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CohesiveFT Adds Ubuntu 9.04 SE and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 to its Elastic Server Platform

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CohesiveFT today announced the addition of both Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition (Jaunty Jackalope) and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (Lenny) operating systems to its Elastic Server platform, the company’s web-based factory for real-time virtual and cloud server assembly. The Elastic Server platform lets users assemble custom virtual and cloud servers using a point-and-click, self-service interface. The addition of the most recent stable versions of Ubuntu and Debian as operating system options gives users the ability to assemble and deploy their custom Ubuntu or Debian Elastic Servers to numerous virtual and cloud environments including Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Ubuntu is a widely popular operating system distributed freely by Canonical based on GNU/Linux. Ubuntu is available under the GNU/GPL but is commercially supported by Canonical. Debian is also an extremely popular operating system based on GNU/Linux. Debian is not supported by a commercial enterprise but by an independent decentralized organization of developers.

The Elastic Server platform is a complement to virtualization and cloud offerings. Users assemble custom servers by choosing from a library of popular components. Once assembled, these custom application stacks can be configured to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats, downloaded and deployed in real-time. There are over three thousand users of the service who have assembled more than seven thousand Elastic Server images for public and private use. The addition of Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope and Debian Lenny operating systems highlights CohesiveFT’s platform momentum following recently introduced support for Eucalyptus, Fedora Core 10, ElasticHosts, and KVM.

Vizioncore Announces Changes To Product Team

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Vizioncore today announced key changes to its product team: Jason Mattox, a founder of the company, will assume the role of vice president, Support and CTO, and Tyler Jewell becomes vice president, Products.

As vice president, CTO, and one of the original founders of Vizioncore, Jason Mattox remains the driving force behind Vizioncore’s product strategy to create a comprehensive set of solutions that propels management of virtual environments to new levels of precision and flexibility, while addressing the realities and challenges that today’s companies face. Mattox is one of the industry’s top minds in virtualization, with 12 years experience in IT architecture,An focused on consolidation and virtualization from the desktop to the enterprise.

As vice president, Products for Vizioncore, Tyler Jewell is responsible for Product Management and Product Marketing Management. Having been with Quest Software, Vizioncore’s parent company, for more than four years, Jewell has been responsible for a wide range of businesses spanning database, application, and infrastructure management. He led the team that brought vFoglight and vControl to market, and drove a portfolio to include investments in a number of high growth markets. He brings a wealth of experience from previous positions at BEA, Veritas and MySQL.

Trend Micro Expands Virtualization Security Portfolio

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Trend Micro is expanding its overall virtualization security portfolio with the introduction of a content security solution to protect VMware ESX/ESXi environments.

Trend Micro Core Protection for Virtual Machines is designed to secure VMware virtual machines, both active and dormant, comprehensively and efficiently. The product leverages the VMsafe APIs from VMware to offer layered protection through the use of dedicated scanning VMs coordinated with real-time agents within the VM.

A tough economy is driving companies globally to adopt more cost-effective measures and pursue efficiency, one of the main reasons why analysts expect the virtualization industry to hit over $7 billion over the next four years.

But while server virtualization increases efficiency in the data center, it also challenges the security of the IT environment: Existing content security solutions imported from the physical world typically leave security gaps when deployed in virtual environments. For example, dormant or offline virtual machines can get infected even while dormant, yet are unable to protect themselves with a virus scan agent and signature updates.

Similarly, resource-intensive security operations such as scheduled full system scans can significantly degrade the performance of the host and render the security ineffective, especially when initiated concurrently on multiple virtual machines.

Trend Micro Core Protection for Virtual Machines is part of Trend Micro Enterprise Security – a tightly integrated offering of content security products, services and solutions which is powered by the Trend Micro(TM) Smart Protection Network. Trend Micro Enterprise Security delivers immediate protection from emerging threats while greatly reducing the cost and complexity of security management.

Trend Micro Core Protection for Virtual Machines 1.0 will be available in August 2009 both as a standalone as well as part of the OSCE X Advanced Suite. The solution is also available as part of a new Virtualization Security suite that includes Trend Micro Deep Security, brought to the company from its acquisition of Third Brigade in April 2009. Core Protection for Virtual Machines can be deployed standalone or as a plug-in to OfficeScan Client/Server and managed through the OfficeScan console.

Leostream Updates Connection Broker

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Leostream today announced new functionality has been added to its vendor-neutral connection broker that simplifies the management of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Already the most effective technology of its kind for VDI deployments in heterogeneous environments, the Leostream Connection Broker 6.1 now also features enhanced policy and reporting capabilities, power control for physical machines, Web browser access to Citrix XenApp applications, and bulk delete, refresh and release actions for even easier IT administration.

