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

Hitachi, VMware Enter Strategic Cloud Partnership To Deliver IT As A Service

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Hitachi and VMware have announced a strategic partnership enabling Hitachi to deliver new cloud services to financial institutions in Asia. The new solution, Private Cloud for Finance Institutes, is based on VMware vSphere and the VMware vFabric cloud application platform and will help Hitachi deliver IT as a Service to customers.

The new Private Cloud for Finance Institutes combines VMware’s virtualization and cloud infrastructure expertise with Hitachi’s experience in providing vertically integrated solutions to deliver cloud services for customers.

As part of the new partnership, Hitachi and VMware will also work together on continued technology collaboration and joint marketing initiatives.

DataCore Software Names Former Citrix Exec As VP Of Worldwide Marketing

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DataCore Software, provider of storage virtualization software, has announced the appointment of Linda Haury as vice president of worldwide marketing.

A 25-year high-tech industry veteran, Haury comes to DataCore from her most recent position as senior director of global marketing business partner, planning and operations at Citrix Systems.

She brings deep expertise in virtualization and storage technologies and will help drive continued growth for DataCore’s next-generation storage virtualization software solution, SANsymphony- V.

Haury will report directly to DataCore Software president and CEO, George Teixeira.

While at Citrix Systems, Haury held a variety of senior-level marketing positions throughout her 14-year tenure. She was most recently senior director of global marketing business partner, planning and operations and served as the primary interface between Citrix’s corporate and field marketing organizations.

Prior to Citrix Systems, Haury spent much of her career in the storage industry serving as one of the founders of SyDos, a division of SyQuest Technology, where she was vice president of marketing. She also served in that same role for Rodime Systems, a global disk-drive storage provider.

Virsto Lands $12 Million To “Transform Virtual Machine Storage”, Buys EvoStor

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Virsto™ Software has raised $12 million in Series B venture capital funding to drive new growth, product development and expand industry partnerships. The funding was led by InterWest Partners, and previous investors August Capital and Canaan Partners also participated in the round.

Khaled Nasr, a partner at InterWest who focuses on enterprise IT and data center infrastructure, will join Virsto’s board of directors.

In addition, Virsto today announced its acquisition of EvoStor, a company specializing in storage virtualization technology for VMware environments, to further deliver on the vision of multi-hypervisor support for reliable, heterogeneous, high-performance and low-cost storage.

Founded in 2007, Virsto has developed a hypervisor-based storage solution built for virtual machines. A close partner of Citrix and Microsoft, the company has a track record of advancing storage virtualization in the enterprise.

Today’s news also includes the acquisition of intellectual property and key team members from EvoStor, deepening Virsto’s bench of talent and technology.

EvoStor was an early innovator in the VMware storage market, delivering easy-to-deploy, reliable, scalable and affordable solutions. The strong partnership between EvoStor and VMware will benefit Virsto as it readies its software solutions for additional hypervisor platforms.

The new Virsto R&D team in Melbourne, Australia is working on near-term products that will be launched in coming months, as well as next-generation technology to be released in 2012.

The $12 million in Series B financing follows a $7 million Series A round in June 2009, with more than $20 million raised to date.

VMware Updates Fusion

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The latest update for VMware Fusion is now available and includes support for some of the latest operating systems: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and, for Linux fans, Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04.

VMware Fusion 3.1.3 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues and includes improved functionality.

It is a free upgrade for all VMware Fusion 3.x users.

To download the free update start VMware Fusion, select the “VMware Fusion” menu and click on “Check for Updates.”

Microsoft Debuts Windows Thin PC (WinTPC) 1.0

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Microsoft recently announced a new update on its Windows Thin PC (WinTPC), which has reached its RTM milestone and will become generally available for download on July 1, 2011 for customers who use Microsoft Software Assurance.

WinTPC is a smaller footprint and locked down version of Windows 7.

Customers can install this Windows version on existing PCs to repurpose them as thin client devices which can be used to access VDI environments. This capability should help drive down the cost of VDI.

Microsoft used additional feedback gathered from customers during their Community Technology Preview (CTP) to add a few more features into the RTM.

If you didn’t enroll in the beta program but can’t wait until it becomes generally available to try it out, you can still register and download the beta software until July 1.

Dell Introduces Storage Solutions “For The Virtual Era”

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At its Dell Storage Forum customer and partner event, Dell recently announced new solutions built on its Fluid Data Architecture to optimize cost, performance and protection as storage scales with a growing organization.

New solutions include its first unified Dell EqualLogic platform, updated Dell EqualLogic software capabilities, a Dell Compellent demonstration of 16Gbps Fibre Channel, and the introduction of Fibre Channel on its PowerVault product line.

The EqualLogic FS7500 adds scalable network-attached storage (NAS) capability to the EqualLogic product line. The EqualLogic FS7500 uses the Dell Scalable File System, a clustered file system based on Dell intellectual property. The EqualLogic FS7500 will be shipping in the third quarter of 2011.

EqualLogic software version 5.1 provides significant enhancements for iSCSI networking via Data Center Bridging (DCB) support. Additional enhancements provide improved performance via automated load-balancing and enhanced integration with VMware environments.

The EqualLogic firmware release 5.1 will be available for download from the EqualLogic support site in the third quarter of 2011. EqualLogic software is included in the cost of the array. Customers with a valid Dell ProSupport agreement can download software updates without paying additional license fees.

The PowerVault MD3600f storage arrays provide 8Gb Fibre Channel connectivity while upholding the common hardware and software features in the PowerVault MD32x0/36 x0 series of arrays. They will be available June 14, 2011.