Search Results for: virtualization security

Novell And Red Hat Upgrade Linux Enterprise Distros, Improve Virtualization Support

May 21, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Novell and Red Hat announced upgrades of their Linux-based enterprise distros, featuring improved virtualization and hardware support. In addition, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 SP2 adds a new subscription management tool, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2 adds new security, clustering, desktop, and networking features.

Virtualization is the big story here. Red Hat has upgraded RHEL’s core virtualization hypervisor, Xen, to version 3.1.2, and has improved its support for NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) architectures.

RHEL now supports virtualization of very large systems, says Red Hat, including systems with up to 64 CPUs and 512GB of memory. New CPU frequency scaling support is said to reduce power consumption for virtualized processes. RHEL also gains new clustering capabilities, including improved application failover support, which when combined with the virtualization enhancements, should lead to greater server farm stability.

Virtualization also seems to lead the way with Novell SLES 10 Service Pack 2 enhancements, which support Xen 3.2 (compared to RHEL 5.2’s Xen 3.1.2 support). Novell claims that with Xen 3.2, the new SLES is “the only Xen-based virtualization solution with full support from Microsoft for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 guests, and live migration of those guests across physical machines.” Novell and Microsoft went in on an interoperability lab last fall.

Meanwhile, the company has been dropping hints about SLES 11, which is due in the first half of 2009. Novell hopes to make SLES 11 available as an appliance that will be supported by a new toolset designed to quickly build specialized images. Novell is planning versions optimized for specific ISV stacks, as well as a new embedded version to allow independent hardware vendors to embed virtualization and operating systems directly into the hardware. Other touted SLES 11 enhancements relate to “mission-critical data center technologies, Unix migration, virtualization, interoperability, green computing, and desktop Linux,” says Novell.

Both distros are available from today, according to both companies.

[Source: Linux Watch]

HP & Virtualization: New Thin Client Hardware, Extended Software Offerings, Deeper Partnerships With Citrix and VMware

May 19, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

HP today introduced the new HP 2533t Mobile Thin Client, which it claims combines “the best of HP’s industry-leading thin client and business notebook technologies to enhance data security and improve both ease of use and reliability”.

The company also plans to expand its Remote Graphics Software technology. HP RGS supports a remote, yet collaborative work model that helps overcome the distance barriers that can impede global organizations and delivers to remote client environments rich, local desktop-like user experiences. With HP RGS, professionals can work together, from any physical location with Internet access, and make decisions in real-time with more secure access to multimedia content including flash animations, video, hardware accelerated 2D and 3D applications.

The HP 2533t provides enhanced access to virtual computing solutions, such as blade PCs or a virtual desktop infrastructure, and increased protection of corporate data and software applications by storing files on a secure, centralized server. No data resides on the actual mobile thin client, so companies should be assured that data is not compromised in the event the client is lost or stolen.

In addition, HP announced its full portfolio of Citrix-Ready thin clients and blade client products is now available with Citrix XenDesktop, as well as being certified by VMware for compatibility with its VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

“Today’s news is the latest example of HP’s building momentum in the client virtualization market,” said Roberto Moctezuma, vice president and general manager, Desktop Solutions Organization, HP. “We’re offering businesses a one-stop shop to meet their virtualization needs with the most comprehensive portfolio of virtual client solutions, ease of management and the highest levels of IT security.”

HP thin clients are now certified for the Citrix XenDesktop appliance program across the line, with the HP Compaq t5730 Thin Client delivering the “Desktop Appliance Plus” experience and verified Citrix-Ready for Citrix Password Manager, Citrix XenApp (Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 & 4.5), Citrix XenDesktop and an embedded Desktop Receiver.

“With the availability of XenDesktop, Citrix uniquely delivers virtual desktops that dramatically reduce the cost of ownership for IT, while providing a superior user experience for knowledge workers,” said Raj Dhingra, vice president and general manager, Desktop Delivery Group, Citrix Systems. “We are excited to be demonstrating the results of our collaboration at Synergy 2008. The Citrix and HP relationship enables enterprises to quickly implement and manage a best-of-breed client virtualization solution from the data center to the desktop.”

