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

VMware Releases Virtual Desktop Manager 2.1, ThinApp 1.0 And Server 2.0 Coming Up Next

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VMware has released a minor update for its connection broker Virtual Desktop Manager, technology it aquired by snapping up Propero about a year ago. VDM – download a trial here – has now reached version 2.1 (build 596) and includes the following addition features:

  • Multiple sessions per user within a pool
  • Pools spanning datastores in order to better manage resources
  • VDM Configuration Backup (command-line only)
  • Integrate MMR multimedia extensions DLL with VDM Client (Windows XP)
  • Allow blocking of incoming RDP connections that are not from VDM Clients
  • Allow end users to change password
  • Allow end users to restart their VM

Also, the company expects to ship ThinApp 1.0 (former Thinstall, of which the beta 2 was announced recently) as well as Server 2.0 (currently also in beta 2) during the course of this Summer.

Breaking: VMware To Acquire B-hive Networks

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VMware today announced (PDF) it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire B-hive Networks, a privately-held application performance management software company with headquarters in San Mateo, California and principal R&D facilities in Herzliya, Israel.

B-hive

With this acquisition, VMware intends to leverage the B-hive team and technology to offer proactive performance management and service level reporting for applications running within VMware virtual machines – on both servers and desktops.

In addition, B-hive’s R&D facility and team will form the core of VMware’s new development center in Israel.
The terms of the acquisition, which is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2008, subject to customary closing conditions, were not disclosed.

“As customers increasingly standardize on the VMware platform to run their business-critical applications, it is critical for virtual infrastructure administrators to ensure the performance of applications from an end-user’s perspective,” said Stephen Herrod, Ph.D., chief technology officer, VMware. “B-hive’s agentless, virtual appliance-based approach goes beyond traditional monitoring approaches to proactively manage application performance to specified levels. These capabilities, combined with VMware’s proven virtualization platform, can allow our customers to consistently deliver on their application service level objectives. For example, if B-hive identifies degradation in application response time, it can remediate the problem by automatically instructing VMware Infrastructure to adjust the resources allocated to the application or provision an additional virtual machine with an additional instance of the application. In conjunction with VMware’s automated IT service delivery and business continuity capabilities, B-Hive’s service level management capabilities further deliver on the vision of an automated, always-on, virtual datacenter.”

Founded in 2005, B-hive has a solution that gives infrastructure groups visibility into application performance in virtual environments such as end-user transaction response time, virtual machine utilization and cross-virtual machine dependencies. According to the press release, the B-hive solution is designed to measure performance across multi-tier or service-oriented architecture applications that are distributed across clusters of ESX hypervisors and virtual machines.

Its flagship product, B-hive Conductor, monitors end-user performance and issues service level reports, but can also proactively resolve application performance problems by automatically triggering actions such as dynamically allocating more resources, migrating the application to a different server, provisioning additional VMs, changing transaction routing, or system re-boots. B-hive Conductor is agent-less, packaged as a virtual appliance and provides open, standards-based interfaces.

[Source: Globes]

Unisys Introduces New Quad-Core AMD Server, Integrates Virtualization Services

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Unisys is releasing a number of virtualization services and its first server based on AMD quad-core processors, the company announced Wednesday according to Network World.

Unisys

Unisys, historically an Intel-only shop, decided the time was right for an AMD-based server after getting wind of the Rapid Virtualization Indexing technology in quad-core Opteron processors. These chip enhancements allow virtual machines to more directly manage memory, thus improving performance of virtualized applications. The result for Unisys is the new ES7000 Model 7405R, an eight-socket, quad-core server that can support up to 128 virtual machines.

Pricing for the AMD-based server starts at $21,000 and can go up to $50,000 or so depending on the configuration.

