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Citrix Raises the Bar on Integrated Server Virtualization with HP Select Edition

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This morning Citrix and HP jointly announced a long awaited strategic development and distribution agreement that will integrate an enhanced version of Citrix XenServer™ into 64-bit HP ProLiant servers, which they ‘simply’ named the Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition.

The subtitle of the press-release proudly claims “Jointly Developed Solution Offers Unparalleled User Experience and Out-of-the-Box Integration with HP Insight Control Management Software”. We are not sure if Citrix tries to hint at Virtualization vendor Parallels with this interesting choice of wording… 

This new solution supposedly features an easy-to-use graphical management console and is seamlessly integrated with the same HP Insight Control management software that customers already use to physically administer their HP ProLiant servers.  With this new solution, new and existing HP and Citrix customers will be able to deploy and manage a virtualized environment faster and easier than before. This virtualization bundle follows the VMware partnership with HP, which was announced a few weeks ago during the VMworld Europe Event in Cannes.

Seems like there are interesting times ahead, when you purchase servers at the major hardware vendors… Upon ordering, you will be able to select which virtualization vendor (VMware or XenServer) you want to bundle you new hardware with. Dell already opened a Virtualization price war, as it announced to cover the full cost of certain VMware ESX server 3i licenses and bundles it for free with its newest servers. 

The Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition is part of the HP ProLiant iVirtualization offering and according to the press release below, it provides extensive advantages over alternative solutions.

These advantages include faster implementation of Citrix XenServer virtualization technology on HP ProLiant servers, increased ease-of use for HP ProLiant customers utilizing Citrix XenServer, and leveraged investments in HP management tools such as HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) for remote server management. 
“This integrated solution from Citrix and HP promises to have a significant impact on the industry by making the virtualization of servers as easy as managing physical servers,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG).  “By enabling virtualization to be simple from the very beginning, it not only helps proliferate virtualization technology, but also enables enterprises to adopt it faster and easier.”
Integrated Virtualization Done Right
Citrix XenServer is a simple, efficient way to virtualize servers and help deliver a dynamic data center—a flexible, aggregated pool of computing and storage resources.  Citrix XenServer supports 64-bit and extends the development and testing resources of the open source Xen virtualization engine, delivering easy-to-use dynamic virtualization solutions.
By tightly integrating Citrix XenServer into ProLiant platforms, Citrix and HP will provide a simpler deployment and management environment that speeds adoption of flexible, cost-saving server virtualization technology, making it the optimal choice for virtualization on HP systems.  Highlights include:
• New HP ProLiant iVirtualization – This offering integrates virtualization capabilities into the ProLiant server platform, empowering customers to virtualize their server environments.  It allows customers to quickly and easily boot up a Citrix XenServer environment, either on a single server or as part of an end-to-end Citrix solution for server, application and desktop virtualization (see today’s related announcement from HP).
• New HP ProLiant Virtual Console – The newly developed HP ProLiant Virtual Console (PVC), unique to Citrix and HP solutions, provides the same simple-to-use GUI interface to set up and manage virtual machines as HP customers already use to set up and manage individual physical servers.  HP PVC further removes complexity from virtualization installations by offering single server virtual machine management using the server’s local keyboard, video, and mouse, or remotely using HP iLO that comes standard with every ProLiant server.  This reduces the need for a dedicated management server or even a network connection, as it can be handled directly on the virtualized server. 
• Pre-Integrated HP Management – Citrix XenServer HP products are the only integrated virtualization solutions to feature pre-integrated HP management agent technology.  As a result, customers can use the same familiar management systems for virtualization that they have been using on their existing HP ProLiant servers, such as HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM).  HP SIM provides a consolidated view of system hardware health, configuration, performance and status information for individual HP servers. In addition, HP Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) now supports Citrix XenServer and can be used to perform advanced management of virtual machines.
• Transparent Distribution of Virtualization Technology – The HP version of Citrix XenServer will be available on ten models of ProLiant servers, enabling customers to order systems with XenServer already integrated.  The integrated solution will transparently power on as part of the system start-up, without any user intervention. This approach enables fast and straightforward virtual deployments with a consistent, reliable, and familiar ProLiant experience. Additionally, select models of existing HP ProLiant servers will be upgradeable with the XenServer technology.
• Seamless Upgrade – Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition provides a simple license-key upgrade to more powerful enterprise-class features included in Citrix XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions, such as dynamic provisioning of both virtual and physical servers. – This makes it the only integrated virtualization solution to allow customers to upgrade and leverage enterprise features without having to shutdown and re-install new software or backend management systems.  
• End-to-End Virtualization – After implementing Citrix XenServer, HP customers can also easily take advantage of Citrix’s application and desktop virtualization solutions to make the IT infrastructure more flexible and dynamic. Citrix XenApp™ for application virtualization stores all Windows applications in a single central store in the datacenter and then delivers them to end users on-demand via innovative application virtualization technology.  Citrix XenDesktop™ is the industry’s first comprehensive, fully integrated desktop delivery system, moving beyond the limitations of existing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) point solutions to ensure the simple, secure, fast delivery of Windows desktops to any office worker over any network.
 “HP is the largest x86 server vendor in the world, and by embedding Citrix XenServer into 64-bit HP ProLiant servers, HP and Citrix will make virtualization available to enterprises of any size and accelerate the adoption of server virtualization,” said Peter Levine, senior vice president and general manager, Virtualization and Management Division, Citrix.  “Citrix and HP share the belief that virtualization should be a natural extension of the hardware platform, and the integration of XenServer with ProLiant uniquely combines the industry’s deepest integration with a seamless user experience.”
“We have made significant efforts to ensure our customers have the leading options for deploying and managing virtualization,” said Scott Farrand, vice president, Industry Standard Server Software, HP.  “HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers with Insight Control management tools, combined with the unique architecture of Citrix XenServer, deliver a truly integrated user experience that makes virtualization feel like a seamless capability within the infrastructure.”
In addition to these comprehensive server virtualization capabilities, the two companies are also working to strengthen existing storage capabilities for customers.  Citrix is a member of  the HP Information Management and Storage Partner Program and is working closely with HP’s StorageWorks division on compatibility and certification testing across HP’s enterprise storage product portfolio.
Availability
Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition will be available and supported worldwide from HP on March 31, 2008.    The Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition offers a low cost, all-in-one solution with integrated Citrix XenServer and HP ProLiant Virtual Console for single server management.  HP Select Edition allows creation of an unlimited number of virtual machines per server, with up to 32 GB memory per virtual machine.  For optimum enhanced data center flexibility, HP Enterprise Edition enables additional functionality such as resource pooling and live migration.  This functionality leverages both ProLiant Virtual Console for single server management and XenCenter for virtual machine management across multiple servers.  HP Enterprise Edition also includes HP technical support and services.
About Citrix XenServer
Citrix XenServer, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, is an enterprise-class solution for virtualizing application workloads across any number of servers in the datacenter as a flexible aggregated pool of computing resources. With the new Platinum Edition, XenServer becomes the first and only solution on the market to address both virtual and physical servers, making the entire datacenter more dynamic.

