Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Kevin Lawton, a friend and one of the pioneers on x86 Virtualization, has finally launched his blog and he starts elegantly with : here's been a lot of talk about bare-metal hypervisors in the virtualization realm. All academic arguments aside, the reality is that Linux + KVM is a bare-metal hypervisor. You can create a small Linux+KVM image, embed it in a computer like firmware, and add all the same end-to-end attestation that you can with any other software stack. The fact that KVM is a kernel module doesn't change much other than how someone might draw boxes in a powerpoint presentation. Most of the proponents of Xen based virtualization talk ad nauseum about the attack surface size of a bare-metal hypervisor. Well, then what do you about the monumentally big efforts of creating drivers for all the varied hardware out there, especially on the endpoint? Why you take Linux and ram it into Xen as a control OS. What about the OS features which Linux has grown 17 years to ...

Visibility is a critical aspect to find vulnerabilities in a system, and without the correct security and management tools, threats can easily gain access through an organisation's valuable data center, Brindley says. “The area HP focuses on is service automation and visibility. We've seen a significant growth of virtualisation within data centres. Businesses have got to maintain excellence in all of the domains to manage risk.” Organisations must factor in security issues and the three domains of strategy, application and operations in virtualised environments, he says. “When securing a hypervisor, best practices need to be applied. With the proliferation of virtual platforms – there's been a significant shift in technology, and policies and procedures need to be implemented. Source

Last week, Larry Orecklin, general manager of the Windows enterprise and management division, said during a meeting with Network World editors that Hyper-V would ship in June or July. Vu added that Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008, which adds support for Hyper-V, would ship 30 to 60 days after Hyper-V hits its release-to-manufacturing stage. VMM 2008 is currently in beta. When Hyper-V ships, Microsoft will be adding a third hypervisor option to go along with those already available from VMware Inc. and Xen-based derivatives marketed by Citrix, Oracle, Red Hat and Novell. Hypervisor technology is a base technology layer that acts as the virtualization foundation for guest operating systems. More here at CW

Provision Networks, a division of Quest Software, is jumping into desktop virtualization this week with its Virtual Access Suite, a desktop virtualization system that supports Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Hyper-V. That makes Provision Networks the first vendor to make Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor the focus of its desktop virtualization efforts. Hyper-V is available in beta form at the Microsoft Web site and will soon to be part of Windows Server 2008. Provision Networks is emerging as another company that is a close partner of Microsoft when it comes to desktop virtualization. Provision's Virtual Access Suite is integrated with Microsoft Active Directory, a key component if you want to provision hundreds or thousands of employees with their own desktop in a way that meshes with the enterprise infrastructure. Provision has also been able to add extensions to Microsoft's Terminal Services protocol that speeds it up, a necessary step for delivering a desktop user experience ...

IW reporting: Lifecycle Manager is "a good first step but doesn't go far enough," says Andi Mann, virtualization consultant at Enterprise Management Associates, an IT consulting firm. It only manages VMs generated by VMware Server and VMware's ESX Server, not those generated by Citrix Systems' XenServer, open source Xen, or Microsoft's upcoming Hyper-V hypervisor. "Ninety-five percent of enterprises are going to have more than one kind of virtual machine running," Mann says. VMware's manager isn't alone in focusing on automating VM management. Citrix, which recently bought XenSource, and Virtual Iron both have similar products. Startups--such as Embotics, with its V-Commander; Veeam, with Veeam Reporter; and Nimsoft, with NimBus for VMware Monitoring--are more specialized, managing pieces of the virtual infrastructure. But Gillett says most IT departments aren't going to want to "cobble together" solutions from different vendors...

Randall has some tests he carried out: Benefiting from the management tools built around Virtuozzo, the company's OS partitioning solution for Linux and Windows, Parallels Server takes aim at the 800-pound gorilla of server virtualization (VMware ESX) and the looming elephant (Microsoft Hyper-V) by providing a product that supports both “bare metal” and “lightweight hypervisor” runtime models. In the former, Parallels will boot a scaled-down Linux kernel that acts as the hypervisor layer upon which you can build your VM (the ESX model). In the latter, Parallels will install a combination device driver/service on a host OS (the Hyper-V model), allowing you to build your VM infrastructure atop an existing server platform. Parallels was kind enough to allow us a sneak peak at an early beta build of Parallels Server. Installing the Windows hosted version onto an existing Windows Server 2003 system was straightforward, and it didn’t even require a reboot. Once installed, Parallels Ser...