Unisys coupled its AMD-based server announcement with new professional services for virtualized servers, storage and Windows desktops. Here’s a quick look at each service:

  • 3D Blueprinting for Virtualization. Utilizing business and systems modeling software, Unisys says this service defines objectives for virtualization, maps business goals to IT objectives and establishes an implementation strategy.
  • Virtualization Operational Readiness Assessment. This is designed to give customers a full understanding of virtualization’s impact on the data center before deployment. “Using a workshop approach, clients can determine how they must change business and IT processes for virtualization, identify gaps, prioritize areas for change and assess technology and people and process issues that can impact implementation,” Unisys states in a press release.
  • Consolidated Desktop Solution. Using Microsoft technologies and a Unisys session broker, this service helps Windows shops host desktops on centralized servers and storage systems and give users access with thin clients.
  • Consolidated Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. With this service, Unisys makes it easier to consolidate hardware devoted to Exchange. Customers often have hundreds of servers for the various Exchange applications, and need a system that can save energy and make sure all servers receive the right patches, says Mark Feverston, general manager of Microsoft solutions for Unisys.
  • Unisys Storage Virtualization. This service helps customers integrate storage into one virtualized pool that can be managed with a single interface.

Read the rest of the article here.

eG Innovations Releases eG Enterprise Suite 4.1, Delivers Advanced Monitoring of VMware ESX 3i and Solaris Containers

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eG Innovations announced the immediate availability of version 4.1 of its eG Enterprise Suite with support for monitoring of VMware ESX 3i and Solaris Containers. Later in the year, eG Enterprise plans to include monitoring of servers and desktops running the Citrix XenServer virtualization platform, and is also planning to support virtual environments from Microsoft, IBM, and others.

eG Innovations

eG Innovations first announced its eG Monitor for VMware InfrastructuresT (eG VM MonitorTTM technology, the eG VM Monitor provides a comprehensive view of ) at VMworld 2007 in September 2007. eG VM Monitor is a monitoring solution that provides real-time “inside” and “outside” performance views of a virtual infrastructure.

With version 4.1, eG Enterprise supports both agent-based and agentless monitoring for VMware ESX 3, 3.5 and 3i servers. Complete inside and outside views of the VMs are available with either approach. The guest VMs being monitored can even be in different Microsoft Windows domains, and can be monitored without requiring agents on the guest VMs. Agentless monitoring is performed either from a Windows or a Linux system, and a single system can monitor several ESX servers running versions 3, 3.5, or 3i.

For Sun virtualized environments, an eG agent on a Solaris server can be configured to monitor all the zones on the server. Using the metrics collected, administrators can easily compare resource usage levels across zones on a server.

The eG Enterprise v4.1 is available immediately. Pricing is per ESX server monitored, regardless of the hardware capabilities (CPU, memory) of the ESX server, or the number of virtual machines or the virtual desktops it supports. Pricing for a 25 node VMware-based environment starts at $50,000.

Russ Naples Leaves Citrix To Head Product Development At Vizioncore

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After spending 13 years in increasingly important product development roles at Citrix, beginning as a director in testing and rising to VP of product development for the company, Russ Naples has joined Vizioncore as Senior VP of product development reporting directly to Vizioncore president and chief operating officer Chris Akerberg.

“We are at a pivotal point for taking products that have been highly successful in our initial phase as a company to the next level in meeting customer needs,” said Akerberg. “A seasoned engineer with the kind of product development experience that Russ brings to the table is exactly what we need to deliver more solutions better and faster to customers, and I am delighted to have Russ as part of the leadership team.”

Before Citrix, Naples served as project lead in General Electric’s Systems Integration, Test and Quality Department and has experience teaching management science courses at the university level. Naples holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Chapman University in addition to a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and has served on several university advisory boards related to engineering and computer science.

[Source: VMBlog]

Citrix XenDesktop To Be iPhone Compatible Soon?

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In an interview with the Australian ITNews website, Dennis Rose, VP of Citrix Pacific, touted desktop virtualization as the next big thing alongside server virtualization. Short of news, the interview did have an interesting ending. Apparently, AVP for Citrix ANZ Rob Willis hinted at Citrix XenDesktop – iPhone compatibility when the most hyped phone in history hits the Australian market in a couple of months, during his keynote of the Citrix Application Conference.

iPhone