Virtualization.com

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

vmware

IntApp Releases Integration Builder 4.1 for VMware ESX

by 1 Comment

IntApp (Integration Appliance), a VMware TAP program member, today announced the availability of Integration Builder 4.1.

Integration Builder allows organizations to move information among software applications in real time and to automate a wide range of business processes. With this release, IntApp makes this product available both as a hardware appliance and as a software-only solution.

Additionally, the 4.1 release includes expanded support for communicating international characters across integrated systems, added controls for managing remote Windows file systems, including the ability to create and set access rights for file shares, and improved administrative logging and reporting capabilities.

Integration Appliance

VMware Puts Out Release Candidates for Server 2.0, Workstation 6.5 and ACE 2.5

by 1 Comment

Troubled VMware doesn’t let recent problems and acquisition talk get in the way of continuously updating its product line.

Readying their official launch, the company has put out several release candidates recently: just last week, VMware announced the Release Candidate 2 (build 110949) for Server 2.0 and the Release Candidate 1 (build 110068) for Workstation 6.5 and ACE 2.5.

What’s All This Talk About VMware Buying Red Hat?

by 3 Comments

We were looking at the swirling rumors coming in about a potential acquisition of Red Hat by VMware, and ultimately decided not to cover the rumor because … well because it seems so irrational.

But is that actually so?

This is what BusinessWeek wrote:

Speculation is rife that the company (Red Hat) is a takeover target. “It makes no sense that they’re still hanging out there,” says Eric Gebaide, a managing director at investment bank Innovation Advisors.

One possible suitor is virtualization software company VMware, which some industry executives says is on the lookout for an operating system to add to its portfolio. Former VMware CEO Diane Greene, ousted by her board in July, had set up meetings with Red Hat in part to position VMware as friendly to open source and possibly as a prelude to a buyout discussion, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Representatives of both companies declined to comment.

Ostatic followed up with a snapshot analysis, and now the folks over at Cnet News.com are trying to make sense of such an acquisition.

Ostatic concludes in its post:

A combination of VMware virtualization and a proven, popular operating system could pave the way for a future of healthy competition for VMware with other operating systems that bundle virtualization. I wouldn’t be surprised to see both VMware and Red Hat pursue all of this.

Meanwhile Cnet’s Matt Asay contradicts:

I would think this trend cuts the other way. Red Hat (and Novell) likely see virtualization’s commoditization as a reason to push the knife deeper into VMware. Being acquired by an important but commoditized feature of their operating systems doesn’t sound appealing to me…

What do you think?

VMware

Red Hat

vmSight Includes VDI User Activity Control In vmSight 3.5

by Leave a Comment

vmSight today announced that its recently released vmSight 3.5 product suite now includes a user activity control feature for virtual desktops, in addition to its existing monitoring capabilities. This newly added capability allows virtual desktop administrators to block unauthorized user and application activity on virtual desktops for improved performance or security. The feature is available immediately in the vmSight virtual appliance that directly integrates into an organization’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) platform.

vmSight’s patented Connector ID technology facilitates the new activity control functionality in release 3.5. Similar to the caller ID capability prevalent in today’s phone networks, vmSight’s Connector ID enables virtual desktops and thin clients with a user identification and tracking capability. Using this technology, vmSight is the only solution of its kind with the ability to monitor users and prevent unauthorized application activity for performance or security purposes. Administrators can identify the specific virtual desktop and applications accessed by a user at any given time, and can track, control and optimize user activity and performance end-to-end.

As part of the company’s vmSight 3.5 product suite for virtual desktop deployments, user activity control integrates completely with the vmSight Center and Monitoring Stations. User activity is monitored in real-time, and unauthorized user or application activity can be blocked for improved performance or security. Integration with Active Directory and LDAP allows policy definition based on existing user groups. Combined with its other features, such as performance monitoring and service level management, vmSight 3.5 provides a complete virtual desktop management solution to help reduce problems and support costs.

Demand Media Picks 3PAR for Scaling Utility Storage

by Leave a Comment

3PAR, provider of utility storage, announced today that Demand Media has chosen 3PAR Utility Storage to support its rapidly growing social media business. (see our previous coverage on 3PAR)

Demand Media uses its network of vertically-oriented web properties to connect content creators and large audiences with advertisers. To improve infrastructure agility, storage scalability, and capacity utilization over the data lifecycle, the social media company has implemented multiple 3PAR InServ Storage Servers in addition to 3PAR Thin Provisioning and 3PAR Dynamic Optimization software. Demand Media has also chosen to deploy an entire virtual datacenter based on the 3cV blueprint, which combines 3PAR Utility Storage with products from HP and VMware to create a complete utility computing environment.

Due to the rapid expansion of its business, Demand Media found that storage scalability and flexible, easy database and storage management were becoming critical requirements. To keep up with growth, Demand Media determined that it needed to enhance its server and storage infrastructure. The social media company promptly sought out a highly-virtualized server and storage platform that would enable greater flexibility and scalability than their previous infrastructure. They ultimately decided to implement 3PAR Utility Storage and a complete virtual datacenter based on the 3cV blueprint. “3cV” stands for the combination of the 3PAR InServ Storage Server, HP BladeSystem c-Class, and VMware Infrastructure.

To support their virtual datacenter, Demand Media chose to deploy the 3PAR InServ S800 Storage Server with 188 terabytes of storage and two 3PAR InServ E200 Storage Servers with 36 terabytes of storage. Demand Media’s 3PAR deployment also utilizes several 3PAR software products including 3PAR Thin Provisioning, 3PAR Dynamic Optimization, 3PAR Virtual Copy, and 3PAR System Reporter.

3PAR