O’Brien told Siliconrepublic.com that the Windows Server 2008 is 10pc more efficient than the 2003 version of Windows Server. “We’ve seen customers virtualise 16 machines down to one machine – there is opportunity there to ensure massive consolidation and make savings in terms of cooling and more efficient servers.” He said while 5pc of servers in the Irish market are currently virtualised, some 60pc of Microsoft’s customers currently have a virtualisation evaluation project under way. “This is a hot area right now and offers a lot to business’ bottom line and capability.” Early adopters of the new Windows Server 2008 software include Ryanair, UTV, Hosting 365, Netforce, Merill lynch, University College Cork and Nissan Ireland. Nissan Ireland is implementing the software to help reduce energy costs. “Virtualisation with Hyper-V will allow us to reduce power consumption, build an R&D environment and will form a core part of our business recovery plan,” commented Rory Donnelly, CIO, ...

As of Sunday, there was no patch available for the flaw, which affects VMware's Windows client virtualization programs, including Workstation, Player and ACE. The company's virtual machine software for Windows servers, and for Mac- and Linux-based hosts, are not at risk. The bug was reported by Core Security Technologies, makers of the penetration testing framework CORE IMPACT, said VMware in a security alert issued last Friday. "Exploitation of this vulnerability allows attackers to break out of an isolated Guest system to compromise the underlying Host system that controls it," claimed Core Security. According to VMware, the bug is in the shared folder feature of its Windows client-based virtualization software. Shared folders lets users access certain files -- typically documents and other application-generated files -- from the host OS and any virtual machine on that physical system Link

Even as Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software firm, prepares to globally launch Windows Server 2008, its latest computer server software, in the first week of March, enabling users to potentially cut server costs by up to 40%, India’s information technology (IT) managers say they are still evaluating the benefits of the new offering and will take up to a year to decide whether to upgrade. One of the core differentiators that Longhorn, as the Windows Server 2008 product was codenamed during development, is the ability to integrate what is called virtualization as part of the offering. Virtualization refers to the technology that allows multiple operating systems and applications to run on the same hardware, thereby eliminating the need for different computers to run different servers. “The Indian market is still at a very nascent stage in virtualization adoption and current vendors are keen to explore new virtualized products. (But) there will be a significant increase in the ad...

We'll be chatting up with the folks at Brainforce . The Dutch division has some cool stories to tell us at VMworld. -Tarry

I think open sourcing might be too much to ask (not that it won't happen eventually), what will certainly happen is that ESX will be shipped free on the hardware that you'll buy. I envisioned several versions of ESX sometime back, I think back in 2006 already and divided them into several categories, this is however the revised product development, segregation and segmentation strategy: Buying mobile devices?: Product: ESXembed comes free with your PDA, phone, blackberry etc. Using it to run several applications simultaneously with it. Benefits of such containarization of tasks are endless. Buying Laptops?: Product: ESXlite comes free with it. Benefit: Run Mac, Windows, Linux at near-native speeds, side by side. I have been desperately waiting for this. Buying Servers: Product: ESXEnterprise etc: All coming free with your boxes. Well they already thought it out and called it 3i Buying Cloud Ready Data Center sets?: Product: ESXGrid Version comes free with the grid of commod...

The superstar of Microsoft's new technology lineup, in many ways, is Hyper-V, which will enable partitioning of resources on a physical server and allow for installation of multiple operating systems from within Windows Server 2008 environments. But there was not universal awe from the advances that Microsoft is bringing to the table. Executives at VMware - - which have now been set up as a key competitor for Microsoft - - have been particularly eager to talk about differentiation between their technology and Microsoft's virtualization. "This is going to be something that runs multiple, virtual machines that you put your business-critical applications on," Erik Wrobel, VMware's director of product management, said. "You obviously are not going to put that into your data center unless it's something that's robust. And this is a first-generation product." Wrobel said that VMware's own virtualization technology has been available for data center...

