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

Release: CentOS 5.2, Free Red Hat Enterprise Linux Clone

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The CentOS development team has released CentOS 5.2, which is based on and promises full compatibility for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2. Available for i386 and x86-64 architectures, the release offers new drivers and bug fixes, as well as improvements to the Xen virtualization kernel, according to the team.

The fresh clone comes with updated software support for Apache, Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Also, you won’t be paying the $350-$2,500 per year subscription fee for RHEL 5.2!

Documentation can be found here, release notes here, download mirrors here.

[Source: The Register]

Virtual Iron Wants To Educate You In A Virtual Classroom

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Virtual Iron Software today announced the immediate availability of a new, dedicated eLearning portal called the “Virtual Classroom“, which intends to expand upon Virtual Iron’s existing online training offerings to help technical personnel quickly learn about their solutions.

The training is available to any Virtual Iron user on an annual subscription basis.

“We pride ourselves on our ease of use; however, server virtualization lives in a complex ecosystem touching servers, networks, storage, and more,” said Tony Asaro, Chief Strategy Officer at Virtual Iron. “That is why we’ve put such an emphasis on our online training and education. It is core to our strategy and Virtual Iron will continue to create courses and content to provide our customers with easier implementation, operation and optimization.”

With the new Virtual Classroom, Virtual Iron users get all the information they need to be self-sufficient on the Virtual Iron software platform—in just five hours. The company takes a stab at VMware by measuring these five hours to the five days of onsite classroom training “that is typical for comparable solutions such as VMware”.

Check out the modules in the rest of the news release, or download this PDF which contains more information.

Virtual Iron has also made available a series of free eLearning videos covering the basic steps for preparing, installing and configuring a Virtual Iron environment. These vignettes are freely available for general consumption right here.

[Source: BusinessWire]

Microsoft Shipping Hyper-V Tomorrow? (Update: Yes)

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Does Microsoft intend to start shipping Hyper-V tomorrow?

Update: no official news out of Redmond just yet, but both ZDNet and NetworkWorld have confirmed.

Update 2: finally confirmation by Microsoft

The Redmond software giant’s proprietary hypervisor is currently in Release Candidate mode, but the final, nonbeta version could be shipping tomorrow, according to SearchWinIT. That would be well before the company’s projected release date (which would be in about 2 months).

The software is part of the Windows Server 2008 license, although here is a standalone version of Hyper-V expected later this year that will sell for (only) $28. The Microsoft hypervisor is highly anticipated, and lots of analysts are expecting Hyper-V to (finally) give VMware a run for its money. Of course, let’s not forget Hyper-V was initially scheduled to be part of Windows Server 2008, but was ultimately delayed and rescheduled for availability about six months after its introduction.

PCWorld points out that the upcoming release for tomorrow has not been confirmed by Microsoft officials, so we’re a little hesitant to run with the story just yet. We’ll update the post when more information is available.

Update: no official news out of Redmond just yet, but both ZDNet and NetworkWorld have confirmed.

Update 2: finally confirmation by Microsoft

Update 3: It’s all over the wire! Get more perspective on the milestone release and how it will compete with VMware, Xen and others from The Register, Virtually Speaking, OStatic, Virtualization.info, InformationWeek, Computing, Network World, VMBlog, GigaOM, Virtualization Review, DaniWeb, ChannelWeb, Reuters, Forbes, Washington Post, Virtual Strategy Magazine, Microsoft Watch, Virtual PC Guy, Scott Lowe, Intel Software Network, Dugie’s Pensieve, NetApp Blogs, The Hypervisor, PC World Forums, Dustin’s Tech Notes, Vinternals, The System Administrator, ArsTechnica, Silicon, ITwire, VolkerW’s Weblog, ChrisWolf, InternetNews, etc.

Wyse Announces Support for Windows Embedded Standard OS 2009

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Wyse Technology today announced its support for the recently unveiled Windows Embedded Standard 2009 across all Wyse product lines.

Wyse

Windows Embedded Standard 2009 is the next generation of Windows XP Embedded that delivers most of the Windows OS in componentized form. A technology preview is available from Microsoft, with general availability of Windows Embedded Standard scheduled for Q4 of this year.

Wyse’s entire line of clients will support the Windows Embedded Standard upon general availability, providing organizations with the ideal means to capitalize on the benefits of thin computing atop a Microsoft platform. The platforms which will support the Windows Embedded Standard 2009 include the compact S90, the V90L/LE, the flexible G90 and the newly-released mobile thin clients the X90(e) and X90L(e). These products will allow the flexibility for customers to choose the ideal form factor that meets their end user needs while taking advantage of this next generation Windows Embedded Standard operating system.

Wyse’s support of Windows Embedded Standard 2009 should help IT administrators rapidly deploy devices that provide rich applications and end-user experiences and services, while easily connecting to common industry standards and Microsoft technologies.

“With the benefits of reduced IT administration, combined with energy reduction, lower carbon emissions, and longer life-span, thin clients continue to provide attractive alternatives in flexible computing in the enterprise,” said Jeff McNaught, Chief Marketing Office at Wyse. “We are excited that Windows Embedded Standard 2009 provides the leading platform for a new generation of thin clients for our customers.”

VirtualLogix Now Supports Windows Vista

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VirtualLogix yesterday announced support for Microsoft Windows Vista to operate side-by-side with real-time operating systems (RTOS) for performance critical systems.

VirtualLogix

“VirtualLogix VLX now offers support of Windows Vista, offering high-performance, simple designs and an immediate return on investment to a wide set of real-time systems, in applications such as automotive, industrial and medical equipment,” said Peter Richards, CEO, VirtualLogix. “Key customers have asked that we provide Vista on our VLX roadmap and we have delivered. This enables VLX to support a wider spectrum of systems using Microsoft’s operating systems as a core solution component.”

Windows Vista is now supported on Intel processors for VLX Embedded and VLX for Network Infrastructure —all of which maintain the time-sensitive control and signal processing functions that communications devices demand.

CohesiveFT And FlexiScale Partner Up For On-demand Cloud Computing

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CohesiveFT, providers of the Elastic Server Platform, an on-demand service for dynamic assembly and deployment of virtual machines, and FlexiScale, a provider of on-demand Cloud computing, today announced a technology partnership to enable deployment of CohesiveFT’s Elastic Servers to FlexiScale’s Cloud.

FlexiScale

CohesiveFT

The integration of technologies from CohesiveFT and FlexiScale aim to enable true on-demand application stack assembly and deployment on a pay-as-you-go Cloud. This partnership will also allow ISVs, application developers and QA teams to dramatically increase their productivity throughout the development lifecycle. These teams will not be dependent on resource constrained operations departments to provision development and testing  environments and will be able to change their application stack definitions with the click of a mouse.

Initially, Elastic Server-branded virtual machines will be available from FlexiScale’s Control Panel as templates built in a Xen virtual format for deployment into Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS) in FlexiScale’s Cloud. The Elastic Server templates will feature application stacks as prebuilt virtual machine images of popular components . Users will have access to these custom images on demand, eliminating the typical administrative overhead of assembling virtual machine images “by hand”.

FlexiScale’s and CohesiveFT’s collaboration intends to enable full dynamic connectivity between the Elastic Server platform and FlexiScale’s Cloud in the near future.