News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing
Over at his own blog, Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo fame needs your advice on what virtualization software to use.
He has both a Windows machine and a Linux desktop he wants to use to run other virtual machines on.
What would your advice be?
Xen, VirtualBox , Qemu , VMWare? Or something completely different?
Windward IT Solutions, a US-based infrastructure and management systems engineering firm, announced today its certification as a VMware Authorized Consultant (VAC). As a VAC partner, Windward provides professional services that transform the leading VMware technologies into powerful solutions.
“Today, organizations must find ways reduce space, power and cooling demands in their data centers, while improving efficiency of applications and increasing the speed of application development and deployment,” said Michael Biddick, executive vice president of solutions. “Windward helps its clients solve these challenges through the design, implementation and management of a virtual infrastructure.”
More from the press release:
“Like any major technology infusion, implementation of virtualization can be slowed or halted due to many factors, including organizational resistance, complexity, security, physical and logical IT infrastructure issues, outdated plans, or fear of disrupting the business or mission. Windward’s virtualization services help its clients move beyond these challenges and begin reaping the dramatic benefits of VMware Virtualization Infrastructure technologies.”
Aspen Technology, provider of software and services to the process industries, today announced that aspenONE version 2006.5 uses the latest Microsoft technologies to simplify IT rollout and management. The integration of aspenONE with Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Office Excel, and SoftGrid Application Virtualization supports IT standards, speeds time to deployment, and extends the reach of aspenONE within operations for improved manufacturing performance.
“aspenONE makes it possible to solve the difficult challenge of optimizing manufacturing performance in complex process industries such as energy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. By incorporating the latest Microsoft technologies into the integrated suite of aspenONE applications, AspenTech enables process manufacturers to take full advantage of our combined technology solutions across the enterprise,” said Chris Colyer, Microsoft Director of Worldwide Manufacturing Operations.
aspenONE Process Engineering now supports Microsoft Application Virtualization, an engine that turns applications into centrally managed virtual services delivered on-demand. This enables IT departments to accelerate the deployment of engineering applications by more than 50 %. The applications are installed only once, rather than once per desktop, and can be deployed to groups of users more quickly and maintained more easily. In addition, for project-based companies and departments, virtualization also allows different versions of the same applications to run concurrently on the same machine.
[Source: press release (PDF)]
Parallels has been deployed by the European provider of hosting services Cobweb as the first service provider to use Parallels Automation with the hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
Developed as a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, Cobweb has purchased the Parallels Automation solution to automate the delivery of several new hosting offerings and service bundles. Using a single login, service providers can deliver integrated offerings that include multiple services such as hosted Microsoft Exchange, hosted Windows SharePoint Services and hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels noted, ”We are pleased that Cobweb is using the full potential of our Parallels Automation solution to centrally manage a wide variety of hosting services. This deployment demonstrates how Parallels Open Platform is helping service providers deliver advanced business applications using the software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model.”
Dan Germain, Chief Technical Officer of Cobweb added, ”Using Parallels Automation, Cobweb can manage a wide variety of hosted offerings from a single, centralized system and can create unique service bundles using Microsoft Exchange, Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ZANTAZ Email Archiving and shared web hosting. Parallels Automation connects the underlying technical services together in a manner that delivers real business benefits and solutions to our customers.”
Parallels Automation for Dynamics CRM includes pre-defined deployments, installation services and marketing support for service providers that want to deploy hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Pricing includes a one-time implementation fee and monthly licensing fees based on active users.
[Source: The Hosting News]
AMD today announced that Dell is now offering five server platforms based on Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. This news follows last week’s announcement that Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are generally available, and brings the number of available global OEM platforms based on the new processors to 13. Additionally, AMD is announcing today that VMware has completed qualification of Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors for use in VMware ESX and ESXi hypervisor deployments, enabling customers to leverage the latest in VMware virtualization on these server systems.
Dell servers now supporting Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors include the PowerEdge SC1435, 2970, M605 blade server and 6950 platforms, as well as the new PowerEdge T605 tower server. The T605, aimed at SMEs or remote locations, offers features such as hot-plug hard drives, remote management and redundant power supplies, resulting in high-availability systems that help prevent data access loss and increase uptime.
“Dell is delivering on its vision to simplify IT by providing customers with a seamless and simple upgrade path to Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors on PowerEdge servers,” said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Business Product Group. “The combination of AMD’s most advanced processors running on Dell PowerEdge servers provides an optimal balance of performance and energy efficiency across a variety of customer solutions, from general purpose and remote office to high-performance compute clusters and virtualized data center environments.”
[Source: Hardocp]
Cost reduction is always mentioned as one of the benefits of virtualization, but there are little case studies featuring actual numbers available to prove it. That’s why this post on Server Virtualization Blog by Eric Siebert was a refreshing read. Eric writes:
In today’s world the cost of just about everything has been on the rise. Fuel costs in particular have a ripple effect on just about everything we buy which also affects computers. That’s why virtualization is a great way to offset those increased costs. Providing power and cooling to a data center can be a very big expense, virtualizing servers can dramatically reduce this cost. PlateSpin provides a nice power savings calculator on their website. If we plug in the following numbers:
- 200 physical servers
- average usage of 750 watts per server
- average processor utilization of 10% before virtualization
- target processor utilization of 60% after virtualization
The average power and cooling savings a year comes out to $219,000 with a consolidation ratio of 5:1 based on a cost per kilowatt hour of 10 cents. As the cost of power increases the savings become even greater, at 12 cents the cost savings become $262,800 per year and at 15 cents the cost savings become $328,500 per year.
Of course savings will vary based on a number of factors including how well utilized your physical servers are before virtualization, your consolidation ratio which can sometimes be as high as 15:1 and also your location. Different parts of the country average different costs per kilowatt hour, California and New York tend to be the highest at 12 – 15 cents per kilowatt hour where Idaho and Wyoming are the cheapest at about 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Power costs tend to rise a lot more then they go down so the argument for virtualization from a cost perspective becomes much easier when you factor in the potential savings.