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

RNA Networks Launches With $7M In Series A Funding

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RNA networks today announced the launch of its company and $7M in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures.

Memory virtualization transparently enables high-performance computing in the enterprise from commodity hardware. RNA networks’ software improves utilization of existing data center resources, and provides an alternative to data center investments aimed at addressing the limitations of memory availability. By leveraging existing hardware, RNA brings tremendous business benefits to the enterprise including cost savings through consolidation and increased utilization. Equally compelling are the increased top line results of the businesses that utilize memory virtualization. All of this is accomplished with no changes to the IT infrastructure.

RNA networks also announced a U.S.-based, global multi-billion dollar hedge fund as a first customer of its RNAmessenger product. RNAmessenger is targeted at high-volume, low latency messaging or any business critical environment that demands superior transaction processing. Algorithmic trading, content delivery and on-line gaming are arenas that gain immediate benefit.

Hyperic Launches BI Platform Operations IQ

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Hyperic today announced the availability of Hyperic Operations IQ, an advanced business intelligence platform for IT and web operations teams.

This new systems intelligence solution gives executives detailed reporting and analysis on critical data that was previously only available to highly technical end-users. Hyperic IQ provides concise graphical views and comprehensive, information-rich reports for users that analyze IT and web operations service levels, efficiencies, staffing initiatives and operations strategies. This business intelligence view into IT and web operations enables key decision-makers to monitor and report on any metric, any resource and any datacenter across their entire infrastructure to ensure ongoing adherence to service levels commitments.

Hyperic IQ makes operations metrics transparent, so operations personnel can spend more time managing their critical infrastructure, and less time building and distributing performance reports. IQ ships with built-in reports that provide immediate value out-of-the-box. For individual reporting needs, a custom report builder allows any user to build reports from scratch with a friendly drag and drop interface.

Hyperic’s Hyperic HQ software auto-discovers and updates asset inventories and allows operations teams to quickly pinpoint, correct, and prevent problems at every major technology layer—including hardware, networks, virtualization, cloud environments and deep into applications. Hyperic Operations IQ adds advanced systems intelligence to the product by transforming systems and application performance metrics into concise, highly visual reports that can be used for analysis, evaluation, planning and strategic decision-making.

Additional features of Hyperic Operations IQ include:

  • A rich array of report elements and formats. IQ reports present rich, easy-to-read charts and graphs, and can be published in multiple formats including PDF, Rich Text Format, Excel, HTML and Flash
  • The ability to analyze information from virtually any Hyperic HQ data, allowing executives to view and share exception reporting via stacked graphs, Service-Level Agreement (SLA) compliance reports and virtualization resource utilization metrics
  • A variety of chart types, including gauges, multi-metric line charts, bar graphs, and stacked charts make it easy to spot big problems, understand trends, and evaluate results against objectives and plans.
  • Push and pull access to operations intelligence. Authorized users can run reports on-demand from any browser. Users that are responsible for periodic reporting on key indicators and service level summaries can schedule reports to be run and delivered by email on a scheduled basis.
  • Comprehensive authorization and access control. Companies can use IQ and still comply with stringent security and data access policies. IQ supports access control at the user, resource, and report level.

Hyperic Operations IQ was built with Jaspersoft’s Business Intelligence software, which is tightly integrated into Hyperic HQ Enterprise. The two companies have enjoyed a close relationship since 2007, and previously have delivered integrated reporting capabilities for the community edition of Hyperic HQ.

Hyperic IQ is now available. Introductory pricing starts at $5,000 for existing Hyperic customers.

Release: CiRBA 5.1

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CiRBA today announced the release of CiRBA Version 5.1.  With Version 5.1, CiRBA provides advanced analytics and collaborative capabilities that enable enterprise views of capacity health for both physical and virtual infrastructure.

The widespread adoption of virtualization and consolidation technologies has provided unprecedented opportunities for organizations to increase efficiency within data centers.  However, these technologies have had a significant impact on the way capacity supply and demand is managed.  Virtual infrastructure is often a pooled resource serving different business users, impacting the roles and informational requirements of architects, application owners, and server administrators. Additionally, to facilitate enterprise level planning efforts, organizations require aggregate views of environments that allow them to manage IT services efficiently and safely.

Key features added to CiRBA Version 5.1 include:

Enabling Enterprise Level Capacity Planning through a Single, Open Capacity Database
CiRBA Version 5.1 includes several data-level integration enhancements that enable CiRBA to be used as a centralized repository for enterprise capacity data. By leveraging CiRBA’s advanced repository design, this new facility combines efficient centralized storage of capacity data with open data access capabilities to form the foundation of enterprise capacity management.

Improving Workload Placement and Resource Allocation Decisions through Capacity Status Analysis & New Dashboards
CiRBA’s new Capacity Status Analysis assesses the health of IT environments, both from a historical and forward-looking trend perspective.  This analysis enables organizations to continually assess how much capacity is required and where it should be allocated to meet projected demand. These new capabilities leverage CiRBA’s advanced pattern-based workload analysis to allow users to define thresholds and risk tolerances. By continually assessing these criteria, CiRBA automatically generates alerts to provide visibility into and/or early warning of potential problems.

Capacity Status analysis reporting enables organizations to track risk levels through aggregate and single system views. When used in conjunction with the new Capacity Manager Dashboard, CiRBA provides a consolidated view of capacity supply and demand, enabling users to accurately right-size environments and avoid over-provisioning hardware and software.

