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

Clavister Releases Secure OS CorePlus 9.10, Adds Virtualization Support

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IP-based security and unified threat management (UTM) specialist Clavister has recently launched the latest version of its network security operating system. Clavister CorePlus 9.10 delivers support for virtualization and improved traffic optimization to its UTM security portfolio.

Companies now have the option to buy Clavister Security Gateways supporting virtualization using VMware ESXi 3 as a virtual appliance or as conventional hardware or software appliances to suit their networks requirements.

The continued growth of enterprise applications such as VoIP, and the addition of them to the network, means that companies are experiencing increased levels of traffic on the network. This introduces new security challenges and can lead to uncontrolled bandwidth consumption. Clavister’s new operating system brings with it a number of features for traffic optimization including gigabit traffic shaping, IDP traffic shaping, route load balancing and SLB server monitoring.

In addition to traffic management and optimization and support for virtualization CorePlus 9.10 also features:

  • VoIP/SIP enhancements – A number of new features gives much more flexibility in terms of network setups, such as SIP proxy placement, SIP extensions and security enhancements.
  • SSL/TLS termination – Supports TLS/SSL termination and the transformation of HTTPS traffic to HTTP traffic, providing the possibility to perform deep content inspection of the traffic. It also offers a single source for managing all certificates for all servers.
  • LDAP authentication – Provides support for direct connectivity between Clavister Security Gateways and LDAP directory services such as Microsoft Active Directory.

CorePlus 9.10 is available through the Clavister Partner Network and via their website. Existing customers with an active Clavister Software Maintenance Agreement will be able to upgrade for free.

CorePlus 9.10 is an important upgrade to the core operating system that lies at the heart of Clavister’s product portfolio that can be configured and fine tuned to produce exactly the right level of protection.

Cisco Teams Up With QLogic to Offer End-to-End Virtualization Technology

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QLogic today announced it has set up a partnership with Cisco to offer end-to-end virtualization technology, using Qlogic adapters that allow end-users to realize the benefits of quality of service capabilities in standards-based virtual fabric environments. Virtual fabrics provide storage administrators with an industry-standard method for improving storage area network or SAN security, scalability and performance by segmenting physical SANs into multiple virtual SANs.

Qlogic said its quality of service capability enables IT administrators to tie virtual machines to virtualized fabric environments such as Cisco VSANs using NPIV technology, which has been enabled in QLogic adapters since 2006.

Cisco Systems

VMware Creates GoVirtual.org, Community Site for Virtualization Academics and Researchers

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VMware has created a new community site specifically for virtualization researchers and academics, dubbed GoVirtual.org. The website contains technical papers, courseware, software, and other tools needed to facilitate global knowledge-sharing around the topic of virtualization.

According to VMware, the new community site is intended to provide research and instruction on virtualization-related topics by enabling the sharing of ideas, results, materials, and tools among its members. The site is described as a comprehensive resource and knowledge base where members of academia can go to find the latest research and interact with leading researchers.

The community supports blogs and discussion forums for members to communicate with each other. It also provides a list of academic- and research-oriented virtualization conferences. To help educators and students with their virtualization research projects, the site includes a download section with source code and software tools. And it also includes a collection of several technical papers as well as freely available courseware. The 25 free courses currently being made available include concepts such as the basics of virtualization, interpretation and binary translation, I/O architectures of virtualization, and binary optimization.

Universities such as Carnegie Mellon University, Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL), Georgia Tech, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and University of California at Berkeley are said to be already benefiting from the VMware Academic Program.

VMware

Compellent Technologies Introduces Live Volume for Business Continuity Automation

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Compellent Technologies today announced it will provide continuous, coordinated access to all data stored on Compellent SANs between remote locations with a new automated business continuity feature, Live Volume.

Live Volume will allow enterprises to manage their disparate storage sites around the world as one virtual data center. As customers move applications from one physical or virtual server to another for maintenance, local site issues or disaster recovery, Live Volume will enable IT managers to proactively and automatically migrate the associated storage volumes. By not requiring investments in third-party tools or mirroring of storage resources, Compellent‘s live transfer of data will make it easier and cost-effective to manage all resources regardless of the physical location.

Based on Compellent‘s Dynamic Block Architecture, Live Volume is designed to eliminate downtime for enterprises that need to migrate servers and storage for disaster recovery or onsite maintenance. Each data volume will be present and automatically available on Compellent SANs at either site at all times.

Compellent‘s Live Volume integrates with the industry‘s leading virtual server platforms, enabling servers to share centralized storage resources regardless of the actual location or OS virtualization platform. The new virtual storage technology will complement server virtualization to help further reduce costs and simplify data management.

Compellent Storage Center with SSD is currently being evaluated by select beta customers. Compellent plans to offer SSD to all markets in Q1 and Live Volume in Q2 of 2009 exclusively through the company‘s growing international network of channel partners. Additional product information and pricing details will be announced at launch.

Alternative Technology Launches Suite of Virtualization Protections Solutions with Double-Take Software

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Alternative Technology, an Arrow Electronics company is launching a suite of virtualization protections solutions with Double-Take Software, an infrastructure software company.

Alternative Technology will leverage its virtualization presence in the North American channel and its education and technical resources to offer a host of Double-Take Software solutions, including Double-Take Virtual Recovery Assistant, Double-Take for VMware Infrastructure and Double-Take Livewire.

Industry Moves: Promotions at Quest Software

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After announcing that its board of directors has authorized a modified “Dutch auction” tender offer to repurchase between $135 million and $400 million of its common stock, Quest Software has announced some promotions as well.

The company has appointed Doug Garn as the company’s chief executive officer. Garn, who was also appointed to the company’s board of directors, will continue in his role as president. As CEO and president, Garn will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of Quest. He joined Quest in 1998 and has served as the company’s president since February 2005. Prior to that, he served as Quest’s vice president of worldwide sales.

The company has also announced that Vinny Smith has been appointed to the newly created full-time position of executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. In this role, Smith will be responsible for leading the strategic direction of Quest. As executive chairman, Smith will play an active role in managing Quest’s product direction and will continue to be responsible for Quest’s corporate development strategy. Smith joined Quest as a director in 1995 and was appointed chief executive officer in 1997. In 1998, he was appointed chairman of Quest’s board of directors.