Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Atos Origin, an international information technology services company, and Sagem Sécurité (SAFRAN Group) have announced their selection by France’s National Secure Credentials Agency (ANTS), following an international tender, to manage implementation and deployment of the biometric passport system throughout France. The new passport, which is the result of a European Union directive, will reinforce passport reliability and personal security while helping to more effectively combat the fraudulent use of passports. This first secure document is in line with the French Government’s modernization strategy and its secure identity programs for citizens, of which ANTS is the enabler. Nearly 5,000 data acquisition and processing systems will be deployed in 2,000 French town halls and 350 prefectures and sub-prefectures before June 2009, making it possible to include fingerprints on passports. More here...

LOS GATOS, Calif., June 30, 2008 – Hifn™ (NASDAQ: HIFN), the catalyst behind storage and networking innovation, today announced that its award-winning Swarm™ Series has been certified with VMware ESX 3.5 and VMware ESX 3i, expanding the customer options for iSCSI SAN storage in a VMware virtual environment. Hifn’s Swarm Series Software is now listed in the VMware “Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide For ESX Server 3.5 and ESX Server 3i”, highlighting the Swarm’s functionality and support for three VMware environments: ESX 3.5, ESX 3i Embedded and ESX 3i Server Installable. The VMware Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide enables VMware users to quickly determine which storage solutions have passed the company’s stringent requirements for iSCSI SAN connectivity and compatibility with hosts running VMware ESX 3.x environments. “Hifn’s certification gives customers an officially sanctioned option for creating a fully virtualized infrastructure under VMware without the complexity and cost of a Fib...

This is what I can conclude from: - This post - My past experience of using Microsoft's products - Microsoft's proven bet-low, diagonal penetration strategy - We all use Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, Dynamics etc etc - Microsoft's own MAP (Assessment and Planning) tool wil be doing the analysis for free! Microsoft needs to do a lot more than just provide a greater technology, and my sources tell me that Microsoft is doing all that. Microsoft is expanding rapidly and will definitely pose a challenge to many vendors. Microsoft will soon embed its virtualization technology into its applications and will take it to the clouds before you know it. So if people are wondering about the typical lag that Microsoft may have had when it launched NT, SQL 1.0, Mailserver etc, then I can assure you that when Microsoft has its nose in the right direction it might be a much faster re-capture than one can imagine. Trust me on this. "In the end, it comes down to price," Teter s...

And what does it do? Secure and Agentless Inventory The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises. It collects and organizes system resources and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried, but this tool does not. MAP uses technologies already available in your IT environment to perform inventory and assessments. These technologies include Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, SNMP, Active Directory Domain Services, and the Computer Browser service. Assessments can be completed on the following Windows platforms: Windows Vista Windows XP® Professional Windows Server 2003™ or Windows Server 2003 R2 Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 Server Windows Server 2008 Comprehensive Data Analysis The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solu...

What I have to tell you in the coming articles? Virtualization : Industry insiders are pushing me and telling me things such as the "The Big KVM surprise entry where VMware is soon to be relegated to being just one of the many virtualization vendors". Clearly the triangle is going to be KVM (vendors who will come up with a variety of offerings both on desktops and server families), Xen (which will have to find its way seriously into cloud computing to keep its differentiation alive) and find a sweeter embrace with the Microsoft in order to ride the Hyper-V wave and VMware, which will basically have to deal with the inevitable- that is decreasing market cap and market share". Global Economy and Global Sourcing : Here I will talk about " The Great Unjaring " Mashup Sourcing Framework : Here I will detail out, as I have done in the past, with several angles such as agile LOBs, Horizontal approach and Spreading the risks, but this one will focus and will go a step ...

