Microsoft releases Open Source Linux Integration for Hyper-V

Who would have ever thought it that Microsoft would play as well with Linux as it is at the moment, today Microsoft has released the Hyper-V paravirtualisation drivers for Linux guest OSes, called Linux Integration Components, as GPLv2 open source software.

To be credible in the enterprise Microsoft has to support Linux inside its virtual machines. And Linux has to deliver enterprise-grade performance.

To achieve the goal the company released Linux Integration Components as a free stand-alone package since September 2008.

Now, rather than just extending its support to Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest OSes, Microsoft has gone the extra mile and released the Linux Integrated Components as an open source code, licensed with the General Public License (GPL) v2.

In details Microsoft is giving away the code of three drivers that integrate with the Hyper-V VMbus submitting 20,000 lines of code for review and inclusion in the Linux kernel.

Novell took a major role in this project: they reviewed the code and are committed to further enhance it in the future.

Why Microsoft is doing this?

The official press announcement offers a very vague explanation, talking about the desire to address interoperability and performance issues. The reality is probably different: Microsoft wants to speed up the consolidation process.

Moving physical Linux boxes inside Hyper-V still is a very time-consuming activity because you have to download the Integration Components, install them inside the distribution, and only at that point you can safely perform a P2V migration.

Microsoft has also confirmed that every Linux distributor joining the Server Virtualisation Validation Program (SVVP) will be supported.

EMC Outlines where Data Domain will fit into their structure.

For anybody tracking the storage arena you will be aware of the fight between EMC and NetApp to acquire Data Domain, it all looked to be going towards NetApp for a while but EMC got to the finishing line first and will complete the purchase by the end of July. EMC have announced where they see Data Domain fitting into their already impressive storage portfolio

EMC, said it now controls 82.1 percent of Data Domain shares after a tender offer.

In a statement, EMC said that Data Domain will lead a division focused on the latest disk-based backup, recovery and archive products. Data Domain CEO Frank Slootman will lead the division and report to Joe Tucci, EMC’s Chairman and CEO, and Frank Hauck, executive vice president in charge of EMC’s storage business.

EMC also said it plans to increase its investment in the division and build complementary technologies around it. EMC added that it expects the unit to continue to grow at double digit rates and hit $1 billion in revenue in 2010.

HP Acquire Ibrix

HP is appending to its StorageWorks offerings through the purchase of storage software maker Ibrix. Ibrix’s Fusion software is aimed at computing environments with massive storage demands, including high-performance computing and cloud computing. HP already uses Ibrix in its StorageWorks SANs and ProLiant servers, as well as its BladeSystems and ProCurve networking switches.

The deal was announced July 17. Financial terms were not disclosed.

HP officials said the acquisition will bolster the company’s ability to offer scalable storage solutions to enterprises with large-scale, data-intensive application environments, where the task of storing huge amounts of user-generated data often can slow things down.

The Ibrix purchase will expand HP’s storage capabilities in scale-out and high-performance computing environments, as well as in cloud computing and fixed content archiving.

That area of the storage business is growing at 20 percent a year, which is faster than the NAS (network-attached storage) and total external storage markets, according to HP.

Ibrix’s Fusion storage software can scale to tens of petabytes, and the management capabilities within the solution enables IT administrators to dynamically add capacity as needed.

HP already offers Ibrix’s software on its StorageWorks SANs (storage area networks), as well as on its ProLiant servers, BladeSystem blade servers and ProCurve Ethernet networking switches and management software.

HP expects to close the deal within 30 days. Ibrix currently has 53 employees and more than 175 enterprise customers.

Google Wave - The next big thing in Online Collaboration?

OK, so in May Google announced what is deemed to be one of their most intriguing product releases to date - Google Wave, so what is it?

Google Wave is a project announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 28, 2009. It is a web application and computing platform designed to bring together e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking, with a strong collaborative focus, mixed with spellchecker and translator extensions, which are able to work in concert, in real-time. It is planned to be released later in 2009.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document.People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

The Citrix and Microsoft Partnership begins to dazzle

Citrix and Microsoft have always enjoyed a very strong partnership with many a time speculation occurring about when Microsoft would acquire Citrix, it has never happened and probably wont be happening anytime soon. There has also been rumours about bad relationships between the companies, but since the advent of virtualisation both organisations have forged an even stronger partnership.

This week at Microsoft WPC in New Orleans once again Microsoft and Citrix have announced some new working initiatives around App-V (part of the Microsoft MDOP pack) and Citrix XenApp. App-V albeit a great application is difficult to get hold of as it typically involves an Enterprise Agreement with Software Assurance, but this maybe changing through tighter integration with Windows 7. Citrix will now fully support the Microsoft application virtualisation platform on its Citrix Receiver in H2 2009 and in the new Dazzle product in H1 2010.

