Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Read here and also here .

Literally, as the news article says. So get started with Virtualization now! E.ON opted for a virtualised environment because of the flexibility it offered, enabling the infrastructure to accommodate all the individual IT requirements of the separate business units. David Coggon, technical architect for E.ON Information Services, told silicon.com: "We needed to put in an underlying foundation that was flexible to meet all the business units' needs." although they didn't mention which software they used. I am guessing VMware's ESX! Check out the article.

Will it? And will it be really a well maintained product should people wrap a cool GUI around it? The ability to do library relocations of Windows guests, another new feature in the 3.05 update, is significant because it will allow the dynamic relocation of Windows workload, essential for ISVs to offer VMotion-like features, Pratt said. The Xen software has supported library locations for Linux for several years, he added. "The Xen API is how the ISV community will integrate with Xen systems and control virtual machines," Pratt said. "It will enable you to build clusters of Xen systems and control them. It's the underlying mechanism that enables others to wrap a GUI around it." Look here.

Pocket ACE is only one of many new features in VMware ACE 2 Enterprise Edition . . . Whether you need to lock down clients by restricting devices or network access, provision sandbox environments for 3rd party or remote users, or have the ability to rapidly configure systems for demos or training, VMware ACE 2 Enterprise Edition delivers the only controlled and easily managed desktop virtualization solution for enterprise users. Get it now!

Go to the download site and get it now and also check out that long list of features with it !

What are the coolest features of this product? Key innovations of FastScale Composer include: Application Blueprint ™ – While operating systems support hundreds of thousands of applications, any given application only uses a small subset of the operating system. The Application Blueprint automatically identifies the precise operating system components an application requires at execution time, without any manual effort. Dynamic Application Bundle ™ – Based on the Application Blueprint, FastScale Composer automatically builds a small, full-featured software environment including only the precise software components required. Averaging only one percent the size of traditional server images, the Dynamic Application Bundle (DAB™) is created on-demand at job execution time, so it always includes the appropriate updates and patches. Lightweight Provisioning – With the DAB’s small footprint, provisioning to bare metal servers takes seconds, as opposed to an hour or more. The applicati...

Read for instructions and to download go here here .

Its called Desktop Server. “Desktop Server is a better product than Presentation Server [for those customers], since it is more user-friendly and has automated provisioning that allows a user to point and click to add a new profile,” he said. Check out the rest ! and Desktop Server here.

I'd hate to start any wars. Heck on the virtalization space we are already at war for quite some time! Join the discussion OR read the original blog that spurred this discussion. Anyways I'm ordering my ESX VI3 license next week as I really can't wait for that 90% featuritis-packed 50% cheap product from MS. Neither for my international project where I am proposing VMware Server. Motto: Discuss, no harm doing that, but be realistic!

This just in. The public beta of Windows Server virtualization, code-named Viridian, will now ship in the second half of 2007, not in the first half, according to an entry on the Windows Server Division Weblog by Mike Neil, general manager of virtualization at Microsoft. Similarly, the final version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 also has been pushed back; it will be available in the second quarter. It was scheduled to be available by now. Customers and partners can download a release candidate of the service pack, a code-complete update to the current beta 2, later this month, Neil wrote. Check it out here .

I've tried splunk in the past and have also promoted it in my R&D team. Cool software! anyways check out The Baum's take on what Splunk can do it a highly Virtualized Infrastructure! Read and Get the PDF !

uXcomm claims to have unified the management of virtual and physical server IT environments after acquiring virtualization management Virtugo Software for an undisclosed sum yesterday. uXcomm, which is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, develops software that manages and optimizes physical and virtual server configurations. Under the terms of the acquisition uXcomm gets its hands on Virtugo's VirtualSuite of performance and service level management tools for controlling virtual machines and hosts. The software is intended to help IT departments meet service level agreements and allow them to plan for future capacity needs. Press Release here Check out the product line as well.

What's new? New and Improved Features in Beta 3 This Beta 3 release of VMware Fusion for Mac includes the following new features and feature improvements: Greatly improved performance — By popular demand, you can now disable debugging code to experience the full power and performance that VMware Fusion offers for running your favorite PC applications. Support for Boot Camp — VMware Fusion automatically detects your Boot Camp partition, so you can now run a Windows XP virtual machine from your existing Boot Camp partition. You no longer have to choose Windows or Mac: you can now run Windows side-by-side with your favorite Mac applications. Note: For this Beta 3 release, Windows Vista is not supported; only Windows XP is supported. Windows Easy Install — You want to run Windows applications, but you don't want to become a guru just to install Windows. VMware Fusion has you covered; just answer a few simple questions, insert your Windows CD and let VMware Fusion take care of...

If you are a IBM PSeries client then you already know this place. Pretty neat forum this. Founded by a recognized IBM pSeries consultant and IBM Redbook author, pSeries Tech Forums was developed with the single mission of bringing IBM pSeries professionals together into a single self-help community. Check it out if you haven't done that yet.

