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

DataCore And Promark Set Up A Distribution Partnership

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DataCore Software and Promark Technology today announced a new distribution relationship under which Promark Technology will distribute DataCore’s storage virtualization solutions in the United States.

DataCore storage virtualization software removes physical, geographic and device-specific restrictions of data storage equipment that frequently slow down, interrupt or endanger computer operations – making it practical for organizations large and small to get the fullest utilization, highest availability and fastest performance from their disk storage assets by consolidating and automating essential data protection measures and storage management practices.

Ideally suited for VMware and other virtual server customers, DataCore is unique in providing true high-availability, auto-failover/failback business continuity and DR solutions that are perfect for SMB customers, but perform to meet the needs of enterprise customers – at prices starting under $10,000.

DataCore Software is manufacturer-independent software that runs on any industry standard server or virtual server. It is certified on all the major virtual server platforms, including VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, and supports both iSCSI and Fibre Channel connections. As a result, DataCore provides a persistent solution that survives hardware obsolescence and under DataCore’s unique “Carry-forward” Value Protection Program is fully upgradeable without penalty.

Ulteo Delivers Open Source Virtual Desktop Solution

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Ulteo announced today that they were releasing the first installable version of their Open Virtual Desktop solution for enterprises. Delivering faster deployment times and ease of management for the IT department, this first release can be integrated easily into an existing professional Linux or Windows IT environment. The solution can be up and running in a few minutes, delivering rich desktop applications to corporate users.

Ulteo enters the corporate market as a pure Open Source player, and leverages the experience it acquired during the past two years with virtualization products & services that were previously offered on their own servers.

The Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop is a great solution for corporations who want to reduce the Total Costs of Ownership of the end user desktop, a cost that cripples IT budgets. Moreover, the Ulteo open source business model remove the typical upfront licence fee and replace it with a much more affordable subscription support plan instead.

Ulteo’s solution has been designed with a radical approach: in particular, no installation is needed on the Desktop client, and nothing has to be replaced or modified in the existing infrastructure.
Advanced features include a full administration console, desktop sharing, application server replication and many others. The product has already served more than 140,000 desktop sessions over the last few months.
We’ll have a closer look at the Ulteo platform soon!

Release: Fedora 10, Including Virtualization Improvements

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The Fedora Project, a Red Hat sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration project, today announced the availability of Fedora 10, the latest version of its free open source operating system distribution. Fedora 10 features numerous technologies and continues to lay the groundwork for derivative open source distributions throughout the enterprise.

Since its inception, Fedora has adopted a leadership role in the development of open source software and continuously demonstrates its potential across the enterprise. This community of users and developers have blazed the trail in key feature development and actively forms the roadmap for open source technologies found in many platforms, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Fedora 10, the tenth release in five years, features substantial virtualization improvements for remote installation and management of storage provisioning. These features will make system administration of virtual machine hosts and guests easier and more capable of automation, especially as they are integrated into Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Additionally, Fedora 10 includes NetworkManager connection sharing, allowing laptop users with an Ethernet or mobile broadband connection to provide Internet routing to others through the laptop wireless interface, for instant collaboration anywhere, anytime.

Devon IT Installs Thin Client / Virtualization Test Center In China

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Devon IT announced it will launch a thin client and virtualization test center at its China headquarters in Beijing. Customers can test the latest Devon IT thin clients working with virtualization software, mirroring the company’s Server-Desktop Solution Center at its U.S. headquarters.

For the first time, IT personnel in China will be able to test Devon IT’s latest thin client technologies against traditional PC environments. The test center will feature Devon IT’s newly launched green TC2 thin client series and the SafeBook LVO, which is built on the Lenovo ThinkPad and compatible with all Lenovo docking stations and accessories. Virtualization software from VMware and server solutions from IBM will round out the testing facility. In addition, the HC10 workstation blade will be available for demos in their facility. The HC10 is a remote workstation blade that delivers breakthrough graphics performance and a full PC experience. It connects to the TC10/CP20 using the PC-over-IP protocol, a technology that changes the desktop computing model by enabling desktop consolidation benefits to be realized across the enterprise.

Microsoft System Center Service Manager Beta 1 Made Available

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From the Microsoft System Center team blog comes the news that Microsoft System Center Service Manager Beta 1 is now available.

I’m pleased to announce that the new beta of System Center Service Manger is now available. This beta includes the updated infrastructure components that will both deliver the performance we are targeting for the release and support our objective of delivering an IT service desk that is tightly integrated with the rest of the System Center product family.

How to Get the Bits: You can access the beta on Microsoft Connect, where you will first need to fill out a nomination survey. Once you’ve completed the survey, you will see the Service Manager beta connections page, which provides links and instructions for downloading.

As a reminder the objectives of Service Manager are to deliver an IT service desk that provides:

  • Built in service management best practices
  • Simple customization and extensibility
  • Common platform and workflows across System Center

You can download a whitepaper outlining the vision for Service Manager here.

Key capabilities available for testing in this beta release include:

  • Administrative tasks such creating users and groups
  • Change management activities such as creating and monitoring the progress of requests
  • Creating and viewing configuration items (CIs)
  • Editing incident notification templates or workflows
  • Create incidents and editing the incident (and problem) workflow
  • Integration with System Center Configuration Manager

We’re excited to make this beta available publically and will be delivering a second beta in the middle of 2009. Until then I hope you enjoy this important step on the journey to expand the System Center family to include a strong Service Desk capability

Visit the Connect site to download and start trying out Service Manager today.