Archive for vmware
May 13, 2008 at 5:12 pm · Filed under virtualization, vmware
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2216411/vmware-bundles-datacentre
VMware has announced two bundles of management and automation tools for datacentres operating numerous virtual machines. The bundles make it easier for customers to acquire key tools that are likely to be used together anyway, and offer a significant saving over purchasing them separately, according to the firm.
The two packages consist of the VMware IT Service Delivery Bundle and VMware Management and Automation Bundle. Both will be available from 19 May, but the latter will only be available until the end of the year.
The bundles combine new tools that VMware announced at its VMworld conference in Cannes in February. The IT Service Delivery Bundle consist of Lifecycle Manager and either Lab Manager or Stage Manager, for example, and is aimed at automating the entire lifecycle of IT services, the company said.
“With this suite, through Lifecycle Manager, customers can standardise on catalogues of virtual machines,” said Douglas Phillips, VMware senior marketing manager for EMEA.
Very cool, anything that we can do to aid in the lifecycle management of the virtual machine has to be an important thing. Being able to manage and report on your virtual infrastructure, is just as important as being able to handle the provisioning and decommissioning, not only in terms of the technology, but the process, the sign-off etc. I’ll need to take a look at Lifecycle Manager.
May 11, 2008 at 7:49 pm · Filed under blades, rackmounts, virtualization, vmware
http://communities.vmware.com/message/940884?tstart=0#940884
Check out this great post on the VMWare community talking about blades or rackmounts for virtualization. I’ve got mixed opinions on this. Rack servers can be a great vehicle for virtualization and I have used them in the past. This question is going to be dependent on your exposure and ‘comfort’ with blades as a platform and also volume. I see blades as more suited to virtualization projects when we’re using the volume farm type scenario. Putting in a blade solution with the integrated switches, with the right processor and memory configuration could be a powerful solution, it’s going to be dependent on the range of networks involved. You will find that blades require economies of scale, by that I mean (with no negativity) a blade solution is going to be cheaper the more blades you fit in the enclosure, because of the cost of the enclosure.
The conversation amongst the vendors and the end users are set to continue, I see blades more a volume virtualization tool. The example I like to use is one of the enterprises organizations that I spoke to last year, they were taking 800 rack servers ranging from Compaq 2500s to current day HP Proliants and virtualizing them on to blade technologies for the following reasons:
Blades allowed them to have one hardware platform - let’s say they decided on 400 IBM blades, they changed their hardware support contract and reduced it substantially, instead of 16 derivatives of servers to support there were two, the IBM blade and the enclosure.
The blades were configured for SAN boot, so a blade could be re-provisioned or the storage re-mapped in the event of a hardware failure.
The debate is set to continue, the key is to focus on what your goals are, where your strengths are and go in that direction. I’m all for blade technology as a platform in grid, hpc or as an alternative to a rack server, but they need to be used (as with anything) to the benefit of the customer first, IT second.
April 21, 2008 at 10:20 pm · Filed under Other things, virtualization, vmware
http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2008/04/18/the-lies-of-it.aspx
Now to the 10 most frequent lies told by IT consultants. When you hear these lines spoken you have two alternatives: 1) fire the consultant on the spot, and; 2) bring your smartest and most crotchety nerds into the room and make the consultant explain his or her statement to their satisfaction then back it up with some performance guarantee and penalty clause.
A great read, it’s a topic that is regularly discussed whether you’re dealing with big or small customers. It’s a mixed thing, Consultants need to keep the customer needs and issues in mind, at the same time customers need to ask the right questions and do the research on the technology or solution that they want deployed. Related to this when speaking with a vendor or consultant:
- Establish the in-scope - what’s included in the price and what’s extra
- What are the responsibilites
One small business had called me up saying that they’d got half way through a virtualization project and been told “we’ve virtualized your infrastructure” by the consultant but when they asked where the data was, were told - “that’s extra”. It’s a dual relationship, the customer should have stipulated that the data would be migrated, but then the vendor should understand that there are some things you expect as part of a solution - the data when you virtualize the server is one of these things.
April 15, 2008 at 4:44 pm · Filed under blades, vmware
http://virtualization.com/partnerships-deal-alliance/2008/04/14/egenera-bladeframe-systems-now-come-with-vmware-virtualization/
Egenera today announced the general availability of VMware virtualization on Egenera systems with full support from Egenera and its resellers. Under the companies’ original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement announced in 2007, customers can purchase VMware Infrastructure 3 with the Egenera BladeFrame system, a platform designed to support large-scale virtualized deployments of critical applications with high levels of availability and scalability.
Very cool, that we have the option for VMWare virtualization brings more options to those considering virtualization as well as more opportunities for Egenera. I’ll need to read up more, having an integrated Egenera solution using VMWare’s virtualization technology could be very appealing if you were looking at a VMWare virtualization project, it’s going to depend on volume and what’s good for your business. Do check it out.
April 9, 2008 at 7:14 pm · Filed under Other things, vmware
http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=621
Cupertino, Calif. – April 7, 2008 – Trend Micro Incorporated (TSE: 4704), a global leader in Internet content security, will demonstrate innovations in security solutions for VMware virtualized environments at the 2008 RSA Conference in San Francisco at Trend Micro Booth #639.
The prototype technology consists of a new virtualization security solution that operates in a VMware ESX 3.5 environment, scans for infected machines and remediates any that are found. With this technology, Trend Micro will be able to provide greater protection for VMware virtual machines.
