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NewServers Strikes Reseller Partnership with Silver Peak Systems

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NewServers, provider of Hardware as a Service (HaaS) dedicated cloud servers, today announced a reseller partnership with Silver Peak Systems, the leader in scalable Wide Area Network (WAN) acceleration. The addition of Silver Peak WAN acceleration solutions expands NewServers’ core product line of automated high-performance devices.

Silver Peak’s unique network approach to WAN acceleration delivers unprecedented scalability, including the highest effective throughput of any WAN acceleration device. This makes Silver Peak ideal for NewServers’ large enterprise clients that utilize networks and applications with high sustained data volumes.

NewServers’ cloud of “bare metal devices” has a global customer base and its services are delivered across multiple vertical markets and industries, including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), High Performance Computing (HPC), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Semantic Search Engines and Applications, Enterprise Application Vertical Markets; Healthcare, Educational, Bio-Medical, Financial, Government, Retail and Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG).

NetEx Takes HyperIP Virtual with Broad Application Support for WAN Optimization on VMware Infrastructures

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NetEx today announced that its HyperIP for VMware offers the broadest range of third-party support for applications. These include all of the leading providers of disaster recovery, data migration and replication software, such as Data Domain, Dell/EqualLogic, EMC, FalconStor, Hewlett-Packard/LeftHand, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Network Appliance and many others.

The move by NetEx to virtualize the HyperIP WAN optimization software is part of an industry trend with more companies opting to deploy applications as software-only implementations to take advantage of the cost, scalability and flexibility of the VMware infrastructure.  Virtualizing applications for VMware eliminates the need for specialized appliances while allowing IT organizations to quickly re-allocate computing and storage resources as needed to accommodate business priorities.

HyperIP for VMware is the industry’s only software-based WAN optimizer that operates on a VMware ESX server to boost the performance of third-party storage replication applications.  Virtual HyperIP mitigates TCP performance issues that are common when moving stored data over wide area network connections because of bandwidth restrictions, latency due to distance and/or router hop counts, packet loss and network errors.  HyperIP increases end-to-end performance of replication applications by 3 to 10 times, reducing VMotion and Storage VMotion transfer windows with enhanced efficiency by utilizing 80 to 90 percent of available bandwidth between data centers or branch offices up to OC12 rates.

NetEx was one of the early adopters in recognizing the impact of the virtual infrastructure, how it could benefit IT operations, and speed up data migration and replication operations when combining HyperIP for VMware with data movement applications from top tier IT storage vendors.  VMware has enhanced the ESX infrastructure by redesigning the Hypervisor to support multiple cores, opening the way for all applications to be offered as virtualized pure software plays and eliminating the need for expensive appliances and expensive IP network upgrades.

The applications supported by HyperIP for VMware include: DataCore AIM,  Data Domain Replicator Software; Avamar, SRDF Adaptive Copy, SRDF/DM, SRDF/A (DMX), Centera Replicator, and Celerra Replicator,  RecoverPoint CRR and DL3D from EMC; Dell/EqualLogic PS Series Replication; FalconStor Software’s IPStor, Disksafe and FileSafe; HP/Lefthand Networks SANiQ; TrueCopy for iFCP from HDS;  IBM Tivoli Storage Manager and Global Mirror (FCIP),  Microsoft NetBios and Data Protection Manager;  SnapMirror and SnapVault from  NetApp; NSI DoubleTake; DataGuard, DB Rsync and Streams from Oracle; SANRAD Global Data Replication; Softek Replicator; NetBackup, ReplicationExec and Volume Replicator by Symantec; Veeam Replication; and VMware VMotion.  In addition, HyperIP fully supports WAN optimization for the industry standard FTP and iSCSI protocols.

Pricing for HyperIP for VMware starts at $2,000.

NEC Express5800/A1160 Server Breaks Virtualization Performance Record (VMmark)

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NEC Corporation today announced that their newest enterprise server, the NEC Express5800/A1160, has established a world record in overall VMmark performance benchmark results.

