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Accelops Joins VMware Technology Alliance Partner Program

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AccelOps, datacenter service management innovator, today announced it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program.  The VMware TAP program helps technology vendors integrate their products with VMware virtualization software and deliver timely, joint solutions to mutual customers.  AccelOps offers a seamlessly integrated datacenter management solution, packaged as a virtual appliance or SaaS for the mid-tier enterprise, which provides end-to-end visibility and IT service intelligence.
To improve service reliability, one must see and manage all aspects of performance, availability and security related to that service.  AccelOps provides transparency and service-relevance to virtual operations.  AccelOps’ virtual appliance links physical and virtual environments to business services and automatically discovers and monitors relationships, configurations, health, trends and metrics to achieve service-levels, expedite root-cause analysis and reconcile resource usage.
“Today’s datacenter has transformed to take advantage of virtualization, on-demand capacity and always-on computing; so too must IT management processes and tools advance,” said Agatha Poon, senior analyst at Yankee Group.  “AccelOps is one of the few startups taking a holistic view in monitoring datacenter infrastructure and services across IT functional domains for physical and virtualized environments.  Targeting mid-tier enterprises, AccelOps’ integrated approach, as a virtual appliance or SaaS, is compelling to organizations opting for end-to-end visibility and service responsiveness.”
AMERICAN SYSTEMS, a leading service provider to the U.S. government, uses VMware extensively in their datacenter.  The IT organization employs a variety of commercial and custom monitoring products to support over 1,500 employees across 16 offices and 125 field sites.  The organization wanted to extend their oversight and security controls.  They decided to source a new Security Information Management (SIM) system and performance monitoring system.  With a converged network and security department, they sought greater visibility, broader operational and security controls, and a scalable means to manage their operational data.  After conducting a comprehensive in-house evaluation of name brand leaders, they selected AccelOps.
AMERICAN SYSTEMS, which has standardized on the VMware platform, enjoys the benefits of the AccelOps virtual appliance that allows them to leverage their VMware investment and enables immediate procurement, easy deployment, high availability and as-needed capacity expansion.
“We were looking to centralize our IT business instrumentation and to advance event correlation, performance monitoring and security information management,” said Brian Neely, CIO of AMERICAN SYSTEMS.  “With AccelOps, my team has instant intelligence on our business posture, operational issues and security threats through an integrated, easy and dynamic Web GUI.  The degree of automation and breadth of operational analytics and security controls are powerful, extensive and scalable – truly enabling proactive, service-oriented management.”
AccelOps integrates core datacenter/IT management functions and seamlessly combines state-of-the-art discovery and CMBD, cross-domain correlation, monitoring and alerting, interactive dashboards and topology maps, automated service definition and SLA tracking, identity and location management, enterprise search, case management, and built-in analytics and reports tied to industry best practices.
AccelOps invites VMware partners, prospects and customers to visit the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace and learn more about our AccelOps Try and Buy program.
“We are delighted with the support that the VMware TAP program provides.  Delivering our virtual appliance and SaaS application leveraging the VMware platform is an essential differentiator that well positions us to serve the mid-tier enterprise,” said Imin Lee, CEO of AccelOps.  “With AccelOps, users can proactively manage and optimize their physical and virtual environments to assure service delivery and gain operational efficiency.  We look forward to introducing our integrated datacenter management solution to VMware’s partners and end-users.”
With more than 1,200 members worldwide, the VMware TAP program works with best-of-breed technology partners to provide them a comprehensive set of VMware technical and marketing services, support, tools and expertise to deliver enhanced value to joint customers.
“We are excited to welcome AccelOps as a member of the VMware TAP program,” said Bernie Mills, senior director, alliance programs, VMware.  “The VMware TAP program offers companies like AccelOps the tools and resources they need to develop high-value solutions that meet the needs of our mutual customers.”
About AccelOps, How IT Accelerates Business
AccelOps provides innovative datacenter and IT service management software delivered as a virtual appliance or SaaS.  Our all-in-one solution assures greater service reliability by empowering organizations to readily monitor and improve service availability, performance, security and governance objectives.  The integrated approach aggregates, cross-correlates and manages diverse operational data to yield end-to-end visibility, service insight, operational efficiency and resource savings.  The Silicon Valley-based company is privately held, venture-backed and led by experienced technology executives who created the popular Cisco MARS security appliance.  Do more, control more and save more by visiting www.accelops.net.
AccelOps Inc. is a privately held Delaware corporation.  AccelOps, the AccelOps logo, OpsBridge and OpsAdvisor are trademarks of AccelOps, Inc.  Other names mentioned may be trademarks and properties of their respective owners.  The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other

AccelOps, datacenter service management innovator, today announced it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program.

