Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Check it out here Saw first at Alessandro's site

Sun on Wednesday also is releasing the second version of xVM Ops Center, a management system for both physical and virtual servers. The new version makes it easier to create virtual machines, manage storage and use xVM’s live migration feature, which makes it possible to move an application running on a virtual server from one physical device to another, Wilson says. Live migration is available in the open source version of xVM Server, but is easier to manage with Ops Center, he says. xVM Server is a software product with an embedded Web server, allowing management through a Web browser, according to Wilson. xVM Server is based on the open source Xen hypervisor, but includes technologies taken from Sun’s OpenSolaris operating system that make it more scalable, fault-resistant and easy to update, he says. Source

I just did a NDA session with Citrix and was told of some really cool stuff that Citrix will be announcing. Obviously I am not at a liberty to reveal it yet but you can already start guessing. As a hint, you know where my focus is right now ;-)

Building on its existing leadership in virtualization management, open source Web infrastructure management provider Hyperic Inc., (LinuxWorld Booth #1319), today announced Hyperic HQ for Citrix® XenServerTM enterprise-class management and monitoring software for the popular Citrix XenServer virtualization software. The new software allows XenServer administrators to quickly and correctly assess IT decisions within their XenServer environment. To educate Xen administrators and those considering deploying Citrix XenServer on the basics of a successful systems management strategy, the companies will conduct a free webinar Tuesday, August 12th at 8am PDT. To register visit http://www.hyperic.com/landing/citrix-xen-webinar.html. For the first time, these operations teams have the capability to create a holistic view of their entire Web infrastructure, both inside and outside of the XenServer Hypervisor-extending their ability to manage and analyze utilization, and enabling them to rapidly ...

Ok so all those whisperings were getting ouder and louder in my head and I had to just let it out. The video is by Greg Hartman and my industry insider friend, who wishes anonymity, had some pointers: Featured opinion from an industry insider/researcher (This individual has no affiliation to VMware, Citrix , Microsoft or whoever): o The rate-of-change has gone up significantly, and fairly uniformly across all parts of the kernel (core, arch-specific, device drivers, networking, etc). It's greater than any other software project on Earth. It's also broaden out (flattened), with lots of changes coming from a broader set of people. o KVM will win out over the Xen/VMware models. KVM uses Linux as the hypervisor, whereas Xen needs to recreate its own NUMA model, scheduling, memory management, power management, and needs to use Linux for drivers. KVM gets all these things for free from Linux (Qumranet's opinion also). Combined with the rate of change and massive amount of contr...

GigaOM: Can you tell me how the launch of Hyper-V affects Citrix Xen products? Crosby: Our key founding philosophy was fast, free, compatible and ubiquitous hypervisors. Microsoft’s Hyper-V which is compatible with XenServer, is alright when it comes to being fast; it’s 28 bucks, so close to free; and because it’s Microsoft it will be ubiquitous. So for us, it’s good. The problem is it took them too darn long to get it out. Working with Microsoft has been a little bit like having a ring through the nose of the bull. We have a rope tied to that ring because we’re ahead of them on this thing, but when they charge I’m going to get out the way and point them at VMware. GigaOM: But will Hyper-V compete with the Citrix server virtualization business anyway? Crosby: You should look forward to interesting announcements of products to add value to Hyper-V. We’re going to sell into that footprint much like Citrix has always extended the use cases of Microsoft products. GigaOM: What about VMware?...

VMware ESXi 3.5 is the latest generation of the bare-metal x86 hypervisor that VMware pioneered and introduced over seven years ago. The industry’s thinnest hypervisor, ESXi is built on the same technology as VMware ESX , so it is powerful enough to run even the most resource-intensive applications; however, it is only 32 MB in size and runs independently of a general-purpose OS. The following table shows just how much smaller the VMware EXSi installed footprint is compared to other hypervisors. These are results from installing each product and measuring disk space consumed, less memory swap files. Comparative Hypervisor Sizes (including management OS) VMware ESX 3.5 2GB VMware ESXi 32MB Microsoft Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008 10GB Microsoft Hyper-V with Windows Server Core 2.6GB Citrix XenServer v4 1.8GB As the numbers show, ESXi has a far smaller footprint than competing hypervisors from vendors that like to label ESX as "monolithic." The ES...

