This week at PDC 2008 in LA and next week at WinHEC 2008 Microsoft will announce details about the next release of Windows codename Windows Seven. In this article I will inform you about what is coming to Windows Seven Server, which will be released as Windows Server 2008 R2, this is the same release schedule as first used with Window Server 2003 (Major release, Minor Release). For this reason I still find it strange that Microsoft used "Seven" as a codename (for client even releasename). For both client and server this is a minor release or point release, the kernel version is 6.x and not 7.0. Ah well, marketing is not my thing I guess. As stated by Bink.nu few years back already, this Windows release will be a 64 bit only version, a logical decision, since all server hardware for a few years now is 64 capable. (Maybe Windows Seven Client Starter Edition will still be 32 bit) With the release of Windows Seven it is the second time that Microsoft will release both client and server at the same time, just like it happened when Windows 2000 was launched in January 2000. Hyper-V 2.0 2008 R2 will include Hyper-V R2, it promises to deliver the final pieces for enterprise level OS virtualization (together with SCVMM2008) and to really compete with VMware at that level. Live Migration The most anticipated is of course Live Migration: moving running VM's from one host to another without interruption of services running inside the VM's To accomplisch this technique a new shared filesytem is needed and so will also be introduced in Hyper-V 2.0: Clustered Shared Volumes. The Live migration works best together with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, it can provide additional Live Migration management and orchestration scenarios such as Live Migration via policy. Cool thing is you only need to update to Hyper-V 2.0, none of the rest of the infractructere needs updating. Logical Processor Support Support for 32 logical processors on host computer Twice the initial supported number of logical processors of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Hot add remove storage Add and remove VHD and pass-through disks to a running VM without requiring a reboot. Hot-add/remove disk only applies to VHDs and pass-through disks attached to the SCSI controller (not the IDE controller) Hot-add remove of storage controllers is not supported Benefits Enables storage growth in VMs without downtime Enables additional datacenter backup scenarios SLAT Second Level Translation (SLAT) Overview Leverage new processor features to improve performance and reduce load on Windows Hypervisor AMD: Enhanced Page Tables Intel: Nested Page Tables Benefits Improved memory management performance Memory usage of Windows Hypervisor will decrease from approximately 5% to 1% of total physical memory. More memory will be available for child partitions enabling higher consolidation ratios Dynamic Memory Overview Pool of memory is dynamically distributed across VMs Memory is dynamically allocated/removed based VM usage with no service interruption Benefits Enables much higher consolidation ratios per host by addressing the greatest limiting factor to consolidation: Memory How VM memory configuration includes: Initial (what VM will boot with) Minimum (what VM is guaranteed) Maximum (what VM can grow to) Memory is added via Hot-Add MEM functionality Memory is removed via Balloon driver (supported OSs) !!NOTE:The Dynamic Memory feature, will not be available as a part of the Beta for WS08 R2. Microsoft is still evaluating options to make this feature available as a part of RC/RTM of WS08 R2. So let's hope this won't be killed before release. Boot from VHD Allows any VHD to work on physical hardware, this is very interesting! Boot an OS VHD on your physical hardware Terminal Services Terminal services will get whole new Platform Improvements like a New API, Connection Broker Extensibility, Dynamic CPU Allocation, IP address virtualization, Best Practices Analyzer! and Full MSI support. I will get more in to this at WinHEC. New Management Features The Server manager will able to remote manage servers! Also performance counter viewer in Server Manager. And best: The Best Practices Analyzer integrated into Server Manager. Top server roles/tasks can be managed using remote & local PowerShell scripts, meaning virtually every AD, DNS, DHCP task can be done using Powershell 2.0 J Easier migration of roles and core server settings from WS03/08/WS7 to Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory Domain Services: New console called Active Directory Administration Center, Powershell 2.0 based, AD recycle bin J, Offline Domain Join, managed service accounts and more. PowerShell 2.0 PowerShell 2.0 includes the ability to extend PowerShell scripts functionality by using the following features: New commandlets A UI for powershell J Create advanced functions. Advanced functions allow you to write wrappers around existing cmdlets. PowerShell 2.0 searches for functions first and then cmdlets. This allows advanced functions to take precedence over cmdlets. Call .NET application programming interfaces (APIs). This feature allows you to extend your PowerShell with the features provided by any .NET API. Improved script debugging. PowerShell 2.0 allows you to set breakpoints on lines, columns, functions, variables, and commands. You can also specify actions to run when the breakpoint is hit. The debugging environment supports stepping into, over, or out of functions. You can also get the call stack information (breakpoints) Subscription-based interface to Windows Event System. This feature allows your PowerShell scripts to respond to specific events in event logs. Write cmdlets in PowerShell script. This feature allows you to write cmdlets in PowerShell instead of compiled C# or VB.NET. Script Internationalization. This new feature allows PowerShell script authors to write scripts that can be translated to any language supported by Windows. Improved Portability of PowerShell Scripts and Cmdlets Another area of improvement for PowerShell 2.0 is in the area of portability. The improved portability in PowerShell 2.0 allows you to easily move PowerShell scripts and cmdlets between computers. The features that help improve the portability of PowerShell scripts and cmdlets include: New module architecture. This architecture allows the packaging of cmdlets, which includes the definition and packaging of scripts. You can send these packaged modules to other administrators. New method of storing configuration information. PowerShell version 1.0 some of the configuration was put in the registry. In PowerShell version 2.0 the configuration is stored in an .xml file . The .xml file allows the configuration information to be more easily moved from one computer to another. Note: Although you must uninstall PowerShell 1.0 before installing PowerShell 2.0, the registry settings are automatically migrated to the .xml file. 2008 R2 Power Management Reduce power consumption by using only the power needed to drive a workload Reduced multi-core processor power consumption Core parking J Centralized control of active power policies, to enable servers to "throttle-down" during off hours by using DMTF-compliant remote management interfaces SANs connected to Windows Server will be able to opt-in to go into a lower power state when they're not being fully utilizedUPDATE: The latest customer feedback to the development team indicated that this capability is a much lower priority than other new features planned for Windows Server 2008 R2. So with that feedback in mind, Microsoft has made a decision to focus its development resources on other top features, and SAN power management will not be included in R2. Microsoft has not yet made a determination if or how this capability will be included in a future release. New Logo Program with specially for Power AQ Direct Access Direct Access allows access to resources on Corporate network without the need to establish a VPN connection, invisible to end users. This feature was originally announced as part of R2 of Server 2003, implemented the same way as Outlook Anywhere does (RPC over HTTPS), but now it is implemented using the latest technologies: SSTP, IPSec and IPv6. Branchoffice Cache Branchoffice Cache, caches http & SMB downloaded by users in the branch, users can quickly open files stored in the cache which frees up network bandwidth for other uses. Server Core .NET for Core installation! Yes Microsoft componentized .NET framework the same way as they did with VISTA/2008 OS components. So now it is possible to install .NET Framework on Core with all the benefits that come with it, like asp.net websites! And PowerShell 2.0 J!! More to come this week on Bink.nu. Reference : http://bink.nu/news/windows-server-2008-r2-overview-feature-overview.aspx