The VMware TAP program helps technology vendors integrate their products with VMware virtualization software and deliver timely, joint solutions to mutual customers.  AccelOps offers a seamlessly integrated datacenter management solution, packaged as a virtual appliance or SaaS for the mid-tier enterprise, which provides end-to-end visibility and IT service intelligence.

To improve service reliability, one must see and manage all aspects of performance, availability and security related to that service.  AccelOps provides transparency and service-relevance to virtual operations.  AccelOps’ virtual appliance links physical and virtual environments to business services and automatically discovers and monitors relationships, configurations, health, trends and metrics to achieve service-levels, expedite root-cause analysis and reconcile resource usage.

AccelOps integrates core datacenter/IT management functions and seamlessly combines state-of-the-art discovery and CMBD, cross-domain correlation, monitoring and alerting, interactive dashboards and topology maps, automated service definition and SLA tracking, identity and location management, enterprise search, case management, and built-in analytics and reports tied to industry best practices.

AccelOps invites VMware partners, prospects and customers to visit the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace and learn more about our AccelOps Try and Buy program.

Oracle Releases VM 2.2

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Oracle VM 2.2, the latest release of Oracle’s server virtualization software, is now available, enabling customers to accelerate deployment of and simplify management of enterprise applications; and to run their data centers in the most environmentally-sustainable and efficient manner.

Oracle VM 2.2 features the latest Xen-based, industry-standard hypervisor, Xen 3.4, and provides substantial performance enhancements for customers running Intel Xeon processor 5500 series based on Intel microarchitecture, codenamed Nehalem, as well as Six-Core AMD Opteron processors. Oracle VM 2.2 features new CPU power management, memory management, and direct disk I/O capabilities.

Additionally, this release delivers on the initial integration of Oracle VM and Virtual Iron technology, including the ability for customers to easily migrate Virtual Iron virtual machines to Oracle VM images.

Oracle VM supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications and offers customers scalable, low-cost server virtualization backed by Oracle’s world-class support.

By leveraging the latest Xen 3.4 hypervisor and a newer dom0 kernel based on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3, Oracle VM 2.2 helps provide broader hardware support, and better performance, scalability and security for both hardware virtualized and paravirtualized guests. Performance can be improved for hardware virtualized guest operating systems including Microsoft Windows. Oracle VM 2.2 provides updated support for the Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) 1.4 to leverage advanced features such as sparse file support to enable faster virtual machine provisioning and cloning, and to allow users more control over file data allocation, improving performance and storage efficiency.

Oracle VM 2.2 adds direct support for multipath storage devices that can be assigned to virtual machines and enhance performance of clustered applications. By leveraging the Xen 3.4 hypervisor, Oracle VM 2.2 also provides more efficient CPU power management, enabling greener computing and cost savings.

Resource management has been enhanced in Oracle VM 2.2 by allowing users to set the scheduling priority for virtual CPUs in virtual machines and cap the maximum percentage of CPU time each individual VM can access. With this enhancement, users can now control the Quality of Service (QoS) for CPU, network, and disk I/O through the intuitive Oracle VM Manager browser interface.

Other enhancements to Oracle VM 2.2 include a number of user interface enhancements, improved high availability with automatic failover of server pool master agents, and enhanced serviceability and audit features.

Hitachi Data Systems Announces New Portfolio Of Agile Cloud Technologies

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Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, today announced the new portfolio of agile cloud technologies to accelerate and simplify the adoption of enterprise cloud computing environments.

Specifically, the portfolio delivers the industry’s most integrated set of computing resources to create a single pool of virtualized block, file and content storage to support the diverse uses that are evolving in cloud computing today, and enables organizations to adopt cloud services at their own pace. As part of the cloud offerings, Hitachi Data Systems also unveiled the new Hitachi Content Platform that provides essential security, reliability and multitenancy for cloud infrastructures.

