vmware

Last week's announcement of enhancements to Citrix Cloud Center (C3) at Citrix Synergy 2009 was one that made me sit up and take notice. Awhile ago, I proclaimed that the era of the "cloud OS" had begun, and I called out VMware vCloud, Citrix, C3 and 3TERA AppLogic as examples of what would eventually become cloud operating systems.

Strangely, however, Citrix (and the former XenSource team) has been strangely silent since that post. Yeah, there have been one or two "announcements" that basically positioned existing Citrix technologies as being cloud infrastructure, but all in all … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The Day One keynotes at Citrix Synergy 2009 were about users and desktops. Today was nominally about data centers and clouds--of which there were a variety of announcements. However, Citrix's XenClient ("Project Independence") loomed large as well.

Of the products discussed on stage, XenClient is perhaps furthest from being a fully realized product. But is also offers an intriguing window into how the PC as we know it is likely to fundamentally change over the coming years.

XenClient is a "Type 1" native hypervisor that sits on a PC and hosts one or more … Read more

VMware's first-quarter financial results are out.

Revenue increased 7 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to $470 million. GAAP net income for the first quarter was $69.9 million, or 18 cents per diluted share, compared to $43.1 million, or 11 cents per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2008.

These are respectable results, though "analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of 20 cents per share on sales of $474.4 million, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters." Furthermore, guidance was disappointing, Reuters noted:

VMware, majority-owned by EMC, estimated second-quarter revenue to … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

VMware announced on Tuesday its cloud operating system--dubbed vSphere 4--with plans for general availability in the second quarter.

With the effort, VMware is attempting to bridge virtualized data centers--now known as "private clouds"--and growing cloud computing services from the likes of Amazon.com and others. However, this bridging process is a work in progress due to the lack of standards. VMware's big pitch is that vSphere can run your data center and allow you to bridge out when external resources are needed.

John Gilmartin, director of … Read more

VMware has come up with a tool that lets users access the virtualized machines in their data center from a mobile phone.

According to VMware, the VCenter Mobile Access tool will also allow system managers to migrate virtual machines from one virtual host to another, using their phones.

The software was introduced on Friday on VMware's VMTN blog by Srinivas Krishnamurti, the director of product management for the company. In addition to its search-and-migration capabilities, VCMA could also be used to remotely execute recovery plans, access scheduled tasks, and respond to alarms and events, Krishnamurti said in the blog. … Read more

I noted last month that embedding the code for server virtualization directly into the hardware, something called an embedded hypervisor, hasn't taken off to any significant degree.

Rather, most IT shops continue to purchase virtualization as a third-party add-on (typically from VMware or Citrix), or they acquire it as part of Linux distribution or Microsoft Windows.

Many of the management and other services associated with virtualization are going to be added on, in any case. However, the thinking of a lot of people went, wouldn't it make sense to at least get the foundation in place as part … Read more

CANNES, France--VMware will release future versions of vCenter, its flagship virtualization-management software, in Linux versions as well as for Windows, the company's chief technology officer said Wednesday.

Chief technology officer Stephen Herrod announced the move for vCenter, formerly called Virtual Center Server, in a keynote speech at the VMworld 2009 conference here.

"We have enabled vCenter Server to be installed directly on Linux," he said. VMware first said it would release a Linux versio of the management software at its last VMworld conference, in September.

"We have also released a (Linux) version of vCenter Server that … Read more

Novell and VMware have teamed up to work with software makers to develop virtual appliances based on Suse Linux Enterprise, the companies announced at the VMworld Europe 2009 conference in Cannes.

As part of the agreement, independent software vendors using VMware Studio to create virtual appliances for VMware's ESX hypervisor are being offered a "free evaluation redistribution of appliances" built on the Suse Linux Enterprise operating system, Novell and VMware said in a statement Tuesday.

In addition, the partners are helping third-party vendors to build Suse Linux Enterprise-based virtual appliances under the VMware Ready scheme, aimed at … Read more

ESG virtualization guru Mark Bowker is keeping me abreast of the goings-on at VMworld Europe in Cannes. In between the merlot and brie, Microsoft and Citrix announced an interesting and potentially lucrative partnership for server virtualization and virtualization management dubbed "Project Encore."

Here's the deal. In spite of its recent release of Hyper-V, Microsoft remains behind VMware in terms of enterprise management features. To bridge this gap, Microsoft is teaming with Citrix to offer advanced server virtualization management through Citrix Essentials. Citrix Essentials builds on Hyper-V with management capabilities for storage management, physical/virtual server provisioning, and … Read more