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

XenServer for Free !

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With VMWorld Europe coming up,it seems Citrix is trying to get VMWare out of its warm cozy mansion, it seems they plan to announce next week that they won’t charge anymore for XenServer.

Altough the underlying Xen technology is fully Open source , Citrix doesn’t plan on fully opensourcing XenServer itselve yet. So how will they make their money then you’d ask ? By shipping a new managment framwork that will support both XenServer and the Microschoft Hyper-V platform.

It looks like Citrix is also planning to announce a similar agreement with Micro
soft as RedHat already did earlier this week.

So what will VMWare do as a reaction next week ?

RedHat Moves Closer To Microsoft

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Earlier this week Red Hat and Microsoft announced they were going to work closer together , mainly to ensure Virtualization Interoperability. Both RedHat and Microsoft will join the other’s virtualization validation/certification program and will provide coordinated technical support for their mutual server virtualization customers.

In short this means that Red Hat and Microsoft customers will have the ability to run Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual servers on either host environment with configurations that will be tested and supported by both virtualization and operating system leaders.
The agreements contain no patent or open source license components. There are no financial clauses beyond simple certification testing fees. These are straightforward certification and validation agreements.

The key components of the announcement are as follows:

* Red Hat will validate Windows Server guests to be supported on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization technologies.
* Microsoft will validate Red Hat Enterprise Linux server guests to be supported on Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
* Once each company completes testing, customers with valid support agreements will receive coordinated technical support for running Windows Server operating system virtualized on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization, and for running Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualized on Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

In a blogpost Scott Crenshaw writes
“Of course, it is also big news because it is rare that these two companies publicly work together. The companies continue to compete vigorously. But virtualization interoperability is very high on customers’ wish lists, and I’m pleased both companies have been able to respond in this cooperative fashion.”

To many the announcement does not come as a big surprise, after acquiring Qumranet, RedHat gained a lot of Microsoft aimed Virtualization knowledge, with this agreement it makes a step towards an even better supported Virtual desktop environment

Savvis Aims To Deliver IT Infrastructure In The Cloud

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Savvis today unveiled Savvis Cloud Compute, a new virtual data center hosting and private cloud computing solution providing enterprises with an opportunity to cut costs without having to sacrifice security or performance.

With the introduction of an advanced customer portal, these new offerings feature enhanced user control and flexibility in provisioning virtual compute and storage capabilities on top of both private and shared platforms. This enables “right-sized computing” via the ability to purchase fractional compute resources on demand by the “instance” with flexible month-to-month business terms.

Savvis Cloud Compute provides essential benefits for enterprises that have substantial fluctuations in web traffic and computing requirements from heavy business day peaks. Immediate benefits are available for SaaS applications, seasonal web eCommerce traffic, and financial trading applications. In addition, Savvis Cloud Compute assists in the implementation of disaster recovery for back-office locations, and shifting test and development environments to lower cost footprints.

Savvis Cloud Compute inaugurates Savvis’ moving its utility compute and storage solutions into the cloud and marks the first in a series of new, integrated value-added IT solutions delivered in cloud technology that Savvis will roll out this year.

The News:

  • Savvis Cloud Compute delivers secure, enterprise-class cloud compute and storage functionality designed to meet customer requirements for on-demand, scalable, flexible and cost-effective managed hosting services for business-critical applications and infrastructure.
  • Businesses with seasonal or unpredictable computing needs will benefit from easy access to more efficient, low-cost, IT resources provisioned in near-real time, helping them maintain a competitive edge by limiting financial risk, keeping IT costs in check, and enabling speed to market. Customers can tap the benefits of cloud computing without significant initial investment and minimum commitments. This zero capital expenditure model appeals to customers that want to reduce their capital budgets without sacrificing IT growth in the long run.
  • Ideal for production and pre-production environments, Savvis Cloud Compute provides flexible infrastructure, delivering greater end-user control through the SavvisStation Portal to add servers and storage capacity automatically and in minutes. This combines with comprehensive capacity management reporting to help customers optimize their IT spend by anticipating and acting on changes in demand.

Savvis Cloud Compute operates seamlessly with other Savvis utility and dedicated services providing customers with the ability to map complex enterprise application needs to the most appropriate service enabling affordable, business-critical performance.

VirtualLogix To Unveil Virtualized Android Phone Solution

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VirtualLogix today announced the availability of the Android mobile phone environment on a range of 2G/3G cellular system solutions from ST-Ericsson, on a Linux single processor (ARM926) platform.

This solution relies on VirtualLogix’ VLX virtualization software to enable developers to create low cost, high volume phones that provide state-of-the-art user experience and services while effectively preserving the predictability and performance of communication and multimedia functionality. VirtualLogix will demonstrate the solution at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

VLX-patented, innovative virtualization technology brings the benefits of server-side virtualization functionality to mobile devices. Designed for real-time performance, VLX delivers a high performance communication capability which minimizes latency and communications between software running in separate containers on the same processor. Through a shared device framework, VLX provides an innovative and structured mechanism for sharing peripheral devices between different execution containers to enable multi-vendor support. VirtualLogix’ virtualization software allows developers to predictably add new functionality to mobile devices post-delivery, without compromising the initial configuration of any device.

