Hypervisor

Is storage holding back virtualization?

Virtualization's benefits--server consolidation, improved resource utilization, faster application deployment, and overall flexibility--have made it one of IT's most important tools.

Earlier this year, a Gartner survey of more than 2,000 CIOs indicated that virtualization was one of their highest priorities in 2011 (eclipsed only by cloud computing).

But given the benefits and the rapid adoption of virtualized environments, can we expect virtualization will be extended to 100 percent of applications? If not, what are the barriers to increased virtualization footprints with the enterprise?

Tintri, a provider of VM-aware storage appliances, recently conducted a survey of 126 virtualization … Read more

Red Hat's RHEL 6 beta drops Xen

Red Hat has released the first beta edition of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, with updates to virtualization, scalability, and power efficiency, among others.

The operating system was made available for download on Wednesday. It is the first to drop the Xen hypervisor in favor of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) developed by Qumranet, which was purchased by Red Hat in 2008.

Red Hat added the KVM hypervisor to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) alongside Xen with version 5.4, which was introduced in September. It has been testing virtualization products based on KVM since last June.

'Cloud' means something important

"Cloud computing" is so overused and overhyped that it doesn't really mean anything anymore. It's has become kind of a vague "what comes next in IT" label, with no specific meaning, applied indiscriminately to whatever the latest vendor to stop by wants to sell us today.

I now hear this complaint with great regularity--but I don't entirely agree. Sure, every vendor is eagerly "cloud washing" whatever products or initiatives they have to fit in with the latest buzzhype. And the "cloud" term is thrown around with pretty reckless abandon. … Read more

Hypervisors are not commodities

One of the dynamics of the server virtualization marketplace that doesn't get the attention it probably should is the question of where the hypervisor "lives" and gets delivered to buyers. Services, such as load balancing and replication, that leverage a virtualized foundation to construct what goes by names like Dynamic IT may be ultimately more important than the foundation's components. However, the choice of hypervisor matters today if only because it serves as a sort of control point for the profitable components above.

Hypervisors get delivered in three different ways.

The first is in the form … Read more

Makara turns the cloud into a virtual layer

Several months back, I spoke with Issac Roth, CEO of platform-as-a-service start-up WebappVM, about taking advantage of the cloud by moving to a virtual layer approach.

The idea behind this virtual layer is to enable developers to easily take Web applications to cloud environments--be they private, public, hybrid, or elsewhere in the ether.

On Tuesday, Roth and company are announcing the developer edition for their Cloud Application Platform with a newer, catchier name: Makara.

According to Roth, developers want to be able to get their apps up and running quickly but haven't had the ability to do so previously. … Read more

Red Hat testing virtualization lineup

Red Hat has begun beta-testing its new line of virtualization products based on Qumranet's KVM hypervisor.

The tests are the next stage in development of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) lineup, which was announced by the company in February. The RHEV portfolio includes a standalone hypervisor, RHEV-H, as well as virtualization managers for servers and desktops. In its announcement earlier this year, Red Hat said the products would be made available within the following 18 months, which sets a deadline of August 2010.

"We are in a unique position to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of virtualization solutions, … Read more

What a new Microsoft-Citrix partnership means

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

What happened to embedded hypervisors?

Here's the basic question: where does the hypervisor--the software layer that underpins server virtualization--live and who owns it? Is it just part of the server or is it just part of the operating system?

For now, to be sure, it's often something that IT shops purchase from a third-party--we're mostly talking from VMware here. However, pretty much everyone expects that over time this foundational component will be increasingly built-in--even if the higher-level value-add management and virtualization services that make use of it are explicitly purchased from a variety of sources.

Virtualization vendors have often considered this an … Read more

Q&A: Xen, the start-up in Citrix clothing

It's been a year since Citrix bought XenSource, the company created by the founders of the Xen open-source hypervisor, and integrated the business into its lineup of products delivering applications to desktops.

As part of the process, Citrix made the XenServer virtualization software central to its strategy, and appointed XenSource staff to senior executive positions.

ZDNet UK sat down with one of those executives, Ian Pratt, Citrix's vice president for special products, to find out how the integration is going and where Citrix is going with Xen-branded products.

In the second half of our two-part interview, Pratt talks … Read more

Q&A: Citrix exec says cloud to carry Xen against VMware

Citrix aims to beat VMware at virtualization. A year ago it bought XenSource, the company created by the founders of the Xen open-source hypervisor, and switched the Citrix business focus to virtualization.

Citrix made XenServer, the commercial system based on Xen, central to its strategy, and applied a Xen brand to other Citrix products involved in delivering applications to desktops. XenSource staff gained senior positions at Citrix and have been setting the company's future direction.

Ian Pratt, the original project leader of Xen and a founder of XenSource, remains a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, but is now … Read more