Switch Vendors Can Reach a Broader Set of Clients with a Single Product ARMONK, NY and SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- October 23, 2008 -- IBM and Intel Corporation today announced they are extending their collaboration in the blade server market to drive adoption of an open industry specification for blade switches. This will enable switch vendors to maximize return on their research and development by developing products to a single design, reaching more customers with just one product. Switches are essential components of every blade system, channeling data to and from the server. As part of the agreement announced today, IBM will extend the BladeCenter switch specification for blade servers to the Server Systems Infrastructure (SSI) organization on a royalty-free basis, allowing switch vendors to create one product that works across the BladeCenter and SSI ecosystems and driving more switch products for clients to choose from. The companies also announced plans to work together to establish a third-party Switch Compliance Lab, where the developer community can test and verify their blade server products for BladeCenter and SSI environments. The announcement today builds upon a history of IBM and Intel collaboration on blade technology -- starting in 2002 with the development of the first BladeCenter servers and continuing in 2006 when IBM, Intel and other industry leaders formed Blade.org, the industry consortium driving open innovation in blade-based solutions that today has over 200 members. SSI is an industry organization established over 10 years ago to enable server builders to develop compliant and interoperable building blocks for blade, chassis and manageability software technology. The incorporation of the open switch specification into SSI is intended to broaden the market for switch module vendors as they collaborate on SSI-specified blade switch solutions with Intel and IBM. In this segment, Blade Network Technologies, Brocade, NextIO and others have committed their support for the open specification. By extending its switch specification and ecosystem to affiliated members of SSI, IBM is driving greater adoption of BladeCenter-compatible switches. "The extension of the BladeCenter switch specification and ecosystem to SSI advances open specifications for blade systems," says Alex Yost, vice president of IBM BladeCenter. "Making the switch design in our open BladeCenter specification available to a broader set of vendors demonstrates IBM's commitment to foster openness in the blade server market." Demand for a common switch specification comes at a time when blade servers are becoming a critical ingredient in IT infrastructure. The availability of the open BladeCenter switch specification to SSI members allows them access to the more than 25 specification-compliant switches on the market today. "By working with IBM, we have expanded ecosystem support for SSI blade specifications to over 70 vendors," says Kirk Skaugen, General Manager, Server Platforms Group, Intel. "Continued IBM and Intel collaboration will go further to expanding the entire blade server market. This is good for customers who will benefit from increased choice from a breadth of server, networking and storage vendors while enabling each product to maximize return on the R&D invested." Reference : http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20081023comp.htm?cid=rss-90004-c1-216989
Intel and IBM have agreed to open up IBM's BladeCenter switch technology for more server makers to use, part of an initiative to spur adoption of a specification for low-cost blade servers. "We will be taking the BladeCenter switch specification and opening it up for access, royalty-free access, to any SSI adopter," said Kirk Skaugen [CQ], vice president and general manager of Intel's Server Platforms Group, during an interview at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei. SSI, or the Server System Infrastructure Forum, is an industry group that was established by Intel to define server standards. Last year, SSI released a draft specification for low-cost blade servers that did not include all of the components required to build a blade server. "The piece, quite candidly, that was missing if you're going to build a whole blade system was the switch specification," Skaugen said. "This will be the final puzzle piece to complete a full blade system," he said, adding that the final SSI specification for blade servers should be ready by the end of the year. The SSI specification is aimed at smaller server makers and regional players, such as India's HCL Infosystems and Tyan in Taiwan. The SSI blade specification is designed to reduce manufacturing costs for these companies by setting standards for various components, such as power supplies and motherboards. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152664/.html?tk=rss_news
IBM is targeting midsize business customers that use Linux with a new "baby" mainframe that costs just a fraction of the amount charged for the high-end mainframe IBM released in February. The System z10 Business Class (z10 BC), announced Tuesday and generally available now, follows in the tradition of IBM refreshing its primary mainframe product and then following up several months later with a stripped-down, cheaper version, says Forrester analyst Brad Day. But the so-called "baby mainframe" is a pretty strong machine on its own, and lets IBM compete more aggressively against various RISC and Itanium-based servers as well as high-end x86 and x64 machines, Day says. ( Compare server products) "This is a Paul Bunyan version of the baby mainframe," he says. IBM is clearly making a move against vendors like HP, Sun and Fujitsu who are targeting legacy customers with mainframe migration programs, Day says. IBM has optimized the mainframe for Linux, working with Red Hat and Novell to fix bugs and ensure that all drivers run solidly with the Linux operating system, says System z marketing vice president Karl Freund. IBM executives also decided the mainframe simply wasn't cheap enough to convince customers to run new Linux workloads, he says. IBM lowered by 50% the cost of a specialty engine that lets the business-class mainframe run Linux, bringing the price of this add-on capability down to $47,500, according to Freund. Application servers, databases and Web servers will probably be the most common Linux applications to run on the new business-class machine, he says. "We're continuing to make the mainframe more mainstream, more interesting to new customers, and more interesting to medium-sized businesses," he says. IBM's mainframe has supported Linux for five years, and Big Blue is increasing its push on this front because Linux because is becoming a more sophisticated enterprise-class operating system, Freund says. The mainframe doesn't have a way to run Windows workloads but "It's something we're certainly interested in exploring," he adds. The z10 BC is nearly 40% faster and has nearly four times the maximum memory of its predecessor, IBM says. The new business-class mainframe delivers capacity equal to 232 x86 servers, while the high-end mainframe is equal to nearly 1,500 x86 servers, IBM says. With the exception of IBM, the mainframe market is pretty much dead, Day says. Customers that have never owned a mainframe are often wary of buying one, but IBM has tried to reinvent the system to operate new workloads, such as ones more commonly run on RISC and Itanium processors. Day says the effort has been successful, as much of IBM's mainframe growth over the last two years can be attributed to new workloads rather than upgrades to pre-existing machines. The mainframe has always run data-intensive transaction processing applications such as those used in the financial and utility industries, Day notes. Now it's getting better at running compute-intensive workloads that demand high amounts of CPU and memory, he says. The basic pricing of z10 BC starts at under $100,000, about the same as the previous business class mainframe. Typical deals will range from $250,000 to $500,000 Freund says. The top-of-the-line z10 mainframe announced in February starts at $1 million and the price increases dramatically depending on the configuration. IBM argues that the new business-class mainframe can be more cost-effective than x86 servers because eight x86 machines can be consolidated onto a single mainframe processing core. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152646/ibm_z10_baby_mainframe.html?tk=rss_news
Identity Integration Feature Pack for Microsoft® Windows Server™ Active Directory® with Service Pack 2 (SP2) manages identities and coordinates user details across Microsoft Active Directory, Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM), Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, and Exchange Server 2003 implementations. Using Identity Integration Feature Pack, you can combine identity information for a given user or resource into a single, logical view. Identity Integration Feature Pack also automates the provisioning of new and updated identity data, eliminating time-consuming, repetitive administration and the need to manually add, delete, or update identity information, groups, and user accounts. Reference : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d9143610-c04d-41c4-b7ea-6f56819769d5&DisplayLang=en
Intel is shipping solid-state drives that are designed for use in desktop and laptop computers, the company said Monday। The X-18M and X-25M solid-state drives fit into 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch drive bays, respectively. Both models use multi-level cell flash memory chips and come with storage capacity of 80GB and cost $595, in 1,000-unit quantities. A 160GB version of these drives will be available to hardware makers in sample quantities later this year, Intel said. The 80GB drives can write data at speeds up to 70MB per second and have a read latency of 85 microseconds, Intel said. Solid-state drives are more costly than hard disks that store data on magnetic platters, but they offer several advantages. They have no moving parts, which makes them more reliable and consume less power. That also makes them silent, a feature that can be key in certain applications, such as home entertainment systems. Besides higher cost, there are other tradeoffs with solid-state drives. Flash memory cells wear out over time, and this problem is more serious with multi-level cell flash chips. To get around this problem, drive makers use wear-levelling technology that relies on an algorithm that spreads write cycles evenly across all of the chip’s memory cells. This prevents some cells from wearing out before others and extends the life of solid-state drives. Single-level cell flash chips last longer than multi-level cell chips and can write data faster, but they are significantly more expensive. Solid-state drives based on single-level cell flash chips are generally designed for high-end applications, such as servers. Intel plans to soon release a solid-state drive, the X-25E, based on this type of flash memory. Designed for storage arrays and servers, these drives will be available in about 90 days, the company said। Reference : http://www.macworld.com/article/135439/2008/09/intel_ssd.html?lsrc=rss_main
