News

Server Technology, announces the release of a series of application notes created to help design engineers, application engineers and data center managers power Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS).

These application notes illustrate how to power and provide redundancy for Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis and 6120XP 20-Port Fabric Interconnects in multiple configurations using Smart Cabinet Power Distribution Units (PDUs) from Server Technology, Inc. Models CS-18VY, CS-24V2, CS-12HD2, and CS-24V5.

The application notes are posted on the Server Technology Web site at www.servertech.com/cisco. Application Notes APN-100-012 through APN-100-021 include detailed wiring diagrams, power requirements for Cisco Unified Computing System and recommendations on power in-feeds from 208 V 30A, Three Phase 208 V 60A and Three Phase 415V 30A power solutions.

Key Benefits Include:

• Sentry Smart 3-Phase PDUs reduce the number of PDUs needed to deliver the power required by this cabinet configuration. This in turn reduces the number of power drops required for each cabinet.
• Fewer power cords means lower infrastructure costs, less poles taken up at the breaker panel and improved airflow in a raised floor environment, resulting in improved cooling in the cabinet.
• Sentry Smart PDUs allow administrators to view the current load and environmental conditions remotely.
• SNMP traps and email alerts ensure notification if a problem has occurred along with logging of all actions performed by the user.
• Local LEDs Per Branch Circuit or Phase- Large, easy-to-read displays let you determine if the load is balanced and provide visual indication that power is supplied to the PDU.
• Environmental measurements- Quantity (2) temperature and (2) humidity measurements are provided per pair of PDUs.
• Local and remote notification if a branch circuit is lost.
• Master and Link configuration (CS/CL) allows two power in-feeds and all environmental information to be monitored via a single IP address per cabinet.

The Cisco Unified Computing System is a next-generation data center platform that unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization into a cohesive system designed to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase business agility.

F5 Networks today announced a new F5 Management Pack solution for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager that allows joint F5 and Microsoft customers to dynamically manage application delivery in virtual environments.

F5 also updated its Application Ready Solution portfolio to support Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

The F5 solutions announced today offer optimization and increased availability for virtual environments, enabling IT staff to make better decisions regarding applications running in the virtual environment, and automating virtual machine management.

F5 has added Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) capabilities to the F5 Management Pack, introduced in April 2009. The PRO-enabled Management Pack, in combination with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, provides customers with enhanced visibility into both the application delivery network and the server environment, enabling IT teams to proactively monitor and dynamically manage application delivery as network or user conditions change. In addition, the F5 Management Pack now proactively offers tips to improve application delivery.

This announcement comes as part of a series of updates for the existing suite of F5 Application Ready Solutions for Microsoft Windows Server, including solutions for IIS, Remote Desktop Services (RDS), Hyper-V, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2. Leveraging the Live Migration feature of Hyper-V, F5 solutions also include configuration guidance to perform the network-level changes required to move virtual machines between hosts without taking them offline.

VMLogix today announced that VMLogix LabManager will support Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

This combined solution will offer enterprise-class virtual lab automation solution for Linux environments.

This new partnership aims to allow customers to consolidate labs leveraging the KVM platform integrated into Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, and allows for the use VMLogix LabManager to automate lab IT infrastructure in order to deliver and maintain software applications more quickly, cost-effectively and reliably. Software development, test and support teams can dramatically reduce the manual effort, time and IT resources required to develop and maintain higher quality software applications by using comprehensive automation capabilities, advanced team management and seamless integrations with leading development tools.

Support for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for VMLogix LabManager will be generally available in Q4 2009.

ScaleMP, a provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing, today announced an addition to its vSMP Foundation product line, vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

The new solution enables dynamic, on-the-fly aggregation of x86 servers into larger SMP virtual systems. Based on the award-winning vSMP Foundation product line, vSMP Foundation for Cloud enables the provisioning and re-provisioning of large virtual-machine resources within existing cloud infrastructure — creating true cloud elasticity and drastically cutting costs.

vSMP Foundation for Cloud offers flexible, on-demand creation of virtual machines on a per job, per project or per customer basis. The solution eliminates the need to deploy dedicated end-of-the-aisle shared memory systems, allowing for real-time deployment of virtual large memory systems aggregated from cloud resources and redeployment back to the compute grid upon completion of application or batch jobs.

