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Oracle VM 2.2, the latest release of Oracle’s server virtualization software, is now available, enabling customers to accelerate deployment of and simplify management of enterprise applications; and to run their data centers in the most environmentally-sustainable and efficient manner.

Oracle VM 2.2 features the latest Xen-based, industry-standard hypervisor, Xen 3.4, and provides substantial performance enhancements for customers running Intel Xeon processor 5500 series based on Intel microarchitecture, codenamed Nehalem, as well as Six-Core AMD Opteron processors. Oracle VM 2.2 features new CPU power management, memory management, and direct disk I/O capabilities.

Additionally, this release delivers on the initial integration of Oracle VM and Virtual Iron technology, including the ability for customers to easily migrate Virtual Iron virtual machines to Oracle VM images.

Oracle VM supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications and offers customers scalable, low-cost server virtualization backed by Oracle’s world-class support.

By leveraging the latest Xen 3.4 hypervisor and a newer dom0 kernel based on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3, Oracle VM 2.2 helps provide broader hardware support, and better performance, scalability and security for both hardware virtualized and paravirtualized guests. Performance can be improved for hardware virtualized guest operating systems including Microsoft Windows. Oracle VM 2.2 provides updated support for the Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) 1.4 to leverage advanced features such as sparse file support to enable faster virtual machine provisioning and cloning, and to allow users more control over file data allocation, improving performance and storage efficiency.

Oracle VM 2.2 adds direct support for multipath storage devices that can be assigned to virtual machines and enhance performance of clustered applications. By leveraging the Xen 3.4 hypervisor, Oracle VM 2.2 also provides more efficient CPU power management, enabling greener computing and cost savings.

Resource management has been enhanced in Oracle VM 2.2 by allowing users to set the scheduling priority for virtual CPUs in virtual machines and cap the maximum percentage of CPU time each individual VM can access. With this enhancement, users can now control the Quality of Service (QoS) for CPU, network, and disk I/O through the intuitive Oracle VM Manager browser interface.

Other enhancements to Oracle VM 2.2 include a number of user interface enhancements, improved high availability with automatic failover of server pool master agents, and enhanced serviceability and audit features.

NaviSite, a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise hosting and application services, today announced its cloud-computing platform.

NaviSite Managed Cloud Services (NaviCloud), based on VMware vSphere 4 and VMware vCloud and the Cisco Unified Computing System, is an enterprise-class infrastructure platform that provides high-performance, scalable, on-demand, usage-billed IT infrastructure. Targeted at enterprise IT-hosting and application-service needs, NaviCloud is a flexible and customizable platform that adapts to changing customer requirements, enabling businesses to use resources more efficiently, while reducing capital and operating costs.

NaviSite’s virtualized infrastructure is deployed as multiple highly-secure infrastructure clouds, hosted in NaviSite’s SAS 70 Type II-certified data centers in the U.S. and the U.K. These cloud complexes allow customers to buy compute, memory and storage from the underlying resource pool and configure them for use in either self-managed or fully-managed modes.  In self-managed mode, customers can create virtual machines (VMs) and configure them with a choice of operating systems and other software.  In managed mode, customers can select a range of monitors to be applied to VMs, groups of VMs and environments that then feed into NaviSite’s system-wide monitoring and management systems.  Functional management of the resources and VMs is provided by the NaviCloud customer portal, which has been designed by NaviSite to facilitate the different use modes, and to provide full transparency for resources, trending and service levels.

NaviCloud has several key differentiators:

–       Enterprise-Class Performance – NaviCloud is based on VMware vSphere 4 and deployed on the Cisco Unified Computing System.  With Intel® Nehalem processor-based blades and integrated Fabric Interconnects with 10 GbE fabric, the NaviCloud architecture spans multiple data centers, providing customers with built-in disaster recovery and high availability – regardless of geography.

–       Fully Managed – NaviSite delivers cloud-enabled managed hosting and application solutions as a fully managed service to ensure 7×24 enterprise class service levels.  NaviSite also continues to support all our customers with our 7×24 operations center and account management teams.

–       Full Suite of Solutions – NaviCloud brings cloud characteristics to the entire suite of enterprise-hosting and application-management services, enabling a broad set of solutions to be provisioned as a utility.  Enterprises can customize and optimize infrastructure for their application stacks and scale automatically to accommodate increased demand.  Resources are provisioned in real-time to match changing needs, billing is based on resource consumption and SLAs are based on application performance and availability.

–       Spectrum of Services – NaviCloud supports self-managed, monitored and fully managed modes, providing flexibility and system assurance on an as-needed basis.  NaviCloud can be combined with dedicated infrastructure services to create hybrid IT environments – allowing enterprises to augment existing internal resources with cloud services.

–       Custom Solutions – NaviCloud can be custom engineered to ensure that customers’ unique requirements are addressed.

NaviCloud offers a competitive advantage to enterprises looking for IT flexibility and cost-savings, providing seamless connectivity and performance that would prove difficult and costly for businesses to achieve in-house or through a public cloud.  Leveraging NaviSite’s industry-recognized experience and expertise in hosting, virtualization, applications management and SaaS enablement, NaviCloud offers an innovative alternative for procuring, deploying and paying for IT infrastructure.

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, today announced the new portfolio of agile cloud technologies to accelerate and simplify the adoption of enterprise cloud computing environments.