HP today announced new additions to its recently updated portfolio of servers, storage, software and services – driving more business value into Microsoft® virtualization environments. Today’s unveilings offer: Immediate interoperability of Microsoft virtualization technologies with HP enterprise hardware and software offerings – including HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers, HP StorageWorks and HP Thin Client products, and HP software. Strategy, design, transition, operation and continual improvement services for new Microsoft virtualization technologies in HP and heterogeneous environments. Customized training to prepare customers for Microsoft virtualization products and solutions. HP and Microsoft are expanding the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, Va., with an increased focus on the manageability, security and sustainability advantages of joint HP and Microsoft virtualization solutions. This center is targeted to the U.S. federal market. “Customers are increasingly using virtualization to deliver lower costs and reduced risks to the business as virtualization moves from being a tactical technology toward becoming a key transformation strategy,” said Sean Hehir, vice president, Microsoft Strategic Alliance, HP. “HP has worked extensively with Microsoft to develop products and services across our portfolio that not only help customers realize the full value of Microsoft virtualization technologies, but also help them accelerate the growth of their businesses.” “HP and Microsoft have a proven track record of delivering strong results for our customers based on our combined technology experience and industry credibility; and we deliver solutions, products and services that solve real-world business problems and provide undisputable customer value,” said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president, Infrastructure Server Marketing, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft. “HP is both a key partner and valued customer for Microsoft, and together we are helping customers obtain the full value of their Microsoft virtualization investment.” Reduce costs, increase security and simplify management HP ProLiant, HP BladeSystem servers and HP StorageWorks – part of the industry’s most complete platform designed for virtualization – broadly support Microsoft virtualization technologies, including Microsoft Windows® Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server. HP ProLiant is one of Microsoft’s development platforms for testing and development of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a stand-alone server virtualization product that will be supported on a wide range of HP ProLiant servers, providing a cost-effective solution for consolidating existing workloads. HP Insight Dynamics – VSE, along with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM), will provide a comprehensive physical and virtual systems management environment for advanced management of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V running on HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers. This support is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2009. HP Insight Control Environment delivers integrated and easy-to-use life cycle management for server and storage infrastructure across an entire Windows Server 2008 environment. HP Insight Control Software complements and extends the capabilities of the Microsoft System Center suite of products. HP ProLiant is also management-enabled for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. HP will be including Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) features in its ProLiant management pack to help customers manage their Microsoft virtual environments running on HP servers. HP StorageWorks and HP Thin Client products will provide comprehensive support for Microsoft virtualization technologies. This offers a unique opportunity for customers to work with a single vendor to purchase and deploy a comprehensive virtualization solution. New virtualization services and education offerings As the largest integrator of Microsoft technologies in the world, HP has the ability to integrate and support these technologies in heterogeneous environments, helping customers address strategic or large-scale virtualization deployments and management to deliver better business outcomes. The new HP Microsoft Virtualization Infrastructure Service offerings guide customers through a transformation of their server infrastructure, including virtualization strategy, consolidation, virtual machine management and security. Applying HP data center and system integration best practices results in a more reliable and manageable infrastructure with lower, more predictable costs. In addition, HP support services help customers increase stability in ongoing operations. The HP Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Service provides customers with an understanding of HP VDI, which includes Citrix XenDesktop along with Microsoft optimized desktop technologies such as Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft Application Virtualization, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and Windows Vista®. This service enables customers to build a reliable desktop infrastructure that reduces total cost of ownership, increases security, simplifies technology management and readily adapts to new business requirements with improved flexibility. New customized training and education offerings include classroom training, live online training, self-paced e-learning and a variety of informal learning options. These services enable businesses to stay up to date while minimizing the time away from core business activities. HP is a worldwide Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for learning solutions. Increased management support for heterogeneous environments HP is furthering its support for heterogeneous management of virtualized environments and seamless management of physical and virtual environments. HP software extends management of systems virtualized via Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments with offerings in the HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software portfolio. HP IT Service Management software provides discovery of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and can be used to identify, manage and track the entire virtual asset life cycle, allowing customers to drive business value by paying for only the licenses they need. HP Business Service Automation, including HP Server Automation software (formerly Opsware Server Automation System), will fully enable automation of change and configuration management processes across virtual and physical environments for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments, and will integrate with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 for managing the advanced platform capabilities, while decreasing downtime associated with uncontrolled change। Reference : http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080908xa.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news
VMware dodged a bullet this week, though its escape has more to do with Microsoft's reluctance to give up a dollar of revenue even to make life easier for its customers than to anything VMware has done to secure its own position. Microsoft, which is a giant in the market for business applications as well as in operating systems and the hypervisors that virtualize them, had the opportunity to coordinate license changes for its software to make the construction and management of virtualized data centers a lot easier. Today Microsoft announced it has recast the license requirements for 41 server-based applications so the applications can be moved from one virtual server to another within a server farm without any additional license fees. The central change: the elimination of a 90-day delay on server application licenses. Previously, users could move an application from one virtual server to another, but first they had to license both the old server and the new one, according to Zane Adam, senior director of integrated virtualization in the Server and Tools business at Microsoft. Applications had to be licensed to the particular server on which they ran, Adam says. The requirement was a holdover from the days before virtualization, when an application had to be licensed to a specific piece of hardware and could only be moved after 90 days. That, presumably, was to keep customers from licensing SQL Server on a four-year-old, one-processor Dell, then shifting it to a 16-processer, 64-core IBM superserver an hour later. Freeing up an application, especially one like SQL Server, is a real benefit for end-user companies, according to Chris Wolf, analyst with the Burton Group. Many ISVs embed in their own custom-designed applications, for example, so customers wanting to migrate a custom app around a server farm can get hung up on the license for an application they didn't necessarily want, anyway. License terms that punish customers for moving an application from one VM to another are counterproductive for both vendors and customers, Wolf says. Virtualization is common enough now that licensing terms favoring virtualization