glass by delivering certified integration and interoperability with VMware vSphere.
• The monitoring of many new technologies and platforms including SSH-based monitoring for Solaris. This monitoring combined with 40 new community-built ZenPacks adds to the growing list of hundreds of next generation technologies, platforms and management products that Zenoss already integrates and manages.

Hyper9 has announced the release of its Virtual Environment Optimization solution to provide better data, faster diagnosis and more reliable remediation associated with the virtualization of high performance applications.

The critical nature of tier-1 business applications puts high demands on IT organizations to maintain predictable service levels and fast response times – standards that can be hard to live up to in a virtualized environment where constant change, blurred boundaries and an inherent state of mobility are the norm.

In response, a new paradigm for virtualization management is emerging that interprets the performance of resources in-context with their virtual environment.

Hyper9’s Virtual Environment Optimization suite consumes unstructured data and renders it up to the business in a structured way, improving visibility, collaboration, control and reporting around virtualization management issues.

Highlights include:

• Business-level reporting – deliver at-a-glance summary inventory and configuration data filtered by any resource, as well as business-level reporting custom-filtered by unit, department, user and application
• Global trends – track resource CPU, memory and storage usage, and configuration changes over time across departments, owners and applications
• Performance analyzer – perform capacity planning functions to understand when resources will run out by cluster, host and datastore; troubleshoot performance issues from a virtual infrastructure or application perspective
• Datacenter analyzer – understand the breakdown of VM and host configuration across the data center; sort information by labels (e.g. department or line of business)
• VMDNA and Host DNA – support historical performance and configuration tracking, comparison, analysis and trending to manage configuration drift

To request an evaluation trial of Hyper9’s Virtual Environment Optimization solution, visit: http://downloads.hyper9.com/h9ds/scheduleeval.jsf.

LiveTime Software, a provider of Web based ITIL 3 Service Management and Help Desk software, today announced the release of the LiveTime Virtual Appliance 6.0.

The new virtual appliance has been specifically designed for SaaS-based Service Management providers, offering full isolation and a simple menu driven interface. Each appliance can operate in as little as 512Mb of RAM and can scale the number of virtual processors and memory to meet the needs of any customer.

As a standalone platform, the LiveTime Virtual appliance also includes an auto update facility so customers can automatically remain current with the latest LiveTime release. Simply choose the update option and LiveTime will automatically download and install the latest release direct from the console.

Designed around open standards the LiveTime Virtual Appliance includes Apache 2.2, Tomcat 6.0, Java 6 and LiveTime 6.0, optimized for LiveTime service delivery. Version 6.0 includes an updated kernel and support for VMware vSphere 4.0 and Citrix XenServer 5.5 with guest tools for each environment. In addition, LiveTime supports the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) and Microsoft’s Hyper-V environment.

Organizations can now leverage LiveTime’s highly scalable ITIL Service Management software with the ease of installation of traditional software. The virtual appliance provides the necessary scalability and security that is difficult to achieve when deployed on existing hardware and operating systems. Since the system has been hardened at the operating system layer, LiveTime provides Just Enough Operating System for its needs. This makes the system easy to update and maintain and provides a very small footprint and a 200Mb download.

From blog.xen.org:

The Xen community is pleased to announce the addition of Fujitsu and VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. to the Xen Advisory Board. Fujitsu and VA Linux Systems joins other leading enterprise vendors to offer expertise and leadership to promote the Xen hypervisor as the industry standard in open source virtualization. The addition of these two influential vendors based in Japan provides Xen with an enhanced customer prospective in the server, client and cloud virtualization markets.

Over the last two years, Fujitsu has significantly increased their contribution to the Xen.org community. Fujitsu hosted the inaugural Xen Summit Asia event in 2008 at their Makuhari Lab, submitted a substantial number of accepted patches for the Itanium (IA64) Xen hypervisor and the following Xen features: PV SCSI driver, PV USB driver, VTd SAN boot support, and guest dump. The company has also been a leader in defining and contributing to the newly launched Xen Client Initiative (XCI) and Xen Cloud Platform. Finally, Fujitsu has recently released a benchmark tool for virtualization, AutoVMbench.

VA Linux Japan has also been a great Xen evangelist with presentations at Linux.con.au 2007, Japan Linux Symposium 2009, Xen Summit Boston 2008, Xen Summit Asia 2008, and Xen Summit Fall 2006. They have also sponsored 2 Xen Conferences in Japan in 2007 and 2008 with sizeable audiences. On the development side of Xen, VA Linux Japan is the current Xen/IA 64 maintainer and has contributed large amounts of code for PCI passthrough, I/O schedulers and bandwidth control, domU core-dump, and Linux upstream of domU pv_ops/ia64.

“Having Fujitsu and VA Linux Japan join the Xen Advisory Board is another milestone for the Xen community, demonstrating the broad reach of the project,” said Ian Pratt, founder of the xen project and Chairman of Xen.org. “With Fujitsu’s and VA Linux Japan’s industry leadership and strong presence in the Asian marketplace, the Xen.org community is further strengthened, ensuring a continued leadership position as the open source hypervisor of choice.”

“Fujitsu is committed to contribute to the open source with Xen community, and we are excited to join the Xen Advisory Board,” said Chiseki Sagawa, president of the SOP Strategy and Development Office at Fujitsu. “With the openness and enterprise-class features of the Xen Cloud Platform, customers can freely choose best of enterprise ready cloud platform from various vendors.”