With sophisticated storage virtualization, Hitachi Data Systems enables a secure, multitenant environment that ensures privacy among various constituents within a shared infrastructure that can be managed from a single command suite. Supporting a variety of protocols and third party technology, enterprises and service providers can further leverage existing investments in hardware and software and allow legacy devices to inherit cloud attributes, thereby preventing cloud from becoming just another silo and eliminating the need for a complete refresh or update of hardware and software or the need to rewrite applications. As a result, Hitachi Data Systems cloud solutions enable enterprise customers to choose the best possible technologies to address their challenges at their desired pace and budget resources. By offering an integrated set of cloud solutions, Hitachi Data Systems can deliver an agile cloud infrastructure that empowers customers to look at their existing IT infrastructure in new ways, enabling them to:

  • Provide efficient IT management and increase productivity through automation
  • Meet changing performance, availability and storage needs
  • Ensure security in a shared environment
  • Cost effectively improve data protection
  • Make information easy to locate and use, anywhere, at any time

Hitachi Data Systems best-in-class Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V and award-winning Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage systems provide a single, virtual pool of storage with a host of key cloud attributes which can be provisioned against all types of IT services on demand. These services can be delivered via a number of fully integrated solutions including the recently announced Hitachi NAS Platform for file services, the Hitachi Data Discovery Suite for collaboration and search and the new Hitachi Content Platform for cloud storage, archiving, business continuity, creating content depots, consolidation and many other services. The Hitachi Content Platform also includes a number of advanced features that enable the solution to address a variety of challenges beyond the long term preservation of business critical information, such as:

  • Enabling Customers to Evolve Cloud at Their Own Pace: The new Hitachi Content Platform will serve enterprise content storage needs as well as public and private cloud environments within a single optimized cluster. Customers can adopt the cloud technologies based on their business needs, and they do not need to purchase another storage island for their cloud solution.
  • Segregating Data Securely: By providing a multitenant architecture, object versioning, retention and disposition services, encryption, immutability, high availability, search capabilities and much more, Hitachi Content Platform helps IT organizations securely segregate data within different namespaces to prevent unauthorized access and provide different service level agreements and features for different data sets.
  • Intelligently Tiering Data: Customers will be able to manage data growth from higher tier storage to a storage platform with features and capabilities that go beyond the traditional ‘archive’ and enable intelligent content storage for a number of use cases.

Hitachi Data Systems will further extend its cloud offerings to incorporate Hitachi BladeSymphony technology as well as other leading server platforms to deliver complete integrated and secure public and private cloud infrastructure solutions.

The Cloud Trilogy: Episode 1 & 2

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“Savvy Granny Ethel shares some pearls of wisdom around cloud computing and server virtualization with her not-so-with-it best friend, Vera. In this video, ioko has taken a lighthearted and creative approach to demystifying the cloud.

Confused and daunted by all the ‘cloud computing’ hyperbole? For more clarity and insight from Ethel and a chance to learn more about Cloud Computing and Data Security from ioko and Sun Microsystems, visit www.ioko.com/cloudsavvy.”

The Cloud Trilogy: Episode 1, “A New Cloud”

The Cloud Trilogy : Episode 2, “The Cloud Reloaded”

Episode 3 is coming soon!

Citrix Touts Trade-Up Offer For XenApp Customers

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Citrix today announced a new 2-for-1 trade-up offer that makes it easy for Citrix XenApp customers to realize all the benefits of desktop virtualization by stepping up to the new XenDesktop 4.

The “Trade-up to XenDesktop 4” program allows XenApp customers to trade up their existing XenApp concurrent user licenses for twice the number of XenDesktop 4 user licenses – a savings of up to 80 percent off list price. With its new FlexCast™ delivery technology, XenDesktop 4 is the first product in the industry to deliver every major type of virtual desktop in a single, integrated solution. XenDesktop 4 further extends the value of desktop virtualization by including all the functionality of XenApp as a core integrated feature, making it easy for customers to deliver on-demand applications as a seamless part of their overall desktop management strategy. By taking advantage of this limited-time trade-up offer, XenApp customers can make virtual desktops a reality for all of their employees at a fraction of the cost.