When released, the Citrix clients will be extended so they recognize the Microsoft App-V client. The whole process will be completely transparent to the end user, leveraging the “plug in” architecture of the Receiver and Dazzle clients.

Additionally in H1 2010 Citrix will release a connector for Microsoft SCCM to distribute XenApp virtual applications through the Microsoft Management Solution.

Microsoft Plans Free Version Of Office 2010

This fiscal year has seen some very strange occurrences take place through Mergers, Acquisitions and tech companies offering free software, and to join the party Microsoft at WPC in New Orleans has announced plans to introduce a web based version of Microsoft Office that consumers can use at no cost. I assume that this will make a strong case for migrating to Microsoft BPOS also.

Office Web, as the offering is called, will be part of the Microsoft Office 2010 release, which is slated for the first half of next year.

The free, online products will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote message pad. They'll be available directly through Microsoft's Windows Live portal and launch directly within a user's browser.

The move allows Microsoft to protect its products from Web-based software from Google and from free, open source-based offerings, such as IBM's Lotus Symphony product.

Microsoft said they don't believe Office Web will replace the desktop version of Office, "We haven't taken the approach where the Web apps are a duplication of the client apps," said Microsoft. "We try to make them incredibly good for the device you are using," they added.

For instance, the Office Web version of PowerPoint will not contain the desktop version's high-performance video editing tools. The Web apps on the other hand will offer some features that won't be found on the desktop versions, such as the ability to embed tags into documents and post them on blogs.

Microsoft has about 90 million such customers. It also has roughly 400 million Windows Live users. Meaning that Microsoft at launch will have the ability to tap into half a billion subscribers.

Microsoft VDI - Bundled Suites crammed with technology

Well it is the World Partner Conference in New Orleans this week, and we thought we would share some of the useful information being delivered from Microsoft starting with this announcement.

Typically when clients look to VDI to assess viability and ROI there are a number of questions that are raised such as:

• Which Hypervisor
• How do I managed this environment
• How do I provide a broker to the desktop
• How can I strip the applications from the desktop
• How can I ensure performance and scalability.

But one of the areas that has been limiting adoption is licensing from Microsoft and is seen as one of the hidden costs of deployment.

We Microsoft have just announced two new license models for VDI - Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Standard and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Premium. This new license model will be available in Q4 via volume licensing to dovetail with the release of Windows 2008 R2 and SCVMM R2 - want to see this technology in action before the release date, click here.

So what is included in the suites??

Firstly both offerings include licenses for all key components: Hyper-V, SCVMM,SCCM, SCOM, Remote Desktop Services CAL, and MDOP. The premium suites includes App-V for RDS allowing for a mixed mode environment of traditional SBC and VDI.

With these two new offerings, the only additional license you will need to correctly license a VDI environment from Microsoft is Virtual Enterprise Centralised Desktop or VECD (you will need VECD even to deploy VDI on a non-Microsoft platform).

Will let you know more when we do.

Citrix Releases a free version of Essentials for Hyper-V

Back in February this year Citrix made a major announcement to give its XenSever technology for free (XenCenter, XenMotion, Resource Pools and Basic Storage Management), which was a bold move to make when you consider they paid $500M for the technology in 2007. So where would they recoup their investment? Well this is being done through support and enhanced management platforms for XenServer (Essentials).

So Citrix are trying to drive XenSever deep into enterprises with a free offering but have just last week announced they are giving away a free version of Essentials for Hyper-V. So could drive customers away from XenServer to Hyper-V R2 when officially released in October 2009.

Called Express Edition, this version is limited to two Hyper-V nodes and a single storage array, the features are blow, I wonder where all this free software is going to end?

Citrix XenServer is Enterprise ready says the Burton Group

Dataplex are a leading virtualisation consultancy and have been implementing VMware and Citrix based solutions for longer than I can remember, but since the release of XenServer we are time and time again asked about it and whether it is enterprise ready. Well according to the Burton Group Citrix XenServer has come of age.

Several months ago Burton Group undertook a review of the virtualisation industry and in their eyes VMware was the only true contender out there for enterprise virtualisation. Dataplex are seeing the implementation of XenServer becoming more adopted especially for the strategic deployment of XenApp on XenServer, which ultimately sees XenServer spread throughout the enterprise.

Chris Wolf from the Burton Group has announced that XenServer with Essentials 5.5 Platinum Edition met the requirements to become an enterprise class architecture.

So at a time when Citrix has become technically viable for Enterprise virtualisation they have just released Hyper-V Essentials Express for free, so will possibly move users across to Microsoft??

Google Chrome OS - Interesting!