are an absolute requirement for many customers. Microsoft's new license terms also cover products from any virtualization vendor that has gone through Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP), which certifies virtualization solutions for Windows Server 2008 and other Microsoft products. On Aug. 18, VMware signed an agreement to put its products through SVVP, according to a Microsoft spokesperson. That seems to be that both VMware and Microsoft are cutting things a bit close, considering Microsoft announced the license changes one day later, but what's life without a little brinksmanship? Cisco, Citrix, Novell, Sun and Virtual Iron signed on to the SVVP long before, by the way; so Microsoft's license changes cover all the major hypervisor suppliers. Unfortunately, they only cover half the Microsoft portion of any virtual machine, Wolf says। Additional Fees for Every VM Except for customers who buy Data Center or Enterprise licenses that allow unlimited instances of the OS and applications for a single price, customers have to pay additional license fees for every VM, and those OS instances are limited to the servers on which they're registered. "A lot of customers would have to double their licensing costs to virtualize their servers, or would have to upgrade to [Windows Server] 2008 Data Center," Wolf says. "If you have a standard edition of a license, you can only assign it to one server. Why not just assign that license to a VM and let the OS move along with the virtual server and the application rather than tying it down to one box?" Customers with unlimited licenses don't have to worry about the incremental cost of licensing, Wolf says. But smaller and mid-sized companies, which can't afford unlimited licenses and who represent the largest number of customers most likely to be interested in Microsoft virtualization rather than the more-expensive VMware, do have to worry about it. "We donâ¬"t want people to drive their dynamic IT projects based on licensing decisions," Microsoft's Adam says. "We want them to be able to focus on the real work, the hard work they have to get done. If you have a group of servers and you want to move one instance of Sharepoint or Exchange around the server farm, as long as you have one license for that, you should be free to move it." Free is good, of course, even when it means "slightly less restricted" rather than "unrestricted and at no additional cost." It would be nice, Wolf says, if Microsoft would make license changes in large, comprehensive steps, rather than in like this, on incremental, revenue-protecting tip-toes. Microsoft already has a major price advantage over VMware, so it may not feel much pressure to make things even easier or potentially any cheaper for customers. But that reluctance will continue to cost customers money they shouldn't have to spend. It will annoy customers it would be better not to annoy. And it will reduce the impact of a licensing shift from grand-slam to a solid double. Customers will benefit a little. Microsoft probably will, too. Microsoft customers will not find themselves suddenly set free to create a dynamic IT infrastructure they can reconfigure freely according to their own needs, rather than Microsoft's however. They won't thank Microsoft for that, but VMware just might. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/150081/microsoft_license_shift_leaves_vms_halfshackled.html
VMware rushed out an emergency patch last week after a software-development snafu crippled the virtual servers of some users, who flooded the vendor's support forums with posts about the problem. The glitch also prompted Paul Maritz , VMware's new CEO, to publicly apologize in the company's executive blog shortly before midnight Eastern time last Tuesday -- just minutes after the so-called express patch became available. "We are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn't happen again," wrote Maritz, who replaced ousted VMware co-founder Diane Greene in early July. He apologized for the "disruption and difficulty" and said that the virtualization market leader is reviewing its quality assurance and software-release processes. Maritz acknowledged that in recent updates of VMware's ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 products, developers neglected to remove code that prevented users from powering up their virtual machines when the calendar flipped to Aug. 12. Affected users, who saw error messages claiming that their software licenses had expired, also couldn't take virtual servers out of suspend mode or use VMware's VMotion migration tool to move them to other physical systems. Although it's common for software developers to code a time limit into beta releases to force users to install the final version of a product, such automated deadlines -- often called "time bombs" -- are supposed to be removed at the end of the beta process. After the patch was issued, a user identified as RobertGreenlee said in a message on a support forum that he had successfully updated ESX 3.5 on one of his host systems. "Unfortunately," he added, addressing VMware, "I think you've gotten a serious black eye today. We were finally getting management happy with the idea of using ESX for production servers, and this set us back." He wasn't the only one taking shots at VMware over the problem, which left some virtual servers unusable for more than 20 hours. "This will cast doubt about the reliability of VMware in the enterprise," wrote a VMware consultant and business partner using the name "wwcusa।" Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149961/2008/08/.html?tk=rss_news
With all eyes turned to the Olympics in Beijing this week -- what with all the swimming records being blown away -- IT news eased into its usual August slow period. Hackers switched from duping people with CNN news alerts as a lure to sending out millions of messages with fake MSNBC links in them. U.K. hacker Gary McKinnon got to stay in England a little longer as he continues to fight extradition to the U।S. And more news started to pop up regarding the IT angle on the U.S. presidential race as Democrats and Republicans prepared for party conventions. 1. Hackers spoof MSNBC alerts in new twist on massive malware ruse: Hackers who had been trying to lure victims to malware-infested sites masquerading as CNN.com have now switched to fake breaking news alerts from MSNBC. The miscreants had spread as many as 2 million bogus news messages an hour by the middle of Wednesday using the new ruse, which leads victims to fake sites that pop up a box saying they need to update Adobe's Flash software to see a video clip of the news. Security researchers expect the hack to continue. 2. VMware CEO apologizes for 'time bomb' mess: VMware developers left code in ESX 3.5 and ESXi Server 3.5 updates that made users unable to power up virtual machines when Aug. 12 arrived. Users got error messages saying that their virtualization software licenses expired that date. They inundated VMware support forums about the problem, which the company patched. The new CEO, Paul Maritz, also issued an apology for the "disruption and difficulty." 3. Court delays British hacker's extradition to U.S.: Gary McKinnon's extradition to the U.S. was delayed by the European Court of Human Rights, whose ruling allows him to stay in the U.K. at least until the court reconvenes on Aug. 28 and can further consider his case. U.S. prosecutors have charged McKinnon, who lives in London, with hacking into U.S. military networks, knocking 2,000 computers offline and deleting 2,455 user accounts as well as logs related to tracking Navy vessels. He has been fighting extradition, saying he was bullied by U.S. authorities into confessing in exchange for a lesser sentence. 4. Is America ready for its first BlackBerry president?: How much technology expertise the next U.S. president ought to possess is a subject for debate, but there is widespread agreement that technology knowledge is beneficial for the commander in chief to have. Republican candidate John McCain is reportedly not terribly interested in technology and doesn't much use it, while Democrat Barack Obama is counted among Washington, D.C.'s cadre of BlackBerry users. What may be more important, some analysts say, is how much stock the next president's advisers and top aides put in technology and its uses. This takes us to ... 5. McCain promotes online security, privacy policies: McCain released a statement on his online security and privacy position saying that consumer education, technological innovation and beefed-up law enforcement, along with industry self-regulation, are needed to support "personal security for Americans in the digital age." 6. Intel drops Centrino Atom brand after five months: Intel's Centrino Atom brand has gone the way of New Coke, dropped after only five months in lieu of the company using just the Atom brand. The similarly named brands caused a bit of confusion. Atom-based laptops didn't use the Centrino Atom brand because they had a different version of the Atom processor and a two-chip chipset, while Centrino Atom uses a single-chip chipset. 7. When Apple's reach exceeds its grasp: In a mere five years Apple transformed itself from a niche company making non-Windows computers into a consumer electronics monolith. Along the way, the company's reputation as a PC industry iconoclast has morphed into a perception that Apple is "a technology juggernaut with immense power at its disposal as it steamrolls over everyone else ... while creating one industry-busting product after another."But that image is off-base, given the number of times Apple hasn't quite managed to achieve the reach it seems to be grasping for. 8. How the feds are locking down their networks: In the past nine months, the U.S. government has decreased the number of external network connections it operates from 8,000 to about 2,700 as part of an ambitious plan to get rid of Internet connections that are vulnerable to attack. The government's access points will have state-of-the-art security policies and managed security services. 9. Republican National Convention venue gets network makeover: The IT challenges of transforming the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, into the venue for the Republican National Convention have thus far been manageable, but much work remains to be done, according to Max Everett, the CIO of the committee in charge of the event. The RNC opens Sept. 1 at the center, which is used primarily as the home of the Minnesota Wild professional hockey team. 10. Meet Dell's 19-hour laptop: Dell announced that it will soon launch its lightest ultraportable commercial laptop, and also a laptop that can run for up to 19 hours on battery power। Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149913/2008/08/.html?tk=rss_news
