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eG Innovations Adds XenServer and Sun LDoms Support to Its VM Monitor

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eG Innovations today announced that its eG VM Monitor now supports Citrix XenServer and Sun Microsystems’ Solaris Logical Domains (LDoms).

The enhancements are part of v4.2 of the company’s eG Enterprise Suite, which already supports VMware ESX and ESX 3i servers as well as Solaris Containers. The new software release also strengthens management of VMware environments. eG Enterprise agents can now be integrated directly within VMware’s Virtual Center. This greatly simplifies configuration of the monitoring for VMware server farms.

Also, the eG VM Monitor software now monitors the VMware Virtual Desktop Manager to provide an end-to-end view of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployment. A new VM Search capability makes it easier to track the status and performance of virtual machines (VMs) as they move from one physical server to another.

The eG Enterprise Suite monitors Citrix XenServers and Sun LDoms in much the same way it monitors VMware ESX servers. eG Enterprise v4.2 offers agent-based and agentless monitoring of CitrixXen server v4.0 and 4.1. For agent-based monitoring, an eG agent on the control domain of a XenServer monitors the hypervisor and all its virtual machines (VMs).
Administrators can also choose to monitor their XenServers without agents, with either a Linux or a Windows system being used to host the remote data collector. Citrix XenMotion activity is tracked to determine when, how often, why and where VMs migrate to.

eG Enterprise v4.2 provides many other improvements and new features. These include: tracking and reporting uptime of individual VMs, ability to share customized views and reports among all or specific administrators, allowing administrators to select a console display “skin” (color) of their choice, providing selectable alert modes (e.g., email and SMS) to accommodate preferences of administrators who work in shifts; and custom monitoring of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

The eG Enterprise v4.2 will be available at the end of September. Pricing for any virtualization platform supported is per server monitored, regardless of the hardware capabilities (e.g., CPU, memory, socket) of the server, or the number of virtual machines or virtual desktops it supports. Pricing for a 25-node environment starts at $50,000.

Citrix Releases XenApp 5, Will It Prove To Become The Application Virtualization Standard?

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Remember when Brian Madden pointed out that Citrix XenApp 5.0 would be delayed for several months? Well, he was right, technically. Anyhow, Citrix today announced the release of Citrix XenApp 5, and claims it “breaks through performance and operating-cost barriers, making application start times up to 10 times faster, dramatically improving end-user experience and lowering application management costs by more than 25 percent over previous versions”.

“XenApp 5 broadens the horizon of the end-user experience and accessibility by delivering an end-to-end virtualization solution that addresses the needs of both local and hosted applications,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “In addition, XenApp 5 is giving new and existing customers a welcome boost in performance at an attractive price-point, two highly sought-after requirements for companies investing in strategic technologies in today’s economy.”

XenApp, in combination with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenServer, creates an end-to-end virtualization solution that spans servers, applications and desktops. The new XenApp 5 release is being featured on September 9, 2008 as part of a global, online launch event, called Citrix Delivery Center Live!

With the release of XenApp 5, Citrix claims it is raising the bar with significant new improvements to performance, user experience and cost savings. In total, XenApp 5 includes more than 50 new major enhancements, according to the official press release.

XenApp 5, which runs on the Microsoft Windows Server platform, leverages all the enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and fully supports Windows Server 2003. This enables existing Windows Server 2003 customers to immediately deploy Windows Server 2008 into their existing XenApp environments in any mix.

XenApp 5 will be available September 10, 2008. For North America, suggested retail pricing is per concurrent user (CCU) and includes one year of Subscription Advantage:

  • Advanced Edition – US $350
  • Enterprise Edition – US $450
  • Platinum Edition – US $600

Standalone pricing for client-side application streaming and virtualization begins as low as $60 per CCU.

