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

Convirture Releases ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise Edition

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Today saw the release of ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise edition from Convirture Corp.

The open source version of ConVirt has been available for more than three years and is broadly deployed and well-tested in real-world data centers — having been downloaded more than 30,000 times. In fact, ConVirt1.x is included in most major Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Open SUSE, Debian and others.

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise extends ConVirt Open Source with the advanced automation and scalability features necessary for running large-scale or mission-critical virtualized environments. By delivering high availability, backup and recovery, storage and network automation, and enterprise-grade security, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise enables IT managers to meet and exceed service levels while using infrastructure in the most efficient way.

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise is also the go-to tool for enterprises ready to move beyond virtualized infrastructure management towards a hosted or private cloud model. With an extensive cloud management feature set, which includes multi-tenant security, delegated control, scheduled provisioning, resource limiting, and many more, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise enables IT organizations to offer infrastructure-as-a-service, while ensuring full isolation and compliance with corporate policies.

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise supports all of the features available with the ConVirt 2.0 Open Source product including:

  • Server pool-based management
  • Templates-based provisioning
  • Monitoring and configuration management
  • Comprehensive virtual machine administration
  • Highly scalable, 3-tier, standards-based architecture

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise is available immediately direct from Convirture. Pricing starts at $1,495 per host for up to 10 hosts, with volume pricing available for larger environments. A “per virtual machine” pricing package is also available for ISP’s and hosting providers.

Virtualbox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide

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Packt asked us a couple of months ago if they could send us their VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide for reviewing.

It took me a while to actually get started reading the book, but once I got started I finished it extremely fast.

The book is really down to basics, it gives a good explanation of what VirtualBox is capable of doing , and how it works, it explains in depth how to install VirtualBox on different platforms and how to install different platforms in VirtualBox

In 8 different chapters the author covers Installing VirtualBox on both Windows and Linux , how to use the Guest Additions for these platforms that allow you to make better of your graphical hardware and provide you with seamless integration of the different window managers.

It also explains you about different disk formats and how to use them , about copying cloning and other interesting
topics .. and it shows you how to get Virtual Appliances from the Internet and use them for testing purposes.

The last chapter of the book explains you how you can use alternative front ends for VirtualBox and how to build a headless server with them.

I must say the most surprising chapter was the 6th which covered all different aspects of Networking with virtualization explaining five different methods of connecting a virtual box to your network, something most other books on virtualization often neglect to tackle.

As the title says it’s the Beginner’s Guide, so don’t expect any fancy in depth topics in the book, as an advanced user you’ll speed to trough this book in no time. But for the reader new to Virtualization this is the ultimate guide to start with …

F5’s BIG-IP Access Policy Manager solution Now Plays Nice With Oracle Identity Management

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F5 Networks today announced that the F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) solution can now integrate with Oracle Identity Management.

Specifically, Oracle Access Manager, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, can be paired with BIG-IP APM’s access control capabilities for web applications. By integrating F5 and Oracle technologies, customers gain a centralized point of enforcement to simplify access control and auditing.

The BIG-IP product portfolio offers high-performance access and security solutions that provide context-aware user access to web applications. With BIG-IP products, IT teams can offload authentication services from application and specialized web servers, enabling administrators to apply consistent, policy-based access control across many applications and manage access to those applications from a central location.

Pairing Oracle Access Manager with BIG-IP APM gives remote and mobile users optimized, reliable, and secure access to Oracle applications. And the combined Oracle/F5 solution enables administrators to conveniently scale the infrastructure to keep pace with the burgeoning growth of mobile and remote users.

BIG-IP Access Policy Manager is available today.

VMware Debuts New Volume Purchasing Program

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VMware today announced a new VMware Volume Purchasing Program (VPP).

VMware VPP is designed to provide customers worldwide with consistent, accumulative software license discounting through an easy-to-use, tier-based points system. The program helps maximize the value derived from volume purchases of VMware software licenses, including significant cost savings on VMware solutions and increased budget predictability for future purchases.

VPP is offered to customers through authorized VMware partners.