Today’s expansion of the HP virtualization portfolio also extends the recently introduced ProLiant iVirtualization joint venture with Citrix, VMware and Microsoft, which uses customers’ existing server management tools to integrate virtualization technology directly into a broad range of HP ProLiant and BladeSystem platforms.

Last Week’s Virtualization Headlines

May 18, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

We apologize for the limited reporting of last week, and we just wanted to let you know we’re going to pick up our usual pace as of today. For now, these are the most apparent stories we came across with regards to what happened in virtualization land:

Virtual Iron and Surgient both lost key marketing executives. Mike Grandinetti, who had been working for Virtual Iron since 2003 (see our video interview with Mike at VMWorld Europe 2008), has moved on to become Managing Director of Southboro Capital, presumably his own venture. Similar story at Surgient, who saw the leave of VP of Marketing Erik Josowitz who had been with the start-up since 2004. No word on what Josowitz is up to next.
Quest Software reported (PDF) its 2008 Q1 results. Total revenues increased to $172.8 million compared to the prior year’s first quarter revenue of $149.8 million.
Parallels has updated Parallels Desktop to build 5600. With the update, the company has added full support for Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, and improved compatibility with the MacBook Air, along with some minor bugfixes and performance enhancements.
Stealth startup DynamicOps, a venture-funded spinout of management technology developed by Credit Suisse’s research and development organization, launched its virtual machine management application Virtual Resource Manager.
HP joined Desktone‘s Service Provider Partner Program.
VMware announced that VMware Site Recovery Manager, a product for disaster recovery management and automation, will be available for order this week with general availability expected to follow within 30 days. Both 3PAR and NetApp have already announced integration / support for VMware SRM.
Check Point Software Technologies announced the general availability of ZoneAlarm ForceField, which it claims to be a comprehensive, virtualized browser security solution.
AMD announced enterprise customers now have more choices for rack-mount and blade systems based upon Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors with the launch of six new servers from Sun Microsystems.
EMC could very well be planning to sell off all or part of its majority stake in VMware, a rumor spread by Bloomberg. EMC will be able to do a tax-free distribution of shares in January 2009, and some are already citing Intel as a potential acquirer of the assets.

Neocleus Reveils Strategy For Its Endpoint Virtualization Approach

May 6, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Neocleus today announced (PDF) its strategy and approach for addressing the security, performance and IT manageability requirements of enterprise endpoints across a distributed network.

According to the company, current endpoint solutions are capable of connecting dispersed employees to the network but result in significant problems in the form of endpoint performance issues, usability complications and critical security vulnerabilities that can render networks defenseless. With corporate dependence on the functionality of these endpoints becoming paramount in their ability to generate revenue and drive enterprise growth, these problems are deemed simply unacceptable.

Neocleus Aims to tackle organizations’ most pressing endpoint issues – performance, manageability, security and cost. The company’s solutions, which include its Type 1 bare-metal hypervisor, enable critical IT tasks to operate in trusted virtual environments that run outside of and side-by-side with Windows while still offering complete access to all the capabilities offered by the underlying endpoint hardware.

“Endpoints are vast storage tanks of information and the gateway to accessing corporate data banks as well. As the variety of endpoints proliferates they become harder to control and more valuable to attackers,” said Charles Kolodgy, research director for Secure Content and Threat Management Research at IDC. “Applying virtualization to endpoints offers organizations significant advantages for securely delivering services, data and applications. Virtualization makes it possible to isolate critical corporate IT functionality without needing to be concerned about the other unauthorized applications residing on the machine.”

Neocleus contributes its technology to the open source community and remains “committed to creating an ecosystem of innovation that facilitates growth for partners and collaborators”. These open source contributions enable software developers to focus on building and maintaining high-performance applications without concern for performance or security issues that result from virtualization initiatives and technologies, and they do so without worrying about the underlying endpoint architecture.