Specifically, the portfolio delivers the industry’s most integrated set of computing resources to create a single pool of virtualized block, file and content storage to support the diverse uses that are evolving in cloud computing today, and enables organizations to adopt cloud services at their own pace. As part of the cloud offerings, Hitachi Data Systems also unveiled the new Hitachi Content Platform that provides essential security, reliability and multitenancy for cloud infrastructures.

With sophisticated storage virtualization, Hitachi Data Systems enables a secure, multitenant environment that ensures privacy among various constituents within a shared infrastructure that can be managed from a single command suite. Supporting a variety of protocols and third party technology, enterprises and service providers can further leverage existing investments in hardware and software and allow legacy devices to inherit cloud attributes, thereby preventing cloud from becoming just another silo and eliminating the need for a complete refresh or update of hardware and software or the need to rewrite applications. As a result, Hitachi Data Systems cloud solutions enable enterprise customers to choose the best possible technologies to address their challenges at their desired pace and budget resources. By offering an integrated set of cloud solutions, Hitachi Data Systems can deliver an agile cloud infrastructure that empowers customers to look at their existing IT infrastructure in new ways, enabling them to:

• Provide efficient IT management and increase productivity through automation
• Meet changing performance, availability and storage needs
• Ensure security in a shared environment
• Cost effectively improve data protection
• Make information easy to locate and use, anywhere, at any time

Hitachi Data Systems best-in-class Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V and award-winning Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage systems provide a single, virtual pool of storage with a host of key cloud attributes which can be provisioned against all types of IT services on demand. These services can be delivered via a number of fully integrated solutions including the recently announced Hitachi NAS Platform for file services, the Hitachi Data Discovery Suite for collaboration and search and the new Hitachi Content Platform for cloud storage, archiving, business continuity, creating content depots, consolidation and many other services. The Hitachi Content Platform also includes a number of advanced features that enable the solution to address a variety of challenges beyond the long term preservation of business critical information, such as:

• Enabling Customers to Evolve Cloud at Their Own Pace: The new Hitachi Content Platform will serve enterprise content storage needs as well as public and private cloud environments within a single optimized cluster. Customers can adopt the cloud technologies based on their business needs, and they do not need to purchase another storage island for their cloud solution.
• Segregating Data Securely: By providing a multitenant architecture, object versioning, retention and disposition services, encryption, immutability, high availability, search capabilities and much more, Hitachi Content Platform helps IT organizations securely segregate data within different namespaces to prevent unauthorized access and provide different service level agreements and features for different data sets.
• Intelligently Tiering Data: Customers will be able to manage data growth from higher tier storage to a storage platform with features and capabilities that go beyond the traditional ‘archive’ and enable intelligent content storage for a number of use cases.

Hitachi Data Systems will further extend its cloud offerings to incorporate Hitachi BladeSymphony technology as well as other leading server platforms to deliver complete integrated and secure public and private cloud infrastructure solutions.

“Canonical is touting private cloud capabilities in an upgrade to its Ubuntu Linux OS being announced on Tuesday.

Available for free download on October 29, Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition introduces UEC (Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud), an open source cloud computing environment based on the same APIs as Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). Businesses can take advantage of private clouds, Canonical said.”

Read the rest of this story on InfoWorld

EMA has recently completed detailed research into endpoint virtualization, published in its latest research report titled, “Real World Experiences of Endpoint Virtualization.”

Based on data from an in-depth survey of over 100 enterprises, most with current production deployments of desktop and application virtualization, and on interviews with many different organizations, the full 35-page research report provides over 100 data points on expectations, outcomes, cost and functionality benefits, current and future technology deployment plans, key buying decision factors, and more.

Endpoint virtualization is a (mostly) new set of technologies aimed at abstracting the end user experience – typically their logical desktop, application, and/or workspace environments – from the physical systems they rely on to provide that experience – typically a physical desktop or laptop PC. It is variously known not only as endpoint virtualization, but also as desktop virtualization, application virtualization, workspace virtualization, end user virtualization, client virtualization, and more.

– Endpoint virtualization covers many different models, and includes Application Isolation
– Remote Application Virtualization
– Local Application Virtualization
– Application streaming
– OS streaming
– Remote (server-hosted) desktop virtualization
– Local (client-hosted) OS virtualization
– Client-Side Hypervisor
– Browser-based applications
– Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
– Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)

Deutsche Telekom spin-off Zimory,  an enabler of enterprise-class cloud computing, announced today a new technology that will significantly reduce data center costs.

Zimory technology, code-named “Spree,” enables companies to treat the database as an elastic, customizable resource – whether in a conventional, virtualized, or cloud environment. Spree, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2010, can be used to prepare a data center for virtualization, for the cloud, or be used independent of a cloud environment to provide scalability and customization of the data layer in traditional IT deployments.

Zimory’s Enterprise Cloud technology combines existing different virtual servers (currently VMware, Xen and KVM) into a homogeneous “Infrastructure as a Service” offering – enabling data center managers to move applications quickly within single or multiple locations.

Launched in January, Zimory Enterprise Cloud Management aggregates available server computing capacity and builds secure, self-service cloud environments for large organizations.

When Spree is combined with the additional tools available as part of Zimory’s offerings, it can be used to migrate conventional deployments into virtual machines and/or clouds — always with the guarantee that the migration process can be reversed, while remaining entirely under the control of the user. With these features, users can implement a wide variety of configurations such as:

·      distributed setups with part of the system residing locally, and parts of it residing on other data centers, or with a service provider;

·      a local backup of a cloud database, or a backup database in the cloud;

·      dynamic provisioning of capacity across data centers and service providers, including database functionality;

·      high availability and continuous availability solutions in centralized and distributed settings.