Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Finally I see, Bridget, covering Hitachi. (That does remind me of something I had promised Bridget which I haven't yet provided due to crazy schedule here). Anyways, back to Hitachi's Virtage: The embedded technology, known as Virtage, runs on an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) coupled with embedded firmware designed to handle virtualization tasks at the hardware level. Virtage works with Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) chips and enables users to partition physical server resources into isolated logical partitions (LPARs) that can each run a different operating system, or guest. Hitachi designed Virtage for its BladeSymphony 1000 blade servers, which will be generally available by the first quarter of 2008. Other attempts to embed virtualization within a server don't do so in hardware. In September, XenSource Inc. announced an embedded virtualization platform called XenExpress that integrates into servers via flash or on the hard disk. Similarly, VMware...

Hitachi will continue carving out its own place in the virtualization market with a Xeon-based blade server that includes a built-in hypervisor. In the first quarter of next year, Hitachi America – a subsidiary of the big guy – will ship a Xeon version of the BladeSymphony 1000 system outfitted with homegrown Virtage technology. Virtage stands as Hitachi's firmware-based hypervisor that has been available with the Itanium-based version of BladeSymphony since last November. The pre-loaded hypervisor gives Hitachi a unique attack in the server game with the company claiming performance and security leads over rivals with the technology. Click here to find out more! Built-in hypervisors have suddenly become all the rage. VMware and XenSource have revealed plans to work with OEMs on embedded hypervisors that pop into the flash memory of servers. Hitachi, however, thinks it's creating a much tighter bond between hardware and the hypervisor with its Virtage approach. "All they a...