Server Virtualization

Cloud Ping-Pong: Passing VM Workloads from Cloud to Cloud Will Hurt

root — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:45:37 -0700

Douglas Gourlay wrote an excellent post yesterday over on Cisco’s Data Center blog about what doesn’t work in the current cloud model. He had two great points. Point one: And the most important point, about Cloud Computing is that it is in the cloud. and the cloud is the Internet.

Key Technology Introduced in Hyper-V

root — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:45:41 -0700

The beta release of the update to Windows Server 2008 will be of special interest to those who work with virtualization, as it unveils a key technology long-promised by Microsoft. A blog on Microsoft's TechNet Website announced earlier this week that the "R2" beta version of Windows 2008 includes significant upgrades to Hyper-V, Microsoft's proprietary hypervisor. The most crucial of these is the introduction of "Live Migration," which allows virtual machines (VMs) to be moved from one physical server to another with no downtime or loss of connectivity.

Sanbolic Optimizes Melio FS, Adds Virtualization Support

tludwig — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:45:26 -0700

Back in June, I wrote about Sanbolic and Melio FS as a workaround for the “one-VM-per-LUN” limitation that Hyper-V’s Quick Migration imposes. By running Melio FS on a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V host, users could put multiple VMs in the same LUN and still use Quick Migration. At the same time, Sanbolic was also announcing that they were supporting the use of Melio FS, their clustered file system, inside Windows Server-based VMs running on VMware ESX.

Marathon to Bring EverRun VM to Hyper-V

tludwig — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:45:25 -0700

Today, Marathon Technologies announced an expanded development and marketing agreement with Microsoft Corporation designed to bring fault tolerance and high availability to a wider audience. As I understand it from talking to the folks at Marathon, the ultimate goal of this new agreement will bear fruit in two key areas:

The Growing Appetite for Virtualization

root — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:45:52 -0700

Energy conservation, improved performance and reduced cooling costs are just a few of the benefits of virtualization and consolidation.

The Tasty Baking Co. is making a major IT overhaul. In the process, innovations in server virtualization and storage consolidation are saving the company considerable dough in energy costs and on many other fronts.

Creating a Bootable ESXi USB Stick on Mac OS X

tludwig — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:45:49 -0700

I recently found myself with a decent HP DL385 G2 server with no hard drives (it used to have hard drives, but now it doesn’t…there’s a long story behind it that I won’t get into here). So, I decided I’d try creating a bootable ESXi USB flash drive to use with the server. There are lots of guides out there for creating bootable ESXi USB flash drives, but none of them were written for users, like myself, who use Mac OS X.

VirtualLogix Appoints Glenda M. Dorchak as CEO

tludwig — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:45:37 -0700

VirtualLogix, Inc. today announced the appointment of Glenda M. Dorchak as chief executive officer. With more than 15 years of executive experience in the technology industry, Ms. Dorchak will lead VirtualLogix in extending the benefits of real-time virtualization to a broad range of computing devices.

Vizioncore may be first to correctly back up VMware ESXi

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:00:34 -0700

With the new version of vRanger Pro, Vizioncore may be the first backup software vendor to embrace VMware's service console-free ESXi hypervisor. But its support has limitations.

OVF: A Standard for Virtualization's Future

tludwig — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:45:40 -0700

Open Virtualization Format could solve key problems with virtualization deployments. It's got key vendors behind it. And it's likely to be even more important as the use of cloud computing increases. Here's why.

IBM to Provide Virtualization Technology to Grundfos

tludwig — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0700

IBM and Grundfos, a pump manufacturer, have announced an agreement for IBM to provide servers and storage infrastructure for Grundfos's two data centers in Denmark, and to deliver a new infrastructure for Grundfos’ SAP environment. With this new agreement, Grundfos has selected IBM’s Power Systems servers and IBM System Storage DS8300 and TS3500 disk and tape systems to operate their SAP environment. The solution covers capacity for operating SAP for more than 8,000 users worldwide and more than 70 SAP systems. The existing non-IBM storage and tape systems are being phased out.