virtualisation

VirtualLogix To Unveil Virtualized Android Phone Solution

February 13, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

VirtualLogix today announced the availability of the Android mobile phone environment on a range of 2G/3G cellular system solutions from ST-Ericsson, on a Linux single processor (ARM926) platform.

This solution relies on VirtualLogix’ VLX virtualization software to enable developers to create low cost, high volume phones that provide state-of-the-art user experience and services while effectively preserving the predictability and performance of communication and multimedia functionality. VirtualLogix will demonstrate the solution at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

VLX-patented, innovative virtualization technology brings the benefits of server-side virtualization functionality to mobile devices. Designed for real-time performance, VLX delivers a high performance communication capability which minimizes latency and communications between software running in separate containers on the same processor. Through a shared device framework, VLX provides an innovative and structured mechanism for sharing peripheral devices between different execution containers to enable multi-vendor support. VirtualLogix’ virtualization software allows developers to predictably add new functionality to mobile devices post-delivery, without compromising the initial configuration of any device.

Veeam Expands Partner Program

February 12, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Veeam Software, provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX host environments, today announced the next phase in its ProPartner program, with added benefits and opportunities for VMware VAR partners in 2009. Basic, Silver and Gold partner levels have been defined, with increasing benefits and opportunities at each level.

At the same time, Veeam has completed the integration of partner programs from nworks, which Veeam acquired in 2008. Veeam and former nworks partners are organized into a global two-tier distribution network to better serve end user customers seeking to back up and recover, report and document, monitor performance, plan capacity and control VM sprawl, manage configuration and change, and otherwise manage VMware infrastructure.

In addition, Veeam announced that its partner network now has more than 1,400 ProPartners worldwide. Partner benefits include up to 65% additional revenue and margins for every VMware ESX deal.

Veeam’s ProPartner levels include:

Gold ProPartner – by invitation/approval. Requires at least one VMware certified professional (or equivalent HP or Microsoft designation) on staff. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, deal registration, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Gold ProPartner logo to designate this elevated partner status.
Silver ProPartner – requires approval by regional channel management team. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Silver ProPartner logo.
Basic ProPartner – provides any other VAR or reseller who wants to quote or sell Veeam products with access to the ProPartner portal and a starting point to begin working with Veeam.

Gartner: Worldwide Virtualization Software Revenue Will Increase 43% in 2009

February 12, 2009 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

Worldwide virtualization software revenue will increase 43 per cent from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $2.7 billion in 2009, according to Gartner. Global virtualization penetration is on pace to reach 20 per cent in 2009 from 12 per cent in 2008. Its adoption within the IT organization is driven by the need to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), enhance the agility and speed of deployment of IT needs and minimize carbon footprint.

Gartner’s definition of the virtualisation market includes server virtualization management, server virtualization infrastructure and hosted virtual desktops (HVDs). Gartner estimates that revenue from HVDs will more than triple from $74.1 million to $298.6 million in 2009 while revenue from server virtualization management software will increase 42 per cent from $913.9 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2009. Revenue from server virtualization infrastructure will grow 22.5 per cent from $917 million in 2008 to $1.1 billion in 2009.

“Virtualization helps organizations to cut costs, better utilize assets and reduce implementation and management time and complexity, all of which are crucial in this economic environment,” said Alan Dayley, research director at Gartner. “Server virtualization management will be the primary source of growth in the virtualization market as hypervisor software functionality – key to virtualizing a server – rapidly moves to hardware. Server virtualization management technology in particular is designed to reduce TCO, reduce associated availability risk, and improve quality of service. In addition, building more manageability into infrastructure components provides technology suppliers with an additional source of revenue and a basis for competitive differentiation.”

“Although HVD is an emerging technology that currently represents 11 per cent of the virtualization software revenue market, it will account for a growing proportion of corporate users through 2013. Virtual desktop infrastructure feeds additional server virtualization needs because the users’ desktop data will now need to be managed in a virtualized server environment. Maturity and acceptance will result in a significant broadening of the addressable user population by 2010 and an acceleration in deployments. Gartner advises end-user organizations to define and optimize management processes for HVDs as they did for traditional PCs. Although HVD images are centralized and more standardized, the capabilities for managing them across their full deployment life cycles remain incomplete. To remedy this, they should budget for additional point-solution management capabilities.

“End-user organizations must build cost and benefit financial models to fully understand the financial impact of implementing HVDs, and make certain that cost and benefit exist as compared with those for traditional PCs,” said Phil Dawson, research vice president at Gartner. “There is a growing number of management providers, which represents an opportunity for end-user pricing leverage, but no vendor offers a complete set of server virtualization management functionality. IT organizations will have to undertake – or outsource – their own virtualization management system integration efforts or wait for better-integrated and robust toolsets.”

“From a vendor perspective, by 2013, Microsoft will challenge VMware as the dominant vendor in the server virtualization infrastructure market and will do very well in small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The server virtualization management market is currently wide open, with more than 100 vendors supplying products that meet some of the requirements in the management stack. As the management market matures, virtualization infrastructure vendors, the “Big Four” (BMC Software, CA, HP and IBM/Tivoli) and other management vendors will build and acquire more virtualization management capabilities, thus consolidating the market. On the other hand, the HVD vendor landscape is crowded, confusing, and full of opportunists.