Just minutes after VMware Inc. issued a patch late Tuesday that allowed enterprises to start up crippled virtual servers, the company's CEO said he was sorry for the snafu. "I want to apologize for the disruption and difficulty this issue may have caused to our customers and our partners," Paul Maritz, the head of VMware, said in an open letter posted to the company's Web site Tuesday just before midnight EDT. Tuesday, reports flooded VMware's support forums from users unable to power-up virtual servers that had been updated to the newest software, which was released in late July. Users said they were seeing error messages claiming that the virtualization software's license had expired as of Aug. 12. Maritz, who was appointed CEO about a month ago, confirmed that VMware developers had left code in recent ESX 3.5 and ESXi Server 3.5 updates that prevented users from powering up virtual machines when the calendar flipped to Aug. 12. The code, he said, was left over from beta versions of the update. "We failed in two areas," said Maritz in his mea culpa. "[We failed in] not disabling the code in the final release of Update 2 and not catching it in our quality assurance process." Although it's common practice for developers to code a time limit into their betas in order to force users to upgrade to the final, the deadline -- often called a "time bomb" -- is supposed to be removed before the final version is released. "We have kicked off a comprehensive, in-depth review of our QA and release processes, and will quickly make the needed changes," said Maritz. Tuesday night, about two hours later than original scheduled, VMware issued a patch for the problem. The fix, available in separate versions for ESX 3.5 and ESXi Server 3.5, works, according to reports by users to VMware's support forum. "I updated one of my five hosts and everything appears to be fine so far," said a user named Robert Greenlee on a long support message thread. "Thanks for all the hard work getting this patch out," he continued. "Unfortunately, I think you've gotten a serious black eye today. We were finally getting management happy with the idea of using ESX for production servers and this set us back a little bit." Greenlee wasn't the only user on the support forum taking shots at VMware for the bug, which left virtual machines unusable for more than 20 hours. "As a VMware enterprise partner and VMware authorized consultant, I can tell you this is a big deal for VMware to release a product that has such grave consequences for even a relatively small portion of the total VMware user population," said a user identified as "wwcusa" from Jacksonville, Fla. "This could have been prevented by not rushing an update to market which was intended to be free and compete with [ Microsoft Corp. 's ] Hyper V. VMware ran face first into the very hurdle it was trying to clear. "This will cast doubt about the reliability of VMware in the enterprise," he added. VMware also quashed rumors that the time bomb was anything but a failure of its quality control process. In an entry posted to a company blog Tuesday night, the company denied that the problem was security-related. "The ESX(i) 3।5 Update 2 power on problem that surfaced today is not related to exploitation of a security issue on ESX," said VMware. "Several customers have been worried that their ESX systems had been compromised by an attack and that this was the cause for not booting of their ESX update 2 Virtual Machines today." Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149838/2008/08/.html?tk=rss_news
A bug in the enterprise virtualization software prevents VMware ESX 3।5 U2 customers from starting new virtual machines, beginning today.Users are rightfully annoyed when services like Gmail experience unexpected outages. We've come to expect that our e-mail should be available whenever we need it -- even when the service is provided for free. Imagine your frustration, then, if you found out that software you had bought and paid for had suddenly stopped functioning on a certain date. This is exactly the problem faced by customers of VMware ESX, VMware's enterprise-class virtualization engine. As of today, due to a bug in VMware's license management software, no new virtual machine instances will launch for customers running VMware ESX 3.5 U2. And so far, there's no fix. Virtualization software allows customers to split their PCs and servers into separate virtual machines. Each of these artificial partitions acts as if it were a separate computer, complete with its own set of hardware, peripherals, and OS. Because it offers ease of use and increased security, virtualization has become an increasingly popular method of provisioning and managing systems in business datacenters. Demand for virtualization has grown so much in recent years, in fact, that the market for virtualization software has become highly competitive. Open source solutions have appeared that offer features comparable to commercial products. As a result, many commercial vendors offer basic versions of their products free of charge -- VMware included. ESX, however, is not that free product. ESX is VMware's flagship offering, and customers often shell out tens of thousands to deploy it on mission-critical servers. And today it stopped working. Ironically, the very system that checks to ensure that only paying customers can run the software is preventing those same customers from using it. As I write this, VMware is scrambling to release a fix for the product. If you are yourself a VMware customer, you can find more information on the bug and potential work-arounds on VMware's message boards. The company has also posted an advisory in its online knowledge base.I actually feel a little sorry for VMware। Judging by some of the traffic on message boards, the fallout from this one is going to sting. Here's hoping that the problem can be resolved quickly and that the company can find a way to save face with its customers. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149741/2008/08/.html?tk=rss_news
Virtualization giant VMware has joined the Linux Foundation, lining up alongside existing members like Adobe, Google and IBM, the organization announced Wednesday. Virtualization, the ability to run software in virtualized containers so multiple OSes or versions can run on one physical machine, is becoming more prevalent in IT environments. At its core, virtualization is enabled by software called a hypervisor, and can help drive down data-center costs, among other benefits. The announcement is VMware's latest embrace of open source. Last year, the vendor open-sourced a number of its tools, and in 2006 opened up the specification for its Virtual Machine Interface, which enables guest operating systems to communicate with the hypervisor. Those moves as well as VMware's move to join the Linux Foundation mean good news for end-users on one level, as they point to a general rise in openness and collaboration among virtualization vendors even as the competition tightens around higher-end tools, according to one industry observer. "VMware has been focusing on standardization efforts much more seriously of late. They realize that the actual hypervisor functionality is being quickly commoditized, or near-commoditized, and like every other virtualization vendor, they're eyeing virtualization management as the source of green-field revenue," said Michael Coté, an analyst with Redmonk. "IT management is by its nature a heterogenous undertaking, and even for market leaders like VMware, that means promoting standards and openness, at least at the lower levels of the stack." While VMware is the biggest virtualization player, it is facing increased pressure from companies like Microsoft. To stave off this competition, VMware recently said it would offer a small-footprint version of its ESX virtualization software free. In other news Wednesday, VMware unveiled new certification and education services aimed at helping IT professionals better build and deploy virtualization environments. A new certification available to IT consultants and other professionals is the VMware Certified Professional, which is given to people who demonstrate a certain level of expertise in deploying virtual infrastructure. Another more advanced certification, the VMware Certified Design Expert, is available for network architects and consultants who are responsible for planning and designing VMware enterprise deployments. VMware also is offering new Live Online and Flex Online courses to help IT professionals achieve the certifications and deploy virtual environments, the company said. Professionals also can take courses at VMware Authorized Training Centers. More information about the certification and education programs is available on VMware's Web site। Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149492/2008/08/.html?tk=rss_news
