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JumpBox Releases 38 Open Source Virtual Appliances In Open Virtualization Format (OVF)

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JumpBox, publisher of virtual appliances which provide ways to trial, develop, and deploy applications, this week announced the release of 38 Open Source applications in the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), a software standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances.

A JumpBox is a pre-built and configured virtual appliance that deploys in minutes, saving users up to 70% of the time and cost of traditional software application deployment. OVF enables even simpler JumpBox deployments, particularly for users of the VMware ESX hypervisor based virtualization system.

Applications delivered as OVF are available to premium subscribers to JumpBox Open, JumpBox’s annual subscription suite of virtual appliances for Open Source software.

KACE Releases New Version Of KBOX Systems Deployment Appliance

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KACE today announced the latest version of KBOX Systems Deployment Appliance. The new release, now shipping, enables enterprises of all sizes to smash cost and complexity barriers by providing centralized and automated provisioning of remote systems. The new appliance works in both physical and virtual settings and offers new virtual remote appliance features including integrated virtual infrastructure and bandwidth throttling for even easier deployment of systems at remote offices, as well as new packaged post deployment scripts that eliminate manual work.

Remote provisioning of laptops, desktops, and servers can be a costly and complex task for IT organizations. KACE makes remote provisioning easy by automating the entire deployment process, eliminating time-consuming and error-prone manual tasks. The new KBOX Systems Deployment Appliance deploys software at a fraction of the price and complexity of software-only solutions from vendors such as Altiris, LANDesk, and also Microsoft.

KACE continues to separate itself from costly software-only solutions by offering the only all-in-one, complete management solution. Software-only solutions require separate servers for all major functions, such as reporting, database, and deployment. The KBOX Systems Deployment solution performs all of these critical functions from the ease of a single appliance. In addition, KBOX has the ability to manage multiple remote offices without the need for dedicated hardware at those locations through the KBOX Virtual Remote Appliance. These capabilities dramatically reduce the resources necessary to manage PCs at a multi-site organization, thus eliminating the need for additional hardware and software, and also dedicated staff. Disparate systems can be managed remotely from a single appliance helping customers cut down on cost and complexity – a key differentiator software-only solutions cannot touch.

KACE saves its customers both time and money. Systems managers from medium enterprises are often forced to wear many hats throughout the day to work on a myriad of IT functions. KACE helps consolidate these functions by providing a single appliance for all projects, while delivering easy-to-use, comprehensive systems management that is affordable. The KBOX family of appliances fulfills all of the systems management needs of a medium enterprise, from initial computer deployment to ongoing management and retirement.

VKernel Ships Capacity Analyzer 2.0 Virtual Appliance

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VKernel Corporation announced today the company is now shipping its Capacity Analyzer 2.0 virtual appliance.  New features and functionality include Disk I/O statistics, a more intuitive user interface, and enhanced scalability to ensure the optimal performance of the most demanding VMware ESX environments.

Capacity Analyzer continuously and proactively monitors shared CPU, memory, and storage resource utilization trends in VMware ESX environments across hosts, clusters, and resource pools.  By quickly identifying current and future performance-impacting capacity bottlenecks, Capacity Analyzer provides the critical resource utilization data to properly plan and grow the virtual server infrastructure, ensures optimal service level agreements (SLAs), and lowers the cost per virtual machine to realize a faster return on investment (ROI).

VKernel’s patent-pending Capacity Analyzer technology provides users with a unique single-screen dashboard view of their complete VMware environment and dynamically updates as additions and changes are made.  From the Capacity Analyzer dashboard, users have the advanced analytics to monitor and manage shared resource capacity, allocation, and utilization.

The VKernel Capacity Analyzer virtual appliance is currently available with pricing starting at $199 per CPU socket for the standard edition. There’s also a free, full-featured 14-day trial version available from the VKernel website.

VKernel

Citrix’s Open Source “Project Kensho” Tech Preview Now Available Under LGPL

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Citrix recently announced “Project Kensho,” which would deliver Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) tools that allow independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprise IT managers to easily create hypervisor-independent, portable enterprise application workloads.

Well, it looks like Citrix just released the first technical preview of project Kensho under the LGPL license.

Because the tools are based on an industry standard schema, customers are ensured a rich ecosystem of options for virtualization.  And because of the open-standard format and special licensing features in OVF, customers can seamlessly move their current virtualized workloads to either XenServer or Windows Server 2008, enabling them to distribute virtual workloads to the platform of choice while simultaneously ensuring compliance with the underlying licensing requirements for each virtual appliance.

Citrix also announced a partnership with rPath to build and deliver new virtual appliances by assembling Linux packages “like Lego bricks”. The two are working together to allow rPath’s rBuilder to inject OVF virtual appliances directly into Xen-based cloud computing environments, like Amazon EC2. This collaboration will allow Linux and Windows based OVF appliances created on XenServer, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 to be installed and run in the cloud and managed through their entire lifecycle.

Citrix Systems

Bomgar Introduces B300v Virtual Appliance to Enhance Remote IT Support

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Bomgar is expanding its Bomgar Box family to include the B300v virtual appliance. Deploying the B300v within a VMware ESX infrastructure gives enterprises the flexibility to increase the capacity and manageability of IT support operations, while seamlessly ensuring that the help desk meets an organizations failover policy. IT administrators can also adapt to the changing support needs of today’s enterprise networks, leveraging the B300v to efficiently resolve computer-related issues in both virtual and physical environments.

Bomgar’s B300v provides IT organizations all of the robust features of its physical enterprise appliance, including integration with trouble ticket systems and security functions (i.e. session logging and reporting) with the versatility to deploy on a virtual server. This agility better aligns with disaster recovery initiatives as Bomgar’s virtual appliance can be replicated with ease for back-up and redundancy purposes. Additionally, the B300v enables organizations to take advantage of the virtual infrastructure and utilize pre-deployed networking, storage and servers.

Inherently, Bomgar’s products are purpose-built to provide IT support reps with secure access to any desktop via a secure Internet connection to resolve computer issues quickly. Bomgar provides enterprises of all sizes with the resources required to identify and resolve costly technology and business issues that cycle through the help desk.

The Bomgar B300v is currently available and technical specifications can be found on the Bomgar website.

Tenable Releases Virtual Appliance for Nessus

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Tenable Network Security recently announced the general availability of a virtual appliance for the Nessus Vulnerability Scanner.

Tenable’s Nessus Virtual Appliance for VMware is a pre-built, pre-configured and ready-to-run software application packaged with the operating system inside a virtual machine. This is available to Tenable ProfessionalFeed subscribers as a free download and the virtual appliance is easily deployed in under 10 minutes — reducing infrastructure cost/complexity, simplifying deployment and maximizing ROI in VMware environments. The combination of Tenable’s Nessus with VMware virtualization technologies allows organizations to deploy Nessus scanners using physical as well as virtual servers.

With server consolidation, disaster recovery and cost considerations thrusting server virtualization into mainstream datacenter operations, IT operations personnel are beginning to worry about security. The virtual appliance for Nessus brings significant benefits to the marketplace. First, instead of building a server to host Nessus and deal with the installation process, Tenable customers can download and operate Nessus on a dedicated VM and reduce the complexity of installation and configuration. Second, as new images of the Nessus VM are made available, moving to them saves time by using an image that has been tested. Finally, Nessus can be positioned on a pre-configured virtual server in locations of your network that would not regularly host a scanner but can be on an as needed basis allowing for less disruption to the network.