virtualisation

Gartner: Virtualization Wave To Cause Huge Market Disruption And Consolidation Through 2012

April 6, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Gartner says virtualization will be the highest-impact trend changing infrastructure and operations through 2012.

From the press release (emphasis ours):

“Virtualization will transform how IT is managed, what is bought, how it is deployed, how companies plan and how they are charged. As a result, virtualization is creating a new wave of competition among infrastructure vendors that will result in considerable market disruption and consolidation over the next few years.”

According to Gartner, the leading edge of this change is server virtualization, which promises to unlock much of the underutilized capacity of existing server architectures. Server virtualization is already having an impact on the server market; Gartner believes that virtualization reduced the x86 server market by 4 % in 2006. As hypervisor prices drop sharply and management costs decrease because of increased competition, virtualization will have a significantly larger impact, and Gartner analysts predict that more than 4 million virtual machines will be installed on x86 servers by 2009.

The use of PC virtualization is also set to increase rapidly. The number of virtualized PCs is expected to grow from less than 5 million in 2007 to 660 million by 2011. On the PC, the decoupling technology that breaks the close ties and dependencies between hardware and software occurs at two levels: between hardware and the operating system (machine virtualization) and between the operating system and applications (application virtualization).

Check out Gartner’s special report on virtualization, including a number of useful guides and a podcast with industry analyst Thomas Bittman.

NComputing Debuts X350

April 2, 2008 by Robin Wauters 12 Comments

NComputing has added another offering to its X-series product line. The new X350 is designed specifically for organizations that want to economically and efficiently add users for the lowest cost and best performance.

Built to accommodate popular slim-line PCs, the X350 kit, with a list price of $249, turns one PC into four virtual desktops – each delivering rich multimedia performance and full-screen video. With a second X350 kit, a total of seven users can share a single PC. The X350 is a lower-cost, low-profile version of the highly successful NComputing X550, which supports up to 11 users on a full-sized PC. And like all NComputing solutions, the X350 features the award-winning NComputing vSpace desktop virtualization software.

The NComputing solution is based on a simple fact: today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications use only a small fraction of the computer’s capacity. NComputing enables a single PC to be virtualized so that many users can tap the unused capacity and share it as if each person had their own computer. Each user enjoys a full PC experience by connecting their own monitor, keyboard and mouse to an NComputing device, which is then connected to the shared PC. Each X350 kit contains three NComputing XD2 devices and a low-profile PCI card that fits inside space-saving computers. Unlike other desktop virtualization solutions, the patented and highly-efficient X350 delivers rich multimedia and full-screen video.

The X350 is available now from thousands of resellers around the globe. In less than two years, NComputing has sold more than one million seats, making it the largest provider of ultra-low-cost computing solutions. NComputing’s simplicity and ease of use have contributed to rapid worldwide acceptance: anyone with basic PC skills can install an NComputing solution and the savings are immediate. Over 40,000 organizations in 140 countries have deployed NComputing to slash their computing costs and electric consumption. Each access device uses just one watt of electricity, compared to 110 for a standalone PC, making NComputing the greenest computing solution on earth.

HP’s Ann Livermore On Virtualization

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

In an interesting interview with ZDNet UK, HP’s Ann Livermore, who heads the company’s Technology Solutions Group, talks about the difference between HP and IBM and touches upon virtualization.

A highlight:

What is HP’s take on virtualization, and where do you think the barriers are that stop people getting the maximum value from it?

Livermore: A lot of people associate virtualization with the server, and what really needs to be done by customers is to virtualize the entire data center, the servers, the storage, the networking, and the applications. And the first problem customers run into when they start doing that is: “How do I manage this thing? When I have physical servers sitting there, virtual servers and in a mixed environment, what do I do?”

The software we provide is to manage both the physical and the virtual servers through a single pane of glass, a single set of software, and actually create the equivalent of a logical server environment that is being managed. We believe one of the biggest impediments has been: “How do I manage this thing once it is in production?” With our software, you are able to visualize it, plan the changes, and actually make the changes in the environment.

Do you see a slow transition to virtualization?

Livermore: Yes, and most are going to find that the transition from physical to virtual is slow enough that they are going to have to manage both for a while.

But you do see virtualization on the desktop becoming more popular?