The latest version closely follows the April release of the Leostream Connection Broker 6.0. Leostream’s goal has long been to anticipate market demand for virtualization solutions and continually build upon its already mature connection management technology to meet this demand. This is especially important for enterprises that need to handle the multi-vendor environments that invariably exist in larger-scale virtualization projects. As a result, the Leostream Connection Broker provides organizations with the capability to integrate existing technology easily and achieve the maximum ROI for end-user computing.

The Leostream Connection Broker, delivered as a virtual appliance, is the software management layer that ties desktop images in the data center to users’ thin client, laptop, desktop or Web interface. It allows enterprises to provide end-users with a virtual desktop experience equal or superior to traditional desktops. End-users can access their virtual desktop from any machine, regardless of location, due to the technology’s ability to direct users to their own virtual desktop image. IT managers can also maximize the virtualization of existing resources by easily integrating an array of clients, back-end systems and viewers. Additionally, the product integrates with existing data center infrastructure without changes, including authentication services and SSL VPN systems, and provides a rich set of policies for the exact implementation of business rules for users and machines.

Particular highlights of Leostream Connection Broker 6.1 include:

  • Policy Enhancements: Expanded flexibility of policies offers “granular customization” to suit an enterprise’s precise needs.
    • Policies can now be applied to hard-assigned desktops, providing consistent policy application for all types of machine assignment.
    • Policies now allow administrators to offer as many resources as desired to the end-user, but can limit the number of machines actually assigned to a set limit, improving control of license usage.
    • Power control and release policies make it easier to reuse power and assignment options.
  • Enhanced Reporting: New reporting features have been added to give IT greater insight and control. A metrics report provides information on disk usage and load averages for all Connection Brokers in a cluster, with another report summarizing the setup of all policies.
  • Web Browser Access to Citrix XenApp: An extension of the Connection Broker’s current XenApp functionality, end-users can now launch Citrix XenApp desktops and applications via the Connection Broker Web browser.
  • Access and Power Control for Physical Machines: The Connection Broker can make Microsoft SMS server calls to power up physical machines. This Wake-on-LAN feature allows users the convenience of starting and accessing physical machines from remote locations, while providing enterprises with greater control over power use.
  • Bulk Actions for Improved IT Management: Bulk delete, refresh and release actions bring improved ease-of-use to IT administrators.

Google Loses Engineering Director To VMware

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After nearly 5 years with the company, Engineering Director Mark Lucovsky has left Google for a role with VMware, TechCrunch has learned.

Before Google, Lucovsky worked at DEC and then Microsoft for 16 years, eventually gaining the title of “Distinguished Engineer.” He had been the principle architect on Windows NT, which would eventually evolve into Windows XP. Lucovsky was also the architect of Microsoft’s Hailstorm project to port older Microsoft products into .NET.

A famous anecdote recounted on TechCrunch:

But Lucovsky may be best known for the role he played in a complete and utter meltdown that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once had. As the NT architect, Lucovsky was clearly pretty vital to Microsoft, so when he went in for a meeting with Ballmer in 2004 to let him know he was leaving, you can be sure the CEO was a bit on edge.

“Just tell me it’s not Google,” Ballmer reportedly said according to court documents (for a case surrounding another Google ex-Microsoft hire). When Lucovsky said it was Google, Ballmer allegedly picked up a chair and threw it across the room.

Windows Azure Cloud Computing Service: Release Date And Pricing Details

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Microsoft has shared details on how much it will charge companies that want to use its Windows Azure cloud computing service – which will compete with the likes of Amazon WS and Force.com – when it is released in final form later this Fall. Redmond announced a couple of plans, including one that charges purely on consumption and another that offers discounted rates for those that agree to a 6-month commitment.

The cloud operating system isn’t launching in final form until Microsoft’s upcoming Professional Developer Conference (November 2009), but an executive apparently had informed CNET that the pricing announcement would be made at this week’s Worldwide Partner Conference, which is taking place in New Orleans.

Microsoft said it will charge 12 cents per hour for computing, 15 cents per gigabyte for storage and 10 cents per 10,000 storage transactions. For network bandwidth, the software maker is charging between 10 cents and 15 cents per gigabyte. The discount plan comes in two forms and offers a 15 percent to 30 percent discount off the consumption charges. It requires a six-month commitment, with overage charges billed at the regular rates. After six months, the pricing reverts to the standard Azure rates.

Microsoft also announced pricing for its SQL Azure database, charging $9.99 for the basic Web edition, including up to a 1GB relational database and $99.99 for the Business Edition, which includes up to a 10GB database.

The software maker said it would promise 99.95 percent reliability for its compute and connectivity and 99.9 percent for role instance and storage. Ultimately, though, Ray Ozzie has said that trust will play a big role in which company businesses are willing to choose to host their applications.

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