This post was written by Denise Ross
AMD and Red Hat have demonstrated the live migration of virtual machines between AMD and Intel servers. The term ‘live migration’ refers to moving virtual machines between physical servers without affecting other tasks running on the machines at the time. The companies claim this is the first time this has been demonstrated between processors from the two manufacturers. The functionality would give enterprises “flexibility to buy the hardware that meets [their] business requirements [and to] equip [their] overall datacentre in the most cost-effective way.
VMware has upgraded its application virtualization software, which aims to reduce the cost of deploying new desktop programs to end users. The software allows IT departments to package a desktop application into a single executable file, which can then be deployed and run by the end user without altering the host machine’s operating system, such as its file system or registry files. This would avoid the software conflicts that can “break” existing desktop applications, and reduce the amount of testing IT departments have to do before they deploy a new application.
Bycast announced the availability of the eighth generation of its StorageGRID platform with a range of enhancements, including a distributed file system gateway for added scalability, multi-tenancy capabilities, and support for virtual server deployments. The StorageGRID 8 platform virtualizes information retention and access over a spectrum of heterogeneous storage devices, ranging from high-performance disk to archival media, distributed over multiple sites. The enhancements boost system performance, reduce data center footprint through the usage of virtual servers, and strengthen the overall platform for SaaS customers offering digital archiving services.
Symantec Corp. has introduced Veritas Virtual Infrastructure, the first solution to offer advanced storage capabilities for virtual server environments that effectively manage storage in large scale, x86 production environments. The solution is expected to be available in the fall of 2008 and combines new, advanced storage management capabilities from Veritas Storage Foundation with the flexible, high-performance Citrix XenServer virtualization technology from Citrix Systems. Veritas Virtual Infrastructure will allow users to fully benefit from server virtualization while preserving current best practices in storage management from the physical environment and leveraging new opportunities provided by virtualized environments.
Hewlett-Packard is getting into the network-based storage virtualization game with the news that it is set to ship the HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP). This platform is a new system that can migrate and manage data between midrange arrays in heterogeneous SAN environments. The SVSP is a network-based platform that pools capacity across heterogeneous storage hardware from HP and other vendors. It provides users storage services such as online data migration, thin provisioning, and replication. This also includes clones, snapshots, synchronous local mirroring and asynchronous remote mirroring for disaster recovery.
Red Hat Inc. is developing a Linux-based hypervisor for a fully open-source virtualization solution. The Embedded Linux Hypervisor will supposedly host both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems but be compact enough to fit on a flash drive. The new hypervisor is based on the Linux KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) project. Paul Cormier, president of products and technology at Red Hat said
Dell has introduced its new range of full-height blade servers, the PowerEdge M905 and PowerEdge M805 which have built on the ground-breaking virtualization design of the PowerEdge R805 and R905. Based on a four-socket blade, the PowerEdge M905 delivers ultimate virtualization performance. It is also the first blade server that supports as may as 11 tiles along with 66 Virtual Machines in VM mark testing. The PowerEdge M805 offers equal number of DIMM slots in a two-socket blade that needs a four-socket blade from HP or IBM. The servers are available in markets worldwide at a starting price of USD 1,699 and USD 4,999 respectively.