Oracle CEO and multi-billionaire technology investor Larry Ellison has dismissed the software-as-a-service industry as unprofitable. Although his company made money from its on-demand applications business for the first time in its fourth financial quarter, Ellison said that the model had yet to become the profit driver that many had predicted. “We continue to get better at it and grow the business,” he said in an earnings call yesterday. “[But] it’s not really growing any faster than our overall business.” “We think that’s going to change over time,” he continued. “But the entire on-demand industry has to get better at making money in selling on-demand software.” He pointed to the example of Salesforce.com, the on-demand CRM provider founded by a former Oracle executive, in which Ellison has a significant investment. “If you look at the leader, Salesforce.com, they don’t make very much money and they’ve been at it for almost 10 years,” he said. More here

A major differentiator for Hyper-V is the familiarity of the Windows platform. For example, HotSchedules’ Pawlikowski looked at a number of other virtualization technologies, including VMware ESX Server, but his company has strong ties with Dell, which made a compelling case for Microsoft’s early-adopter program. “Not only is Hyper-V faster, it’s also faster to get up to speed with,” Pawlikowski said. “It’s integrated with our existing platform and with the familiar roles in Windows Server 2008, so our knowledge base didn’t have to change too much and I didn’t have to re-tool our IT staff to move forward with virtualization.” Microsoft’s Hilf says that’s a particularly compelling reason for customers to choose Hyper-V. “It’s been designed as a Windows feature, which our customers know, so those with Windows Server certification will be familiar with it; the people who have all the in-house skills on Windows Server will know how to use it.” To help both customers and partners assess whe...

This Energy and Utility Competency Center will be launched in July 2008 to become fully operational by January 2009. This will provide domestic and global energy companies and nuclear operators with advanced technologies to meet the needs of this fast growing market. ‘This strategic decision is a new step forward for Atos Origin to position the group as a worldwide provider of distinctive industry solutions. Atos Origin’s Digital Control System is widely recognized as a state-of-the-art reference by the most prominent nuclear operators in the world. Our solution is already implemented in three nuclear power plants in China and we are happy to reinforce our presence in this major market and to bring this expertise to the rest of the Asia Pacific region’ declared Philippe Germond, CEO of Atos Origin. “We anticipate both the Digital Control System and the Oil and Gas advanced solutions developed by Atos Origin will meet well the needs in the currently booming energy market in China,” said...

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it has started selling its Hyper-V server virtualization software that competes with similar programs from VMware Inc. Customers of Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, can start downloading the product on Microsoft's website on Thursday, Microsoft said. Reuters reporting

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...

I am getting several call from industry leaders within large customer ranks who want to really know what Gartner is really doing and how they can utilize better, real-time and on-the-field researches/road-warriors to get the information that really matters to them. I will be doing a couple of analyst calls in the coming weeks and will post the results here.

SAN DIEGO – June 25, 2008 – Nirvanix, the premier “Cloud Storage” platform provider optimized for media and large files, today announced the beta of a groundbreaking new set of products that attaches the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network to a local network as a Windows or Linux filer using standard industry networking protocols. Users can then work with the applications they are accustomed to, or simply drag and drop files from their desktops to Nirvanix’s award-winning storage service. “Nirvanix CloudNAS represents a significant advancement in cloud storage,” said Patrick Harr, CEO of Nirvanix. “Previously, enterprises could only access cloud storage by programming to an API. Now with CloudNAS, customers can immediately integrate Nirvanix’s cloud storage into their existing applications and processes, and forego new purchases of expensive NetApp, EMC, IBM or other NAS products in favor of Nirvanix’s storage-as-a-service offering.” Since CloudNAS is built on the Storage Delivery Net...

Talking to several CxOs, vendors and customers alike, I hear a sentiment: "Well Microsoft owns the desktop and the Server market!" And there is more truth to it than we'd like to deny. Microsoft applications is what you use in your home and work environments. Applications are all built on the Win32 and will soon scale and be developed on the x64 boxes but they will be developed for the Windows. We all know that Windows Server 7, Exchange 14 etc are the new platforms that will all be typically embedded in virtualization or the whole virtualization will be embedded into these applications. Microsoft is coming in the big way. I also predicted that Bill Gates will come back and take the helm around 2010. Bill knows, muh like Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison etc that when the going gets tough, the tough ought to get going. As Virtualization matures and commoditizes, Microsoft's presence in the virtualization market will be felt in all directions an depths within our...

The Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) is open to any vendor who delivers a virtualization machine solution that hosts Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and subsequent service packs. The virtualization solution can either be hypervisor-based or a hosted solution. The program enables vendors to validate various configurations so that customers of Windows Server can receive technical support in virtualized environments. Customers with validated solutions will benefit from the support provided by Microsoft as a part of the regular Windows Server technical support framework. The Server Virtualization Validation Program is not a logo program, rather a reference that companies and customers will be able to use in conjunction with their validated solutions. Validated Configurations Submissions Open in June 2008 The upcoming list of validat...

