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rPath, provider of automating system provisioning and maintenance solutions, today announced it is adding support for configuration management to its system automation solution.

Effective immediately, rPath will support interoperation with key open source configuration management tools, including Reductive Labs’ Puppet, Cfengine, and Opscode’s Chef. During the second half of 2010, the company will introduce native support for configuration—including native implementation of a configuration management engine—to be delivered as part of its Project Javelin roadmap.S and middleware configuration files typically need to be heavily modified to “contextualize” a system for its local host environment.

Today, rPath supports open source configuration tools such as Puppet, Cfengine and Chef in two ways:

• Side-by-side. Used side-by-side, rPath manages operating system, middleware and application software while a third-party configuration tool manages configuration files. No changes or integrations are required in either system.
• Deploy and manage. rPath can deploy and manage configuration tool scripts, managing the regularly-changing scripts under version control and alongside software system manifests. Scripts are easily deployed and reproduced, and changes to the scripts can be easily rolled back. Unique configuration scripts can be managed together with specific system manifests to ensure they’re coordinated and synchronized as they move together through the release lifecycle.

Going forward, rPath will also support configuration natively as part of Project Javelin.

Among other areas, the rPath roadmap invests heavily in model-driven and version-controlled configuration management to extend its next-generation system automation platform. Since configuration requirements are highly diverse across enterprises, rPath is investing in and natively supporting two complementary approaches to configuration:

• Version-controlled CIM (Common Information Model). rPath will bring full CIM-based configuration management under system version control, making it easy to model, deploy and update consistent systems by simultaneously deploying systems and their supporting configurations. rPath’s CIM engine will be compatible with both Windows and Linux environments.
• Direct configuration templating. rPath will let users templatize and parameterize traditional configuration files under system version control. Less controlled but easier to adopt than CIM, configuration templating offers a lightweight and ad hoc “backdoor” to fully model-driven configuration, which allows users to easily make changes on the fly.

Both capabilities will be available by Q3 2010.

When these capabilities are delivered, rPath customers will have the option of using these advanced configuration features or continuing to use other tools in conjunction with rPath.

Makara today unveiled a new approach to cloud computing’s most difficult problem: application deployment and management.

Rather than retrofit system management software designed for traditional application environments to the cloud, Makara’s Cloud Application Platform leverages the virtual layer to allow developers to rapidly deploy, scale and monitor applications in cloud environments.

Makara provides easy on-boarding to the cloud. With Makara’s Cloud Application Platform, developers are able to deploy new or existing web applications to a public or private cloud with no code changes.  Makara has integrations built in for all of the components of a web application stack, and developers can choose the versions they need from a catalog.  Once the application is deployed, developers have deep introspection to the application runtime and cluster-wide visibility into end user response times end-to-end through the entire stack.

Makara’s Cloud Application Platform supports Java, Flex, PHP, JBoss and Tomcat applications. It runs on Amazon EC2, Rackspace Cloud, Terremark vCloud Express, VMware ESX, VMware Workstation, VirtualBox and Xen.

Makara is pioneering a new approach to application management that works as part of the underlying platform with all management and monitoring built into the virtual layer. The technology sits on top of the hypervisor and under the application stack, making it flexible and easy to port across cloud and virtual environments. With Makara, developers can easily provision across clusters or even move between cloud providers with the push of a button.

Formerly known as WebappVM, Makara has raised angel funding from Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, according to TechCrunch. The startup also raised $6 million last year from Shasta Ventures and Sierra Ventures.

The OpenNebula team announced that they have reached a stable state for the new 1.4 series of the OpenNebula Toolkit.

Downloads are available as source code as previous version but they also have created binary packages for RedHat/CentOS, Ubuntu, openSUSE and Fedora.

Highlights of OpenNebula 1.4 are:

• EC2 Query API interface for building OpenNebula-based clouds
• OCCI interface for building OpenNebula-based clouds
• Support for the VMware Hypervisor family
• Multiple user support and access-right control for Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks
• Advance contextualization support to integrate VM packs and implement multi-component services
• Easy integration with your data-center services and procedures with a new hook system
• Support block devices as VM images.
• Support for LVM storage
• Many bug fixes, and scalability and performance improvements in several components of the OpenNebula system
• A whole new set of documentation pages, guides and examples

Thierry Koehrlen pinged us with the news that Ulteo is introducing its open source virtual desktop OVD 2.0. This new release delivers both Linux and/or Windows applications as complete virtual desktops and also via a web portal.

Thierry Koehrlen CEO & co-founder of Ulteo says . “Users can now log into their corporate portal and simply click a link to launch a remote Windows and/or Linux application, or they can click an icon to open a document with an associated remote application.”

Ulteo OVD 2.0 provides more implementation choices to IT departments
“OVD 2.0 is about providing more choices from an architecture perspective as well” adds Gaël Duval, Ulteo CTO and co-founder.

Users now can have shared directories, more supported databaes, single sign on, support for different Windows Server versions, etc. OVD also offers the choice on where to deploy their Virtual Desktop infrastructure For example, OVD can now run on Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing environment. This ability was made possible with the help of the Open Source community which allows us to deliver an impressive list of features much faster than on our own.”