Veeam Expands Partner Program

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Veeam Software, provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX host environments, today announced the next phase in its ProPartner program, with added benefits and opportunities for VMware VAR partners in 2009. Basic, Silver and Gold partner levels have been defined, with increasing benefits and opportunities at each level.

At the same time, Veeam has completed the integration of partner programs from nworks, which Veeam acquired in 2008. Veeam and former nworks partners are organized into a global two-tier distribution network to better serve end user customers seeking to back up and recover, report and document, monitor performance, plan capacity and control VM sprawl, manage configuration and change, and otherwise manage VMware infrastructure.

In addition, Veeam announced that its partner network now has more than 1,400 ProPartners worldwide. Partner benefits include up to 65% additional revenue and margins for every VMware ESX deal.

Veeam’s ProPartner levels include:
  • Gold ProPartner – by invitation/approval. Requires at least one VMware certified professional (or equivalent HP or Microsoft designation) on staff. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, deal registration, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Gold ProPartner logo to designate this elevated partner status.
  • Silver ProPartner – requires approval by regional channel management team. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Silver ProPartner logo.
  • Basic ProPartner – provides any other VAR or reseller who wants to quote or sell Veeam products with access to the ProPartner portal and a starting point to begin working with Veeam.

Gartner: Worldwide Virtualization Software Revenue Will Increase 43% in 2009

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Worldwide virtualization software revenue will increase 43 per cent from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $2.7 billion in 2009, according to Gartner. Global virtualization penetration is on pace to reach 20 per cent in 2009 from 12 per cent in 2008. Its adoption within the IT organization is driven by the need to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), enhance the agility and speed of deployment of IT needs and minimize carbon footprint.

Gartner’s definition of the virtualisation market includes server virtualization management, server virtualization infrastructure and hosted virtual desktops (HVDs). Gartner estimates that revenue from HVDs will more than triple from $74.1 million to $298.6 million in 2009 while revenue from server virtualization management software will increase 42 per cent from $913.9 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2009. Revenue from server virtualization infrastructure will grow 22.5 per cent from $917 million in 2008 to $1.1 billion in 2009.

“Virtualization helps organizations to cut costs, better utilize assets and reduce implementation and management time and complexity, all of which are crucial in this economic environment,” said Alan Dayley, research director at Gartner. “Server virtualization management will be the primary source of growth in the virtualization market as hypervisor software functionality – key to virtualizing a server – rapidly moves to hardware. Server virtualization management technology in particular is designed to reduce TCO, reduce associated availability risk, and improve quality of service. In addition, building more manageability into infrastructure components provides technology suppliers with an additional source of revenue and a basis for competitive differentiation.”

“Although HVD is an emerging technology that currently represents 11 per cent of the virtualization software revenue market, it will account for a growing proportion of corporate users through 2013. Virtual desktop infrastructure feeds additional server virtualization needs because the users’ desktop data will now need to be managed in a virtualized server environment. Maturity and acceptance will result in a significant broadening of the addressable user population by 2010 and an acceleration in deployments. Gartner advises end-user organizations to define and optimize management processes for HVDs as they did for traditional PCs. Although HVD images are centralized and more standardized, the capabilities for managing them across their full deployment life cycles remain incomplete. To remedy this, they should budget for additional point-solution management capabilities.

“End-user organizations must build cost and benefit financial models to fully understand the financial impact of implementing HVDs, and make certain that cost and benefit exist as compared with those for traditional PCs,” said Phil Dawson, research vice president at Gartner. “There is a growing number of management providers, which represents an opportunity for end-user pricing leverage, but no vendor offers a complete set of server virtualization management functionality. IT organizations will have to undertake – or outsource – their own virtualization management system integration efforts or wait for better-integrated and robust toolsets.”

“From a vendor perspective, by 2013, Microsoft will challenge VMware as the dominant vendor in the server virtualization infrastructure market and will do very well in small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The server virtualization management market is currently wide open, with more than 100 vendors supplying products that meet some of the requirements in the management stack. As the management market matures, virtualization infrastructure vendors, the “Big Four” (BMC Software, CA, HP and IBM/Tivoli) and other management vendors will build and acquire more virtualization management capabilities, thus consolidating the market. On the other hand, the HVD vendor landscape is crowded, confusing, and full of opportunists.

Gartner recommends that vendors take advantage during this disruptive period by introducing leading-edge management tools in support of virtualization initiatives and ensure that virtualization-specific management products can integrate within existing management frameworks. Mr Dayley said: “The fast-growing server virtualization management and HVD markets are less consolidated, with scores of vendors trying to stake claim in the market.”