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

Release: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta is the beta release of the stand-alone hypervisor based product Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, first released in September 2008.

The new Beta contains the same virtualization feature-set as Hyper-V that is part of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta.  Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 can be downloaded here and now includes:

  • Processor and memory support: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta now supports up to 8-socket physical systems and provides support for up to 32-cores.  In addition, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta supports up to 1TB of RAM on a physical system.

  • Updated Hyper-V Configuration Utility: The Hyper-V Configuration utility is designed to simplify the most common initial configuration tasks.  It helps you configure the initial configuration settings without having to type long command-line strings.  New configuration options have been added for R2 Beta including:

    • Remote Management Configuration

    • Failover Clustering Configuration

    • Additional options for Updates

  • Failover Clustering: The initial release of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 did not include support for failover clustering.  However, with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Beta, host clustering technology is included to enable support for unplanned downtime.
  • Live migration: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes support for live migration. Live migration enables customers to move running applications between servers without service interruptions.

With live migration and failover clustering, customers receive high availability and dynamic migration capabilities for both planned and unplanned downtime.

Quest Buys MonoSphere

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Quest Software has acquired the technology assets of MonoSphere, a privately owned company headquartered in Redwood City, CA. MonoSphere is the creator of Storage Horizon storage capacity management software.

Quest has also hired a substantial number of the former MonoSphere employees.

  • Quest will continue to maintain, enhance, and support the Storage Horizon solution, enabling customers to dramatically increase utilization of storage infrastructure, resulting in significant reductions in storage capital spending.
  • Quest will also integrate Storage Horizon with a number of its existing products, expanding Quest’s leadership in providing complete solutions that help organizations get more performance and productivity from their applications, databases, Windows infrastructure and virtual environments.

Stealth Memory Virtualization Startup RNA Networks Slated For Launch

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NetworkWorld brings us the news of stealth startup RNA Networks, which says it will “offer technology that aggregates memory and shares it across servers, improving performance of online transaction processing and clustered or grid computing.”

From their websites:

RNA networks brings memory virtualization into the enterprise data center.

RNA delivers the consolidation and dramatic cost savings of virtualization for business critical applications. In addition, RNA’s Memory Virtualization Platform (MVP) delivers breakthrough performance at scale, reliably and efficiently.

Memory Virtualization profoundly changes everything about business aligned IT, from economics to use cases.  RNA transforms the data center into a high performance asset where virtualization is fully adopted.  With RNA, your business performance is accelerated.

RNA is reportedly slated for launch in the beginning of February 2008.

Industry Moves: Glenda Dorchak Is VirtualLogix’ New CEO

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VirtualLogix has announced the appointment of Glenda M. Dorchak as chief executive officer.

Ms. Dorchak comes to VirtualLogix from Intrinsyc Software International, a mobility software company, where she served as CEO and chairman. Prior to Intrinsyc, Ms. Dorchak worked with Intel Corporation from 2001 to 2006, holding positions including vice president and COO of the Intel Communications Group; vice president and general manager of Intel’s Consumer Electronics Group; and vice president and general manager of the Broadband Products Group.

Ms. Dorchak began her career with IBM Canada in Vancouver, BC in 1974; she worked at IBM in both Canada and the United States for more than 20 years, holding positions such as director of marketing for the Personal Systems Group in North America and director of PC Direct. She also worked as a director for two start-up ventures. Ambra U.S., an IBM company based in Raleigh, N.C., and Value America, where she became president as well as chairman and CEO.

CohesiveFT Adds KVM Format To Its Automated Elastic Server Platform

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CohesiveFT today announced support to automate the deployment of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) servers via the Elastic Server web-based factory. Elastic Server is an automated “factory” that allows IT professionals to assemble, deploy, and manage virtual servers using a simple point-and-click interface. Beginning today, customers can assemble custom servers for deployment to the Kernel Virtual Machine format.

KVM is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure licensed under the GNU GPL.  It provides a mechanism for splitting a single physical computer into multiple virtual machines.  KVM’s approach differs from other virtualization formats in that it requires no patching of the kernel and takes advantage of performance improvements available on hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

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. Completed server stacks can be distributed through the Elastic Server platform. There are more than two thousand community users contributing nearly five thousand Elastic Servers to the market. The addition of KVM follows CohesiveFT’s recent addition of Virtual Iron, support for Amazon EC2 in Europe, the Ubuntu operating system, and the industry’s first commercial cloud security solution, VPN-Cubed.

Prison Inmate Sues Intel, Steve Jobs For $5 Billion, Claims Theft Of Virtualization Technology IP

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Some guy called Matthew Robert Young has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Oregon against Intel Corporation and Steve Jobs personally. His filing (court papers – PDF) demands a jury trial and requests an “extrodinary hearing”. How extrodinary? Very extrodinary.

Young is currently a “State prisoner confined in the Oregon Department of Corrections, Snake River Correctional Institution.” He has brought this civil action suit to court claiming he told Jobs about virtualization technology, and when Jobs passed on the technology he told Intel about it.

In 2003, Young wanted Jobs to help him develop and market his intellectual property and patentable invention, or to buy it from him for $250 million. Young claims Jobs never responded to his requests, but instead forwarded the intellectual property to Intel. This, in turn, allowed Intel to make virtualization technology work with Core 2 Duo.

More about the extrodinary story here, here and here.