It has got my notice some months back. I have tried the older versions back in 2005/2006 and was honestly not impressed but today with their Hyper-V and the SCVMM (a part of the whole SC) which is far better and mature than what Virtual Center from VMware (if you'd like to believe Gartner). So what am I announcing here? I am already into Hyper-V testing. In the coming days/weeks we'll dive into many facets of Hyper-V. We'll get into middleware: We'll test SQL Servers 2000, 2005 (x86 and x64 version), Exchange, Sharepoint etc. So this will be really heavy. I will be asking other guys around me, from time to time, to do the needful as I am short on time to do everything ;-) We will try to also manage the VI through the SCVMM. We really want to see what the Microsoft people say about the product being much better than VC from VMware. Expect more stuff here and also on the ITtoolbox site. It has nothing to do with this post from Malhotra who decided to " manage VMwa...

It surely will be a year to remember, mark my words! Paul has some pointers: Sometime in the first quarter of 2008, Microsoft will be releasing its Hyper-V hypervisor for the software vendor's Windows Server 2008 server operating system platform. VMware will respond from the vantage point of eight years of experience in virtualization and the "maturity" of its hypervisor, stated Bogomil Balkansky, its senior director, product marketing. Making allusions to Microsoft's difficulties in the past with other software products, the VMware spokesperson bluntly asserted that "the burden of proof for stability [for a hypervisor product] is higher than any other piece of software." The competition will possibly begin this spring when customers will be presented for the first time with a choice of popular servers from the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Dell embedded with hypervisors from either VMware or Microsoft, stated John Sloan, senior research analyst at Info-Tech ...

MS's Ben Armstrong tests the Fedora Core 8 installation on Hyper-V . Cute to see the Mahjong screenshot. Any tests run? I'm curious...

Here's the video, all simple and pretty fast install I must say: Quick look via the Virtual Center 2.5 Default root password is none which is not really a good thing!

Check it out yourself: Introducing VMware ESX Server 3i This release introduces VMware ESX Server 3i, the industry's first ultra-thin hypervisor. With this ultra-thin architecture, ESX Server 3i provides unprecedented levels of security, reliability, and manageability. ESX Server 3i provides all the benefits and features of VMware ESX Server hypervisor including: Increases security with a small, virtualization-centric package that minimizes attack surface area and requires minimal patching Provides full integration with VirtualCenter 2.5 Integrates with hardware to ensure compatibility, certification, and optimized configurations Enables standards-based management of the underlying hardware Works in conjunction with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to achieve plug-and-play capacity scaling for your datacenter. ESX Server 3i Installable is supported only on Dell 2950 (full support) and on HP DL380 G5 (experimental support). Download it here .

And Technet bloggers are excited about it... Some of the new features added since the Windows Hyper-V CTP include: Quick Migration and high availability providing solutions for planned and unplanned downtime Support for running Hyper-V with Server Core in the parent partition Import/Export of virtual machines Hyper-V now integrated with Windows Server Manager Integration components are now included in Windows Server 2008 meaning that when you install Windows Server 2008 in a Hyper-V virtual machine, Windows will automatically install the ICs. VHD Tools support (compaction, expansion and inspection) Emulated video card has changed from an S3 Trio video card to a more generic VESA compatible device. (This change resolves numerous video issues with non-Windows operating systems like Linux). Support for up to four virtual SCSI controllers per virtual machine Numerous fixes for compatibility, performance and scalability ...and lots more that I'll cover in upcoming blogs Couple of vide...

In contrast to VMware, where code that emulates legacy hardware runs in the hypervisor, the code for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V resides within the virtualization stack, according to the Microsoft spokesman. Since customers are already familiar with the Microsoft driver model, this is supposed to allow them to leverage the hypervisor more readily. Does all this mean we've turned a corner in the virtualization market and that innovation will foster a new wave of competition? Not necessarily, warns industry analyst Marc Staimer, president of Dragon Slayer Consulting. "The data center guys will just wait and see what Microsoft delivers versus what they say they will deliver," he said. That may be a prudent tack where virtual claims are concerned. Link

Not all hypervisors are created equal, however, and experts say the key to Hyper-V adoption will depend more on the perceived balance between price, features, management and performance. The first release of Hyper-V will not have some of the capabilities Microsoft originally planned to offer. For instance, it will not provide live migration or the ability to hot-add resources, while support will be limited to 16 cores, or four quad-core processors. Martin Niemer, VMware senior product marketing manager, doubted if VMware customers are likely to switch to any hypervisor that offers less advanced features than they already have with VMware products. “Customers are smart enough to see what they are getting for their money. There are already several strains of hypervisor out there, but they miss some important features, like reliability, high availability, dynamic resource scheduling and all the management bits around those,” Niemer said. “It is about advanced functionality and management,...