VMmark is an industry benchmark developed by VMware, to measure the performance and scalability of multiple enterprise applications running in virtualized servers so that customers can compare different virtualization platforms. The metrics are defined in “score @ tiles.” “Score” is referred as a throughput performance metric and “tiles” are the consolidation capacity of the system.

The record-breaking score, 34.05@24tiles, was achieved using the NEC Express5800/A1160 server, which was configured with 8 sockets populated with the Intel Xeon X7460 processors, powered by VMware ESX 4.0.

The NEC Express5800/A1160 features state-of-the-art NEC server technology with an up-to-4 nodes scalable building block architecture using the HSI technology to connect the blocks along with enhanced reliability, availability and serviceability, all of which are based on long-standing rich heritage of NEC mainframe, supercomputer and Intel Itanium server products.

Taking advantage of the server’s robust scalable architecture, high consolidation capacity, and high performance, NEC is promoting the NEC Express5800/A1160 server as a reliable virtualization platform.

Guest Post: “Fault tolerance a new key feature for virtualization”

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Below is a an article originally published on the guest author’s blog. Who’s the author, you ask?

Kevin Lawton! Bio: pioneer in x86 virtualization, serial entrepreneur, business and technology visionary, prolific idea creator, news and business book junkie. Founding team member in a microprocessor startup, the author and lead for two Open Source projects, a public speaker, and at the forefront of what is now a multi-billion dollar x86 virtualization industry. I have a degree in computer science and started my career at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

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Fault tolerance a new key feature for virtualization

VM migration has been a key feature and enabling technology which has differentiated VMware from Microsoft’s Hyper-V. Though as you may know, Windows Server 2008 R2 is slated for broad availability on or before October 22, 2009 (also the Windows 7 GA date), and Hyper-V will then support VM migration. So you may be wondering, what key new high-tech features will constitute the next battleground for differentiation amongst the virtualization players?

Five-Nines (99.999%) Meets Commodity Hardware

One such key feature is very likely to be fault tolerance (FT) — the ability for a running VM to suffer hardware failure on one machine, and to be restarted on another machine without losing any state. This is not just HA (High Availability), it’s CA (Continuous Availability)! And I believe it’ll be part of the cover-charge that virtualization vendors (VMware, Citrix/XenSource, Microsoft, et al) and providers such as Amazon will have to offer to stay competitive. When I talk about fault tolerance, I don’t mean using special/exotic hardware solutions — I’m talking about software-only solutions which handle fault tolerance in the hypervisor and/or other parts of the software stack.

Here’s a quick summary of where the various key vendors are w.r.t. fault tolerance. Keep watch of this space, because the VM migration battle is nearly over now.

VMware’s product line now offers Fault Tolerance, which they conceptually introduced at VMworld 2008. This was perhaps the biggest wow-factor feature VMware talked about at that VMworld. FT is not supported in VMware Essentials, Essentials Plus or vSphere Standard editions. It’s supported in more advanced(/expensive) versions.

In the Xen camp, there are two distinct FT efforts, Kemari and Remus. Integration/porting to Xen 4.0 are on theroadmap. If/when that occurs, the Xen ecosystem will benefit. After battle-testing, it’s easy to conceive of Amazon offering FT as a premium service. It does after all chew through more network capacity, and will necessitate extra high level logic on their part. There’s also a commercial FT solution for XenServer from Marathon, called everRun VM.

Microsoft appears to be leveraging a partnership with Marathon for their initial virtualization FT solution. This is probably smart given it allows Microsoft a way to quickly compete on fault tolerance, with a partner that’s been doing FT for a living. One would imagine this option will come at a premium though, perhaps a revenue opportunity for Microsoft for big-money customers, with an associated disadvantage vis-à-vis similar features based on free Xen technology and massive scale virtualization (clouds). That may make Marathon a strategic M&A target.

