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VMware Expands Cloud Infrastructure Strategy, Introduces Six New Products

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At VMworld 2010, VMware expanded its vision for modern IT infrastructures and announced six new products and services that help enterprises and service providers achieve the benefits of cloud computing  while maintaining the control and freedom of choice they require.

IT as a Service is the transformation of IT to a more business-centric approach, focusing on outcomes such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response.  This means IT shifts from producing IT services to optimizing production and consumption of those services in ways consistent with business requirements.  This changes the role of IT from a cost center to a center of strategic value.

Building on the VMware vSphere foundation, VMware’s new cloud infrastructure products and services introduce a hybrid cloud model that bridges private and public clouds:

VMware vCloud Director: A new model for delivering and consuming infrastructure services

By extending the resource pooling capabilities of VMware vSphere, VMware vCloud Director enables IT to create “virtual data centers” (VDCs) – logical pools of compute, network and storage resources with defined management policies, SLAs and pricing.  IT organizations can offer these VDCs – along with catalogs of other infrastructure and application services such as virtual appliances, VMs, and OS images – to users through fully automated self-service access.

Learn more about VMware’s VMware vCloud Director

The VMware vShield product family: Better-than-physical security for VMware-virtualized and cloud environments

VMware is introducing three new products that deliver a security model designed specifically for virtual and cloud environments. Traditional enterprise security depends on agents, dedicated hardware and brittle configurations. The dynamic nature of cloud environments, where applications and services are mobile and leverage shared infrastructure, requires a new approach.

VMware vShield Edge, VMware vShield App, and VMware vShield Endpoint virtualize security and edge services, including firewall, VPN and load balancing, freeing them from the constraints of physical infrastructure and providing a single, adaptive and programmable security infrastructure.

This eliminates the complexity and rigidity of traditional approaches, giving IT teams more visibility and control. When coupled with VMware’s partner solutions, VMware vShield delivers VMware-virtualized and cloud environments that are more secure than traditional, physical deployment models at a fraction of the cost.

Learn more about VMware’s vShield product family

VMware vCloud Datacenter Services: Secure, interoperable enterprise-class hybrid clouds delivered by leading service providers

While public cloud services have created an alternative for delivering compute capacity in a self-service, pay-per-use model, security concerns, uncertain SLAs, lack of compliance and fears of lock-in have limited enterprise adoption.

VMware vCloud Datacenter Services provide a way for enterprises to extend their datacenters to external clouds, while preserving security, compliance and quality of service. Delivered by some of the world’s leading service providers, including Bluelock, Colt, SingTel, Terremark and Verizon, VMware vCloud Datacenter Services will use globally consistent infrastructure, management and security models to make it possible for enterprise customers to move computing workloads from internal virtualized infrastructure to an external cloud and back.

VMware vCloud Datacenter Services offer VMware-certified compatibility and portability, auditable security controls, SAS-70-Type-II or ISO-27001 certifications, and virtual application security including stateful firewall and layer two network isolation, as well as role-based access control and LDAP directory authentication.

Learn more about VMware’s vCloud Datacenter Services

VMware vCloud Consulting Services

To help customers accelerate their journeys to the cloud, VMware’s vCloud Consulting Services include a complete portfolio of professional service offerings.

Based on VMware’s experience helping enterprises and service providers build cloud architectures, VMware vCloud Consulting Services provide assessment, planning, design, and deployment services for IT infrastructure transformation. Leveraged by enterprises and vCloud service providers, vCloud Consulting Services provide a common blueprint for next-generation infrastructure.

Learn more about VMware’s vCloud Consulting Services

BlueLock Launches VMware vCloud Datacenter Service With CloudConnector

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At VMworld 2010, BlueLock, a provider of cloud hosting and managed IT services, announced it is partnering with VMware to announce the beta availability of a new enterprise-class cloud service, VMware vCloud Datacenter Service in North America.