“VA Linux Japan has been contributing to the Xen community since its inception, offering high-quality consulting services for the Xen virtualization technology in Japan. Today’s announcement of joining the Xen advisory board gives us a confidence that our efforts toward the Xen open source projects have been widely recognized.” said Iehisa “Ike” Nakamura, president and CEO, VA Linux Japan. “We are proud to be a member of the Xen advisory board. VA Linux is committed to support the adoption of the Xen technology and XCP in Japan and continue to contribute to Xen.org.”

The Xen Advisory Board provides oversight and guidance to the Xen project for all community activities, technology development, and management of the Xen® trademark. The Xen Advisory Board includes membership from the top eight contributors to the Xen project, as well as the key vendors delivering the Xen hypervisor. Current advisory board members are Citrix, HP, IBM, Fujitsu, Intel, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and VA Linux Japan

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Citrix Systems today announced the general availability of Citrix Dazzle for Windows and Mac, along with new versions of Citrix Receiver for Windows, Mac, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android.

The new releases make virtual desktops far more compelling for end users, enabling unprecedented levels of flexibility, mobility and self service. As the first self-service “storefront” for enterprise applications, Citrix Dazzle gives corporate employees 24×7 self-service access to a broad array of applications, desktops and content, allowing them to choose exactly what they need, when they need it. Citrix Receiver is a lightweight software client that makes accessing virtual desktops and applications on any device as easy as turning on your TV. Together, Dazzle and Receiver work with Citrix XenDesktop, the company’s market-leading desktop virtualization solution, to power self-service IT for a wide range of virtual desktops, giving every user in the enterprise instant access to their corporate desktops and applications from whatever device is most convenient at the time.

Multiple factors are converging to make 2010 a breakout year for desktop virtualization. As 2009 draws to a close, desktop virtualization is progressing along the same rapid trajectory that server virtualization enjoyed two to three years ago – moving quickly from test labs, to pilots, to full scale production deployments. As virtual desktop technologies continue to mature, an increasing number of enterprises are proving their mainstream viability by rolling out large-scale virtual desktop implementations to thousands of users, improving security and reducing desktop management costs by up to 50 percent in the process.

The desktop virtualization market is expected to accelerate further in 2010 with the highly-anticipated arrival of Windows 7 as organizations of all sizes take time to evaluate their enterprise-wide strategies for desktop computing. Many experts, in fact, expect desktop virtualization to ultimately surpass server virtualization, in part because of the sheer size of the potential markets. While server virtualization currently has an addressable market size of approximately 35 million servers worldwide, desktop virtualization has the potential to impact more than 600 million desktop users in corporate environments alone.

While the benefits of server virtualization are almost exclusively focused on IT agility and cost savings, desktop virtualization has the unique advantage of benefiting both the end user and IT. Centralized management of employee desktops gives IT what it wants most – greater security, control and cost savings. At the same time, going virtual at the desktop also gives end users what they want most – flexibility, choice and self service. Through the power of virtualization, Windows desktops can be delivered by IT as an on-demand service to any device. This flexibility gives users the ability to work from any device they choose, and to self select the services they need, when they need them. At the same time, IT gains all the benefits of centralized management and control, ensuring unprecedented security of corporate resources, and significantly lowering desktop management costs. The combination of Citrix XenDesktop at the head end, and Citrix Dazzle and Receiver on each device, enable customers to respond to the growing demand from both users and IT administrators for a simpler, richer, more powerful desktop computing experience.

While early VDI-only (virtual desktop infrastructure) products allowed only one model of desktop virtualization, XenDestkop 4 with its new FlexCast delivery technology gives customers the flexibility to deliver any type of virtual desktop, to any user, on any device – and to change this mix at any time. This unprecedented flexibility makes virtual desktops a practical reality for every type of employee – from task workers and office workers, to power users and mobile employees.

To reach broad, enterprise-wide deployment, virtual desktops must also provide a great experience for end users. Citrix addresses the first part of this equation with its market-leading HDX™ technology, which ensures a high definition experience for all end users, regardless of their location or device.

The addition of self service capabilities with Citrix Dazzle and Receiver significantly enhances virtual desktop user experience by enabling employees and contractors to get instant, secure, self-service access to their full Windows desktop and everything on it from whatever device is most convenient.

Dazzle is a user-facing application that runs on any Windows or Mac computer. It acts as the storefront for all the applications IT has centrally staged in head-end infrastructure products like XenDesktop. To select an application in Dazzle, users simply browse and search based on application name, description or type. Dazzle also interfaces directly with Citrix Merchandising Server, the head-end management system that makes it easy for IT to actually start “merchandising” apps to users, not just delivering them.

Dazzle is fully integrated with Citrix Receiver, the universal software client that makes it easy for users to access corporate apps and desktops from any device they choose. With the new Receivers for Blackberry and Android, Citrix has extended anytime access to applications to even more mobile devices. Together, Citrix Dazzle and Citrix Receiver with XenDesktop bring the power of desktop virtualization to millions of devices.

Citrix Dazzle, Citrix Receiver and Citrix Merchandising Server are free of charge to any Citrix XenDesktop or Citrix XenApp customer.

The following versions of Dazzle and Receiver will be generally available to all Citrix customers in December:

• Dazzle 1.1 for Microsoft Windows; Dazzle 1.2 for Apple Mac
• Receiver 1.2 for Windows and Mac
• Receiver 2.0 for Apple iPhone (available at the Apple App Store)
• Receiver 1.0 for RIM Blackberry (available at the Blackberry App World store)
• Receiver tech preview for Android by Google