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

Leostream Connection Broker Now Citrix Ready Certified for XenServer 5.6

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Leostream, developer of virtual hosted desktop software, today announced the Leostream Connection Broker has been verified as Citrix Ready by Citrix Systems, Inc. for XenServer 5.6.

The Citrix Ready program helps customers identify third-party solutions that are recommended to enhance virtualization, networking and cloud computing solutions from Citrix.

The Leostream Connection Broker is the industry’s most widely deployed vendor-independent connection broker, integrating the complex array of clients, back-end systems and protocols required for successful enterprise virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments. The Leostream Connection Broker underwent a rigorous verification process to ensure compatibility with the enterprise-class, cloud-proven Citrix XenServer 5.6 virtualization platform.

The Citrix Ready program makes it easy for customers to identify complementary products and solutions that can enhance Citrix environments. Having successfully passed Citrix Ready testing, customers can trust that the Leostream Connection Broker will work effectively with XenServer 5.6 in order to create a reliable, scalable and robust VDI.

Virtustream Introduces xStream Advisor, Helps Optimize Cloud Computing Deployments

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Virtustream, a privately held infrastructure services firm, today introduced the xStream Advisor (ADvanced VIrtualization Strategic Opportunity Review), a structured multidimensional analysis and reporting solution with an integrated suite of software tools and professional services designed to deliver comprehensive analysis, reports and plans to prepare companies for cloud computing deployments.

Virtustream developed the new offering so that companies could precisely determine the cost efficiency, flexibility, elasticity and business continuity benefits they could derive from the use of cloud computing.

The xStream Advisor produces strategic and tactical deliverables that are specifically designed to provide a blueprint for the alignment of IT to business needs, while transitioning to a more efficient virtual infrastructure or cloud architecture.

The tool installs a small piece of software within a company’s system for 30 days (or less depending on size of engagement) to evaluate how computing resources are used before migrating to a cloud environment.

Virtustream relies on this data collection to determine aggregate consumption measured in standardized compute capacity units or Infrastructure Units—the company’s patent pending method for allocating resources—necessary as part of the cloud deployment.

The xStream Advisor is the first phase of Virtustream’s patent pending on-boarding methodology as part of a deployment of xStream, the company’s cloud computing platform and the industry’s first hybrid cloud computing solution that allows customers to manage their internal and external assets from the same interface and with a guaranteed service-level agreement. This first phase determines if a company is cloud ready by assessing an environment to identify key business and technical requirements.

The xStream Advisor is available immediately, is platform agnostic, and is priced based on the number of servers.

Netuitive Raises $10 Million More

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Netuitive has secured an additional $10 Million in equity financing. Led by MK Capital and Rembrandt Venture Partners, the proceeds will be used to expand Netuitive’s global sales and marketing operations to accelerate revenue growth.

In Sik Rhee, General Partner at Rembrandt Venture Partners and previously co-founder of data center automation pioneer Opsware, is joining the company’s board.

With Rhee as a new board member, Netuitive is now supported by two of the same backers from the industry’s largest and most recent enterprise software ventures: Opsware was acquired by HP for $1.6 billion in 2007; and MK Capital was a lead investor in Bladelogic, acquired by BMC for $800 million, shortly after their IPO in 2007.

The new investment follows a record year for Netuitive, marked by 100% year-over-year growth, strong profits and a customer list that topped 300 customers — including 7 of the 10 largest banks.

Nicola Sanna, Netuitive’s president and CEO:

“We’re in a very unique position right now. The explosion of virtualization and growing interest in cloud computing is driving the demand for our self-learning performance management software because organizations need control over these very complex environments. The new investment from MK Capital and Rembrandt Venture Partners is enabling us to seize a giant opportunity.”

Rumor: VMware Is Acquiring EngineYard

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GigaOM says VMware is gearing up to buy EngineYard, the Ruby on Rails cloud provider that’s raised $37 million from the likes of Amazon, Benchmark, DAG Ventures and Bay Partners.

A VMware spokesperson told GigaOM that they won’t comment on speculation or rumors, so there’s no confirmation yet.

VMware has been buying startups such as Zimbra, SpringSource and others as it works to transition from providing a hypervisor to offering higher-value services. Earlier this year it released its VMforce platform as a service built on Salesforce.com’s infrastructure using SpringSource’s Java-based framework. Adding a Ruby-focused platform or capability makes a lot of sense, and EngineYard has been working on a transition of its own — moving away from startups and more toward the enterprise, where VMware’s focus is.

HP Buys Phoenix’ HyperSpace, HyperCore and Phoenix Flip Assets

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Phoenix Technologies today announced that Hewlett-Packard has agreed to purchase the assets related to its HyperSpace, HyperCore and Phoenix Flip instant-on and client virtualization products.

The consideration for the transaction is $12 million in cash and the closing is expected to occur this month.

(Via TechCrunchIT)

With the sale of its virtualization technology product line, Phoenix is moving forward with its strategy of ditching offerings that do no longer fit its focus on the core systems software (BIOS) market.

In April 2010, Phoenix had already sold its FailSafe and Freeze assets. Divesting other non-core assets including Hyperspace and eSupport are among the company’s plans to further reduce expenses associated with non-core products.

VMware Update 2 For Both vSphere ESX 4.0 and vCenter Server 4.0

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VMware has quietly released an Update 2 patch for VMware vSphere ESX 4.0 and VMware vCenter Server 4.0 yesterday.

VMware vSphere 4.1 or 4.5 (which will they choose) could be out as soon as VMworld (not sure they would waste that opportunity by announcing it earlier, but hey, who knows).  Until then, you want a few new features and bug fixes?  You might try Update 2.

VMware vSphere ESX 4.0 Update 2 brings:

  • Enablement of Fault Tolerance Functionality for Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors without Fault Tolerance. vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables Fault Tolerance functionality for the Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors.
  • Enablement of Fault Tolerance Functionality for Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors without Fault Tolerance. vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables Fault Tolerance functionality for the Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors.
  • Enablement of IOMMU Functionality for AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors without input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables IOMMU functionality for the AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors.
  • Enhancement of the esxtop/resxtop utility— vSphere 4.0 Update 2 includes an enhancement of the performance monitoring utilities, esxtop and resxtop. The esxtop/resxtop utilities now provide visibility into the performance of NFS datastores in that they display the following statistics for NFS datastores: Reads/s, writes/s, MBreads/s, MBwrtn/s, cmds/s, GAVG/s(guest latency).
  • Additional Guest Operating System Support— ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 2 adds support for Ubuntu 10.04. For a complete list of supported guest operating systems with this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

    • Find more in the release notes.

    VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2 brings:

  • Guest Operating System Customization Improvements: vCenter Server now supports customization of the following guest operating systems:
    • Windows XP Professional SP2 (x64) serviced by Windows Server 2003 SP2
    • SLES 11 (x32 and x64)
    • SLES 10 SP3 (x32 and x64)
    • RHEL 5.5 Server Platform (x32 and x64)
    • RHEL 5.4 Server Platform (x32 and x64)
    • RHEL 4.8 Server Platform (x32 and 64)
    • Debian 5.0 (x32 and x64)
    • Debian 5.0 R1 (x32 and x64)
    • Debian 5.0 R2 (x32 and x64)

    Find more in the release notes.