Gartner recommends that vendors take advantage during this disruptive period by introducing leading-edge management tools in support of virtualization initiatives and ensure that virtualization-specific management products can integrate within existing management frameworks. Mr Dayley said: “The fast-growing server virtualization management and HVD markets are less consolidated, with scores of vendors trying to stake claim in the market.”

LeftHand Networks Delivers Entry-level SAN for Virtualized Environments

February 12, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

LeftHand Networks (an HP company) today announced an entry-level storage area network (SAN) solution that improves performance and reduces storage costs within virtualized server environments for midsize businesses.

The LeftHand SAS Starter SAN helps customers efficiently deploy their first virtualization projects by simplifying the process of creating, accessing and managing shared storage resources.

As customers deploy virtual server environments, they frequently encounter unforeseen system performance bottlenecks. To further complicate matters, server virtualization increases the number of required connections to a SAN. This increased system complexity makes it more difficult and costly to troubleshoot when bottlenecks do occur. The LeftHand SAS Starter SAN reduces costs and mitigates these performance issues by automatically balancing data volumes across all disk drives, network connections and processors.

The SAS Starter SAN includes management tools that provide replication, thin provisioning and snapshot capabilities. These capabilities help ensure data availability even as the environment becomes more complex. In addition, customers can purchase only the capacity they need, easily increasing both the capacity and performance of their system without experiencing any disruption. The SAS Starter SAN can scale to more than 80 network ports and 320 disk drives to accommodate business growth.

LeftHand also introduced a higher capacity SATA Starter SAN that offers a 25 percent reduction in the cost per gigabyte (GB) of disk drive capacity than the previous generation. The solution’s storage capacity has increased 33 percent to 12 terabytes (TB) while maintaining its current list price. The SATA Starter SAN is ideal for customers who want to consolidate storage for Microsoft Windows or Linux servers.

The SAS Starter SAN and the higher-capacity SATA Starter SAN are available immediately through LeftHand Networks’ resellers and value-added resellers in the United States as well as value-added distributors throughout Europe.

Pricing starts at $35,000 for the 4.8 TB SAS Starter SAN and $30,000 for the 12 TB SATA Starter SAN.

EMC/VMW Acquisition By Cisco Imminent?

February 12, 2009 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

Great field work on Virtualization.info today about the fact that investors are buying heaps of VMware stock, signalling that something is up.

A small excerpt:

Monday’s SEC filings shows that Cisco posted a prospectus on raising $4 billion in senior bonds. The book building is run by all the major investment banks and is closing on February 17.
Cisco must be really confident for such a major issuance in these market conditions, but Standard & Poors is giving the senior unsecured notes an A+ rating with a stable outlook.
Cisco will use $500 million of the $4 billion to repay short term debt. When combined with sizeable cash holdings, this leaves them with with $4.7 billion in cash at the US parent company. According to CNET that amount excluded cash holdings at subsidiaries overseas.

LynuxWorks Debuts LynxSecure 2.0

February 10, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

LynuxWorks today announced the availability of LynxSecure 2.0, a next-generation separation kernel and embedded hypervisor for high assurance systems, on the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor-based systems.

LynxSecure takes advantage of Intel’s latest hardware-enhanced Intel Virtualization technology (Intel VT) to provide a standards-based, secure software platform for applications with low, medium and high assurance requirements running concurrently on a single system. This meeting of two new technologies generated much interest when previewed with multiple operating systems being run simultaneously on a single Intel chipset with real-time performance and security applications being demonstrated.

LynxSecure was designed from the ground to up to offer a reliable, secure and extendable platform to meet the demanding needs of embedded software developers building complex systems that require application separation. Designers of military, aerospace, medical and financial systems can utilize the safety and security features offered in LynxSecure, and combined with Intel’s latest processors gives very low latency when compared with traditional multi-cpu systems. LynxSecure 2.0 works closely with Intel VT to enable multiple, heterogeneous operating systems (OS) to coexist on the same platform, enabling developers to build a diverse array of applications on a single processor, reducing hardware costs and allowing for easier reuse of legacy software.

The latest generation of Intel Core2 Duo processors offers a number of new features and enhancements that are applicable to embedded developers. Intel’s enhanced virtualization provides hardware-enhanced I/O virtualization and facilitates interactions between the embedded hypervisor and the guest operating systems running on it. There are some new integrated security features which include integrated TPM building blocks and a network outbreak containment block that improve network security with new packet filtering capabilities. Enhancing of both the on-chip power management features and the graphics capabilities offers better performance at lower power, a real benefit for embedded applications.

LynxSecure, with its extremely small code size, maintains hard real-time characteristics and determinism for real-time applications. The software is the first separation kernel & hypervisor to bring multi-core processor support to the high assurance world, providing scalability from deeply embedded applications up to workstations and servers.

LynxSecure is designed to run on any 32-bit or 64-bit processor with a memory management unit (MMU) and provides 100% application binary compatibility between a standalone OS and its virtualized version. Like all LynuxWorks’ products, LynxSecure is based on open standards, but it also offers the highest real-time, safety and security capabilities, conforming to the MILS standard and certifiable to DO-178B level A.