BlueLock is one of only three North American service provider partners to offer the vCloud Datacenter Service beta. As part of BlueLock’s enterprise cloud offering, the company also announces beta availability of BlueLock CloudConnector, a plug-in that enables VMware customers to view and manage private cloud environments and BlueLock’s public VMware vCloud Datacenter Service resources in a single interface.

As a VMware vCloud Datacenter beta provider, BlueLock’s public cloud is an enterprise-class cloud delivering consistent and auditable security and performance features including layer 2 isolation, role-based access control and LDAP integration in a SAS 70 type II certified data center. BlueLock’s use of the same VMware technology provides a common management and security model that enables complete application portability across internal data centers and all VMware vCloud Datacenter services.

With BlueLock CloudConnector, VMware customers can immediately realize the benefits of the next generation of cloud capabilities provided by VMware vCloud Director, the cloud delivery platform for VMware vCloud Datacenter. BlueLock CloudConnector for VMware vCloud Director enables current VMware customers to view and manage their existing VMware environment (their private cloud) and BlueLock’s VMware-based public cloud resources in the VMware vSphere Client control panel they already have, making the transition to public cloud even easier for existing VMware administrators.

BlueLock hosted VMware vCloud Datacenter Service with BlueLock CloudConnector is available immediately for beta.

To get started, VMware customers must contact BlueLock for a beta account, then download and install the BlueLock CloudConnector into their VMware vSphere Client interface. Additional capabilities will be rolled out in general availability planned for later this year.

Zmanda Upgrades VMware Backup Client For Amanda Enterprise

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Zmanda, provider of open source based backup solutions and a VMware Technology Alliance Partner, recently announced enhancements to its VMware Backup Client for Amanda Enterprise (AE).

In addition to running a full image-level backup of a live virtual machine (VM), users now have the ability to run faster and more efficient block-level differential backups of VMs. During recovery, the Zmanda’s VMware backup client will automatically combine a full backup image with the relevant differential backup image.

Performance benefits are also achieved with the new VMware Client because only those blocks that are being used by the virtual machine are backed up. The client skips the unused raw space on the Virtual Machine Disks (VMDKs), which considerably reduces the size of backup images. This also makes the backup process faster by reducing the amount of data being transferred over the LAN.

Also announced today, VMware vSphere backup is now a built-in feature of the Zmanda Backup Appliance (ZBA).

ZBA is a pre-loaded VM, licensed, and configured with Amanda Enterprise and can immediately back up all virtual machines running on the same hypervisor as the appliance. With its flat rate, all inclusive pricing model, ZBA is a very cost effective alternative to licensing backup for each virtual machine in the environment.

vSphere is VMware’s first cloud operating system, able to manage large pools of virtualized computing infrastructure, including software and hardware.

Zmanda VMware Backup Client supports backup of VMs running on vSphere Essentials, vSphere Essential Plus, vSphere Standard, vSphere Advanced, vSphere Enterprise, or vSphere Enterprise Plus. Zmanda’s VMware backup solution provides end-to-end recovery of a VM to the original hypervisor or even to a completely independent hypervisor.

AE is an enhanced and supported version of the world’s most popular open source backup and recovery software. AE allows users to easily and affordably backup, archive, and recover servers, workstations, desktops and business-critical applications across a network. The backup data and archives can be stored on disks, tape, optical devices or storage clouds such as Amazon S3.

ZBA is a pre-configured virtual backup server powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. ZBA enables IT organizations to quickly and easily install a backup and recovery solution for heterogeneous desktops and servers. ZBA can backup information to local disk, tape, and is the first virtual appliance that can backup to a public or private cloud. Zmanda developed the ZBA solution as part of the SUSE Appliance Program, a comprehensive business and technology program that enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to rapidly build, update, configure and go to market with fully-supported software and virtual appliances.

The VMware Client for AE is immediately available for $300 and may be purchased and downloaded from www.zmanda.com/aee. ZBA is immediately available at a starting price of $600 per year and may be purchased and downloaded fromhttp://www.zmanda.com/zba.html.