XenApp customers have already taken an important first step towards centralized desktop management, delivering an estimated 25 million applications to more than 100 million users every day1. Many of these same customers are now looking to extend the benefits of centralization to all desktops in the enterprise. The new Trade-up to XenDesktop 4 program gives these customers the best of both worlds, allowing them to leverage all the functionality they already own, while adding a simple, low-risk path to full desktop virtualization when they are ready. For many enterprise customers, the upcoming Windows 7 desktop refresh provides the perfect opportunity to choose from a variety of virtual desktop models to simplify desktop management enterprise wide.

For more than 100 million users worldwide, XenApp has consistently proven that it delivers superior performance, security and TCO across a wide variety of use cases, cutting application management costs in half for most customers. With XenApp now included as a core integrated feature of XenDesktop, most customers going forward will find XenDesktop 4 to be the best solution to meet their combined desktop and app virtualization needs.

For customers focused on delivering Windows applications with no plans to step up to desktop virtualization in the near future, the standalone XenApp product line will continue to be the best solution to meet their needs. Because XenApp is sold on a concurrent user basis, it also remains the most cost-effective solution for use cases with high application concurrency ratios. Cloud providers delivering Windows apps as an on-demand service will also find XenApp to be the best solution, as will independent software vendors offering XenApp as a part of their enterprise application platforms.

To take advantage of the full 2-for-1 trade-up offer, customers active on Subscription Advantage must trade up all their existing XenApp licenses. Suggested list pricing for the trade-up begins at $45 per user, plus the normal cost of subscription renewal – a savings of up to 80 percent off the list price of XenDesktop 4.

Additional trade-up offers are available for customers who only wish to exchange a portion of their existing XenApp licenses.

Citrix Showcases XenDesktop 4

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Citrix Systems today announced Citrix XenDesktop 4, a new product designed to make virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees “for the first time ever”.

XenDesktop 4 with its new FlexCast delivery technology is the first product in the industry to support every major desktop virtualization model in a single, integrated solution – a breakthrough that enables improved ROI, simplified management and extends the benefits of virtualization to every employee in the enterprise. XenDesktop 4 further simplifies desktop computing by integrating all the capabilities of Citrix XenApp, enabling customers to deliver on-demand applications to physical or virtual desktops as a seamless part of their overall desktop strategy.

To ensure every user gets a high-definition experience at all times, XenDesktop 4 also includes significant enhancements to its industry-leading HDX technology. It also builds on the company’s 20-year partnership with Microsoft, simplifying the management of virtual desktops through Microsoft System Center, and adding multiple enhancements that further extend the value of Microsoft Windows and Windows Server platforms. In total, XenDesktop 4 adds more than 70 new features, significantly enhancing its performance, security and readiness for large, enterprise-wide deployments.

By delivering desktops as an on-demand service to any device, XenDesktop 4 dramatically simplifies the world of desktop computing. On-boarding new employees goes from days to minutes. New branches can be opened in a fraction of the time. And employee moves, adds and changes become quick and easy. Combining secure central management with full device independence also allows companies to implement cost-saving “BYOC” (bring-your-own-computer) programs that give employees the freedom to purchase any laptop of their choice in lieu of standard-issue PCs owned and managed by IT.

Benefits for end users are equally profound. With XenDesktop 4, users are no longer tethered to a specific device. They simply use whatever PC, Mac, thin client, laptop or netbook is most convenient, and get instant, secure access to their full Windows desktop and everything on it. XenDesktop’sHDX technology ensures a rich, high-definition experience every time they log in, no matter where they are or what kind of virtual desktop technology is being used on the back end.

