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News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

SoftLayer Introduces Parallels Panel for CloudLayer Computing

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SoftLayer today began offering Parallels Plesk Panel as an optional service with CloudLayer Computing Instances. The extension of Parallels Panel to the company’s cloud computing solution gives SoftLayer customers even more control and operational efficiency for these exceptionally scalable environments.

Used by service providers and system administrators around the world, Parallels Panel automates and simplifies management and administration for dedicated, shared, and virtual systems. It provides a wide range of features for optimizing operations and maximizing return, including an easy-to-use interface, powerful backup and restore functionality, and robust tools for managing and reselling applications and services.

CloudLayer Computing provides cloud-based computing instances running enterprise-grade and open source operating systems delivered in as few as five minutes. These instances give enterprises massive scalability and can seamlessly integrate with SoftLayer dedicated servers, automated services, and other CloudLayer services (including CloudLayer Storage and CloudLayer CDN) to create a fully unified computing solution. Monthly billing is based on hourly usage or a monthly rate with no long-term commitment, providing an exceptional degree of flexibility.

Enigmatec Automates Cloud Provisioning Services at PrimaCloud

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Enigmatec Corporation Limited has announced that managed cloud computing pioneer PrimaCloud will deploy Enigmatec’s run book automation software for provisioning and management of its customers’ virtual private datacenters (VPDCs) in the cloud.

In addition to automating the deployment and lifecycle management of complex cloud applications, PrimaCloud will utilize Enigmatec’s Workload Management (AWM) and Disaster Recovery (ADR) solutions to offer its customers automatically scalable enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure featuring greater than 99.99 percent uptime.

Adding run book automation capability to its managed cloud computing service enhances PrimaCloud’s capability to provide dynamic, real-time orchestration of the crucial IT components for their customer’s virtual application infrastructure. PrimaCloud’s customers in turn can realize cloud computing’s benefits of minimizing staffing and reducing capital expense.

Enigmatec’s run book automation technology links together the IT management, provisioning and support tools customers use today and provides a powerful distributed workflow platform in which to design and deploy new workflows for IT operations. Automation of these tasks is critical to the cost effective and rapid creation and management of a new virtual application environment as a utility within the cloud. Enigmatec’s dynamic provisioning enables cloud computing providers to rapidly flex IT resources to meet demand and fulfil the promises of improved service, SLA’s and the cost reductions customers expect from cloud computing.

Blade.org – Study On Storage Consolidation

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Blade.org, a collaborative organization and developer community focused on accelerating the development and adoption of open blade server platforms, announced a new member-driven study on Storage Consolidation, the third of its kind in a series focusing on data center efficiency.

This Blade.org White Paper is available for download for free here. Blade.org member companies NetApp, BLADE Network Technologies and Double-Take Software each made contributions that showcase the advancement of technologies allowing IT professionals to reduce the amount of equipment needed to run an efficient data center.

Key Highlights:

  • Benefits of Storage Consolidation: Efficiency across storage area networks (SAN) has been increased greatly by sharing data across multiple servers on private networks. Operational benefits from storage consolidation include: reduced power and cooling costs, increased capacity sharing, storage provisioning, network boot, software updates, performance, data protection, scalability, simplified backup and recovery, and improved lifecycle management.
  • Server and Storage Virtualization – Complimentary Technologies: Storage virtualization compliments server virtualization by increasing storage efficiency and by enabling rapid deployment of storage resources. The result is increased overall operational efficiency, improved asset utilization, and accelerated business processes.
  • Storage Virtualization: Storage virtualization is delivering dramatic increases in storage utilization. Deduplication, thin provisioning, and rapid cloning, as examples, are greatly reducing the physical storage required to store the exploding data collection and retention in today’s business environment.
  • Storage Consolidation – Before You Start: By utilizing a combination of virtualization and SAN-based or host-based replication technologies, IT personnel can minimize data and application down time during storage migration while allowing users to still access applications with little or no downtime.

IBM, Virtual Bridges and Canonical Introduce New Linux-server Based Virtual Desktop

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Virtual Bridges, IBM and Canonical announced today the immediate availability of the newest version of a Linux-server based virtual desktop with the release of Virtual Bridges’ VERDE 2.0 software.

The Open Virtual Client desktop is a combination of IBM’s Smart Client desktop software, Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux servers and Linux desktop, and Virtual Bridges’ VERDE Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI )offering.

VERDE 2.0 delivers several industry firsts, including:

· Addresses both private cloud and  public cloud requirements.