With VMware VPP, customers may enroll for a VPP membership and earn points on VMware products and services. Points are stored in customers’ accounts and accrue toward four tier levels in the program, with each tier level delivering additional incremental discounts that are applied automatically to new purchases depending on a customer’s tier.

Customers can accumulate points over a rolling eight-quarter period and access an easy-to-use online portal to track the number of points and eligible discount levels. For qualified purchases, VMware VPP provides customers with discounts ranging from 4 percent to 12 percent off the published local VMware MSRP prices.

Novell Releases SUSE Gallery For Linux-based Appliances

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Novell today released SUSE Gallery, a new online showcase for registered SUSE Studio users to publish their appliances and cloud-based applications.

With SUSE Gallery, end users can browse published appliances for the solution to their particular commercial or personal need, and then download the appliance free of charge.

With an appliance, the end user avoids the typical installation and configuration headaches that come with many traditional software applications. For independent software vendors (ISVs) and other software developers, SUSE Gallery represents an opportunity to broaden the exposure of their application and reach an entirely new audience.

SUSE Gallery is the latest addition to the SUSE Appliance Program, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary today.

The SUSE Appliance Program is a business and technology program that helps ISVs simplify appliance creation, reduce development and support costs, and extend applications to the cloud. A key technology component of the SUSE Appliance Program is SUSE Studio, the industry’s most successful web-based appliance creation tool with more than 82,000 registered users worldwide.

The Program also includes the SUSE Appliance Toolkit, which enables ISVs and enterprises to build, manage and update appliances regardless of location.

SUSE Gallery offers a free, web-based venue for ISVs and other users to publish and market their appliances.  ISVs, corporate developers and enthusiasts can now share, promote, collaborate and freely exchange their appliances with others.  Novell will not charge developers for putting their appliances in SUSE Gallery, nor will Novell charge end users for downloading appliances.  SUSE Gallery provides a friction-free venue for the exchange of ideas, innovation and best practices across all sectors of the software industry.

Serving as a central repository of appliances, SUSE Gallery targets developers and other users searching for commercial and community-oriented appliances. Appliance templates and tailored operating system images can also be published, facilitating reuse that further accelerates appliance development. Each published appliance will have a dedicated web page with a unique URL, making it possible for software vendors to conduct targeted marketing and sales campaigns and track results.

SUSE Gallery is available now at www.susegallery.com or in the browse feature of SUSE Studio Online.

VMworld 2010 Will Happen In San Francisco And Copenhagen

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VMware announced that VMworld 2010 makes its return to San Francisco Aug. 30 through Sept. 2 at Moscone Center and will also be held Oct. 12-14 at The Bella Center in Copenhagen.

With more than 19,000 attendees expected worldwide and more than 200 sponsors and exhibitors, including Global Diamond sponsors Cisco, Dell, EMC and NetApp and Global Platinum sponsors HP and Intel, VMworld 2010 will spotlight VMware and the industry’s commitment to virtualization and the transformation to IT as a Service.

The theme of VMworld 2010 is “Virtual Roads. Actual Clouds,” showcasing the journey to cloud computing through virtualization. Attendees will explore new roads that will help them discover, learn and break new ground in transforming IT.

This year, all VMworld labs will be powered by the VMware LabCloud portal, a self-service interface custom-built to enable attendees to access lab courses and content, allowing VMware to increase the number of labs offered and provide attendees more opportunities to explore how virtualization can make a powerful impact on their organization. VMworld will stage more than 22,000 lab seats through 480 simultaneous user workstations during the four-day event.

To build out this environment, VMware has committed more than 75,000 man-hours in lab creation and development to produce 30 lab topics — all of which are powered by the VMware vSphere(TM) cloud infrastructure platform and hardware technologies donated by more than a dozen sponsors. The labs will cover everything from virtualized desktop infrastructure, through the VMware vSphere-powered datacenter and into the VMware-powered cloud.

With easy access to more than 150 VMware subject matter experts on hand to answer questions and explore options, participants will get one-on-one attention and still have the flexibility to move at their own pace.