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

IDC Confirms: Virtualization Still On The Rise

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According to IDC‘s Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker, worldwide virtualization license shipments in the second quarter of 2008 (2Q08) increased 53% year over year, compared to a 72% year-over-year increase the previous quarter. The x86 server market led the way with 60% year-over-year growth followed by the EPIC server market with 18% growth. Worldwide CISC and RISC server virtualization licenses declined 15% and 7% year over year, respectively.

Worldwide new server shipments virtualized increased 52% year over year in the second quarter, compared to 70% growth in 1Q08.

Worldwide virtualization software revenue grew 15% year over year in 2Q08, compared to 32% growth in the first quarter of 2008. The growth in virtualization software revenue primarily came from the x86 server market, which grew 39% year over year. EPIC virtualization software revenue also increased year over year, albeit at a slower pace of 9%.
Hewlett-Packard held onto its number 1 spot for worldwide new server shipments virtualized with 34% market share and 52% year-over-year growth. This growth was driven by a solid performance in sales of Intel-based processors. Dell solidified its position as the number 2 vendor with its market share growing from 25% in 1Q08 to 29% in the second quarter, powered by 110% year-over-year growth. Dell’s strong performance was driven by solid growth of Intel-based processors and a very strong performance from AMD-based sales. IBM remained in the third position with 16% market share. IBM achieved 32% year-over-year growth driven by a solid performance from its Power Systems servers. This was the first quarter in the last year in which IBM saw positive growth in its new RISC-based server shipments virtualized.
VMware grew its x86 server virtualization software business 27% year over year and maintained the number 1 position in the market with 78% revenue share in 2Q08. When looking at new x86 virtualization licenses, VMware continues to hold on to its strong position in the x86 market with a combined market share of VMware ESX and VMware Server at 44%. However, in its first quarter of general availability Microsoft Hyper-V delivered a strong showing, and when combined with Virtual Server 2005, Microsoft’s market share is 23% of new shipments.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global server market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly virtualization license shipments, new server shipments virtualized, virtualized server revenue and virtualization software revenue, segmented by region, cpu type, vendor, form factor, sockets, virtualization platform, and primary guest operating system.

KPIT Cummins and VaST Partner to Deliver Virtualization Tools and Services to Automotive Industry

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VaST, specialized in electronics virtualization, and KPIT Cummins Infosystems, product engineering partner to the Automotive industry, today announced a partnership to deliver electronic virtualization tools and specialized services to global automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers and ODMs. The combination of tools, software IP, and services accelerates cost reductions and quality improvement.

Increasingly automobiles are differentiated through software content and electronics, which requires improved methods for designing software rich systems. The partnership between VaST and KPIT Cummins focuses on methodology adoption services that speed the deployment of advanced virtual prototyping tools and methodologies such as networked ECU Virtual-Hardware-In-the-Loop simulations. Electronic virtualization is highly effective in reducing engineering costs while simultaneously enabling improved end-system software quality.
KPIT Cummins and VaST have individually proven their ability to deliver leading-edge solutions for software rich automotive systems. By collaborating they offer a total solution composed of VaST’s de facto standard automotive virtualization tools supported by all major semiconductor suppliers, and KPIT’s automotive software services, in-vehicle network software, software platforms and System engineering services proven with over 50+ automotive OEMs, Tier 1s and semiconductor suppliers globally.

VIRTERA Says It Gave Open Solutions A 165% ROI On Virtualization

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VIRTERA, a services and consulting firm that specializes in maximizing virtualization Return on Investment (ROI), announced today that Open Solutions, a provider of integrated technologies for financial services providers, has realized a nine-month, 165 percent return on investment from virtualizing their global data center.

Open Solutions turned to VIRTERA, which specializes in ensuring enterprise organizations’ successful and rapid adoption of multi-vendor virtualization technologies, while optimizing the return on their IT investment. Ryan Marsee, Director of Corporate Networking for Open Solutions and his team leveraged VIRTERA’s unique professional services and consulting methodology, vSpectrum, to streamline the company’s virtualization deployment and to ensure their many vendor technologies worked seamlessly together.

