Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

vmware

Quest Releases PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware 2.0

by Leave a Comment

Quest Software announced the release of version 2.0 of its PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware, expanding the company’s leadership in Windows and Virtualization Management along with the technology provided by Vizioncore.

The new updates for Quest’s PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware includes a full featured PowerShell script library for VMware, to provide enhanced virtualization management capabilities for VMware admins.  It enables virtualization domain experts to take advantage of managing their virtual infrastructure using Quest PowerGUI and the VMware Infrastructure Toolkit for Windows.

PowerGUI is a free download available which simplifies management via Microsoft Windows PowerShell with an intuitive user console, powerful script editor and platform specific PowerPacks.  PowerGUI with the VMware PowerPack version 2.0 enables administrators to quickly and easily automate management tasks common to virtual infrastructures.  Together, Windows PowerShell, PowerGUI, and the PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware provide the ability to manage not only the applications organizations depend on but also the virtual infrastructure that power them, all from a single console.

JumpBox Releases 38 Open Source Virtual Appliances In Open Virtualization Format (OVF)

by Leave a Comment

JumpBox, publisher of virtual appliances which provide ways to trial, develop, and deploy applications, this week announced the release of 38 Open Source applications in the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), a software standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances.

A JumpBox is a pre-built and configured virtual appliance that deploys in minutes, saving users up to 70% of the time and cost of traditional software application deployment. OVF enables even simpler JumpBox deployments, particularly for users of the VMware ESX hypervisor based virtualization system.

Applications delivered as OVF are available to premium subscribers to JumpBox Open, JumpBox’s annual subscription suite of virtual appliances for Open Source software.

Industry Moves: Maurizio Carli Joins VMware As General Manager EMEA

by Leave a Comment

VMware announced today the appointment of Maurizio Carli as General Manager of VMware’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Carli is responsible for strategic planning, business operations and management of key functions for the region, including sales, channels, services and marketing. He will report directly to Carl Eschenbach, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, for VMware.

Carli brings more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry and knowledge of the EMEA region across several technology waves and economic cycles, including experience in emerging markets. He joins VMware from his most recent role as EMEA Managing Director for Google Enterprise. His prior roles include Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMEA for Business Objects and Vice President of the EMEA Software Group for IBM.

VMware Quietly Picks Up Tungsten Graphics

by Leave a Comment

It’s not the first time VMware quietly acquires a company (remember Blue Lane?). Now it appears as the virtualization juggernaut has also picked up Tungsten Graphics as recently as last month.

From the FAQ on their website:

Has TG been acquired? Yes, VMware acquired Tungsten Graphics on November 26, 2008. The addition of the TG team will augment VMware’s ability to deliver industry-leading 3D graphics virtualization capabilities.

How does VMware fit into the landscape of open source graphics? VMware has had a history of developing technology to enable graphics capabilities to guest software running in VMware virtual machines. This work includes special drivers that are optimized for VMware’s virtual hardware, that consequently offer better performance and additional features such as arbitrary screen resizing and multihead support. The video driver was released as open source in 2002, with development done upstream in X.org’s git repository.

What does this mean for my open source driver project? Gallium makes it much easier to create 3D drivers that support multiple API’s on multiple operating systems and utilize multiple GPU architectures. Our team will continue to drive the Gallium infrastructure forward and keep it up to date with the latest advances occuring in the graphics arena. The means your Gallium based driver project will benefit from these enhancements.

Third Brigade Debuts VM Protection

by Leave a Comment

—

Third Brigade recently announced the availability of Third Brigade VM Protection, a free-of-charge software package that complements the security-hardened VMware platform and helps organizations achieve protection and compliance for VMware virtual machines (VMs) that are deployed in private or public cloud computing environments.

This free software provides additional protection for the server on which VMs are running and the applications running in VMs when multiple VMs from different organizations are deployed together on the same server, enhancing VM segregation in service provider environments. Third Brigade VM Protection can be deployed quickly and managed centrally, and is integrated with the VMware platform. Multiple layers of protection are combined in a single software agent to increase security and gain visibility into malicious activity targeting VMs.

Third Brigade VM Protection provides the following benefits to help organizations fully utilize their virtualization environments:

  • Firewall, Intrusion Detection (IDS), Integrity Monitoring and Log Inspection
  • Typical out-of-the box configurations (security profiles) for Microsoft® Windows® and Linux servers
  • Integration with VMware vCenter Server to achieve effective enterprise deployment

Third Brigade VM Protection is available for free for up to 100 virtual machines.

IBM Releases Virtual Desktop To Rival VMware View

by Leave a Comment

IBM is working with Virtual Bridges and its VERDE (Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment) product to ship a virtual Canonical Ubuntu Linux desktop, with Lotus email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, and social networking software included, to a variety of end-point devices. Virtual printing is also included. Wall Street Journal calls it a ‘Microsoft-free’ desktop.

This comes off the heels of VMware’s release of View 3.

None of the pieces of the IBM bundle, available immediately, are new, but the bundled solution makes it easier and cheaper for companies to deploy a complete VDI solution on Linux, IBM maintains. IBM’s OCCS includes Lotus Symphony, its implementation of the ODF-based OpenOffice, as well as Lotus Notes and other applications.

Virtual Bridges’ Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment runs about $49 per seat, while Canonical is about $50 per seat. IBM Lotus Symphony is free but the Notes and other applications are priced separately.