Helsinki, Finland (AHN) - Top cell phone manufacturer Nokia has bought out its partners in mobile operating system maker Symbian Ltd. and formed a foundation to develop a unified and free mobile platform. The Finnish mobile phone giant, which owns 56 percent of Symbian, bought the stakes of Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung for $410 million as part of the formation of the non-profit Symbian Foundation. Link

IT outsourcer Infosys ’s clients are increasingly dissatisfied with the company’s service, according to a respected report into the IT outsourcing industry. The 2008 Black Book of Outsourcing State of the Industry Report ranked Infosys 56th for client satisfaction after polling customers. The previous year it was in the top 10. “[Infosys] clients reported a noticeable shift from customer service to corporate revenue generation, and a corporate culture that has become disappointingly elitist,” the report found. Infosys is emblematic of the Indian IT industry as it struggles to withstand changing macro-economic forces and graduate beyond simply being a service provider to become a strategic partner to its clients. The company’s approach to that challenge is examined in a profile in the new issue of Information Age magazine. The findings of this new report suggest that in its quest to become a strategic partner, the company may have sacrificed simple customer service. Rest is here ...

Clearly Dell, VMware and Intel are cuddling up pretty much lately. HP is getting a cold shoulder and is increasingly looking in different directions for other allies. As a security sidekick , McAfee will tie up eventually into VMware's band of brothers. Microsoft is going strong with Citrix and going for various data center strategies. I am predicting (and this is also based on talks that I have had with several friends across the industry) that Microsoft will eventually make peace with Symantec and completely absorb it in its Data Centers. That is why I supported or should I say agreed with Ashlee (for once) that it might be a great idea to tie up with or buy out totally the Rackable and have a "containarized strategy" themselves to unleash when needed. So the only thing is that Dell is in it to grab some market share from HP. Since HP is too busy increasing its employee base and going after IBM which is still enjoying its market position. Now IBM has nothing to go after...

VMware is pleased to announce the RC revision of ThinApp. This release includes Application Link and Application Sync, as well as many additional improvements to the user interface and the core virtualization engine. We believe that ThinApp represents technology that, when released in final form at General Availability (GA), will provide customers a fundamentally better way to package applications. With ThinApp technology, IT innovators can prepare their company to better address key application challenges including operating system migrations (to Windows XP, Vista, and others) while reducing application conflicts, deployment costs, and empowering a mobile workforce. ThinApp creates portable applications that can be leveraged across a variety of operating systems (Windows NT, XP, Vista, 2000) and plug into a variety of deployment infrastructures (SMS, LANDesk, Citrix, BMC, and others). Key Features and Enhancements The following enhancements were added for RC (Build 3.396): ...

oday's Cisco Data Center 3.0 announcements include: -- Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) software release 4.1, offering virtualized application hosting services, greater application acceleration and video delivery for the branch office; -- Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) software release 3.1 for the ACE 4710 application switch, offering up to 4 gigabits per second (Gbps) of throughput and up to 2 Gbps of compression capability, and multimedia readiness on a virtualized platform; -- Cisco VFrame Data Center software release 1.2, offering end-to-end infrastructure provisioning with Cisco ACE and VMware ESX; -- New Cisco Data Center 3.0 professional programs and services to better support customers with data center deployments. CNN reporting

IT consultancy Atos Origin reports successful consolidation of email and VoIP for its global help desk across five continents in just five weeks, using SAP Business Communications Management software. The company is now running on unified communications and says it is getting the highest standards of resilience and reliability – delivering flexible, cost-efficient and streamlined services for manufacturing users from its service centres in France, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Sao Paolo and Tenerife. Mick Hassall, vice president of global managed operations at Atos Origin, explains that the company was facing a range of challenges mostly due to diverse local infrastructures and proprietary technologies. More news here.