As a result of VIRTERA’s experience and expertise, Open Solutions’ server compression was dramatically reduced to a 14:1 ratio (140 servers supported by 10 hosts) with server utilization plummeting by more than 50 percent from its prior 98 percent capacity.

In addition, VIRTERA also virtualized a portion of Open Solutions’ desktops. Currently, Open Solutions’ bandwidth-intensive, offshore development efforts require up to 12 hours for moving data from the company’s Cherry Hill, NJ and Glastonbury, CT data centers. With VIRTERA’s help, offshore developers can now tap into both U.S. locations and access on-demand data.

VMware and Patent #6397242 Go Back About 10 Years

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Nice catch by Andrew Dugdell: it’s about 10 years ago that Scott Devine, Edouard Bugnion and Mendel Rosenblum filed patent #6397242, “Virtualization system including a virtual machine monitor for a Computer with segmented Architecture”.

Filing date: Oct 26, 1998
Issue date: May 28, 2002
Inventors: Scott W. Devine, Edouard Bugnion, Mendel Rosenblum
Assignees: VMWare, Inc.
Primary Examiner: Majid Banankhah
Attorney: Jeffrey Slusher
Application number: 9/179,137

Abstract
In a computer that has hardware processor, and a memory, the invention provides a virtual machine monitor (VMM) and a virtual machine (VM) that has at least one virtual processor and is operatively connected to the VMM for running a sequence of VM instructions, which are either directly executable or non-directly executable. The VMM includes both a binary translation sub-system and a direct execution sub-system, as well as a sub-system that determines if VM instructions must be executed using binary translation, or if they can be executed using direct execution. Shadow descriptor tables in the VMM, corresponding to VM descriptor tables, segment tracking and memory tracing are used as factors in the decision of which execution mode to activate. The invention is particularly well-adapted for virtualizing computers in which the hardware processor has an Intel x86 architecture.

rPath Introduces Cloud Computing Adoption Model

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rPath today announced its Cloud Computing Adoption Model, which defines a pragmatic, five-step approach for the graduated adoption of cloud computing. The Cloud Computing Adoption Model will be rolled out on October 23, as part of an rPath webinar featuring guests Amazon Web Services, Forrester Research and MomentumSI.

Cloud computing holds real promise for enterprises and SMBs, as well as the ISVs and individual developers serving them. Among other benefits, cloud computing can help organizations:

  • reduce capital and operating expenses by increasing infrastructure utilization and reducing server sprawl;
  • reduce the cost of software consumption by allowing business lines to consume application functionality on demand and to align cost with value received; and
  • dramatically improve business agility and responsiveness by compressing deployment cycles and time-to-value for application functionality.

To help organizations realize the promise and avoid the perils of cloud computing, the Cloud Computing Adoption Model provides a pragmatic, actionable, step-by-step framework for achieving measurable benefits now, while laying the foundation for the strategic benefits of a cloud infrastructure over time.

For each level, The Cloud Computing Adoption Model outlines strategic goals, investment requirements, expected returns, risk factors, and readiness criteria for advancement.

Intel Picks Up NetEffect for $8 Million

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Intel Corporation today announced its acquisition of the assets of NetEffect, a network connectivity solutions company specializing in Ethernet products and technologies for server compute clusters.

Intel purchased NetEffect’s assets for $8 million, which include the company’s Ethernet product portfolio, intellectual property and technology. NetEffect was a provider of solutions incorporating iWARP, an Ethernet alternative to InfiniBand. NetEffect’s product portfolio includes 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) adapters for servers and blade configurations as well as 10 GbE Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).

Designed for multi-core processor-based servers and optimized for virtualization, Intel’s current portfolio of 10GbE server adapters includes single and dual port versions for both copper and fiber implementations. The NetEffect acquisition provides complementary High Performance Network Interface Card (NIC) products to Intel’s Ethernet portfolio.

NetEffect was founded in 1998 as Banderacom, a company focused on InfiniBand adapters and 16-port IB switch, and was recapitalized in 2004 as NetEffect. Thirty employees, primarily engineers, have joined the Intel team from NetEffect and will continue to be based in Austin, Texas.

Intel