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

Release: Entuity Eye of the Storm Network Professional Edition

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Entuity today announced Eye of the Storm Network Professional Edition (EYE NPE), a network management solution that defines a new category along the management price/performance continuum – enterprise functionality at a price point previously reserved for workgroup class tools struggling to scale and support SME network needs.

The newest member of Entuity’s software family delivers technology for the mid-market on three fronts: automation, accuracy, and deep functionality for management to cost-effectively keep dynamic and contemporary networks optimally performing.

EYE NPE delivers optimal network performance by going beyond the “red light/green light” signaling that qualifies the typical low-priced network management tools. EYE NPE provides an intelligent view of object connectivity, root cause analysis, and a broad range of configurable thresholds allowing users to pinpoint where problems occur and quickly take action.

Unlike the device-centric approach of other commercially available solutions, EYE NPE includes user configurable views which represent any logical collection of devices or segmentation of the network. Views represent a higher abstraction of the network – a business unit, a building, a particular floor, a department, or the devices assigned to particular operations personnel – then EYE NPE collects and reports operational metrics matching specified business processes. Built in reports with a versatile scheduler in a range of business-ready formats are also available to automate reporting and distribution.

Built from Entuity’s enterprise class event engine and database that support 85,000 managed objects per server, EYE NPE supports up to 7,500 managed objects on a single server and combines proven features of the best network management tools on the market. The product is priced at $22,500.

EYE NPE will be available June 26, and runs on Microsoft Windows Server operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and VMWare ESX Server.

Release: 5nine P2V Hyper-V Planner

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5nine Software today announced the release of 5nine P2V Hyper-V Planner, and 5nine P2V Hyper-V Planner Free Edition – the first virtualization migration planning solutions specifically designed for enterprise P2V Hyper-V deployment projects.

5nine P2V Hyper-V Planner offers the following features:

  • Automated P2V Hyper-V Migration Planning – Performs sophisticated analysis of the current data center and provides multiple migration plans depending on particular enterprise requirements. Optimized placement of virtualized workloads is based on business requirements, technology (memory, storage and CPU utilization, security) and TCO/ROI.
  • Agentless Data Collection – Automatically discovers and collects hardware inventory, utilization data and application performance metrics in a non-intrusive manner without installing agents. It also allows importing this information from an Excel or XML file.
  • Simple-to-Use – The product was designed to be used for projects of all sizes – from small virtualization pilot or SMB projects to large enterprise projects with hundreds of servers, hosts and virtual machines (VMs).
  • Integrated TCO/ROI Reporting – P2V Planner creates a variety of technology assessment, workload and TCO/ROI reports for each migration plan, for easy comparison and decision making.
  • Ongoing Value – Whether your P2V Hyper-V migration project is complete or ongoing, the Planner continues to provide value by optimizing the workloads and resource utilization in a virtualized data center.

The current version of the product supports Microsoft Hyper-V, while subsequent releases will support multiple virtualization platforms, including VMware P2V planning, as well as actual P2V conversion in accordance with the P2V migration plans created.

5nine P2V Hyper-V Planner Free Edition is available immediately, and it’s free for any Microsoft Hyper-V environment. P2V Hyper-V Planner is also available immediately, with North American pricing starting at $59.00 USD per physical server.

VMLogix Announces Beta Release Of LabManager Cloud Edition

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VMLogix today announced the beta release of VMLogix LabManager – Cloud Edition, a new product that enables software teams to run virtual labs within cloud computing environments. The only offering on the market to support on-premise and public clouds, VMLogix LabManager now enables users to leverage the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) to deliver and maintain software applications more quickly, cost-effectively and reliably.

Software teams will be able to improve software quality and time to market using VMLogix LabManager – Cloud Edition for a dynamic, scalable and elastic virtual lab experience. The new edition offers an easy and cost-effective way to provide virtual lab automation to development, QA, training, pre-sales demo and support teams. Features include:

  • Creation and management of multi-machine configurations: enabling the combination of multiple Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) into a single environment and providing capabilities to entirely automate the deployment and re-deployment of multi-machine environments (including software stack customizations) in a self-service fashion;
  • Full virtual lab tool capabilities: tapping into powerful virtual lab management capabilities including user/team management, license management and lease management, and enabling users/teams to share/collaborate with lab artefacts, audit trails and access to a centralized repository of software media;
  • On-demand access to virtual lab resources: allowing for immediate access to computing infrastructure resources over the web from any location; and,
  • Pay-for-what-you-use pricing model: leveraging the elasticity of the cloud allows customers to reduce up front capital expenditures by instantly scaling up or scaling down the lab infrastructure when required, and only paying for what is used.

VMLogix LabManager – Cloud Edition beta is available now, and will be generally available in September. Pricing for the beta is free and requires an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account.

Release: MokaFive Suite 2.0

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MokaFive today announced the 2.0 version of its desktop virtualization technology in the form of MokaFive Suite, a Desktop-as-a-Service platform for the enterprise. MokaFive Suite extends the company’s existing cross-platform, self-healing hosted desktop service, giving organizations of any size the ability to host a secure desktop management solution within their premises.

MokaFive’s robust management capabilities make it easy for IT administrators to centrally create, deliver, secure and update a fully contained virtual desktop, called LivePC, to thousands of users. LivePC images run locally, so end users simply download their secure virtual desktop via a Web link, and run it on any computer (Macintosh, Linux or Windows). IT administrators apply updates and patches to the single golden image and MokaFive automatically distributes the differentials to each LivePC.