In addition to EonStor FC-host arrays, Infortrend has also submitted their iSCSI-host SAN subsystems for VMware hardware certification testing. As a VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) member, Infortrend will have closer collaboration with VMware to ensure future EonStor products meet VMware compatibility requirements. Widely recognized as the leader in the virtualization marketplace, the VMware hypervisor is a thin virtualization layer that partitions the physical server so multiple virtual machines can run simultaneously on a single server. Computing resources of the physical server are treated as a uniform pool of resources that can be allocated to virtual machines in a controlled manner. VMware software isolates each virtual machine from its host and other virtual machines, leaving them unaffected if an application in a virtual machine crashes. Data does not leak across virtual machines, and applications can only communicate over pre-configured network connections. More here...

Ratmir did ask me about nWorks and what I thought about it. And this is the end-result ;-) COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 24, 2008 — Veeam Software, award-winning provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX Server environments, today announced its acquisition of privately held nworks, an innovative creator of enterprise management connectors bridging the gap between VMware virtual infrastructure and enterprise systems management tools from Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. The nworks worldwide customer base consists of Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies. nworks is a VMware Technology Alliance Premier Partner, a Gold HP Business Partner, and a Microsoft Business Partner. "Our customers have been asking to manage their physical and virtual infrastructures through a single console – and many of them have significant investments in HP OpenView and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager," said Ratmir Timashev, Veeam president and CEO. "By combining Veeam’s resources with n...

Getting up and talking about "alive and breathing" data center is not just a dream but is something a CIO so desperately needs for his business. When VMware first debuted or spoke about the record and replay, I though to myself: "Hmmm...the agile data center is not far away!" These tools will make us do a lot of root cause analysis and eventually there won't be a hiaat between the business and the IT folks. It will all be one. That is what I have been calling about the great convergence of the business and the often misunderstood and even mischevious IT domains. Anyways check this out: VAssert is a new API, debuting in Workstation 6.5 , that uses the Record and Replay functionality that we've been talking about for some time now. As you can tell by its name, VAssert is a relative of your standing programming ASSERT debugging tool, but by delaying assert-checking until later when the exact machine instructions are replayed, it can be very fast. That's so...

CHICAGO and LIVINGSTON, Scotland – June 24, 2008 – CohesiveFT, providers of the Elastic Server Platform, an on-demand service for dynamic assembly and deployment of virtual machines, and FlexiScale, a leading provider of true on-demand Cloud computing, today announced a technology partnership to enable deployment of CohesiveFT’s Elastic Servers to FlexiScale's Cloud. The integration of technologies from CohesiveFT and FlexiScale will enable true on-demand application stack assembly and deployment on a pay-as-you-go Cloud. This combination allows genuinely scaleable, high availability production environments that do not require in-house operations expertise to build and maintain such a facility. Beyond substantial manpower savings the combined solution significantly reduces capital and energy expenditures. This partnership will also allow ISVs, application developers and QA teams to dramatically increase their productivity throughout the development lif...

This webinar will discuss how PlateSpin’s first major product release since the company was acquired by Novell can improve the speed and quality of your data center initiatives including server consolidation, hardware lease migration, data center relocation and disaster recovery. With extended support for Linux and Windows-based server workloads, new image-based disaster recovery capabilities and migration speed enhancements geared toward reliable, risk-free enterprise implementations, PowerConvert 7.0 is a best-in-class solution for migrating, protecting and optimizing server workloads across multiple physical and virtual platforms. Discussion Topics - A checklist of what to look for in an enterprise-ready workload migration solution - Strategies for reducing overall project times and business risk for large-scale migrations - New features and performance enhancements in PowerConvert 7.0 - How PowerConvert 7.0 enables large-scale, enterprise data center initiatives - Extending backup ...

Interesting article. Everyone agreed that cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, and Salesforce.com CRM have become bona fide enterprise options, but there were also questions about privacy, data security, industry standards, vendor lock-in, and high-performing apps that have yet to be vaporized as cloud services. (For a recap of that give and take, see " Customers Fire A Few Shots At Cloud Computing ") If we learned anything from our Enterprise 2.0 cloud forum, it's that IT departments need to know more. Our approach here is to look at cloud computing from the points of view of eight leading vendors. In doing so, we're leaving out dozens of companies that have a role to play, but what we lack in breadth, we hope to compensate for in depth. And this analysis is just the beginning of expanded editorial coverage by InformationWeek on cloud computing. Visit our just-launched Cloud Computing blog on InformationWeek.com, and sign up for our new weekl...