Veeam Takes VMware Backup To The Next Level

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Veeam Software, innovative provider of VMware data protection, disaster recovery and VMware management solutions for virtual datacenter environments, is demonstrating its new vPower technology for Virtualization-Powered Data Protection this week at VMworld 2010.

vPower leverages virtualization and Veeam innovation to overcome the limitations of traditional backup and provide fast, flexible and reliable recovery for disasters both large and small.

The new patent-pending vPower technology, previously announced by Veeam in March, includes the ability to run a virtual machine (VM) in production or in an isolated virtual lab directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file on regular backup storage.

vPower is the force behind the upcoming release of Veeam Backup & Replication v5.

Veeam Backup & Replication v5 also includes new Instant Indexing of Windows guest files, “tape-friendly” synthetic full backups, and enhanced deduplication and faster off-site replication.

Leostream Announces VMware Enhancements In Its Connection Broker 7.0

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At VMworld 2010, Leostream announced VMware enhancements in the Leostream Connection Broker 7.0, which provide customers who operate a VMware virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with much more powerful management capabilities and improved scalability.

In the latest release of the Connection Broker, Leostream provides tight integration with VMware View, enhanced desktop provisioning, cluster management and linked clone support.

The Leostream Connection Broker, the most widely deployed, vendor-independent technology of its kind, enables IT managers to maximize the value of existing IT investments by easily integrating an array of clients, back-end systems and viewers to create a hosted VDI. Additionally, the Connection Broker integrates easily with existing network infrastructure with no changes to essential data center systems, such as authentication services and SSL VPNs. Once integrated, the Connection Broker provides a flexible set of policies for exact implementation of business rules for system administrators, users, and machines.

New VMware enhancements in the Leostream Connection Broker 7.0 include:

  • VMware View Support – Tight integration allows soft PCoIP connections for View users who require high-performance graphics. This also provides View adminstrators with the versatility of the Leostream Connection Broker, letting them extend VDI to include a variety of different platforms, while providing users with a single login to all resources.
  • Provisioning Enhancements – Additional configuration options for provisioning substantially improve the scalability of VDI in VMware environments. The Connection Broker allows lower and upper thresholds on pool size, and provides complete control over the virtual machine (VM) lifecycle, including how new VMs are provisioned and when they are deleted.
  • Linked Clones Management – Leostream can now create new linked clones from snapshots of parent VMs, which optimizes storage, simplifies the creation of new desktop images, and makes image management easier and more efficient.

These new enhancements provide View users with powerful ways to extend the capability, reach, and security of VDI deployments. This includes Leostream’s location-based policies and native integration with Cisco VPNs, as well as the ability to integrate a range of systems – from Citrix XenApp to the Oracle Sun Ray System to Linux virtual desktops – into a VDI that includes View.

Former VMware, Sun Microsystems Exec Dane C. Smith Joins ClearEdge Power

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Former VMware and Sun Microsystems executive Dane C. Smith joins Hillsboro-based ClearEdge Power as senior vice president of sales, marketing and business development.

The global leader in microCHP fuel cell design and manufacturing adds Smith as an integral part of the senior management team to leverage his expertise in market development and rapid expansion.

During Smith’s five-year tenure at VMware, as vice president and general manager for the Americas and later as global vice president of systems integration and outsourcing, he helped build one of the fastest-growing software companies in history, according to IDC and Gartner.

In three years, Smith grew business in the Americas from less than $200 million to approximately $1 billion, and he led the teams responsible for closing many of the largest software and services contracts in the company’s history. He was also a key member of the VMware executive team that, in August 2007, produced one of the largest technology IPOs in the history of the New York Stock Exchange – second only to Google.

“I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with some of the nation’s largest energy providers, as well as the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency, while at VMware and Sun,” said Smith. “I look forward to continuing those relationships to further alternative energy solutions in the U.S. and abroad as a leader for the ClearEdge Power team.”