Licensing Issues, Part II

Just when you thought software-in-a-VM issues were mostly resolved, the same questions may be raised again for FT, given there is effectively a shadow copy of any given FT-protected VM. It’s not hard to imagine Microsoft aggressively taking advantage of this situation, given they live at both virtualization/OS and application layers of the stack.

Networking is Key

Fault tolerance of VMs is yet another consumer and driver of high bandwidth, low latency networking. The value in the data center is trending from the compute hardware to the networking. FT is another way-point in the evolution of that trend, allowing continuous availability on commodity hardware. You probably won’t run it on all your workloads (they will run with a performance penalty), but you might start out with the most critical stateful workloads. If you want to do this on any scale, or with flexibility, architect with lots of networking capabilities. For zero-sum IT budgets, this would mean cheaper hardware and better networking, something that might be a little bitter-sweet for Cisco, given its entrance into the server market.

Microsoft Releases Hotfix Package 4 for Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5

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Microsoft recently released a hotfix package for July 2009 that contains the latest hotfixes for Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Cumulative Update 1.

This hotfix package addresses the following issues:

  • When you apply a disk quota to the profile directories of an user and when the disk quota is near the limit, the App-V client leaks paged pool memory.
  • When run as a virtual application, a process that calls RegQueryMultipleValues experience unexpected errors or cannot start. For example, you receive error messages when you start or shutdown the Trapeze application and the application does not work correctly.
  • When a App-V client tries to perform a publishing refresh procedure over HTTP or HTTPS, the procedureis not completed successfully. Specifically, the procedure is not completed successfully if a package contains pathnames that have Japanese characters. This problem occurs when the App-V client is running a Japanese version of Windows XP and has Internet Explorer 6 installed.
  • When run as a virtual application, Microsoft Access 97 generates an error message 1008 when Access 97 is moving temporary files.
  • When a Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 client tries to perform a publishing refresh procedure over HTTP or over HTTPS on an IPv6 network, the procedure is not completed successfully.
  • When you expand a %APPDATA% environment variable to a universal naming conventions (UNC) path, application-specific failures occur when you start virtual applications.
  • In environments that have a trust relationship and mapped user accounts between a Windows Domain and an MIT Kerberos realm, the Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 client cannot log on to a publishing server. Additionally, you receive an error message 8009030C.

For more information and details on obtaining the update see the link below:

KB973205 – Hotfix Package 4 for Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Cumulative Update 1: July 2009

InstallFree Joins BMC Software’s Technology Alliance Program (TAP)

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InstallFree, developer of platform application virtualization solutions for enterprise desktop environments, today announced its membership in BMC Software’s Technology Alliance Program (TAP).

TAP provides resources to enable the InstallFree Bridge – which encrypts and encapsulates virtual applications – to integrate with BMC Configuration Automation for Clients, providing closed-loop change control throughout the Business Service Management (BSM) platform.

The news marks the software industry’s first capability for automated, license-precise, inventory scanning of both virtual and physical applications to meet audit and compliance controls of contents within agentless virtual application bubbles. The integrated solutions provide IT organizations with the cost and management benefits of distributing virtual applications on demand, with added assurance that the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite has accurate visibility based on manufacturer data.

In addition to providing comprehensive discovery capabilities within BSM, InstallFree has also virtualized versions 5 and 7 of the BMC Remedy Action Request System to ease migrations to newer operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows 7.

Working together, BMC and InstallFree have identified that 1st Factor Discovery (seeing the application is on the endpoint) is not enough to pass security audits, because the packager may not provide the exact information that matches purchase contracts required for accurate reporting and compliance. InstallFree’s 2 Factor Inventory APIs enable BMC’s client discovery solution to pull and map additional information from the InstallFree agentless client, such as manufacturer-provided Information, into the BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB) via existing links and federation.

InstallFree also provides applications’ digital fingerprints to ensure that they have not been tampered with during transport or the delivery process. The result is accurate license compliance controls and identification of malware in virtual environments. This provides for quick remediation and reporting during spot audit checks – minimizing the risk to security, governance, and business continuity – while leveraging current controls, procedures, and existing tools for both physical and virtual applications.