Take the Disaster Out of Disaster Recovery Easily manage and implement your recovery plan with VMware Site Recovery Manager. As an integrated element of your VMware virtual infrastructure, Site Recovery Manager helps you build, manage and execute reliable disaster recovery plans. Site Recovery Manager lets you: Accelerate recovery for the virtual environment through automation. Ensure reliable recovery by enabling non-disruptive testing. Simplify recovery by eliminating complex manual recovery steps and centralizing management of recovery plans. Accelerate Recovery Ensure that you are able to meet your recovery time objectives (RTO’s) by automating the recovery process. VMware Site Recovery Manager eliminates the slow manual steps of recovery, turning the complex paper runbooks associated with traditional disaster recovery into an integrated part of your virtual infrastructure management. Ensure Reliable Recovery Eliminate common causes of failure during recovery and mak...

Who were present at the meeting? Today we had the opportunity to moderate a panel with top industry analysts, bloggers and vendors about virtualization security (VirtSec). On a recorded panel session, we discussed the issues behind it and the differing views of just what virtualization security means in the industry. The panel included: Kris Buytaert - Infrastructure Architect; Open Source Expert ; Principle Consultant Inuits; Blogger at Virtualization.com Tarry Singh - Sr. Consultant, Blogger , Industry/Market Analyst; Founder & CEO of Avastu Andreas Antonopoulos , SVP & Founding Partner - Nemertes Research Allwyn Sequeira ,SVP & CTO – Blue Lane Michael Berman, CTO - Catbird Chris Hoff , Chief Security Architect - Systems & Technology Division and Blogger - Unisys Hezi Moore, President, Founder & CTO - Reflex Security See more of it here and listen to the webinar here

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – June 23, 2008 – NetEx, the leader in high-speed data transport over TCP, today announced that its HyperPipe™ bandwidth optimization software technology enables ISPs, phone and cable providers to deliver next-generation wideband services over existing broadband IP networks. A HyperPipe deployment provides a double-edged bottom line benefit with new revenue opportunities from enhanced wideband services while eliminating the need for multi-billion dollar infrastructure upgrades. HyperPipe is NetEx’s bandwidth optimization software application, providing up to a 10x throughput boost on any IP network. The software can be easily deployed at an ISP, telco or media company’s central office and on the customer’s cable box or PC, delivering an instant massive speed improvement requiring no investment in upgrading the network. HyperPipe has the potential to dramatically reshape the market by eliminating the billion dollar expense and extended timelines that are typically re...

The Inclusion of the Ericom® PowerTerm® WebConnect Client Allows Customers to Choose from 14 Hypervisors When Delivering Virtual PCs. Reading, UK – June 23, 2008 – IGEL Technology today announced the availability of its latest Linux firmware on the broadest and most powerful range of thin clients on the market, providing customers with an increased choice of hypervisors for virtual PCs. IGEL Universal Desktop models powered by Linux have had their Ericom® functionality upgraded so they now have the complete Ericom® PowerTerm® WebConnect client integrated. This provides users with secure, local and remote access to applications and desktops running on Microsoft® Windows Terminal Services, Citrix® XenApp, Virtual Desktops (VDI), Blade PCs and legacy terminal emulation based systems. With support for 14 hypervisors, including Vmware® ESX, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle® VM, Virtual Iron and others, Ericom® PowerTerm® WebConnect enables organisations to flexibly choose the VDI...

Leading provider of IT integration software enters IT process automation (run book automation) market with the release of iWave Automator iWave Software, a leading provider of IT integration software, today announced its entry into the IT process automation market with the introduction of iWave Automator. iWave Automator provides organisations with an enterprise-class platform to automate data centre support processes (run book automation) and to integrate IT system management (ITSM) applications. Leveraging iWave's 15-year history of providing integration software, iWave Automator enables IT organisations to automate, standardise and enforce best practices, lowering their operating costs and improving application availability, while maintaining compliance in their virtualised and physical data centres. "iWave's entry into IT process automation is a natural extension for the company, building upon our deep domain expertise and proven success helping leading companies world...

