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Clouds In The Zoo: CloudCamp Antwerp Is Coming Up (9 April)

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Cloud Computing is a hot topic these days, but what does it mean? And how can it contribute to my business?

CloudCamp was formed in order to provide a common ground for the introduction and advancement of cloud computing. Specialists of cloud related vendors share their knowledge in short, informative, non-commercial sessions.

CloudCamp Antwerp, of which Virtualization.com is a media partner, is hosted at the conference center of the Antwerp Zoo on April 9, 2009, situated between the Zoo entrance and the Queen Elisabeth concert hall and just next to Antwerp Central Station. The following companies will be present at this event: A-Server, ITricity, Inuits, Skills Matter, AiCache, Cloud Angles, Flexiscale, Terremark, Zeus, Sun, … After these sessions there are networking opportunities.

Attendance is free, seat capacity is limited so make sure to register now!

Virtualization 3.0 According To Pioneer Kevin Lawton

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A must-read article from Kevin Lawton, self-proclaimed “pioneer in x86 virtualization, serial entrepreneur, business and technology visionary, prolific idea creator, news and business book junkie”.

The full article is here, but we give you an excerpt:

To get to where virtualization needs to go, we need to be able to look at virtualization as a fabric, stretching or overlaying numerous physical sites. And Cloud Computing will absolutely exacerbate this need. Many things that we’ve contemplated on a small scale (e.g. load balancing, power management, down-time maintenance), need to be brought to a larger context of a virtualization fabric stretching across physical sites. Virtualization needs to stretch to the cloud. To be sure, there are a number of issues to solve to make this happen, including networking and storage continuity. But I’d like to present a part of this next evolutionary step, virtualization 3.0, which is critical to its success yet unanswered elsewhere to my knowledge.

Memory density in servers continues to go up following its own exponential path. And as virtualization is used for increasingly higher-end workloads, the size of per-VM memory will continue to rise. Just imagine if you piled up all the RAM from all of your data centers, in one spot! Yet, to enable a fluid and dynamic virtualization 3.0 fabric, we need to rapidly allow all kinds of intra and inter-site VM migrations to occur, often driven automatically. That requires a whole new approach to how we manage VM memory; huge volumes of it effectively need to be transported rapidly. On the storage front, there are a number of technologies afoot, which are enablers of virtualization 3.0. But, I’ve been working for some time on concepts for making VM memory a 1st class citizen of the virtualization 3.0 vision.

Full post here.

VKernel Releases Another Free Tool, SnapshotMyVM

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VKernel has released another free tool, SnapshotMyVM, a utility that makes it extremely easy to quickly document and inventory all of your VMs.

SnapshotMyVM automates the time-consuming documentation process, collects dozens of important VM attributes, and creates detailed reports.  You can export your documentation to XML, so that you can save it, edit it, archive it, and share it with others.

Here’s a sampling of the information you can get with SnapshotMyVM:

  • VM name
  • Guest operating system
  • Host hardware type, manufacturer, and version
  • VM resource (CPU, memory, storage, network) configuration
  • VM resource utilization statistics (saves a week of historical data)
Video:

    Dennis Hoffman Joins Neocleus’ Board of Directors

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    Neocleus today announced that Dennis Hoffman has joined the Neocleus Board of Directors.

    Hoffman has worked in both entrepreneurial and general management capacities at numerous information technology companies and is an executive at EMC Corporation where he leads the company’s global sales engineering organization.

    Hoffman’s leadership experience spans more than 20 years in the high technology industry. He boasts a strong track record of building and growing companies and motivating teams. He has successfully cultivated strong client and investor relationships. In his most recent role he was responsible for the strategy development, execution and financial performance of RSA’s Data Security business unit, as well as strategic planning, strategic partnerships and business development for the greater RSA Division.

    “The client computing environment has become increasingly complex to manage and secure,” said Dennis Hoffman, vice president and general manager, EMC. “Neocleus’ innovative approach in applying client-hosted virtualization to address IT hassles is at the forefront of the software industry. I look forward to working with the company to help them expand their industry leadership.”

    Before starting his role at RSA, Hoffman led the team at EMC that developed and initiated the execution of the company’s information security strategy. In his prior position at the company he led product marketing for EMC Software Group. Previously, he served as CEO and co-founder of Storigen Systems, a pioneering developer of distributed storage networking software that was acquired by EMC in October 2003. Hoffman also spent six years at Avid Technology, where he was responsible for the marketing and business development of its storage and networking products. He has held strategy consulting and engineering roles at companies including Marakon Associates, Eastman Kodak and Polaroid Corporation. Hoffman received an MBA from Harvard University and holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

    Double-Take Improves Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Offerings

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    Double-Take Software today announced the availability of the latest version of Double-Take for Windows product and enhancements to other products in the company’s suite including complete platform support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. Double-Take for Windows solves IT managers’ workload portability and availability challenges by making it easy to migrate physical workloads into virtual machines with minimal user downtime and to protect the uptime of critical workloads on physical and virtual machines by using real-time replication and failover.

    Overview of the key enhancements to the Double-Take Software product suite:

    • Deeper support for the Windows Server 2008 operating system in Livewire, Cargo, and Double-Take for Windows including its Application Manager and full-server protection features.
    • Broader Capabilities for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: In addition to its Double-Take for Hyper-V product, the company now offers a new version of the Double-Take for Windows Virtual Recovery Assistant. This new version enables migration of physical servers to Hyper-V virtual machines, reduces P2V migration downtime, and allows for migration between geographical locations in support of datacenter consolidations and moves. The Virtual Recovery Assistant can also be used to automate the protection of a workload running on a physical server with a virtualized workload at a disaster recovery site.
    • Double-Take Application Manager feature: New functionality includes enhancements to support for clustered SQL servers and full support for SQL Server 2008.
    • Double-Take Cargo: In addition to now supporting Windows Server 2008, the latest version of Double-Take Cargo includes new support clustered file servers, enabling IT administrators to archive file-based data and optimize storage in both standalone and clustered server configurations.

    Rackable Unveils CloudRack C2

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    Rackable Systems today announced the immediate availability of CloudRack C2, the first of many Rackable products to utilize Power XE – a cabinet-level power distribution technology designed to:

    • Virtually eliminate the data center “stranded power” problem (a data center’s power capacity which is paid for, but ultimately unused) and provides nearly perfect phase balancing
    • Significantly improve power delivery efficiency by converting incoming AC power to 99 percent efficient 12V DC power via hot-pluggable, N+1 redundant rectifiers
    • Eliminate server-level power supplies and cooling fans for improved reliability

    Dramatic Thermal Efficiency

    CloudRack C2 is thermally optimized to allow data centers to operate at much higher temperatures, up to 40° C (104° F). Benefits include:

    • Higher system temperature tolerance, which means significantly reduced power consumption by Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units, which in turn means radically reduced operating costs
    • Thermally-managed airflow via hot-swappable, easily-serviceable, cabinet-level N+1 redundant fan arrays for better enclosure reliability
    • Auto-adjustable fan speed based on ambient room temperature, resulting in more than 80 percent reduction of fan power compared to conventional AC enclosures

    Build-to-Order Flexibility

    CloudRack C2 comes in 24 inch wide cabinets, with 23U and 46U configurations, and is offered with server trays based on AMD Opteron™ processors and soon to launch next generation Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem) designed for better performance, energy efficiency and virtualization capabilities.