Microsoft Survey: Why Retailers Are Adopting Virtualization

April 29, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

71 % of U.S. retailers are turning to a broad set of virtualization solutions as a means to save costs, maximize space and generally gain better control of their IT infrastructures, reports a new survey released today by Microsoft.

Microsoft’s “Virtualization in Retail Survey 2008”, conducted by independent Washington-based research firm KRC Research, found that nearly half of the participating retailers (49 %) are employing one form of virtualization within their store locations based on cost savings, while 46 % are seeking to better respond to issues and failures of applications and systems, and 43 % chose virtualization solutions to help them save space.

“Decades of installing servers, operating systems, applications, middleware and databases have taken their toll, as retailers are nearing their limits for physical space, power usage and cooling,” said Geoff Thomas, general manager of Microsoft’s U.S. Retail and Hospitality Group. “For a chain with 1,000 stores or more, adding just one more server or application per store is a significant investment. That is why virtualization is an attractive alternative, as more than 50 percent of retailers surveyed had between three and 10 servers in each of their stores already.”

Key findings of the survey included the following:

Seventy-one percent of the retail companies surveyed are using virtualization technologies to isolate applications, data, operating system instances or transaction services in their stores or headquarters.
Thirty-five percent of survey respondents cited using virtualization technology to make it easier to centralize deployment and ongoing management of applications. This ease of deployment is critical in today’s complex and competitive environments as retailers are striving to quickly use real-time information in such emerging store technologies as kiosks, self-service checkouts, mobile handheld devices, electronic signage and even computerized shopping carts.
Thirty-one percent pointed to energy savings as driving their purchase of virtualization technology. The rising awareness of “green” energy initiatives, as well as the increasing power required to run and cool data centers, likely factored into this response.
Thirty-eight percent of survey respondents cited the need to provide centralized security as a driver toward implementing virtualization within its stores or remote locations.
Among the 29 percent of retail respondents who are not using virtualization to isolate operating system instances, applications, data or transaction services, one-quarter (25 percent) say their company is considering it. Among those not considering implementing virtualization technologies, more than half say the main reason is cost (51 percent).

Microsoft’s “Virtualization in Retail Survey 2008” was conducted via telephone by KRC Research from Feb. 21 to March 10, 2008, and included responses from 205 interviews in the United States with technology decision-makers who have IT management responsibilities for store locations or regional or national headquarters for retail companies with annual revenues of $250 million or more.

[Source: WinBeta]

Nortel Unveils Network Virtualization Solution

April 28, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Nortel today announced the availability of a brand new network virtualization solution, enabling previously separated elements within enterprise networks to be linked together, harnessing the power of each to work together as one, eliminating the need for costly re-engineering when new services are needed quickly.

The pooling of network resources through virtualization can deliver sophisticated capabilities instantly such as turning up bandwidth in just one part of the network when videoconference use is high or increased security for only users of highly confidential information.

“Nortel’s network virtualization solution enables enterprises and service providers to simplify their communications infrastructure by allowing resources to be made available in a collective manner and to be allocated as needed,” said Cindy Borovick, research vice president, Data Center Networks, IDC. “This maximizes the capabilities of their network, decreasing wasted resources. It also limits the equipment that needs to be deployed, delivering savings over the life of the solution. The integration with a server virtualization solution gives new options for end-to-end virtualization deployments.”

Nortel’s network virtualization solution features the Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 8600 5.0 coupled with the Virtual Services Switch 5000, a new platform that consolidates network elements and provides flexible and dynamic network services on-the-fly, with proven integration with server virtualization solutions. The ERS 8600’s 10G high port density, industry-leading resiliency, Layer 3 routing virtualization and simplified virtual private network provisioning over the existing IP backbone, simplifies network design and increases cost-effectiveness and reliability. Its resiliency serves multiple customers, departments or user groups within the LAN and across the campus/metro network.

The VSS 5000 consolidates and virtualizes multiple functions onto a single device. It orchestrates and provisions services instantaneously. This innovative new product combines network services such as firewalls, application switching and SSL acceleration onto a single platform. The result is an end-to-end solution that lowers capital expenses while maximizing network resources.

[Source: CNNMoney]