Virtualization specialist VMware on Wednesday took the wraps off the latest public beta of Fusion for Mac. The new release focuses on several key areas to improve the user experience, including video, data protection and Unity. One of the biggest improvements with Fusion beta 2 is with Unity 2.0. Unity allows you to run Windows without seeing the Windows Desktop -- it's a seamless way to access to the Windows applications and still be in the Mac environment. In addition to allowing application sharing between the Mac and your virtual machines, Unity 2.0 also features mirrored folders. The folders on your Mac (Desktop, Documents, Music, and Pictures) will match the corresponding folders on Windows (Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures). Unity also features keyboard and mouse mapping and the ability to cut and paste up to 4MB, including styled text. To help protect user's virtual machines, VMware now features automatic snapshots. This means the application will take and store a snapshot of the current virtual machine, allowing to easily restore to a working copy should something go wrong. Snapshots can be taken every half hour, every hour or every day and you can choose how many snapshots to keep. "AutoProtect is like Time Machine for your virtual machine," Pat Lee, Group Manager of Consumer Products at VMware, told Macworld. "If someone does go wrong you can roll back easily and its all done without any manually intervention." Fusion beta 2 now has support for 1080p full high definition video in Windows XP or Windows Vista. Vmware's Pat Lee said in testing the video features, they loaded a 1080p video on a MacBook and they were able to play it back. 3D support has been improved, as well as the ability to go in and out of Full Screen mode while playing games. In Mac OS X 10.5 it is now possible to mount the virtual disk of a powered off Windows virtual machine using VMDKMounter. This allows access to files without actually starting the virtual machine. Users of Mac OS X 10.5 will appreciate the QuickLook feature built into Fusion, allowing users to view the contents of files without opening them. Lee said that VMware spent a lot of time optimizing the virtual machine so if it's running in the background, it won't affect the performance of your Mac applications running in the foreground. One thing that users have asked for, but isn't coming to Fusion is FireWire support. Fusion does support USB devices plugged into your Mac, but Lee said that most of the FireWire devices are either storage or cameras. Storage can be shared between the virtual machine and the Mac and cameras typically already have software for the Mac. Other changes in Fusion 2 beta 2 include the ability to run up to four virtual CPUs on a VM, the ability to run Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine, and support for VMrun command line scripting. When released VMware Fusion 2 will be a free upgrade for all current Fusion 1।0 customers. "It's a big thank you for the early adopters," said Lee. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149195/2008/07/.html?tk=rss_news
weeks ago, VMware found itself squarely in Microsoft's crosshairs -- and chaos followed. VMware lowered its revenue expectations for the year earlier this week. Its stock took a nosedive, which likely led to President and Chief Executive Diane Greene's sudden resignation yesterday. All of this comes on the heels of an industry-rattling announcement: Microsoft threw down the gauntlet late last month with the public release of Hyper-V, a free hypervisor technology bundled with Windows Server 2008 that undercuts VMware's standard-bearing ESX Server. Hyper-V, which enables different operating systems to run on a single server, received solid marks from the InfoWorld Test Center. "Getting that hypervisor out there is a major first step," says reviewer Randall C. Kennedy. "Over the next 12 to 18 months, Microsoft will continue to tweak Hyper-V" to compete more strongly with ESX server, he notes. [ How does Microsoft's hypervisor fare in a hands-on lab test? Read the InfoWorld Test Center's review of Hyper-V. ] VMware, of course, downplayed the Hyper-V launch. "It's a first-generation product that does basic partitioning, like what we were shipping seven or eight years ago," says John Gilmartin, senior manager for product marketing at VMware. If any of this sounds familiar, it is. Most software vendors tremble at the sight of Microsoft slouching toward them -- a harbinger of market share doom. Microsoft wades into an emerging market with a bare-bones product, then leans on the competition using its heft in product development, marketing prowess, and massive installed base to commoditize the product category and topple the market leader. The tech industry is awash with brands of many innovative companies whose high-flying technology was slowly devoured by the Redmond giant: Lotus. Borland. WordPerfect. Corel. Novell. Apple. Netscape. Can VMware, last year's Wall Street darling whose name has become synonymous with virtualization, survive Microsoft's awesome embrace-and-extend campaign? Early signs point to a difficult road ahead. Two weeks after Microsoft's Hyper-V announcement, VMware said that revenue growth for the year "will be modestly below" its previously stated goal of 50 percent -- and shares free-fell 26 percent to $39.30 on the news. Microsoft veteran Paul Maritz will replace the ousted Greene. Despite VMware's gloomy week, Chris Wolf, an analyst at the Burton Group, cites a couple of ways the company can stay a step ahead of Microsoft in the virtualization race: One is a big lead on virtualization technology that should buy the company some time. The other is shifting frontlines, as the market moves from commodity hypervisors to feature-rich virtual-infrastructure management tools. "It's shaping up to be a very interesting battle," Wolf says. In Pursuit of VMotion
VMware's ace up its sleeve is a piece of "live migration" technology, called VMotion, which basically allows users to move a virtual machine on the fly from one physical server to another without interrupting running applications. Live migration is the apex feature for high-availability systems. By contrast, with Hyper-V, such a move requires suspending the virtual machine for a few seconds or minutes and disrupting applications, says Kennedy. Neither Kennedy nor Wolf thinks live migration is a critical feature for small and midsized businesses, and so Hyper-V can gobble up market share on the low end. VMware's Gilmartin, though, counters that 60 percent of VMware's more than 100,000 customers use VMotion in production applications. "A lot of midmarket companies are looking for cost-effective business-continuity and high-availability solutions," he says. Microsoft's Hyper-V lacks other features, too, particularly in areas of stability and support. For instance, there's a serious risk that a faulty device driver will crash a Hyper-V server, says Kennedy. Hyper-V also supports Microsoft operating systems and Suse Linux as guests, but not much else. VMware's ESX Server, on the other hand, supports dozens of Linux distributions and Unix variants. Patrick O'Rourke, a Microsoft group product manager, responded to these Hyper-V criticisms. He told InfoWorld that Microsoft will have live migration in the next version of Hyper-V. And discussions are already under way about how to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. A head start in technology likely won't save VMware from the Microsoft offensive, says Kennedy। "VMware has pushed their technology pretty far," he says, "but I don't see on the horizon the silver-bullet technology that VMware can achieve to put them light years ahead of Microsoft again." VMware's Best Chance
While Microsoft busily develops catch-up features for Hyper-V, the server virtualization market is moving toward management of a virtualized environment. Virtual servers can quickly become a nightmare to control, which is why IT shops need such tools. "The end game is in management of the virtual infrastructure," says Burton Group's Wolf. "Hypervisors will eventually become a free commodity." To this end, Microsoft will offer its System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which only recently entered public beta. Kennedy says the management tool shows promise but has limitations, such as its inability to manage live migrations. Wolf, though, was impressed with a Microsoft demo that showed an operations manager quickly provisioning a new virtual machine to handle a problem. Microsoft's System Center is also getting into other areas, says Wolf, and encroaching on established management tools such as Hewlett-Packard's OpenView for networks and systems management. VMware only manages virtual infrastructure, leaving management tools from Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and others to handle the rest. In fact, VMware has spent years building strong reseller relationships with technology stalwarts. And it has been extremely successful taking joint solutions to the largest companies in the world. All of the Fortune 100 companies are VMware customers. Perhaps this is VMware's greatest opportunity to thwart Microsoft's campaign for undermining and overtaking market leaders. At least, Wolf thinks so. He believes VMware should continue to integrate its products deeply with its partners' offerings and leverage their sales channels -- a kind of "unite and overcome" strategy. "VMware's best chance is not to go it alone," Wolf says. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148146/microsoft_vs_vmware_rumble_in_the_virtual_world.html
The long wait for SQL Server 2008 is nearly over.