Citrix Systems

StoneFly IP SAN Configurations Now Fit For Citrix XenServer

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StoneFly, a supplier of integrated IP storage area network (SAN) systems and a wholly owned subsidiary of Dynamic Network Factory, today announced that all of its IP SAN configurations have completed Citrix Ready compatibility verification testing for use with server virtualization solutions from Citrix Systems.

StoneFly’s High-Availability Storage Concentrator (HSC), Integrated Storage Concentrator (ISC) and OptiSAN Storage Concentrator product lines have been optimized for Citrix XenServer server solutions, which are designed for virtualizing application workloads across any number of servers in the datacenter.

The compatibility bolsters StoneFly’s existing support for fast integration of networked storage with virtual servers – available via StoneFusion, the company’s IP-based, block-level provisioning platform. StoneFly pioneered storage virtualization over five years ago with StoneFusion, which centralizes storage management, control and monitoring of logical storage volumes.
XenServer compatibility allows StoneFly to further simplify IP SAN deployment for its customers: StoneFly’s support for network boot technologies (both software and hardware initiator based) in diskless virtual server environments saves IT administration time, and streamlines operations. Customers can also reduce datacenter costs and consolidate resources by using IP SANs to facilitate the use of diskless servers and virtual servers.
StoneFly is planning further enhancements over the coming months to its integration with Xen environments to build upon the seamless storage/server experience that it is providing to customers.

Xen 3.3.0 Available For Download

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A recent post on the Xen blog featured a proposed data sheet (PDF) for the (back then upcoming) Xen 3.3 release, which we said was in final testing stage in the beginning of this month. Now Xen 3.3.0 is here and ready for download, as reported by Heise Online.

The new version is also available as part of a package with a 2.6.18 kernel version of Linux as the host system, also known as Domain 0 (Dom0). According to Xen developers, the number of supported guest operating systems has grown and there are improvements in performance, the ACPI power management modes, and security functions such as using PVGrub instead of PYGrub. Xen 3.3.0 also has fewer limitations on moving running virtual machines from one physical system to another. This function, necessary for redundant fail over configurations and practical for server maintenance, has previously only been usable when the processors (and chipsets) running on the physical machines involved supported very similar hardware virtualization functions.

XTS Releases Handy Configuration Reporting Utility for Citrix XenApp, Free of Charge

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XTS, a Citrix Ready Partner and a VMware Technology Alliance Partner, has just released their Configuration Report Generator utility that works with XenApp 4.x (meaning any edition).  The company is making this solution a free download via a fully functional virtual machine.

The company is bringing their flexible interface to the Citrix data store in order to make it really easy to use. Leveraging the XTS advanced filters, Citrix customers can generate the configuration reports they need when they need them. In addition to the free configuration reporting utility, the VM also includes a demo of the company’s full Introspect product (released last April) which provides usage reporting and much needed analysis.

Specific benefits of the free configuration reports include:

  • Document Citrix environmental configurations to create baselines for future troubleshooting, disaster recovery or audit requirements.
  • Verify baselines for migrations to XenApp 4.5.
  • Track Citrix hotfixes to ensure consistency across servers
  • Attain more in-depth security insight with user/application assignment reports, leveraging integration with Active Directory.
  • Gain immediate visibility into risks that might exist in their Citrix environment due to misconfigurations
    • XTS

    VMware, Cisco Join Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program

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    Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program, which was first announced in November 2007, and launched last June with the patricipation of Citrix, Sun, Novell and Virtual Iron, signed up two notable new members.

    Cisco has announced its membership and is already included on the SVVP website, and VMware signed up pretty late so they’re not on there yet (but Chris Wolf had already confirmed the news). Microsoft and VMware had been working diligently for several months on the completion of their support agreement and VMware’s inclusion in the SVVP, and this will evidently drive virtualization adoption even further the coming months and years.

    The costs associated with joining the program include membership in TSAnet at Mission Critical level, so that the vendor and Microsoft can share support information, incremental costs, if any, to perform the validation tests, and a nominal expense (currently $250) to qualify each ‘configuration’ that is submitted for validation.

    Microsoft