Chris Wolf published some Virtual Iron's benchmark results and commented that many of the people believe XenSource's benchmark to be more accurate. How did they come to the conclusion, I don't know. So overall the Windows Server 2003 VM was able to perform at or below a 3% performance degradation. The Virtual Iron tests followed the same benchmark pattern used by VMware. If you would like to see the VMware results and also get more detail on what each individual benchmark is testing, take a look at VMware’s document “A Performance Comparison of Hypervisors.” Keep in mind that the Xen performance numbers in the VMware paper are under significant debate, with most of us (myself included) seeing Simon Crosby’s Xen benchmark numbers as being more accurate. Read more...

Hamilton talks about the dangers of manual methods. It indeed is crucial or managers to have all their ITIL, Change Management processes fully appraised of the new technology which will impose some new challenges. The deal is pretty simple: No matter if you start small or big, just have a plan that encompasses issues like: - Provisioning - Internal Licensing policies (to prevent a VM sprawl!) - Auditing - Security As virtualization adds flexibility and mobility to server resources it also increases the complexity of the environment in which the technology lives. Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie talks with George Hamilton, director of Yankee Group's enabling technologies enterprise group, about what network managers need to do to get ahead of the management nightmare virtualization could introduce to their networks. Check out the podcast . (I found it interesting to listen)

Got this from Greg: "Virtualisation, as with any emerging technology, will be the target of new security threats," said Neil MacDonald, vice president and Gartner fellow. "Many organisations mistakenly assume that their approach for securing virtual machines will be the same as securing any operating system, and thus plan to apply their existing configuration guidelines, standards and tools. "While this is a start, simply applying the technologies and best practices for securing physical servers will not provide sufficient protection for virtual machines." Firms that will undermine security will have to pay rather heavily. Read the rest of the article here . Thanks to Greg for the link.

XenEnterprise caught up clearly on the competitor ESX, is it partly even ahead: The solution is suitable for eight-way systems, while VMware is still with four SMP CCUs. However this support very strong server refers exclusive to Windows server 2003. Main storage can be assigned to a virtual machine up to 8 GB. The operating system Kernel in the virtual machines does not have to be adapted to the hypervisor - presupposed they run on machines with the new processors from AMD or Intel (“V” and/or “VT”), which hold even Virtualisierungstechnik. XenSource is growing in its popularity and with the extended support of Windows it surely will attract a lot of Windows shops. Will Microsoft wait or should to go for the acquisition now. Time will only tell. Read the translated version here .

Paul thurrott said it pretty simple, something I have mentioned on several occasions, about why its VMware who will maintain the lead. VMware offers another solution--one that, notably, also runs on non-Windows systems. The company also pointing out, rightfully, that VMware shipped its first hypervisor-based product about six years ago and has spent the intervening years improving its virtualization technologies with new product revisions and entirely new products, many of which are concerned with VM management, provisioning, and automatic resource allotment. VMware is, in other words, still at the forefront of virtualization today and is shipping the kind of products that Microsoft has yet to create, let alone ship to the public. What VMware is selling, really, is experience, reliability, stability, and the market penetration of an unmatched virtualization ecosystem. While the market is wide open to any player, its the one who understands the exact needs of the market, is the one who...

This is to somehow help the *diskless* PCs like Terminal servers. But the options seem to be a setup for the future to align licensing and new virtualization technologies that are central to Microsoft’s emerging management platform as laid out last week at its annual Management Summit. Later this year, the company will release System Center Virtual Machine Manager, which helps increase physical server utilization, and centralize management and provisioning of virtual machines. In addition, Microsoft plans to release in mid-2008 its hypervisor technology, code-named Viridian, which will run on the forthcoming Windows Longhorn Server. Longhorn includes a feature called the Terminal Services Gateway that will let users remotely access both their Terminal Services and VECD desktops. REad the rest of the story .

As per this eWeek's post, it is supposed to be shipping today. After several months of beta testing, the Palo Alto, Calif., company will release the full version of XenEnterprise 3.2 on April 2. Some of the most noticeable improvement to the 3.2 release revolves around the company's partnership with Microsoft. On July 18, 2006, the two companies announced a partnership that would provide interoperability between Xen-based Linux and Windows Server virtualization. XenSource went on to offer its first Windows product in December. Pricing? In addition to a free, 30-day trial of XenEnterprise 3.2, the company is offering an annual subscription license for $488 per dual-socket server and a $750 perpetual license per dual-socket server. Read eWeek's post .

I got an email telling me that I have been chosen as one of the Warriors! Well warrior I sure am :-) Filled up the form and hope to get my T-Shirt soon! VMTN Board Warrior Tshirt Update Thank you for updating your shipping Information. You will be receiving your "Board Warrior" shirt soon. Neat huh...

Matt is very much into openMosix (just like Kris Buytaert) and I got to know him through the openQRM project . Very talented dude and deserves a place on my blogroll! Check out is blog here.

Ok Ok it's april 1st. :-) I've had to deal with enough of those jokes today at home! Hope you guys had a blast too!