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VKernel, provider of Capacity Management products for virtualized datacenters, today announced the release of VKernel Chargeback 2.0.

The new release extends chargeback support to both Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and VMware ESX environments while also adding support for mixed chargeback models.

Adoption of Microsoft virtualization continues to grow with some analyst firms estimating 20% or greater market share for Microsoft Hyper-V server.

The growth of Microsoft Hyper-V Server comes at a time when enterprise customers are adopting multiple virtualization platforms and are using these virtualization platforms as the foundation of private cloud architectures. These mixed environments require capacity management solutions that operate across both platforms.

In addition to new heterogeneous capabilities, VKernel Chargeback 2.0 now supports both allocated and actual resource consumption models.

By reporting on both measures, infrastructure teams can chargeback for actual resource consumption, allocated resources, or simply show application teams the difference in real dollars between their allocated capacity and actual usage. This cost visibility is critical to capacity management, reducing VM sprawl, and supporting private cloud initiatives.

A thirty-day trial of Chargeback 2.0 is available for immediate download from http://www.vkernel.com/download/chargeback.

LinMin, maker of  IT automation software LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning, today unveiled LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning Release 6.0 with Cloud, hosting and corporate data center enhancements.

Today’s release, which has been in development for nearly a year, also offers improvements in security, platform support and ease of integration with IT applications, including control panels and Cloud orchestrators.

LinMin now also offers more streamlined application integration. Release 6.0 boasts an upgraded API, including a new disk imaging interface, enhanced provisioning support, and token and IP-based authentication.

LinMin’s API enables Cloud, hosting and corporate data centers to seamlessly add provisioning and imaging support to their existing IT applications, enabling full server provisioning, recovery and cloning automation of the data center.

The API also enables Independent Software Vendors and OEMs to augment their offerings with sophisticated provisioning and imaging capabilities.The new release offers several key new features. The optional Windows Provisioning Module enables the deployment of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 systems using the same graphical or programmatic interfaces used to provision all current releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE and SLES as well as legacy Windows operating systems.

Ultimately, LinMin helps create flexibility within the data center. By enabling system administrators to automate server provisioning, scalability is enhanced without increasing cost.

Disaster Recovery is also substantially streamlined with LinMin’s snapshot rollback capability. By offering both a browser-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) and an Application Programming Interface (API) so customers can integrate their control panels, cloud orchestrators and other automation tools, LinMin makes server provisioning, rollback and cloning easy.

LinMin is also used to automate PC deployments by remotely installing Windows 7, Windows XP and Linux. PCs can also be backed up and restored, avoiding lengthy OS and application installations should PCs get infected with malware.

LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning 6.0 for Linux and Windows is available for free trial. Perpetual license pricing starts at $1,199 for up to 100 systems to provision and image (for major versions of Linux and Windows Server 2003/XP) or $1,799 (for major versions of Linux, legacy Windows plus Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7).

Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), the organization bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on systems management standards development, validation, promotion and adoption, today announced the availability of two new documents produced by its Open Cloud Standards Incubator.

The documents – “Use Cases and Interactions for Managing Clouds” and “Architecture for Managing Clouds” – will form the foundation for DMTF’s ongoing cloud standards work.

In addition, DMTF has also launched the Cloud Management Workgroup (CMWG), to develop cloud management standards based on the recommendations outlined in the Incubator documents.

The “Use Cases and Interactions for Managing Clouds” and the “Architecture for Managing Clouds” describe how standardized interfaces and data formats can be used to manage cloud environments. Together, they provide a comprehensive overview of DMTF’s recommended use cases, interactions, data formats and overall architecture for cloud management.

Moving forward, the CMWG will focus on using this information to develop a set of standards that deliver architectural semantics and implementation details to achieve interoperable management of clouds between service providers and their consumers and developers.

Additional areas of emphasis within the workgroup will include creating cloud service management models and developing mappings to prevalent infrastructure models, including DMTF’s Open Virtualization Format (OVF). The CMWG will also continue collaborating with DMTF alliance partners including Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Open Grid Forum (OGF), TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum), and Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).

DMTF announced the formation of the Open Cloud Standards Incubator in April 2009, to address the need for open management standards for cloud computing. Led by many key stakeholders in the cloud computing space, the Incubator developed a set of informational specifications and processes to advance the standardization of cloud management.