McAfee Wants To Secure Virtualization

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McAfee, one of the world’s leading security companies, today unveiled what it refers to as the industry’s first service designed to help organizations securely deploy virtualization technologies.

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As part of its strategy to provide the most complete solution for secure virtualization, McAfee Foundstone Professional Services also outlined a set of security guidelines covering people, processes and technology to educate enterprises adopting virtualization technologies.

“With the popularity of virtualization and the rush to reap its benefits, companies may not always follow the best security best practices,” said Patrick Hayati, Regional Director McAfee, Middle East. “Many of the security practices that work in physical computing environments also work in the virtual world, yet there are some unique requirements. Our new service will help customers meet the security requirements of these new virtual environments.”

McAfee offers additional insight into securing virtual environments in “Virtualization and Risk – Key Security Considerations for your Enterprise Architecture,” a new paper available at http://www.mcafee.com/virtualization. For more information about the Foundstone Virtual Infrastructure Security Assessment service visit www.foundstone.com/virtualization.

[Source: Al Bawaba]

HP Wants To Power ‘Next Generation’ Data Center Transformation

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HP today announced ‘a set of products and services designed to help customers transform their data centers from a standalone collection of physical assets into a virtual and adaptive infrastructure designed to rapidly meet changing business needs’, which it dubs the next generation data center (NGDC).

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From the press release:

HP is providing businesses with the technology tools and strategies needed to address top data center initiatives: energy efficiency, automation, virtualization, consolidation and business continuity.

Coupled with HP’s current systems, storage, software and services, the new products and services make up the HP Data Center Transformation portfolio, which helps enterprises to manage and transform their data centers.

“Today customers are facing multiple challenges – the explosion of data, a growing mobile workforce and the need for access to real-time information,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP. “HP is uniquely qualified to help CIOs dramatically change the way they create, manage and operate their data centers.”

