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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

Defragmentation Software Maker Diskeeper Certified for Hyper-V

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Diskeeper Corporation today announced that its flagship product Diskeeper 2008 automatic defragmenter achieved Certified for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V status from Microsoft, making it one of the first three applications, out of 175 applications currently certified for Windows Server 2008, to earn the Hyper-V designation.

All systems suffer from file fragmentation. Servers suffer even more so due to their heavy multi-user traffic. And virtual servers yet further since fragmentation takes place on three separate levels–the virtual, the physical disk and the mapping in between them. Without a professional grade defragmenter designed to address the virtual issues, server performance is going to crawl to a slow.
Thanks to recent developments in transparent processing technology (known as InvisiTasking, defragmentation of such systems with Diskeeper 2008 has now become a fully automated process. This speeds up server response time, ensures the level of virtual disk performance is optimal and saves time by taking the guesswork out of defragmenting.
Diskeeper

VMLogix Also Sells a Lab Manager, Releases Version 3.6

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VMLogix has released VMLogix LabManager 3.6 – not to be confused with VMware Lab Manager 3.0, released on the same day – carrying support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. VMLogix LabManager is hypervisor agnostic and with the introduction of Hyper-V now supports all standard server virtualization platforms.

VMLogix LabManager enables software companies, SMBs and enterprise IT organizations to leverage virtualization to consolidate and automate lab IT infrastructure in order to deliver and maintain software applications more quickly, cost-effectively and reliably. VMLogix LabManager allows development, test and support teams to build, snapshot, share and deploy production-like environments on-demand across Citrix, Microsoft and VMware virtualization platforms.

VMLogix LabManager 3.6 is available starting today and includes the beta version of support for the Microsoft Hyper-V platform. The product will be generally available in September 2008.

VMLogix

Symantec Sets Up Virtualization Lab in Japan

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Symantec today announced that Symantec Japan has opened its new “Virtualisation Solutions Lab” for customers and partners, as the company continues to deliver on its virtualization strategy.

The Virtualisation Solutions Lab will enable Symantec Japan to test and optimize Symantec’s products for specific virtual environments quickly, and provide customers and partners with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience and see demonstrations of solution deployments for their environments. With this new facility, Symantec Japan claims it can better support its customers and partners who decide to implement virtualization solutions, as market needs for virtualization continue to grow rapidly.

The Virtualisation Solutions Lab is located within the Japan Engineering Center at Symantec Japan’s headquarters (Minato-ku, Tokyo), which is responsible for all technological verification required for Symantec’s products before their release into the Japanese market. With the launch of this new facility, the Virtualisation Solutions Lab will introduce comprehensive virtualisation solutions for data centres in VMware environments.

The line-up of solutions to be provided by the Virtualisation Solutions Lab is as follows:

  • Comprehensive backup solutions using Veritas NetBackup for VMware environments
  • Failover solutions with high availability of guest OS and VMware applications using Veritas Cluster Server
  • Backup and restore solutions for P2V (physical to virtual) system images using Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery
  • Deployment solutions for virtual servers using the Symantec Altiris platform

Symantec Japan plans to work closely with Citrix Systems and Microsoft to test virtualization solutions for Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments at the Virtualisation Solutions Lab in addition to VMware Infrastructure 3. In addition, Symantec Japan plans to organize regular product familiarization seminars as it continues to expand its range of solutions for its customers and partners.

[Source: ITWeb]

Symantec

Forbes Interviews Paul Maritz

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Forbes interviewed newly appointed VMware CEO and Microsoft vet Paul Maritz after last night’s earnings call. To read the full interview, click here. This is the most interesting excerpt as far as we’re concerned:

Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor, software that separates hardware from operating systems and applications inside computer servers, is virtually free. How do you plan to compete with that?

We don’t see the need to lower our price points. But that said, we created lower price SKUs for our customers.

Hyper V is really just one layer and it corresponds to our ESXi. Our customers no longer pay for that. What they pay us for is the software that sits on top of that. Microsoft is not there yet. They don’t have the virtual infrastructure suite that we have.

What strategies from Microsoft will you use at VMware?

When you reach the size that VMware’s reached, in order to capitalize on opportunities, you have to be able to operate on multiple fronts. Find elements [that have made VMware successful], reinforce them and fill in with other tactics and tools. Create the ability to have empowered teams that can execute on multiple fronts. They just need to take their game up to the next level. I spent five years at Intel before Microsoft. I’m well schooled in Andy Grove’s doctrine that only the paranoid survive.

Microsoft To Release System Center VMM 2008 Soon

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Diane Prescott, Product Manager, System Center at Microsoft posted an article on the official SC blog today sharing that the launch of the next version of Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is imminent, specifically in Q4 2008. The beta was formally introduced by the company end of April 2008.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 will be available as a stand-alone product, while the current version only comes bundled with Server Management Suite Enterprise. Prescott also said something about the pricing structure:

“[SCVMM 2008] will follow the licensing model set forward by the SMSE. It will be sold as a per-device enterprise server management license (ML) and will include rights to the management server. Because we’ll be selling the VMM 2008 enterprise server ML on a per-device basis, which makes sense in the context of virtualization, we’ll be targeting a price which will be approximately 10-15% less than the SMSE at that time it’s generally available. Additionally, because of the new value and functionality being added to the various System Center offerings over the next year, including VMM, Operations Manager and Configuration Manager, we will be implementing a price increase to the SMSE of approximately 10-15% in the same time frame. We’re still working on the specifics regarding the pricing and licensing of VMM 2008 and the SMSE and we’ll have further details to share in early August.”

Next to support for Hyper-V, SCVMM 2008 will also offer management capabilities for VMware ESX environments, allbeit through VirtualCenter.

Microsoft