Ulteo OVD: a flexible Open Source Virtual Desktop solution for public and private organizations of all sizes, and also for telco and cloud companies

Their full press release can be found here , and Ulteo, Open Virtual Desktop 2.0 can be downloaded from their main page

Zenoss, a commercial open source provider of IT enterprise management products, today announced the general availability of version 2.5 of its commercially licensed Zenoss Enterprise product.

This latest version includes several new enterprise-grade scalability features targeted at managing today’s datacenter as well as expanded management support for next generation datacenter technologies and platforms that include virtualization and public clouds.

The latest Zenoss Enterprise release includes new enterprise-grade features for scalability, reliability, and security such as:

• A redesigned agent-less distributed collector architecture that provides all of the fault-tolerant benefits of an agent-based architecture without the penalties of having to deploy an agent.
• Support for distributed collector non-root installs that make it easy to install Zenoss Enterprise while still being in compliance with corporate security policies.
• Enhanced security features including encrypted passwords used for monitoring devices as well as preventing security vulnerabilities related to SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
• An updated Event Console with a new look and feel that will make it even easier for IT operators to complete their most common tasks. The primary design features were based on a set of usability interviews and include streamlined navigation, inline event filtering and a preview pane.

Beyond delivering on enterprise-grade enhancements this latest release also focuses on key next generation data center management features that include:

• New Amazon EC2 monitoring that provides dynamic snapshots of both the individual and collective performance of the instances within an account. Key features also include the ability to immediately track performance without user intervention and to drill deep on performance issues with “inside-the-instance” monitoring.
• VMware Ready support that offers customers the ability to manage both physical and virtual infrastructure through a single pane of glass by delivering certified integration and interoperability with VMware vSphere.
• The monitoring of many new technologies and platforms including SSH-based monitoring for Solaris. This monitoring combined with 40 new community-built ZenPacks adds to the growing list of hundreds of next generation technologies, platforms and management products that Zenoss already integrates and manages.

Catbird has announced the launch and immediate availability of its new vSecurity Cloud Edition, the first solution designed specifically to enable both public and private cloud computing providers to instantly deliver SOX, PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, COBIT, DIACAP and other regulatory-based security and compliance policy monitoring and enforcement.

vSecurity Cloud Edition was previewed at last month’s VMworld 2009, for which it was honored with a Best of Show Finalist award, the first security product to win in the Cloud Computing category.

vSecurity Cloud Edition gives service providers the competitive edge with the industry’s only automated monitoring and enforcement solution that covers all seven critical control areas: auditing, inventory management, configuration management, change management, access control, vulnerability management and incident response, in an elegant solution specifically architected to meet the needs of cloud providers.

Catbird is the only virtualization security product offered by Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) web service, which provides instantly-scalable cloud-based computing capacity to meet evolving enterprise needs. Customers of Amazon’s EC2 now have the option of adding automated, continuous vulnerability monitoring to their Amazon Machine Image with Catbird’s vSecurity Cloud Edition. Organizations regulated by PCI or other policies that demand compliance can take advantage of Amazon’s state-of-the art cloud while remaining compliant, enhancing Amazon’s value proposition and accelerating growth in this increasingly-popular space.

vSecurity Cloud Edition delivers comprehensive coverage to ensure cloud service providers meet their customer mandates, including:

• SOX compliance measurement and reporting across 39 COBIT controls;
• PCI compliance measurement and reporting across 96 test requirements impacted by virtualization;
• HIPAA compliance measurement and reporting across 37 controls negatively impacted by virtualization;
• DIACAP compliance measurement and reporting across all 26 controls affected by virtualization, including the 12 Mac1 controls;
• COBIT compliance measurement across over 40 controls affected by virtualization, and
• FISMA compliance and reporting across 51 controls.

Among numerous protection and enforcement features, vSecurity Cloud Edition provides:

• 24×7 vulnerability management with a fully compliant scanner that is automatically correlated with other virtual machine attributes to provide an accurate assessment of known defects against a specific and customizable compliance framework.
• NAC-based enforcement for continuous monitoring of the virtual machine population, real-time inventory management, and the most accurate real-time VM catalog and virtual machine sprawl prevention
• A multi-tenant management portal that provides compliance intelligence aggregation, management and reporting across physical, virtual, private and public clouds from a single dashboard, while ensuring the privacy of customer or departmental data.

Essential for cloud providers is customizable, real-time reporting on the compliance and security status of the customer’s applications and systems, tailored for the appropriate audience ranging from executive-level managers to technical IT administrators.

Catbird vSecurity Cloud Edition has already been embraced by cloud providers and platform vendors whose customer base demands broad-based security and compliance.

Ideal for both public and private clouds, vSecurity Cloud Edition features a Service-Oriented Architecture that incorporates stateless agents reporting to a separate command center. Full integration with ESX 3.X, vSphere 4.x and up and Citrix XenServer enables seamless deployment in cross-platform environments. Infinitely scalable, vSecurity Cloud Edition allows cloud providers to seamlessly add clouds to existing infrastructure, without additional investment in security and compliance. For public clouds, SLA enforcement provides value-added assurance for clients.