Trend Micro is also announcing that its leading enterprise security products for the endpoint, gateway and server are supported in VMware environments. This enables joint customers to gain the same level of support for Trend Micro products running in VMware virtualized environments as they would on physical hardware.
Very cool, anything we can do to improve support and the security of the virtual environment has to be a good thing for the virtualization as a platform and for the end user in terms of securing the environment.
March 27, 2008 at 11:45 pm · Filed under vmware
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/24/AR2008032401119.html
VMware plans to improve virtual infrastructure through technologies such as high availability, automatic restart, better tolerance and masking of hardware failure, and site disaster recovery, the company’s chief scientist and co-founder, Mendel Rosenblum, told reporters in Bangalore on Monday.
A virtual machine would, for example, be able to record its execution on another virtual machine in a compact form, so that if one of them dies the other one takes over, Rosenblum said. He did not disclose the time frame when products based on these technologies will be available.
Virtualization will be more attractive if companies are pinched by a recession, said Diane Greene, VMware president and CEO. “People can do more with less, include perhaps postpone opening a new data center for three years, and do things more rapidly with fewer IT people,” she added.
Very cool, any innovations in the availability or fault tolerance areas has to be a good thing, particularly in terms of business continuity or service improvement. It will be interesting to see what new enhancements or products are released in the near future.
March 27, 2008 at 10:47 pm · Filed under How IT works, virtualization, vmware
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/top/?p=299
Tall fences make good neighbors. That goes for life in suburbia and, apparently, on the inside of computers.
The profile of virtualization is growing and, with it, the importance of virtualized security. It makes sense that this would be a big issue. It is impossible to get something for nothing: Virtualization squeezes multiple operating systems onto a single physical machine. That saves space and overhead — good things, certainly — but also creates the possibility of a problem impacting a greater proportion of what the company is doing.
This week, VMware patched a critical vulnerability found by Core Security. The problem, according to this SC Security report, appears to be a big one: In a properly working machine, resident virtualized systems (guests) can transfer data to non-virtualized host systems. In scenarios using shared folders, the vulnerability enables hackers to move from being a guest to taking full control of the host machine. The versions of VMware impacted are Workstation 6.0.2 and earlier; VMware Workstation 5.5.4 and earlier; VMware Player 2.0.2 and earlier; VMware Player 1.0.4 and earlier; VMware ACE 2.0.2 and earlier and VMware ACE 1.0.2 and earlier.
An interesting article about virtualization security, an issue that continues to be a topic of focus for many. Think about the big picture, just because you’ve taken that DL360 and made it a virtual machine, doesn’t mean you don’t need to apply the same level of auditing, access control and security/software patching that you would in the physical world. At the same time, defining ownership, establishing that the various components of the virtual environment comply to base lines (excluding those specific exceptions on an application basis), that the ESX server is secured, the Windows/Linux boxes are locked down to the right level with the right security patches is the ‘cost of doing business’. Do check out the article.
March 24, 2008 at 11:58 pm · Filed under Other things, vmware
http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=10248&cid=5
Manila, Philippines — IBM announces that it has won the “Most innovative use of VMware Virtual Infrastructure” award at VMworld 2008 Europe for its implementation of VMware desktop virtualization solutions by IBM Global Services Virtual Infrastructure Access (VIA) Services. Using virtual desktops, which are hosted in the datacenter and accessed from anywhere, organizations can provide security enhanced application and information access, improving availability to end users, while reducing cost and complexity.
The “Most innovative use of VMware Virtual Infrastructure” award is given to VMware partners that are first-to-market with industry-leading service solutions and who provide innovative technology and a comprehensive service wrap-around. IBM VIA Services provides clients with an integrated solution to assess, design, implement and manage virtual desktops, enabling employees, partners, and customers to access their desktop from thin clients.
Very cool and well done for IBM, virtualization of the desktop is becoming one of those topics of interest in terms of developing platforms to reduce the cost of supplying and supporting the desktop. A virtual desktop can be a great way of doing this, and allows more central approach, reducing support costs and hopefully bringing the benefits of virtualization, a more fluidic desktop infrastructure. Anything the virtualization vendors, partners and IBM can do to aid this, has to be a good thing for the virtual desktop platform and the industry.
March 24, 2008 at 11:56 pm · Filed under vmware
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSBMA00051420080324
BANGALORE, March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. business software maker VMware Inc (VMW.N: Quote, Profile, Research) aims to invest $100 million in India by 2010 and will double its staff in the Asian country to more than 1,000 in two years, the company said in a statement on Monday.
The investment will be to expand its research and development operations, it said.
Very cool, this article highlights the experience India has with technology, as well as the business opportunities in this developing market. Do check it out.
March 17, 2008 at 12:31 am · Filed under Other things, vmware
http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches_35.html
ESX Server 3.5 hosts can be updated using VMware Update Manager, or the command line utility esxupdate. VMware Update Manager provides an automated way to install patches on your host. The esxupdate utility is used at the command line of the service console on the ESX Server host. Starting with ESX Server 3.5, the esxupdate utility can be configured to use depots which esxupdate can scan to provide information on which bundles can be applied to the current host. A current version of the contents.zip file below is needed when using esxupdate with a depot. Download the current version of the file whenever new patches are added to this page. Read the ESX Server 3 Patch Management Guide for information on how to configure esxupdate to use the contents.zip with depots.
Patching the ESX server is just as important as patching the virtual machines, it’s the cost of doing business, and part of limiting liability or issues through known issues. Check out this update.
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