LAS VEGAS – Symantec Vision - June 10, 2008 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced Veritas Virtual Infrastructure , the first solution to offer advanced storage capabilities for virtual server environments that effectively manage storage in large scale, x86 production environments. Expected to be available in the fall of 2008, Veritas Virtual Infrastructure combines new, advanced storage management capabilities from Veritas Storage Foundation with the flexible, high-performance Citrix XenServer virtualization technology from Citrix Systems. Veritas Virtual Infrastructure will allow users to fully benefit from server virtualization while both preserving current best practices in storage management from the physical environment and leveraging new opportunities provided by virtualized environments. Server virtualization is transforming IT operations by reducing costs through higher resource utilization and reducing risk through increased operational flexibility. However, serv...

Wil je meer weten over Citrix Virtualisatie? Dan vergeet niet om aan te melden. De programma ziet er als volgt uit: 8.30 welcome 9.00 - 10.15 : What’s up about Xen? - Welcome & Opening by Ed Bezooijen or Werner van Unen: What is Citrix aiming for with the incorporation of Xensource? Is Citrix in fact ‘the oldest virtualization company’? Outlook on Citrix’strategic direction with Xensource 10 minutes - Sander van Vugt: Why Xen is the real thing for real men and the other solutions more like toys for boys. Do you need to be a CLP to be able to work with Xen? 20 minutes - Simon Crosby: Why the merger with Citrix makes sense from a technological point of view. What are the technical advantages for the IT Manager / system administrator in working with Xen? 45 minutes 10.15 – 10.45 Coffee break & Fresh Air 10.45 - 12.00 How Xen will conquer & virtualize the world – Simon Crosby An in-depth technical overview about Xen & how things work differently than on other platforms like...

It's bad news for VMware, which is still counting to a disturbing degree on its hypervisor to keep it ahead of competitors like Microsoft and, increasingly, every other operating system or server-manufacturer out there. "We have never believed that the hypervisor would be commoditized," VMware director of marketing Ben Matheson told Computerworld's Rob Mitchell recently. "To imply that it's a commodity would imply that there's no differentiation." Bingo. Right now there is some differentiation, and will continue to be for another year or so, until Microsoft's Hyper-V really gets its legs. After that, Microsoft's Hyper-V will be a credible choice for IT managers counting on not being fired for buying technology from an industry leader, whether it works best or not. For others, who make choices based more on technical merit than intangibles like market leadership, third-party support or the quality of the golf outings vendor reps take them on, ...

LiveSync Peer-To-Peer storage technology enables Enterprise Grade features such as High Availability Backup VM Server with Automatic Failover and Live Migration. The EnSpeed LiveSync technology is also compatible with other standard Linux distributions such as RedHat 5.1 and CentOS 5.1. LiveSync is also included in EnSpeed VMM with LiveSync, stand-alone VM Server software that installs on bare metal. In addition, Thinsy Corporation also announced the availability of a new version of EnSpeed VM Orchestrator, their VM Management Server that provides an intuitive web browser GUI for managing LiveSync VM Servers. This new version of EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has been enhanced with support for Cloned VMs and full SSL secured connections. For additional information on EnSpeed VMM with LiveSync, please visit http://www.thinsy.com/ . Free downloads of the fully functional LiveSync rpm for Oracle VM Server 2.1.1 and RedHat 5.1, EnSpeed VMM with LiveSync, and EnSpeed VM Orchestrator are availabl...

Gayle Spencer, network administrator at Sherron Associates, a property management firm said, “Without the Citrix XenServer and DataCore combination, we would not have been able to afford to consolidate our servers and install a SAN to protect our storage. Spencer further clarified that any other solution would have been more expensive and would not have extended the cost savings benefits of virtualization to both servers and storage. Replacing the old servers would also have become very expensive said Spencer. Scott Gorcester, founder of Moose Logic remarked that DataCore and Citrix XenServer help customers who are going virtual and customers get it immediately when they see it in action. He emphasized that the addition of four new customers in the very first month of the partnership is proof enough. Gorcester continued, “The DataCore partnership will help us extend the scope of what we offer in terms of virtual infrastructure to our Citrix XenServer clients as well as to our entire b...