The centerpiece of XenDesktop 4 is its FlexCast delivery technology, a powerful new capability that gives customers the flexibility to deliver any type of virtual desktop, to any user, on any device – and to change this mix at any time. XenDesktop 4 with FlexCast allows customers to use any combination of the following virtual desktop technologies, all orchestrated from one, centrally-managed solution:

For task workers sharing a similar set of applications, the most secure, cost-effective approach is a shared, server-based virtual desktop. This model gives each user a standardized, locked-down desktop ideally suited for jobs where user customization is not needed or desired. By supporting up to 500 users on a single server, this model offers a significant cost savings over any other virtual desktop technology.
For office workers who need more personalized desktops, the hosted VM-based model, commonly referred to as VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), is often the best approach. By running each user’s desktop in a dedicated virtual machine, this option combines the benefits of central management with full user personalization, and can generally support about 60-70 desktops per server.
For power users running high-end professional applications, blade PCs in the datacenter can also be an attractive option. This approach offers all the benefits of centralization, but ensures dedicated processing power for each user by hosting only one desktop per server.

XenDesktop 4 also supports a range of innovative client-side options, including the ability to stream desktops to each user’s device to run locally, while still managing the OS, apps and data centrally. This approach offers an easy, low-cost way for customers to get started with desktop virtualization by leveraging existing PC resources and keeping datacenter overhead to a minimum. It can also be ideal for government and university labs that use diskless PCs for maximum data security.

In some cases, the simplest option is to deliver virtual applications to a PC running a traditionally installed OS. By centralizing apps and delivering them as an on-demand service to existing desktops, this option offers many of the ROI and management benefits of a fully virtualized desktop with minimal setup costs, making it an ideal starting point for customers new to desktop virtualization. Because virtual apps can work offline as well, this option is also a popular choice for mobile users.

Much of the cost and complexity of desktop management is a direct result of the applications running on each user’s unique desktop. Integrating all the capabilities of Citrix’s market-leading XenApp technology into XenDesktop 4 instantly improves the ROI of desktop virtualization by making application delivery a seamless part of the overall desktop management experience. Now, IT can control data access, manage fewer desktop images, eliminate system conflicts, and reduce application regression testing. Adding, updating and removing apps is simple because users can leverage a self-service app store, enabling them to access applications instantly from anywhere.

XenDesktop 4 also includes significant new features that improve power and capacity management, service monitoring, scalability, security and performance. Most important among these are enhancements to its high-definition HDX technology, ensuring that every user gets the best possible experience, regardless of which virtual desktop technology is at work on the back end. New HDX improvements in XenDesktop 4 include enhancements for multimedia content, real-time collaboration, USB peripherals and 3D graphics to assist in real-time collaboration among disperse design teams. In addition to improving user experience, these new HDX enhancements utilize up to 90 percent less bandwidth than alternative solutions (see separate press release issued today).

XenDesktop 4 expands the company’s longtime partnership with Microsoft, helping customers drive an entirely new level of desktop efficiency by leveraging the latest enhancements in Microsoft platforms such as Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services and the Microsoft VDI Suites. XenDesktop 4 likewise builds on the latest performance and availability enhancements of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. Beginning with version 4, XenDesktop now ships with Hyper-V as well. The two companies are also working together to simplify the management of physical and virtual desktops and applications via the Microsoft System Center management platform, including plans to further integrate solutions like Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) into the Citrix XenDesktop experience. XenDesktop 4 also builds on the latest features of Microsoft Windows 7, making everyday tasks easier, and helping customers work the way they want. And with its new expanded functionality, XenDesktop 4 helps customers migrate to Windows 7 more quickly and seamlessly than ever before.

XenDesktop 4 is the only product on the market to support every major server virtualization platform, including Citrix XenServer™, Microsoft Windows Server® Hyper-V™, and VMware ESX™. It is also the only desktop virtualization product in the industry to support VMware vSphere™. This unprecedented flexibility makes it easy for customers to choose whatever hypervisor best fits their unique business requirements with no limitations or proprietary lock-in.

XenDesktop 4 will be generally available beginning on November 16, 2009 and will be licensed on a per user basis. This model allows each end user to use an unlimited number of connected or offline devices at no additional cost. XenDesktop 4 will be available in three editions with the following suggested list prices:

Standard – $75 per user
Enterprise – $225 per user
Platinum – $350 per user

As a special, limited time offer, Citrix XenApp customers who are ready to step up from standalone app delivery to full desktop virtualization, will also have an opportunity to trade their existing XenApp licenses for new XenDesktop 4 licenses on a 2-for-1 basis (for program details see related announcement today).