HP infrastructure additions include new services, plus a powerful HP ProLiant server:

  • HP Critical Facilities services – As a result of its February acquisition of EYP Mission Critical Facilities, HP is expanding its Data Center Services offering with three new critical facilities services focused on consulting, design and assurance. The services help customers create scalable facilities that reduce the cost of data center operations through energy-efficient power and cooling technologies contained in space-efficient facilities.(2)
  • HP Data Center Consolidation services – These include design, transition and support services to help customers reduce the number of their facilities. As a result, customers reduce energy and operating costs while maintaining the ability to support business growth with a robust, flexible infrastructure.
  • HP Data Center Virtualization services – The HP virtualization portfolio has been enhanced with new design, support and education services that help customers create a virtual infrastructure from their physical technology assets. This includes virtualization across servers, storage, networks and applications.
  • HP ProLiant DL785 G5 server – The HP ProLiant DL785 G5 is a powerful and scalable eight-socket x86 server based on Quad-Core AMD® Opteron™ processor technology. The server is an ideal platform for virtualization due to its processing power, large memory footprint, storage capacity and expandable input/output. The DL785 improves server utilization by consolidating multiple servers and reduces the management, energy and space issues associated with server sprawl.

New software provides single view of physical and virtual world, enhanced automation:

  • HP Insight Dynamics – VSE – This is the industry’s first software to analyze and optimize physical and virtual resources in the same way. The software helps customers extend the life of their data centers with advanced energy-aware capacity planning. HP Insight Dynamics – VSE will support multi-vendor hypervisor technologies and can reduce costs of common data center tasks by as much as 40 percent. Previewed today and expected to be available in the second calendar quarter of 2008, HP Insight Dynamics – VSE seamlessly plugs into HP Systems Insight Manager, the world’s most popular platform management tool.
  • HP Operations Orchestration enhancements – New integrations extend comprehensive automation across all physical and virtual infrastructures. By automating manual and error-prone processes across clients, applications, servers, networks, and storage, these integrations help customers better manage and automate business services. Additionally, these enhancements help customers reduce labor costs, increase service availability and meet compliance requirements by providing auditable, standardized processes.

[Source: ZDnet Blogs]

Arrow ECS Launches V-PWR Program To Help NetApp Resellers Sell Virtualization

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The Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) business of Arrow Electronics today launched “V-PWR”, a program to help its  North American NetApp reseller partners capitalize on increasing demand for virtualization.

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From the press release:

Through the V-PWR program, Arrow ECS provides education, training and tools to help NetApp partners pursue and close sales for virtualization solutions with their customers. Partners receive educational sales materials about virtualization challenges and solutions; onsite sales and technical training; personalized sales coaching; and marketing support, among other program services.

In addition, partners gain certification to resell virtualization software that complement NetApp(R) environments, such as VMware, distributed through Arrow subsidiary Alternative Technology Inc. NetApp virtualization accreditation is also available for partners that are seeking to increase profits by offering storage virtualization solutions.

Microsoft To CIOs: “Virtualization Is Too Expensive”

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At the European CIO summit, Barbara Gordon, Microsoft’s EMEA VP for Enterprise Sales stated that Microsoft sees price as a differentiator in the virtualization market.

“What I hear is that users need to take out cost from their environments and virtualization is the credible approach. You have to ask if virtualization today is delivering cost effective value? And that it justifies the costs that are being charged?” She added, “Price is a differentiator. Existing players are quite expensive. Microsoft can add value to this market with a server play and an application play.”

Asked if the Microsoft Hyper V would have different versions that would offer different levels of functionality similar to those offered by VMware Gordon would not be drawn, according to Australian PC World.

“The time of individual point products is lessening. Our approach will be take a look at the environment, and make sure that the right virtualization functionality fits that environment. The fact is that it is the technologies that work well together and have good functionality that will let the user spend time adding value. So we’ve got a very broad offering.”

Martin Niemer, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VMware (yes, also the one that said Dell would soon start shipping servers with VMware ESX Server 3i included free of charge, said:

“We’re not seeing any signs that customers don’t understand all of the issues associated to moving to virtualization. They understand that what it comes down to is that even the hyper visor is zero cost, which Hyper V won’t be, the question is how many virtual machines can you run on a server. If you can’t run that many you still have to run it on two servers and that doubles your cost. That’s really going to be the decision point. It depends on what users want. If you want basic partitioning you can buy a server with a Vmware ESX 3i integrated hyper visor or buy a foundation version of ESX. And if you want additional functionality such as high availability you can buy a slightly more expensive licence.”

Niemer said he didn’t foresee Vmware being forced to adjust its pricing when Hyper V came to market.

We’ll see.