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

CopperEgg Raises $2M, Bring Real-Time Analytics To The Cloud With RevealCloud

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CopperEgg has announced that it has secured $2 million in Series A funding and launched RevealCloud, a SaaS-based performance monitoring solution that helps companies accelerate the delivery of applications and services across public and private clouds.

RevealCloud is the latest addition to CopperEgg’s suite of real-time performance monitoring solutions, including RevealStorage, launched earlier this year to help IT organizations optimize the efficiency of critical datacenter resources.

Silverton Partners led the first-round investment in the company, which includes the appointments of Kip McClanahan and Morgan Flager to CopperEgg’s board of directors.

The company is led by software industry veteran CEO Scott Johnson, founder of Thomas-Conrad Corporation (acquired by Compaq Computer in 1995) and Surgient Networks (acquired by Quest Software in 2010).

RevealCloud provides split-second monitoring of the operating and performance metrics of cloud instances that support critical application services, enabling customers to accelerate time to market during the development phase, optimize deployments as they learn customer usage patterns, and identify early warning signals of service degradation.

RevealCloud standard edition is available for free install. Advanced features will be available on a tiered-pricing basis for a monthly subscription.

App-DNA Names Former Microsoft Exec As Chairman of the Board

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App-DNA has named Patrick De Smedt as Chairman of its Board of Directors as part of the new expanded executive team.

De Smedt was previously a non-executive member of the App-DNA Board and former Chairman of the Microsoft EMEA organization.

In this new role, he will support the continued growth and global expansion of App-DNA.

De Smedt is a 23-year veteran of Microsoft and former Chairman of the Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa organization. As one of the first European employees for Microsoft, De Smedt held several roles as Microsoft expanded. He joined Microsoft in 1983 as one of the pioneers in Europe.

He was General Manager of Microsoft Benelux, Vice-President of the Enterprise Group in EMEA and Vice-President of Western Europe. He was appointed as Chairman of the EMEA region in 2003. When Patrick left Microsoft at the end of 2006, the EMEA region generated revenues of $12 billion with a headcount of 12,000 employees.

Patrick currently serves on the boards of a number of public and private companies.

App-DNA analyzes the ‘DNA’ of an application, using insight about applications to guide decisions about application migration, management and evolve application portfolios long term. The App-DNA AppTitude software platform helps enterprises worldwide save time, cost and risk in managing applications for Windows 7, Internet Explorer, Microsoft App-V, Citrix XenDesktop XenApp, VDI and Windows Server 2008 initiatives.

App-DNA is a CitrixReady Core Partner, Citrix Technology Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a member of the Microsoft System Center Alliance and a Microsoft Jumpstart partner.

Dell To Acquires Datacenter Solutions Company Force10 Networks

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Dell this morning announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Force10 Networks, a provider of high-performance datacenter networking solutions.

Force10’s networking capabilities complement Dell’s datacenter solutions portfolio, enabling it to offer customers a broader range of enterprise offerings.

Force10 is a leader in datacenter, service provider, and enterprise networking. It is nearly a $200-million company, based on trailing 12 months revenue, with approximately 80 percent of its business in North America and operating in over 60 countries worldwide.

Force10’s Open Cloud Networking is based on open standards, automation and virtualization, and basically allows customers to transform their network infrastructures into an open, reliable and scalable datacenter and cloud computing fabric.

Much like past acquisitions of Compellent and EqualLogic, Dell says it is committed to maintaining and growing Force10’s channel program.

Force10’s customers include Web companies, Internet portals, carriers, research laboratories and government organizations.

Force10 was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in San Jose, California, with research and development operations based in Silicon Valley.

Dell says it plans to keep Force10’s existing operations in Chennai, India as it continues to invest in additional engineering and sales capability to grow this business.

The transaction was approved by the board of directors of each company. Additional terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The transaction remains subject to customary conditions and is expected to close in late summer.

AppSense Enhances Its User Virtualization Platform

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User virtualization technology company AppSense has announced the latest release of the AppSense User Virtualisation Platform (UVP), which features significant enhancements aimed at both improving performance and enabling the next generation of user virtualisation capabilities.

AppSense UVP provides a complete solution to unlock the user layer and allow for IT to manage thousands of users as easily as managing a single user instance, while freeing users to work with the devices and applications that permit them to maximize productivity.

Enhancements of the latest AppSense UVP include a new modular architecture, expanded policy and personalization capabilities, enhanced management and control and end-user experience improvements.

This latest version of the AppSense UVP is released as AppSense Environment Manager version 8.1 and is available through AppSense’s 350+ global network of Certified Solution Partners.

You can also download an evaluation version of the software by visiting the AppSense website.

Piston Cloud Computing Scores $4.5 Million In Funding For Open Source Cloud

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Piston Cloud Computing, a software company developing commercialized OpenStack software for businesses, has raised $4.5 million in funding in a round led by Hummer Winblad and True Ventures, with Divergent Ventures and others participating.

Lars Leckie from Hummer Winblad, and Puneet Agarwal from True Ventures will join Piston’s board of directors.

Launched by NASA and Rackspace in 2010, OpenStack is the fastest-growing open-source project in the world, with over 1,100 contributors and 82 participating companies, including Rackspace, NASA, Citrix, Intel, Cisco, Arista Networks and Dell.

Piston’s co-founders actually came from the technical teams at NASA and Rackspace, and helped to create the OpenStack project in 2010.

Piston’s CEO, Joshua McKenty, was the Cloud Architect of NASA’s Nebula Cloud infrastructure, the precursor of OpenStack’s cloud computing component, and holds an appointed seat on OpenStack’s Policy Board.

Piston’s CTO, Christopher MacGown, was a Technical Lead at SliceHost, acquired by Rackspace in 2008. In addition, the team has recruited some of the best talent from the OpenStack community, including core contributors from NASA and other participating organizations.

Piston Cloud technology is currently in limited beta, with a public release expected in Q4 2011.

Diskeeper’s Virtual Platform Optimiser V-locity 3.0 Slated For Release This Quarter

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Diskeeper‘s virtual platform disk optimiser V-locity has its third edition currently in the final phase of field testing.

Tipped for release this quarter, there is no official statement yet of what new features are included, but what can be confirmed is V-locity 3.0 will support VMware ESXi – VMware’s bare-metal hypervisor.

V-locity improves performance of virtual platforms, such as VMware vSphere, and allows them to operate more efficiently. This results in cost savings and facilitates virtualization initiatives in enterprises.