Livermore: Absolutely. We believe that for security reasons, for performance reasons, cost reasons, any of those can be compelling reasons for a virtualized desktop–or a thin-client accessing the services you need from that device.

Could this be ideal for blades?

Livermore: PC blades can be an implementation of virtualization. HP made an acquisition a year ago of Neoware for our PC business to give us the capability to have a virtualized client environment. So we feel good about our blade business. Half of all virtualized environments are blades, so when people are thinking of virtualizing, very often they end up with a blades environment. That places us in a strong position.

[Source: Cnet News – Newsmaker]

VKernel Partners With Prosper Intelligence And The Virtualization Consolidation Academy

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

VKernel, a Portsmouth-based provider of virtual appliances for managing virtual server environments, announced today a partnership with Prosper Intelligence and its Virtualization Consolidation Academy. Under the agreement, Prosper Intelligence will distribute VKernel’s Suite of Virtual Appliances for managing VMware ESX environments to its network of partners and solution providers throughout Eastern and Central Europe.

From the press release:

“The VKernel Virtual Appliance Suite for Systems Management is a set of “plug-and-play” virtual appliances designed to quickly solve real world systems management challenges as organizations migrate to VMware virtual environments. VKernel products enable IT groups to immediately address today’s critical pain points by providing visibility into the capacity and resource consumption of each virtual machine. VKernel is currently offering a Chargeback Virtual Appliance for gaining cost visibility and a Capacity Analyzer Virtual Appliance for eliminating capacity bottlenecks.”

[Source: BusinessWire]

VirtualLogix Adds Support For Intel VT-d, Now Fit For Windows Environments

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

VirtualLogix has updated the Intel Architecture (IA) version of its embedded virtualization stack, which targets performance-critical telecom and datacom applications. VLX for Network Infrastructure (VLX-NI) 3.0 adds support for Intel VT-d (virtualization technology for directed I/O), Microsoft Windows guests, and Core Microarchitecture 3.0, while adding new Eclipse-based set-up tools.

VirtualLogix made the announcement at the Multicore Expo today in Santa Clara, where it also announced having joined the Multicore Association. From the press release:

VirtualLogix’s new release blends the rich Microsoft Windows operating system environment with the existing capabilities of real-time operating systems (RTOS) or Linux by applying real-time virtualization technology on platforms using multicore processors.

Communications applications often require separate hardware to handle Windows interfaces and mission-critical portions of the equipment. VirtualLogix’s real-time virtualization software simplifies the design by allowing all software to share a common hardware platform. With VLX for Network Infrastructure v3.0, networking and telecommunication equipment makers can quickly develop next-generation products, reduce development and bill-of-material costs and lower power consumption. In the industrial and automation markets, where Windows is also widely used to provide user friendly interfaces to machinery, VLX is able to support the time-sensitive control and signal processing functions these areas demand.

[Source: LinuxDevices – who also interviewed VirtualLogix’s VP of Marketing, Mark Milligan]

ScaleMP Raises $8 Million More, Funding Now Totals $26 Million (Oh Yeah, They Also Launched)

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Cupertino-based ScaleMP, a provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing, today announced that it has raised $8 million in new venture funding, bringing the total raised to $26 million. Participation in this up-round funding included all of the existing investors: Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, TL Ventures, and ABS Ventures. This announcement coincides with the official launch of the company and its technology, whose details have also been announced today.

The ScaleMP aggregation technology allows a server to expand outside a single system boundary, addressing growing end-user requirements for large memory systems or systems with high-core count. The vSMP Foundation aggregation platform is a software-only solution that eliminates the need for extensive R&D or proprietary hardware components in developing high-end x86 systems, and reduces overall end-user system cost and operational expenditures. It utilizes up to sixteen x86 systems to create a single shared-memory system with 4 to 32 processors (128 cores) and up to 1 TB of RAM, providing significantly better price/performance compared to traditional SMP systems and lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) compared to clusters.

The ScaleMP product line includes two products: a standalone solution, which enables the industry’s first four-socket system at under $10,000, and an embedded solution that helps original design manufacturers (ODMs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) build high-end systems.

The ScaleMP solutions are sold through a worldwide network of partners. The vSMP Foundation Standalone is available through VARs and system integrators at prices starting at US$2,750. vSMP Foundation Embedded is available through ODMs and OEMs at prices that vary depending on system configuration.

[Source: AmericanVentureMagazine]