In addition to the “Use Cases and Interactions for Managing Clouds” and “Architecture for Managing Clouds,” a whitepaper entitled “The Interoperable Cloud” is also available.

Documents developed by the Incubator can be downloaded here.

Flexera Software, provider of strategic solutions for Application Usage Management to application producers and their customers, has announced the availability of its updated FlexNet Producer Suite for Software Vendors and FlexNet Producer Suite for High-Tech Manufacturers.

Both suites include enhancements addressing the growing demand for application virtualization — enabling vendors to capitalize on the revenue opportunities associated with application virtualization, cloud computing and the creation of virtual appliances that increase manufacturing efficiencies and flexibility.

Key enhancements made to the FlexNet Producer Suites, which enable revenue growth and reduced operating costs through software licensing, electronic software delivery and entitlement management, include:

FlexNet Publisher — provides software licensing to secure and grow market share through flexible pricing, packaging, licensing, and protection of their software. FlexNet Publisher Virtualization Option contains patent pending technology enabling developers to establish varying enforcement strategies by customer segment and geography to protect and monetize their software in virtualized environments.

• Virtual Use Detection — detects if end-users are trying to deploy the application and license server on a virtual machine. It protects against revenue leakage by instructing the application or the license server to “operate” or “not operate” in virtual environments. It also delivers the foundation to enter new markets and/or monetize solutions in existing markets in new ways.

• Flexible Monetization Options — supports flexible revenue models ranging from preventing usage of software in a virtual environment to enabling software to run in virtualized environments while ensuring compliance. Flexibility can be restricted by ensuring licenses are bound to physical machines even while the software is running inside a virtual machine. It enables monetization of software and virtual appliances running in VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V-based public clouds.

• Tamper Proofing — adds WiBu dongle support to prevent tampering with the software licensing once the software is deployed. The inclusion of a physical dongle, which is coupled to the software via a software licensing system, greatly reduces the means to pirate software while still easily allowing the software to move from machine-to-machine.

FlexNet Embedded — gives high-tech manufacturers the power to unlock revenue with tailored software licensing, pricing, and packaging solution for their embedded software, including support for creating and running virtual appliances to replace hardware devices.

• License Pool Monitoring — provides functionality for serving and monitoring a counted pool of devices through the prebuilt FlexNet Embedded server application. This availability of an out-of-the-box server application greatly reduces development time and effort.

• Easier License Updates — adds support for a “push” model (in addition to a “pull” model where the device contacts the server when it needs a license update), where the server pushes updated licenses to devices. For devices requiring uninterrupted operation, the push architecture ensures a device’s primary functionality is not interrupted by server communications.

• Backup License Capability — ensures availability of FlexNet Embedded served pools of software licenses through server failover. The server and device APIs, communication protocols, and license rights have been enhanced to support a backup license server managing a license pool if the primary server becomes unavailable, further increasing reliability.

FlexNet Operations — enables easy and efficient support for new revenue models by quickly creating product configurations to meet market demands, cutting operational costs by automating the generation, fulfillment, and activation of entitlements, and improving customer satisfaction by providing a consistent experience and a 24/7 self-service web portal for your end users.

• New Revenue Models — enables new revenue models for virtualized and region-based software licensing. Supports FlexNet Publisher’s ability to detect; Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware virtualization and time zones. Delivers new revenue opportunities via new licensing models for cloud computing, the ability to prevent revenue leakage in virtualized environments, and the ability to grow revenues by pricing differently based on geography.

• Channel Partner Self-Service — new make-to-stock channel management allows tracking of software entitlements through a multi-tier channel. This enables channel partner self-service management of software entitlements while ensuring data privacy. The results are lower operational costs, the ability to track partner performance and enhanced partner relations.

• Superior Automation — allows internet and offline activation to run faster and more efficiently, reducing support calls and lowering network bandwidth costs. Devices are automatically tracked as they move within an enterprise, providing better visibility into the installed base. Efficient bulk operations notify upgraded, up-sold or renewed customers via email and fulfills their software licenses automatically, enabling revenue growth through subscription licensing and lower operational costs.