MokaFive Suite integrates with existing enterprise infrastructure such as Active Directory and software distribution for rapid set up and maximum leverage of current investments. Enterprise companies using MokaFive Suite experience a significantly lower total cost of ownership due to a small datacenter footprint, quick deployment, and simplified management.

Unlike any other desktop virtualization solution, MokaFive enables end users to customize their virtual corporate desktop with personalized data, settings and even applications. MokaFive’s proprietary layered management approach allows IT administrators to create, deliver, patch and update the corporate OS and applications while persisting the user specific customizations. This approach enables IT to define a single image that can be customized for groups and further personalized by individual users, providing all the benefits of central management with the power of mass customization.

MokaFive Suite provides a rich set of capabilities and policy controls, which allow IT administrators to define levels of lockdown based on targeted groups. Organizations are able to protect corporate assets and ensure compliance against regulatory and corporate guidelines, irrespective of where the user is accessing the corporate data from home, work or on the go. In addition to reducing the risk of non-compliance and data breaches, MokaFive can keep business running with instantaneous deployment of corporate environments in the case of a disaster.

Desktop management costs are reduced thanks to a unique self-healing feature that provides users with the ability to recover from failures by simply restarting their LivePC. This reverts the corporate operating system and applications to their original pristine state while persisting user applications, settings and data.

DynamicOps Introduces New Generation Of Automated Virtualization Management Software Suite

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DynamicOps, a venture-funded Credit Suisse spinoff, is introducing a new generation of automated virtualization management software with a unique capability — automated resource reclamation — that identifies and reclaims inactive and abandoned virtual machines to control virtual machine sprawl.

DynamicOps Virtual Resource Manager (VRM) is the first virtualization management software to automate the manual process required to reclaim and recycle unneeded virtual machines. The new VRM 3.2 helps companies use their virtualization infrastructure much more efficiently, reducing the need for IT staff to manually reclaim unused virtual machines and making the best use of IT assets. This improved efficiency results in significant cost savings.

With VRM, companies can easily apply the well-known, eco-friendly “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” theme to virtualization management, Krueger added. The software, in high demand by companies that want to achieve significant cost savings and faster ROI for their virtualization initiatives, provides essential tools to reduce over-provisioning of virtual machines, help companies reuse virtual resources quickly and easily, and identify virtual machines ready for recycling.

VRM automates the planning, deployment and ongoing management of virtual servers and desktops, from the time they’re created until they’re retired. Using VRM, enterprises deliver and manage virtual machines independent of the hypervisor, connection broker, and image deployment technology involved, all through a single console.

DynamicOps has added other new capabilities to VRM, including an enhanced developer’s toolkit, enhanced Linux support, and usability improvements.

The new VRM Software Developer’s Toolkit, used to integrate VRM’s automated virtual machine management processes with existing management ecosystems, makes it easier for companies and resellers to develop plug-in modules to perform a variety of tasks external to VRM; no code changes are required in the core VRM software.

For Linux users, VRM 3.2 goes beyond simple virtual machine cloning to include automated operating system installation and customization capabilities available in either Red Hat Kickstart or Suse AutoYaST. In addition to automating the installation and consistent configuration of machines, these utilities facilitate customization like network, disk, language and keyboard selection as well as optional software installation.

DynamicOps has also added several new features to improve usability, including enhanced discovery, easy install and set up, simple resource reservation, static IP support, global VM Blueprints, multi-step approval, and a resource cost calculator to facilitate the configuration of chargeback cost profiles.

Platform Computing Debuts Software Product For Private Cloud Management

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Platform Computing today announced a new software product for managing private cloud environments from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Conference in New York City. Platform ISF is the first end-to-end cloud management product for enterprises to build and run their private clouds. It is the centerpiece of Platform’s cloud strategy and will be made available for beta in June with general availability planned for the Fall.

Platform Computing is expanding its product offerings to support the needs of mainstream business applications, leveraging its strong technology and experience in deploying large-scale shared compute environments. Platform ISF is computing infrastructure sharing software for private cloud management. Private clouds generally refer to resources pooled together in a shared IT infrastructure to run applications for business users. Platform ISF creates private clouds from physical and virtual resources, delivering application environments according to workload and resource scheduling policies. It incorporates Platform’s production-proven resource sharing technology (EGO) and virtual machine orchestrator (VMO) and includes capabilities for self-service, service-offering definition, contracts, reporting and billing. Private clouds deployed through Platform ISF allow IT departments to be more responsive to the needs of the enterprise by offering IT as services on a pay-per-use basis. This new computing paradigm is expected to drastically reduce the costs of IT as resource utilization levels increase due to resource sharing.

Platform ISF is a technology-agnostic platform that supports any collection of hardware, operating systems and virtual machines. It also supports third-party system management tools for security and provisioning. This allows organizations to leverage existing resources while conforming to corporate standards. It does so while supporting

IT’s obligation to oversee corporate requirements, including governance, compliance, business continuity, and cost and risk management. While public clouds can offer infrastructure and computer resources on a pay-per-use basis, most of the benefits of cloud computing are not realized by enterprises through the use of public clouds alone. Private clouds can leverage both internal and public cloud resources. Platform ISF acts as the management layer for pulling resources into a unified environment and its value is independent of location or ownership of resources.