Since the launch of Google Chrome, more than 30million users regularly use the browser, including me for a plethora of reasons, mainly speed.

So to take this a step further Google are to launch an operating system called Google Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year Google will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because Google are already talking to partners about the project, they wanted to share their vision now so everyone understands what they are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. They are designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of the way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as they did for the Google Chrome browser, they are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and they are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Should be an interesting time, just as we are seeing VDI starting to take hold another concept comes to the table which looks to be interesting especially around the hidden cost of VDI licensing.

Citrix Releases Edgesight for Load Testing 3.5

Citrix recently released Edgesight 3.5 pretty much un-noticed, so I thought I would bring it to your attention.

Citrix EdgeSight for Load Testing is an automated load and performance testing solution for Citrix Presentation Server environments. As of XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack 1, the Load Testing service is no longer a separate licensed product and is now a free component in XenApp.

Edgesight for Load Testing allows you to predict how systems will cope with high levels of user load. By simulating the actions of Citrix users – from 10s to 100s – and monitoring the responsiveness of the system under load, the service allows an administrator to determine how the current configuration will cope under demand.

Edgesight for Load Testing has a recording and scripting environment. Importantly, it uses the ICA channel itself to drive the session information; meaning that the farm servers don’t need configuration changes or additional software installed in order to run or record the tests.

With version 3.5 you now have the ability to record new metrics allowing increased reporting on the XenApp Server – but also if your XenApp Server is running on a XenServer, you can record metrics of the host server as well.

3.5 also gives intelligent load control, allowing you to roll up to a “maximum” or “break point” and then back off from that situation. This means that rather than run up to X Users, you can set break points at given server metrics – allowing you to determine if its the CPU/Disk/Memory that is the bottleneck rather than a straight user count.

Learn more here:

The first of many? The Microsoft "Mega Data Centre" Opens in Dublin

Microsoft is set to open its first “mega data centre” outside of the US in Dublin tomorrow to help support its Online Live and Cloud services.

The project was slowed down earlier this year due to financial constraints in the company, but recovery throughout the year has lead to the summer opening of this 303,000 square foot building.

It was announced by Arne Josefsberg, general manager of Infrastructure Services for the Global Foundation Services at Microsoft, via a blog.

He said: “We take great pride in the innovations [the data centres] deliver to move the data centre industry forward and to extend Microsoft’s online services to customers globally. As the company’s Software-plus-Services strategy progresses, these data centres will play a key supporting role.”

Josefsberg also said: “The facility makes extensive use of outside air economisation to cool the facility year round, resulting in greater power efficiency with a resultant reduction in carbon footprint.”

Later in July, the company will also be launching another mega data centre in Chicago.

Source: New Microsoft Mega Data Center

Flexible Working Are you ready?

Earlier this year the government passed a legislation to allow employees to request the right for a flexible working environment, this came into effect in April 2009.

Pretty much any employee with a child under the age of 16 is entitled to request flexible working (found out more here).

So what constitutes flexible working (as defined by the government):

• part time: working less than the normal hours, perhaps by working fewer days per week
• flexi time: choosing when to work (there’s usually a core period during which you have to work)
• annualised hours: your hours are worked out over a year (often set shifts with you deciding when to work the other hours)
• compressed hours: working your agreed hours over fewer days
• staggered hours: different starting, break and finishing times for employees in the same workplace
• job sharing: sharing a job designed for one person with someone else
• homeworking: working from home

Dataplex have for the last 6 years had a flexible working practice in place which has seen great uptake and increase in productivity and staff retention. Using the technologies that we deliver to our clients we are able to gain access to our corporate network securely from any location. .

In an age where the cloud is becoming ever pervasive and online services are receiving more than lip service, there other ways to consider than just the traditional VPN connections. Want to know how you can achieve flexible working without the traditional costs associated with such an architecture? Then contact us here.

MIcrosoft Bing Challenges Google through Twitter Tweets

Microsoft in its attempt to challenge Google in Internet Search has added real-time search capability to its new Bing search engine. Users can use Bing to find the latest Twitter tweets from celebrities and other persons of note, including high-tech journalists. The move comes as startups CrowdEye, Collecta and others are propagating the Web with real-time search.

The feature is real-time search, or the ability to locate data generated at a specific moment in time online. Microblog service Twitter has given rise to this phenomenon, with millions of users leaving brief messages throughout the day.

However, modern search engines were not programmed to account for such immediacy; high-tech reporters have been complaining for months that search engines don't index real-time search data from Twitter and other content sources.

Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft's Search Technology Centre said Bing is not indexing Twitter in its entirety just yet; this is a gradual rollout. "We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets. We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter’s public API to surface Tweets in people search."

Will this be enough to attract the 65%+ of all global Internet searches away from Google?