· Meets both the needs of the connected user and the disconnected user.

· Simultaneously and seamlessly manages both Windows and Linux desktop sessions.

With today’s announcement, VERDE 2.0 goes beyond virtualizing the desktop to give users significant new functionality: providing them software access when the users are disconnected from the Internet. VERDE 2.0accomplishes this by integrating a lightweight, client-side hypervisor based on a new Self-Managing Auto Replicating Technology (SMART) protocol. The SMART protocol synchronizes a replicated cache running on the client-side hypervisor with the managed image on the server, the same image that is used to populate VDI sessions.

The Open Virtual Client desktop offers users of private or public clouds the ability to lower costs by deploying a Microsoft-alternative in either the whole organization or for particular user segments, and this can be done smoothly over time. Because VERDE supports both Linux and Microsoft Windows guest sessions, organizations can broadly realize the benefits of VDI , whether they move to Linux desktops or not. They can also gain additional cost savings that come from moving some user segments to Linux desktops. Introducing thin clients, where appropriate, can further increase cost saving opportunities.

The IBM Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) includes open standards-based email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, social networking and more, providing users with exceptional productivity application alternatives. IBM’s smart work client software is based on IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus applications. IBM Lotus Symphony supports the Open Document Format (ODF) standard, the basis for global document interoperability.

VERDE provides protection aginst viruses, malware and other damage while users are disconnected. If a session is corrupted by malware, the user can restart the session and the session is launched from the write-protected replicated cache of the managed image, on the local disk. This ability eliminates costly help desk intervention and makes the environment malware-resistant.

VERDE 2.0 offers the simplest licensing in the industry with a complete offering available for one simple, paid-up, per seat price. All of the components are included in this hassle-free licensing model. VERDE 2.0 is available from partners as an Open Virtual Client bundle. The VERDE 2.0 solution is also available directly from Virtual Bridges and its partners. VERDE pricing is $50 per seat for 1000 seats or more.

Rackspace Leverages VMware With Private Cloud Offering

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Rackspace Hosting today announced its new Private Cloud offering, which allows customers to run the centrally managed VMware virtualization platform on private dedicated hardware environments. Rackspace recognizes the demand from enterprises for a more flexible and scalable hosting solution. Although multi-tenant cloud solutions are very flexible and cost-effective, they are not always right for every segment. The Rackspace Private Cloud’s single-tenant architecture offers increased control and security, while still maintaining the scalability, flexibility and resource optimization that make shared cloud offerings so compelling.

Rackspace Private Cloud is an evolution of its popular dedicated virtual server (DVS) offering within the managed hosting business unit. In the last year, revenue from virtualization solutions has grown substantially, driven mainly by the increased flexibility, improved asset utilization and lower capital and operating costs that VMware’s virtualization provides.

The new Rackspace Private Cloud offering provides new pricing and configuration options that further extend the value for customers. The savings for customers can be substantial and further cost reductions can be achieved by the ability to quickly provision, deploy and take down virtualized server instances, using only what is needed. As with all Rackspace products, Private Cloud is backed-up by Rackspace’s Fanatical Support.

Evolve Technologies CEO Dave Sobel Joins Server Virtualization Advisory Board

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Evolve Technologies, a company that specializes in providing information technology solutions for the small business, faith-based and nonprofit communities in the D.C. Metro area, announced today that CEO, Dave Sobel, has joined TechTarget’s new SearchServerVirtualization.com Server Virtualization Advisory Board.

Sobel was selected for his extensive knowledge on the subject including the recently published book, “Virtualization: Defined. A Primer for the SMB Consultant,” and his successful blog, SMBvirtualization.net. Sobel is an active member of the Heartland Technology Groups in the U.S. and Europe, serving as a founding member of HTG5 and a facilitator for HTG11.

  • As a member of the Server Virtualization Advisory Board, Sobel will provide guidance meant to focus the publication’s virtualization news coverage and expert tips.
  • The Server Virtualization Advisory Board consists of systems administrators and consultants specializing in server virtualization technology.
  • Other members of the board include: Jack Kaiser, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing, International Computerware; Rob McShinsky, Senior Systems Engineer, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center; CJ Metz, Senior Systems Administrator, Orange County United Way; Eric Siebert, Senior Systems Administrator, Boston Market; Shannon Snowden, Consulting Partner, New Age Technologies; and Rick Vanover, Systems Administrator and virtualization expert.