Enabling Collaboration on Capacity Decisions through Pending Optimization Reporting
Virtual machine management systems are often the domain of system administrators and fall short in providing the insight required by the broad spectrum of stakeholders involved in capacity decision making. In addition, changes to environments typically happen without the involvement of application owners, creating friction and causing key business constraints to be overlooked. CiRBA enables users to review specific action plans that result from what-if analysis thereby facilitating collaboration between groups by automatically communicating proposed and pending changes.  This ensures that all stakeholders are aware of virtualization plans, hardware refresh schedules, and other pending optimizations that affect their application systems.

Facilitating Communication and Reporting through Configurable Dashboards and Integrations to Third-Party Data and Portals
Critical to facilitating collaboration on capacity-related decisions is the ability to deliver relevant content in a convenient location to a variety of users including capacity managers, application owners, and senior managers. CiRBA Version 5.1 includes flexible UI components that enable organizations to incorporate CiRBA reports and intelligence into existing intranet portals or role-specific dashboards.

CiRBA Version 5.1 will be available January 30, 2009.

Release: Arkeia Network Backup 8.0

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Arkeia Software today announces Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 which delivers the first true virtual appliance for backup that gives customers free choice of hardware.

Version 8.0 extends Arkeia’s product family of physical backup appliances and software applications to address the rapidly-growing demand for virtual backup appliances. Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 also simplifies backups of virtualized server environments, protecting both traditional and virtual machine platforms with one consistent process and making backups more reliable.
The Arkeia Virtual Appliance delivers Arkeia Network Backup as a system image for a VMware virtual machine and comes bundled with everything required to implement a robust backup solution, including licenses for a disk-based virtual tape library (VTL) and Arkeia Backup Agents. The Arkeia Virtual Appliance delivers all the functionality of Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 and interoperates with Arkeia Backup Agents and the Arkeia Backup Replication. The Arkeia Virtual Appliance can be deployed in both VMware ESX and ESXi virtual environments.
The new Arkeia VMware ESX Agent is installed on an ESX hypervisor and allows backup of one or several virtual machines on that physical computer, regardless of the operating system or the application running in the virtual machines. The Arkeia VMware ESX Agent leverages the VMware ESX snapshot mechanism.
Other features in v8.0 include an enhanced graphical user interface, expanded reporting capabilities, simplified tape library management, wiki-based documentation, and delivery platform updates.
Arkeia Network Backup v8.0 is currently in beta test, and is expected to become generally available in March, 2009. Pricing for the virtual appliance deployment with three bundled backup agents begins at $2,000.

Release: Attachmate Reflection 2008

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Attachmate Corporation today announced Attachmate Reflection 2008, which includes support for leading virtualization technologies, unique security capabilities and unmatched customization support built on Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and Web Services, to give organizations the flexibility to quickly meet increasingly complex enterprise needs and streamline business processes throughout the enterprise.

Released to customers in November 2008, Reflection 2008 includes unparalleled customization capabilities, support for the most stringent security standards and optimization for application virtualization infrastructures, enabling organizations to easily address complex needs while reliably and securely extending mainframe data to users and devices across the organization. Key features and functionality include:

  • Virtualization Optimization
    With support for the leading application and desktop virtualization platforms, Reflection 2008 can be deployed with confidence via server or client-based virtualization technologies. Through partnership with leading virtualization vendors, such as Microsoft, Citrix, VMWare and HP, Reflection 2008 will continue to embrace the evolution of the desktop.
  • End-point Security Features
    Reflection 2008’s security components support the latest data encryption, authentication and user-level security features, such as privacy filters and trusted locations, to maximize administrative control over sensitive data and protect core business processes from misuse and errors. Additionally, Reflection 2008 is validated for FIPS 140-2 and certified for DoD PKI, the U.S. government’s top security standards.
  • Customization and Automation
    Customization on the desktop has never been easier. With .NET, VBA or Web Services, end users and IT engineers can streamline and automate common business processes. Additionally, the Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon interface provides users with a familiar, intuitive experience while moving from Microsoft Windows XP to Microsoft Windows Vista or Microsoft Windows 7.

Reflection 2008 is available for purchase immediately.

Reflex Systems Enhances Virtualization Management Center (VMC)

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Reflex Systems today announced significant new enhancements to Reflex VMC (Virtualization Management Center) including the addition of performance monitoring and enhanced web-based reporting capabilities.

Reflex’s VMC is designed to provide customers with the essential management capabilities needed to effectively manage the complex, dynamic virtual environment, capitalize on the existing virtualization investment, reduce cost through efficient management, minimize downtime and maintain a reliable virtualized infrastructure running critical business-line applications.

The new performance features round-out Reflex VMC’s already robust management capabilities which include virtual infrastructure discovery and mapping, configuration change monitoring, application and services discovery and monitoring, virtual network security, and reporting.

Reflex VMC provides performance data for the entire virtual infrastructure enabling customers to:

— Monitor performance of virtual infrastructure
— Optimize resource utilization
— Troubleshoot line-of-Business application performance
— Verify DRS/load balancing and performance impact
— Perform forensics and root cause analysis
— Manage the performance impact of configuration changes
— Conduct virtual infrastructure capacity planning

The new enhancements provide Reflex VMC customers with several exclusive features including the ability to manage virtual environments from a single screen view, correlate infrastructure configuration changes, network services and security events for performance impact, access timeline-based performance graphs, and access comparative analysis environment information.

Reflex VMC is available for purchase now through authorized channel partners.