Key features of vSMP Foundation for Cloud:

• On-demand provisioning and re-provisioning of SMP systems for cloud infrastructure leveraging existing provisioning infrastructure
• Seamless integration with systems management and provisioning tools
• Support for any programming model (serial, throughput, multi-threaded or large-memory) without machine boundary
• Aggregation of up to 16 x86 servers to create virtual SMP with up to 128 cores and 4 TB of main memory utilizing Intel’s latest generation of Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series (codenamed Nehalem)

vSMP Foundation for Cloud is currently available in beta, and will be generally available on December 1, 2009.

Red Hat yesterday announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers, the newest product set in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers is designed to enable pervasive adoption of virtualization, with a comprehensive end-to-end solution combining a standalone hypervisor and powerful virtualization management.

In February 2009, Red Hat announced plans to deliver the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio, building on its leading Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system platform, offering the proven security, performance, scalability and cost advantages of open source virtualization technology.  Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers entered a worldwide beta in June 2009. Extensive collaboration with large enterprise beta customers, such as Comviva, Host Europe, NTT Communications, Qualcomm and Swisscom, resulted in enhanced product capabilities designed to meet enterprise requirements for deploying and managing heterogeneous virtualization and cloud environments.

In September 2009, Red Hat delivered the foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, which offers next-generation Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization technology.

Today, Red Hat delivers the next phase of the portfolio with the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers, which includes the following components:

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor:
A standalone, lightweight, high-performance hypervisor designed to host Linux and Microsoft Windows virtual servers and desktops. It provides a solid virtualization foundation for cloud deployments and other highly dynamic IT environments. Using KVM technology, the hypervisor provides high performance and security coupled with memory sharing technology, which permits more efficient guest consolidation, and enterprise features such as live migration.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager for Servers:
A platform for configuring, provisioning, managing and organizing virtualized Linux and Microsoft Windows servers.  It is designed for customers who seek to reduce the cost, complexity and time required to manage large-scale virtualization deployments. With a rich set of management capabilities and powerful search and grouping features, Virtualization Manager equips customers with the ability to efficiently control a virtualized infrastructure.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops remains in private beta today and is expected to be made generally available in early 2010.

Parallels today announced the availability of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac.

This is the latest version of the number 1 Mac system utility, currently enabling more than 2 million users to run Windows, Linux and other operating systems side-by-side with Mac OS X.

According to performance research conducted by Crimson Consulting Group, Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac performs 22% faster than the nearest Windows-on-Mac competitor in standard productivity testing of Windows 7 64-bit on a MacBook Pro. In addition, version 5 is up to 300% faster for virtual machine operations than the previous version. For 3D and graphics performance, tested under the industry standard 3Dmark 2006 Professional test suite the new version performs up to 7 times better.

Users can test this for themselves with a free trial from www.parallels.com/desktop.

There are more than 70 new features in Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac, many of which give users the flexibility to work in the way they want. Users can choose how much or little Windows they want to see, from running Windows in Full Screen mode where Windows completely covers the Mac user interface to the new Crystal view mode which makes Windows completely disappear. Users can even get a Mac-like experience in their Windows applications, using the intuitive Apple Trackpad Gestures technology to pinch, swipe, and rotate as they do in Mac applications.

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac introduces more than 70 new features and enhancements:

• Full support for Aero in Windows Vista and 7 through Windows WDDM driver, including Aero Flip 3D
• Virtual machine size automatically optimized for best performance with Parallels Compressor
• Improved performance for Linux guest OS from KVM paravirtualization

• A more Mac-like experience in their Windows applications through Apple Trackpad Gestures technology (pinch, swipe, rotate and more), horizontal scrolling and the application of Full Screen active corners and curl page effect
• Copy & Paste fidelity for formatted text and complete layouts including images, even between Windows and Linux guest OSs
• Freedom and flexibility to run Windows and Mac applications across multiple monitors

• 7 times better graphic performance for games and 3D applications than the previous version with Direct X 9Ex with Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 support
• Superior graphics performance for Linux guests through OpenGL 2.1 support
• Full hardware resources can be utilized with support for 8 virtual CPUs, 64 bit Windows and Snow Leopard Server 64 bit
• Easily move PCs (including Windows 7) and 3^rd party virtual machines to the Mac  with the enhanced Parallels Transporter

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish starting today- Additional localized versions will soon be available in Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish and Russian in the coming weeks

The standard retail price (SRP) of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is $79.99, including $175 worth of additional software for free: Parallels Internet Security 2009 by Kaspersky (1 year subscription); Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 (Disk Management); Acronis True Image 11 Home (Backup and Recovery Solutions). Current Parallels Desktop users can upgrade their existing software for $49.99. Users that purchased version 4.0 on or after October 1^st 2009 qualify with a proof of purchase for a free upgrade to version 5.