Univa UD

Release: Univa UniCloud 2.0

July 28, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Univa UD, a provider of software solutions for enabling dynamic IT environments, today announced UniCloud 2.0, a new release which includes unique capabilities for enabling private, public and hybrid cloud environments.

UniCloud 2.0 enables the formation of an elastic compute infrastructure or cloud environment that unifies provisioning, configuration and virtualization management with application configuration into a single RESTful web-services-based framework. By integrating this flexible, powerful framework with management of resources and policies, UniCloud 2.0 greatly simplifies the deployment and operation of both physical and virtual (i.e. ‘dual-mode’) compute infrastructures. As a result, users can maximize software license optimization, throughput and resource utilization.

The new release is groundbreaking in several respects:

First to simultaneously manage ‘dual-mode infrastructures’ that consist of both physical and virtual resource nodes, the most common use case in a cloud scenario
First to integrate provisioning, infrastructure configuration, application configuration, and physical and virtual resource management into a single, unified product

UniCloud 2.0 is the ideal cloud solution for a variety of real-world usage scenarios, such as high-throughput engineering organizations that are trying to optimize expensive software licenses or fair-share compute resources that require check-pointing. UniCloud is also a valuable product for small business HPC and ISV appliance manufacturers who need a cloud enablement component for their customers.

UniCloud 2.0 is the first cloud enablement product to operate and support simultaneous dual-mode infrastructure, instead of requiring users to choose between deploying physical or virtual compute nodes in a cloud environment. The built-in descriptive policy management ensures applications automatically use the best available mode by switching the hardware profile or live-migrating workload as required to achieve the service level objective. This means all workloads and users get the fastest possible throughput performance and the greatest possible utilization.

UniCloud 2.0 provides a single construct to manage complex infrastructures and workloads using service level objectives. Workload of any type is automatically managed through integration with powerful Sun Grid Engine software. Workload requiring expensive application licenses, or meeting other prescribed priorities, can be run immediately without having to restart current jobs – check-pointing and live-migration are fully supported, so all workload finishes within a predictable amount of time. Integrated policy management enables automation by harmonizing workload, resources and hardware profiles. Changing system behavior is as simple as publishing a policy – new actions instantly become available.

UniCloud 2.0 allows any typical cluster administrative functions to be supported in a cloud environment and also supports many capabilities that are not typical or possible with incumbent solutions such as basic check-pointing. UniCloud can dynamically add virtual or physical compute resources to the cluster infrastructure, automatically delivering real-time resource optimization based on available memory, licenses, power consumption, CPUs and even data locality. With UniCloud 2.0, users can place multiple applications safely on the same compute resource without worrying about swapping or application interference and can reduce power consumption significantly by shifting workload to less expensive data centers. “If you can think it, you can do it,” quips Tyreman.

Coverage of Top Cloud Use Cases

UniCloud 2.0 addresses these top use cases:

Cloud Clustering: Provision an entire cluster in a public cloud
Cloud Bursting: Add virtual compute nodes to internal clusters by provisioning nodes in a public cloud
Private Cloud Computing: Create an internal virtual cluster that uses policies to place jobs on the most appropriate infrastructure, live-migrate or checkpoint jobs, and add virtual compute nodes by cloudbursting

UniCloud 2.0 is available as a standalone product or in an Enterprise package. Both packages include Sun Grid Engine software; the Enterprise package also includes Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise Linux and a version of Reliance, Univa’s proprietary infrastructure and application service governor.

Industry Moves: Patrick Malaperiman New VP and General Manager, EMEA For Univa

July 23, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Univa UD has named Patrick Malaperiman as its new Vice President and General Manager, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Malaperiman has over 15 years experience in technology strategy and sales for some of the most successful IT companies in existence, including VMware and Novell. As head of Univa’s operations in EMEA, Patrick Malaperiman will oversee strategic business and sales in these key regions, where Univa is experiencing significant increases in demand.

Before joining Univa, Malaperiman was VP EMEA at PlateSpin, which was sold in 2008 to Novell where Malaperiman stayed on as VP EMEA for Novell’s Systems & Resource Management (SRM) business unit. At PlateSpin, Malaperiman was the first EMEA employee and in 3.5 years grew the team to 35 people, a team that accounted for 40% of global revenue. At Novell, Malaperiman led their SRM business unit, which included Novell’s ZENworks systems management portfolio in addition to PlateSpin and Managed Objects.

Prior to PlateSpin, Malaperiman was one of the first 15 employees in EMEA at VMware where as Channel Director for Northern Europe he defined the overall channel strategy and was responsible for identifying, recruiting and driving revenue with distributors and resellers within the geography. In less than a year he established a committed enterprise channel delivering significant revenue for the fastest growing software company in IT history.

Prior to VMware, Malaperiman held senior-level channel and business development positions at Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Digital Equipment Corp., and several other global technology companies.

Univa UD Appoints New Management Team, Unveils New Data Center Automation Strategy

July 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Univa UD, a provider of data center automation and virtualization products, recently announced it has named industry veterans Alex Brown and Kent Purdy to lead its data center automation business division and retool its product suite. The announcement comes as Univa UD officially launches Reliance as its cornerstone product for service-based management of application delivery environments.

Brown joins Univa UD as VP and general manager of data center automation. Brown brings 20 years of experience and a wealth of enterprise software and data center strategy expertise to Univa UD. He joins the company from Dell, where he was the global leader in charge of developing Infrastructure Services solutions, most recently including Dell’s initial Virtualization and Data Center Power/Cooling offerings.

During his time at Dell, Brown also ran Asia-Pacific-Japan Consulting as well as his initial post at Dell leading Central United States Consulting. His previous firm, Plural, was acquired by Dell in 2002.

Also joining Univa UD is Kent Purdy, who will lead product development for the data center automation division. Purdy also brings more than 20 years experience in the business software industry, maintaining product focus specific to IT centric administration and management solutions for servers, distributed computing, and grid environments.

Purdy joins Univa UD from Altiris, where as senior product alliance manager he drove product strategy into partner roadmap and execution plans. At Altiris, Purdy managed Dell’s OpenManage product line, including Dell’s Client Manager for desktop and mobile management as well as their Dell Management Console server management platform. Purdy has also held lead product management positions at Platform Computing, Novell, and Citrix.

Univa UD at the same time officially launched its data center automation business, anchored by its Reliance product for service-level management of application delivery environments. Univa UD plans to release a major upgrade for Reliance in Q3 2008 including key partner integrations.