At its Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston on July 9, Bob Kelly, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Infrastructure Server Marketing, told attendees that SQL Server 2008 will be on the August price list. He said that Microsoft will keep pricing the same for the new release as it is for SQL Server 2005.
Microsoft released the near-final Release Candidate (RC) 0 test build of SQL Server 2008 in early June.
Microsoft officially “launched” SQL Server 2008 in February, alongside Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008. Earlier this year, Microsoft officials said they were planning to deliver SQL Server 2008 by mid-2008. Company officials changed their guidance a couple of months ago, noting that Microsoft was planning to deliver the final SQL Server 2008 release in the third calendar quarter of 2008.
Kelly also announced that Microsoft has released the near-final Release Candidate (RC) 1 test builds of its Windows Essential Business Server 2008 mid-market server bundle, as well as its Windows Small Business Server 2008 product. Microsoft will make the RC1 builds available for download from the Microsoft Connect site, officials said. The company is planning the official launch of these two servers for November 12; the actual final code will likely hit before that date.
Microsoft also is planning some kind of “official” virtualization launch event in Seattle on September 8, Kelly said, without offering more specifics. On July 8, Microsoft made its Hyper-V hypervisor available on Windows Update for download। Reference :http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1478
Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 will ship in mid-November. Early trial releases are available now on MultiplyYourPower.com. Both servers are part of the Windows Essential Server Solutions that help small businesses with a cost effective platform for your software applications. Windows Small Business Server 2008 standard edition comes with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Windows Live OneCare for Server, and other utilities. Premium edition adds the small business version of SQL Server 2008 and several other technologies.Windows Small Business Server is designed for companies with between 5 and 75 users. Windows Essential Business Server 2008, which Microsoft developed under the code name Centro, is designed for mid-sized businesses of between 25 and 300 users. The Premium version includes SQL Server for hosting web sites. ISVs who target small businesses can integrate the servers into their solution under the ISV Royalty Program। Reference : http://bink.nu/news/windows-servers-for-small-businesses-will-launch-in-november.aspx
June 26 Microsoft released its first bare-metal hypervisor: Hyper-V 1.0. Obviously, when a market leader like Microsoft releases a new key product like a hypervisor in an exploding industry like virtualization, and re-focuses every department on it, there are some repercussions. It doesn't really matter if the product is long overdue, if it comes with a limited feature-set, or if it the market is already crowded. The fact that Microsoft is (finally) fully committed on virtualization has repercussions on the landscape, at strategical and financial levels. What follows is a summary of the first reactions from the market players with some additional analysis from us. The partners and competitors positions Citrix is currently the stronger partner for Microsoft despite it recently acquired a product, XenServer, which can compete with Hyper-V on every aspect (they even have a similar architecture) and in many cases has more features. The two companies already declared their cooperation strategy in the past, so Citrix had not much to say but wait for some of our products able to interact with and manage Hyper-V (the reference is to XenDesktop 2.0). Now that Microsoft product is out we'll see if this synergy is really positive to Citrix (like the years-old one on Terminal Services) of self-defeating. The Virtual Iron position is very different. The company offers a Xen-based hypervisor like Citrix and it's currently targeting the SMB market, exactly the one that Hyper-V can attract at this first release. Virtual Iron tries to knock down the Microsoft product using four arguments: the new hypervisor obliges to adopt a new OS (Windows Server 2008), it's a 1.0 release so customers won't trust it in production environments, it lacks of many features that most customers want, Microsoft is not the best vendor to run mixed data centers where some virtual machines are powered by Linux. Most of these statements are arguable as follows. There's no difference in adopting Windows Server 2008 (when it includes the hypervisor) or adopting another virtualization platform because in this special case the new OS is just acting as an engine. Customers are free to run Windows Server 2003 (or older) virtual machines pretty much like on Virtual Iron. While it's true that Hyper-V lacks of many features it's not true that all of them are indispensable. A fairly large number of small companies are still at a point in their adoption of virtualization where the only need is to achieve a deadly simple server consolidation. And Hyper-V can achieve that task. It's hard to believe that a Microsoft-based hypervisor can't virtualize well a Linux virtual machine (even if Microsoft made the huge mistake to only support Novell OS at RTM date), while a Xen-based hypervisor instead can perfectly virtualize a Windows virtual machine. And considering that 95% of the virtualized systems are Windows it's easy to image what is the customers' priority. But Virtual Iron is right on one thing: at today there's a well-known distrust in Microsoft products at their first release. Avoid the deployment of a 1.0 product in production environment is considered a savvy approach by many IT managers, no matter which vendor they are considering, but in Microsoft case there is a special tradition in refusing the first company attempt in any enterprise area. Microsoft will have to work hard and release Hyper-V 2.0 as soon as possible to change the negative mind set that the market has against it. Sun is much more moderated in its answer (no link available) but it's expected considering the interoperability agreement in place with Microsoft. Pretty much like Citrix, Sun is building a complete virtualization portfolio, including a bare-metal hypervisor (xVM Server), a connection broker (VDI) and a cross-platform management solution (Ops Center), which will imply a full competition with Microsoft. Despite that, exactly like Citrix, Sun welcomes Hyper-V and confirms its commit to support it on its products. At the same time anyway, Sun is glad to underline what are seen as major shortcomings in the new product: the lack of live migration will leave customers in the cold for unplanned outages, Hyper-V has unknown chance to compete with open source competitive products because of the faster implementation of new features, Hyper-V can only support Windows guest OS and this doesn't aid the power consumption reduction, Hyper-V can't scale up, Hyper-V can't manage physical environments. Like for Virtual Iron almost every statement is arguable and it's surprising how weak the Sun position is trying to discourage the adoption of new product. The lack of live migration certainly is a key feature that some enterprise customers need, but it seems pretty evident that Microsoft is not trying to address that audience with this first version of the hypervisor. This also address the second point: a SMB market is less concerned about the last cutting-edge feature as long as the basic requirement of server consolidation is already satisfied. Hyper-V doesn't support Windows guest OSes only, but even in that case the large majority of virtualized systems are Windows, so the hypervisor seems to address most of the customers need and seems to help enough in the power consumption reduction effort. Maybe the architecture that Microsoft chosen for Hyper-V doesn't scale up as well as the one used by VMware ESX (and this must be verified in any case), but Sun is using exactly the same one on its upcoming xVM Server. Last but not least the fact that Hyper-V can't manage physical and virtual infrastructures is totally irrelevant: like Sun has its Ops Center so Microsoft has System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) to accomplish the task. It's not a duty for a hypervisor. Parallels has a much easier approach (no link available). The company is about to release a server virtualization product (and it's unclear if it will be able to compete with Hyper-V and other bare-metal hypervisors or not), but it's presence primarily depends on the OS virtualization technology Virtuozzo Containers, widely adopted in the hosting market. Because of this Parallels simply states that Hyper-V doesn't represent a threat to them, but doesn't miss the opportunity to highlight that the product doesn't support most Linux, BSD and Solaris