Ottawa, June 23, 2008 – Embotics , the Virtualization Lifecycle Management™ Company, today launches V-Commander 2.0 at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Management Summit 2008. Embotics’ V-Commander 2.0 reduces risks and costs by preventing virtual sprawl, automating lifecycle management and extending management systems for enterprise CIOs, CSOs, IT operations staff and security professionals. The technology gives the industry a simple tool to prevent sprawl, gain control of their virtual infrastructure and increase efficiency. Enterprises are quickly realizing the challenges inherent in virtualization deployments and a high demand for management tools is in effect. V-Commander 2.0 satisfies this demand and continues to simplify virtual machine (VM) management within IT environments. Paul Casey, Data Center and Storage-Virtualization Technology Leader of Computacenter (UK) Ltd. said, “V-Commander 2.0 not only improves understanding of the virtual infrastructure, ...

State-of-the-art digital media storage and global CDN technology reduce costs, improve performance and provide massive scalability for content-rich Internet companies San Jose, CA and San Diego, CA – June 23, 2008 – CDNetworks (KOSDAQ: 073710), a top-three global, full-service content delivery network (CDN) and Nirvanix, a premier global “Cloud Storage” platform provider optimized for media, today announced a strategic partnership to deliver the industry’s only unified cloud storage and content delivery service. Available immediately, CDNetworks’ customers will be able to store unlimited amounts of protected and secure content online and move content instantly to and from any of CDNetworks’ 63 nodes worldwide at previously unseen economies. The partnership with CDNetworks will provide Nirvanix customers with the ability to not only securely store massive amounts of media and content but also stage content for instant delivery anywhere in the world, utilizing one of CDNetworks’ data c...

CUPERTINO, Calif., June 23, 2008 – Parascale, a provider of cloud storage solutions for rich media content in traffic-intensive applications, today announced that it has closed a $11.37 million Series A financing round led by venture capital firms Charles River Ventures and Menlo Ventures. Parascale plans to use the funding for product development and marketing initiatives in preparation for the launch of Parascale Cloud Storage (PCS), an application that aggregates disk storage on multiple standard Linux servers providing one highly scalable storage cloud, accessible via standard file access protocols. Parascale was founded on the premise that advances in computer hardware over the past 10 years make it possible for file storage, management, and distribution solutions to be more reliable, easier to manage, and less expensive to purchase and operate than ever before. Adopting the best technologies available, Parascale has developed a new class of storage solutions designed to suppor...

Here's the toolkit and here's the reference guide. If its as cool as DTrace (Its is also freely available lately), then I'm in! Good to see Keith come out in the open to talk about it as well ;-) Here's the rest of the information

Ashlee thinks so. Under previous management, Rackable received and then turned down an acquisition offer from Dell. That was a huge mistake since Rackable's share price was almost triple its current level. In addition, Dell along with all of the major hardware makers have since moved on with their own cloud/utility computing designs. This leaves Rackable in an awkward position. Its natural acquirers have disappeared. It will need an unnatural act to strike it rich. Rackable is expected to release new systems any day now, and our sources indicate that the hardware will put the stuff being pimped by the Tier 1s to shame. The Silicon Valley-based company offers the most energy efficient, balanced servers of anyone and has, by most accounts, the top data center in a container design, which should only improve with the new servers. In addition, Rackable has always run on a build-to-order model. The company is flexible enough and smart enough to cater to a customer's individual needs...

The lightweight Embedded Linux Hypervisor is based on the open source KVM project, and will support live migration of virtual machines from system to system in real time. Open source virtualisation technology would "deliver what proprietary products can't: open standards, true multi-vendor support and the ultimate in deployment and operational flexibility," said Paul Cormeir, president of products and technology at Red Hat in a statement. Link

Mark had emailed me sometime back after he quit VMlogix and wanted me to keep mum about his plans, but apparently he wants to go open so here you go :-) So what are they offering? Lanamark Suite enables service providers to deliver hypervisor-agnostic virtualization services consistently, cost-effectively and non-intrusively across customers. Each service is delivered using a service template called an Accelerator . Lanamark Suite helps service providers: Perform hypervisor-agnostic virtualization services by not coupling service offerings to a specific virtualization platform. Protect customer data captured for analysis so that customers do not worry about unauthorized parties accessing this data online or offline. Differentiate service offerings by providing customers with unique, sophisticated and unbiased service deliverables that cannot be easily replicated by competitors. Deliver more value to customers by eliminating non-value-add activities such as complex...