I personally haven't had the time to test the beta yet. I hope to find loads of time in order to start building out solution-sets which will embrace all sorts of vendors including VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun to name a few. Actually, said Brian Madden, an independent analyst focused on server-based computing, Provisioning Server does not actually perform a P2V migration of an image; rather, it enables any image to be booted off a network share. "Ardence doesn't care if it's physical or virtual," he said. But converting an OS image to run within a virtual machine does have its advantages, Madden said, since it normalizes device drivers, and removes hardware incompatibilities. Provisioning Server use cases The most obvious use case for Provisioning Server is within a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) scenario, where its multicasting abilities allow it to simultaneously broadcast an image to multiple devices -- "up to 1,000 off a single VHD file,...

While Citrix XenServer takes advantage of the TCO benefits virtualization offers through server consolidation, SteelEye's Protection Suite for Citrix XenServer is an essential addition for companies to ensure continuity of the virtualization environment; plus, it integrates advanced data replication and high availability clustering technologies to monitor and automatically recover the entire Xen environment. SteelEye delivers several distinct data and application management functions, all integrated into a single solution for simple deployment. It is built on breakthrough technology which supports clustering together physical and/or virtual servers for continuous data protection, application availability and disaster recovery while providing real-time replication of active Xen Virtual Machine images. "This is a powerful alliance," said Garrett Gafke, President of SteelEye. "As a long-time supporter of the use of open source technologies for business-critical computin...

This blogger is covering it live from Florida at Citrix Summit 2008.

That is what I see from this post: Thus far, USi is offering only virtualized servers running VMware, but according to Christina Schriver, director of advanced engineering for USi, the company will offer Sun Microsystems Solaris Containers and Citrix Systems Xen products this year. Why the expansion? Because it's what customers clamor for. "We're not getting requests from customers for a particular virtualization platform," Schriver said, explaining that customers don't even see the virtualization layer when hosting their apps with USi. They just see applications running as they should. "But we are getting requests from clients that can best be supported by other [virtualization] vendors." Some of USi's customers, for example, have asked USi to host Solaris running on Sparc processors, whereas VMware can handle Solaris on only x86 processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and Intel Corp.. Schriver explained that in many cases, customers w...

This concise handbook which hosts Fedora Core as its host operating System is ideal for professionals who want a user-friendly reference beside them while they get working with Xen and virtualization. Its easy-to-navigate content offers bite-sized walkthroughs for a wide variety of common virtualization tasks using Xen. Each chapter is a collection of practical tasks that demonstrate how to achieve common virtualization tasks. Users then learn how it works so that they can apply this knowledge to their Xen installation and environment. This book is for Linux administrators who want to use Xen Virtualisation for development, testing, virtual hosting, or operating systems training. What you may learn from this book? From Packt: Getting started with virtualization and Xen Installing Xen from pre-built packages using yum Installing and compile Xen from source Running guest domains under Xen: Create Ubuntu guest domain using debootstrap Create NetBSD domain using install image Create a Ce...

The Xen Project Mission Statement is - Build the industry standard open source hypervisor - Core "engine" that is incorporated into multiple vendors' products • Maintain our industry-leading performance - Be first to exploit new hardware acceleration features - Help OS vendors paravirtualize their OSes • Maintain our reputation for stability and quality - Security must now be paramount • Support multiple CPU types; big and small systems - From server to client to mobile • Foster innovation - Be a great platform for research and experimentation • Drive interoperability - Between Xen-based products - With other virtualization products Check out the Citrix's site

Virtual Iron 4.2, which becomes available Dec. 10, adds several new features to the company's virtualization suite, including a new management tool called LiveSnapshot, which allows user to take a snapshot of a virtual image and then apply a patch or a change to that image without shutting down the entire virtual server. Other tools include a multipathing feature for virtual server Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks that will provide better support for redundancy and business continuity. Multipathing is a relatively new technology that separates data and then divides the data into separate paths, which speeds up the I/O process. The latest version of Virtual Iron's software also includes new operating system support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. PR of Virtual Iron says: Virtual Iron Version 4.2 is the first Xen®-based server virtualization solution to include: * Multi-pathing for virtual server Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks to s...

I will be chatting with the Sun's CTO tomorrow and will get more insights on sun's strategy. We need an open source, robust and independent solution. And Sun might just provide us that! Sun xVM Ops Center, a physical and virtual resource management stack, will be available for download next month, Schwartz said. Officials at Sun had previously said a second version of xVM Ops Center will ship in mid-2008. Both versions will run on Linux- and Solaris-based systems across x64/x86 and Sparc systems. Later versions will support Windows, Sun said. James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Sun’s announcement is part of a drive by large vendors to build virtualization offerings on top of the Xen project. See the rest!