guests. Obviously the VMware's position ( the very long version) is the easiest to guess. Being the market leader the company is the one that can lose the most if Hyper-V takes too much credibility. To the company Hyper-V is not reliable enough, is not secure enough, has not a small footprint, has a too limited feature-set, has not a broad portfolio of product which integrate with it. Even in this case, some of these statements are arguable. Despite what VMware says the Hyper-V footprint is actually smaller than the ESX one (less than 1MB against 32MB) but the difference in the architectural approach makes very complex to really compare the two. Microsoft has a broad range of products which will integrate and support Hyper-V soon: the obvious System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Operation Manager (SCOM), Configuration Manager (SCCM), Data Protection Manager (DPM) and more coming. Together these products extend the capabilities offered by the hypervisor alone and may satisfy a large part of the SMB market. It's true that Microsoft is not currently able to offer all the virtualization-based solutions that a customers may want (namely the connection broker for VDI environments and the virtual lab management solution for semi-automated development and testing environments). But it must be seen if a SMB is interested in any of these applications. The well-known Microsoft strategy in any area where it invests it's to let its partners explore the market opportunity and then proceed acquiring them or competing with them (pretty much what VMware did in the VDI and P2V migration space so far). But VMware is right on at least a couple of points. First of all the Hyper-V reliability must be proven ( the migration of MSDN and TechNet web sites on it is not enough). Also the security level of the product must be proven, but the choice to use a full version of Windows for the Parent Partition (which is fully trusted by the hypervisor) greatly extends the Hyper-V attack surface (no matter if the Server Manager can turn down all services that are not used by the hypervisor). Additionally, the Hyper-V kernel is not the Windows kernel (which has a trustable level of maturity) but a new thing, which Microsoft never detailed too much. In any case both Microsoft and VMware will have to handle with code vulnerabilities in the same way: no vendor can assure that its code is more secure than another one. The stock market reaction The analysts perspective Not only the the entrance of Microsoft in the virtualization has repercussions. It also creates confusion among customers. And the industry analysts are urged to give their advice. Chris Wolf, Senior Analyst at Burton Group, is well balanced in its analysis: Hyper-V lacks of some key feature (live migration, memory over-commit) but the product is stable and comes for free, and this is an acceptable trade-off for a 1.0 version. Microsoft couldn't wait any longer to seriously enter the market and had to sacrifice the higher end of its planned feature set. Wolf even says that Hyper-V may be considered for production use at its first release because of the cost, the first motivating factor for many customers. For this reason he expects a price drop for ESX. And if the price of the hypervisor falls the competition will move on the management layer. There Microsoft has a competitive advantage with a suite which can seamless manage physical and virtual infrastructures, while VMware is still fully focused on virtual machines only. Therefore the market leader will have to close solid partnerships with enterprise management vendors like HP, IBM, CA and BMC to stay ahead of Microsoft. Brian Madden, independent analyst at BrianMadden.com, is much more neat in his predictions. He sees Hyper-V deeply influencing the relationship between Microsoft and Citrix, at a point where the latter drops Xen as the underlying virtualization engine and adopts Hyper-V by 2009-2010. While this scenario seems pretty unlikely at beginning, it has some reasons to exist: the move would bring balance back in the relationship, giving Citrix the opportunity to innovate on top of a Microsoft engine (like always happened for Terminal Server) instead of having a full replication of whole stack. To justify this major change, Madden says that the current market penetration of XenServer (as is, powered by Xen) is near zero. And since it's very unlikely that Microsoft may have the same kind of acceptance, Citrix may prefer to jump on that bandwagon rather than driving its own train. To give further solidity to its thesis Madden highlights that the Citrix business model is not made to deal with the the open source community and that the company never had much commitment on it so far. So when Citrix will drop Xen the community around it will disintegrate, moving en mass to KVM and deeply impacting on those other companies that rely on the open source engine: Virtual Iron, Oracle (which may move to KVM much earlier because of Red Hat), Novell and Sun. The new landscape The key point is not what features Hyper-V has or has not, how many VMs can host in a highly dense environment, but which kind of audience it's trying to serve. As virtualization.info wrote in April 2007, VMware left uncovered the whole SMB market, totally focusing its flagship product around the needs of the biggest enterprises. This granted the company the highest chance to survive even after the Microsoft entrance in the market and maybe this was the original place since the early days. Microsoft knew, because of its history, that Hyper-V couldn't approach the enterprise market until at least its second release, so when obliged to decide where to put its effort, the company decided to concentrate on providing a stable and fast virtualization platform, with the minimum amount of features to help the largest part of the market in the fist step: the plain and simple server consolidation. The adoption of virtualization technologies is still so limited that there's no need to compete on the high-level features from day one. The big profit is at SMB level, where Microsoft knows how to move better than anyone else. So it's very likely that VMware will start to re-adjust its approach as soon as ESX 4.0 is released, exclusively offering what's beyond server consolidation: automation first, cloud computing then. If so, at that point the real competitor for VMware will not be Microsoft but Citrix, which is already working to build value beyond server consolidation. What the ecosystem will do? It's clear that at the moment Microsoft is the best partner to work with: Hyper-V leaves plenty of room for enhancements by 3rd party companies, and Microsoft may even decide to buy a few to consolidate its position. VMware instead is becoming a much less comfortable partner to deal with: in the effort to stay ahead of competition and build the dynamic data center that we all hope to have, the company is investing in all areas, giving few chances to build value on top of its platform (the VDI market is the best example at the moment). So it's almost granted that every small company on the market will try to support at least these two platforms to survive, giving the Microsoft one a growing higher priority. Is not clear instead how the ecosystem will interact with Citrix: supporting a third platform is a very expensive effort and in some ways the company is acting much more like a value added partner to Microsoft rather than like an independent virtualization vendor. In this scenario small 3rd party firms may see Citrix as a competitor rather than as a preferred partner. How much space is left for the other virtualization vendors? Not too much. Parallels, Virtual Iron, Novell, Red Hat, Sun and Oracle will have to find a niche where their platforms make sense or will have to compete with Microsoft for the SMB. Parallels is already doing that, strictly focusing on its OS virtualization technology which is the choice of preference all the time customers need a higher consolidation ratio at a lower price point. But the company is also releasing a server virtualization product: it has to be seen how Parallels Server will be accepted outside the Apple market. Oracle is doing that as well: with a totally closed policy the company locks-in its customers obliging them to use its own hypervisor. Novell is protected by the Microsoft interoperability agreement at the moment, so its implementation of Xen can be safely considered the Hyper-V of Linux shops. Sun may be focusing on its own customers, so Virtual Iron and Red Hat seems the companies that most of all have to find a safe place as soon as possible. For both of them, using Xen as the virtualization engine, the young KVM platform seems a good opportunity to stay in the Linux community without having to handle with Novell and its powerful ally. Red Hat already started to move in that direction। Reference : http://www.virtualization.info/2008/06/microsoft-hyper-v-day-after.html
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