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

XTS Releases Introspect, Management & Analytics Tool for Citrix XenApp

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XTS today announced the availability of XTS Introspect tool, which enables advanced planning and management of Citrix XenApp virtualization and application delivery environments. XTS, headquartered in the Washington DC metropolitan area, is a Citrix Ready Partner and VMware Technology Alliance Partner and has long been a provider of enterprise reporting and analytics software for the planning and management of Citrix and other virtualization platforms.

XTS

From the press release:

Previously, XTS analytics solutions provided intelligence that eased capacity planning, security audits, implementation of charge-back systems and analyzing software license requirements. With Introspect, IT organizations can now enjoy these benefits along with newly available advanced configuration analytics that enable system administrators and architects to easily gather the following information:

  • Three-dimensional configuration analysis by application, server, and user across an entire server farm
  • Detailed view of application and server properties
  • Matrix reports that illustrate where applications are installed and detail user/group access
  • Historical reporting of server hotfix implementations

To see Introspect first-hand, you’re invited to visit the XTS events to register for an interactive, online seminar for Citrix professionals featuring a presentation from Doug Brown of DABCC.

Solera Networks Releases Beta Version Of Solera V2P Tap

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Solera Networks announced today the availability of its beta version of the free Solera V2P Tap, expanding the company’s initiative toward enabling complete network visibility. Using the Solera V2P Tap, organizations deploying virtual machines can leverage their existing investments in network management and security tools by regenerating virtual network traffic, including intra-server virtual machine network traffic, to their existing physical security infrastructure to monitor and protect virtual network activity.

The company recently raised $ 5 Million in Series B funding by Canopy Ventures, which also led the company’s Series A round in 2006.

Solera Networks

From the press release:

For many organizations, monitoring and securing the virtual environment means an additional investment to deploy security tools and processes in the virtual network—the same tools they already have in the physical environment. The Solera V2P Tap sits passively in a virtual environment leveraging VMware Vswitch technology, capturing all network traffic from within the virtual environment and regenerating all or some of that traffic in real-time to the physical environment for monitoring and analysis by existing tools.

The free download of the Solera V2P Tap is now available in beta for evaluation. After completion of the beta, the download will continue to be available for free.

[Source: VMblog]

Cisco To Acquire Remaining Interest In Nuova Systems

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And why were Dante Malagrino of Cisco and Ed Bugnion of Nuova Systems jointly featured in the video presentation of Cisco Nexus 5000 we shared earlier today?

Start-up Nuova Systems operated as a majority-owned subsidiary of Cisco, which had invested $70 million and owned 80 % of the company. Cisco announced its initial investment in Nuova in August 2006 and announced an amendment to the agreement in April 2007 that expanded the development scope, increased the funding commitment and raised the maximum potential payout of the transaction to $678 million. And now Cisco has formally expressed its intent to acquire remaining interest in the company.

Cisco logo

Nuova Systems

From the press release:

“Cisco today announced its intent to purchase the remaining 20 % interest in San Jose-based Nuova Systems, a start up focused on the development of next-generation products for the data center market. Cisco today also introduced the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series, the first product developed by Nuova. The Cisco Nexus 5000 is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet “top-of-rack” switch that offers unified fabric capabilities through the support for multiple data center networking protocols and software intelligence.”

The Nuova transaction is success-based with the total value primarily determined by the revenue of Nuova products over three measurement periods. The first measurement period will commence in early fiscal year 2010, the second measurement period will commence in late fiscal year 2010, and the third measurement period will commence in mid fiscal year 2011. The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 of Cisco’s FY 2008. It will be acquisition No. 126 for Cisco overall and the fifth one in FY ’08.

Video: Cisco Nexus 5000 And Virtualization

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DataCenterKnowledge posted a video presentation today we would love to share with you too. It features Dante Malagrino of Cisco and Ed Bugnion of Nuova Systems with an explanation of how data center managers can use the new Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches to optimize their virtualization efforts (Cisco recently introduced the 7000 Series). Prior to joining Cisco, Bugnion was a co-founder and chief architect of VMware.

Hyper-V Release Candidate Now (Optional) Part Of Windows Update

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In a post on the WSUS Product Team Blog, Program Manager Cecilia Cole lets us know that the Hyper-V RC is now an optional part of Windows Update.

Today, April 8, the Windows Update team is making the Hyper-V Release Candidate package available as an “Optional Update” via Windows Update for all Windows Server 2008 SKUs. It will also be published as an “Optional Update” to WSUS. For more detailed instructions, please refer to How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Release Candidate.

For more information about the availability of new and changed updates available for WSUS, please visit our TechNet site under “WSUS Updates”.

[Source: Dugie’s Pensieve]

Trend Micro Enters Growing Market Of VMware Virtualization Security Providers

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Trend Micro, a global leader in Internet content security, has announced a number of innovations in security solutions for VMware virtualized environments which it will debut at the 2008 RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Trend Micro logo

The prototype technology consists of a virtualization security solution that operates in a VMware ESX 3.5 environment, scans for infected machines and remediates any that are found. With this technology, Trend Micro intends to provide greater protection for VMware virtual machines.

Trend Micro is also announcing that its enterprise security products for the endpoint, gateway and server are supported in VMware environments. This enables joint customers to gain the same level of support for Trend Micro products running in VMware virtualized environments as they would on physical hardware.

From the press release:

Trend Micro is integrating the recently announced VMware VMsafeTM APIs into its security technology in an effort to enable channel partners and customers to enhance the security of their VMware environments. VMsafe technology protects applications running on virtual machines in ways previously not possible in physical environments. The VMsafe APIs allow vendors to develop advanced security products that combat the latest generation of malware. VMsafe technology integrates into the VMware hypervisor and provides the transparency to prevent threats and attacks such as viruses, Trojans and keyloggers from ever reaching a virtual machine. The Trend Micro brand of security software will have the ability to run isolated from, and at a higher level of privilege than, the target malware. This will allow offline VMware virtual machines to be scanned and remediated prior to being reactivated.

“While organizations frequently use virtualization to help save energy costs and lower administrative IT expenses, they also have an opportunity to leverage this technology for improved security,” said Punit Minocha, vice president of business development for Trend Micro. “Most security solutions in the market underperform in virtual environments so, together with VMware, we want to help our customers to take advantage of the cost benefits of virtualization and to improve their organization’s security profile at the same time.”

VMware-support for existing Trend Micro products is effective immediately. For a complete list of these products, please visit www.trendmicro.com/go/virtualization. Current VMware-supported products use the existing licensing model. Trend Micro customers who purchase these versions and switch their deployments to VMware can do so at no extra cost or software. This provides customers a choice of running the applications on standalone hardware or on virtual environments, depending on their IT needs. Certain exceptions may apply.

The new Trend Micro technology securing virtualized environments is expected to be available in the second half of 2008.

[Source: SYS-CON]