Savision, a company providing added solution on top of Microsoft System Center has released an extension which customers using System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to manager Microsoft Hyper-V environments can install. The extension which can be downloaded for free will analyzes your Hyper-V environment for problems, and then provides specific and detailed recommendations to tune virtual machines and hosts for better performance and availability. Later this year, Savision plans to update the plugin with the ability to also apply the recommendations given by the tool.

The free plugin is released in order to make users acquainted with Vital Signs. Vital Signs is Savision’s paid product which can be installed on top of System Center providing an enhanced Hyper-V management pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and it provides several dashboards for Capacity Management, Windows Server, SQL Server and Exchange Server which integrate with System Center Operations Manager and System Center Service Manager. Vital Signs is provided in two editions, a standard edition offering monitoring functionality and the Enterprise edition offering dashboards as well.

Oracle has released a maintenance release for its virtualization platform VM VirtualBox. The release can be installed on top of VM VirtualBox 4.2 which was released in September last year.

Some of the fixes which are described in more detail in the change log are:

• Support for multimonitor. Dynamic enable/disable of secondary virtual monitors. Support for XPDM/WDDM based guests
• Debian Linux kernel 3.2.0-4 (3.2.39) compile fix
• VM settings: fixed crash on machine state-change event
• Multi-screen support: seamless mode: fixed a bug when empty seamless screens were represented by fullscreen windows

5Nine has announced a release candidate of a new extension which will hook the 5nine Security Manager functionality into Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager. 5nine Security Manager provides an agentless Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware and Virtual Firewall solution.

The solution is a combination of multiple protection modules managed centrally, including anti-virus (based on Sophos Anti-Virus Enterprise engine), anti-malware, IDS, web application protection, log inspection and programmatic virtual firewall.

Using the SCVMM extensions, all 5nine Security Manager functionality can be enabled through the SCVMM controls:

• Security Manager Global Rules. Allows user to edit global filtering rules.
• Virtual Firewall Management and Monitoring Management. Allows a user to enable or disable firewalling, monitoring and protection for individual VMs.
• Anti-Virus Management – Managing VMs Anti-Virus state. (Allows a user to enable or disable the Anti-Virus state for VM).
• Anti-Virus schedule management. Allows a user to view and manage the Anti-Virus schedules

VMware announced the schedule of a webinar called: “Unleash the Power of Virtualization to Simplify IT”.

Scheduled for April 23, 2013 at at 8:00AM -1:00PM PT/ 11:00AM – 4:00PM ET, the virtual event is dedicated to showing how to harness virtualization to simplify IT.

The Online VMware Forum 2013 is a free online event, with registration required.

The agenda includes a discussion on how to radically simplify IT infrastructure across the entire data center to the virtual workspace. Hearing VMware and industry experts discuss new products and services that extend the benefits of virtualization, combine virtualization with best-in-class automation and management, and empower end users with workplace mobility and freedom.

As promised few days ago, Japanese Midokura announced the availability of MidoNet at this week’s OpenStack Summit, running April 15-18 in Portland, Oregon.
MidoNet, is a network virtualization solution is integrated with OpenStack Quantum networking project, the product is specifically designed for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The solution was introduced las autumn to the US market, after  three years of development.

Dan Mihai Dumitriu, co-founder and CEO of Midokura, said:

We are excited to disrupt the market and offer the industry general access to our MidoNet network virtualization technology, unlike other solutions out there, MidoNet pushes intelligence to the edge of the network, as it takes an overlay-based approach to network virtualization and sits on top of any IP-connected network. Given this, MidoNet makes it easier for enterprises to build fully featured, secure and scalable clouds.

Amazon last week announced that it added support for running its Storage Gateway on top of Microsoft Hyper-V. Amazon already supported running the Storage Gateway on top of a VMware ESXi VM. The Storage Gateway is a virtual appliance which makes Amazon S3 storage available to an on-premise environment.

The Storage Gateway keeps copies of recently accessed files on-premises, while other files are moved to Amazon S3 storage. The AWS storage gateway allows you to create two types of Storage volumes. The Gateway-Cached Volumes, which stores primary data in S3 and retains frequently accessed data locally and the Gateway-Stored Volumes, which stores all data locally with an asynchronous backup to S3. More information about how to configure the storage gateway can be found here.

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Today April 16, VMTurbo announced to have signed a partnership with Japanese network services reseller Net One Systems.

Founded 2009, VMTurbo is provider of software-defined control for cloud and virtualized environments, together with Net One Systems they are going to distribute VMTurbo Operations Manager.

The partnership lead to IDC Frontier as customer, which is a provider of data center solutions, selected VMTurbo to address the challenges associated with operating, optimizing and controlling their virtualized infrastructure.

VMTurbo Operations Manager approaches planning, deploying, managing and controlling workloads, by automating the decision-making process in software allows critical applications to have the resources they require while maximizing utilization of the physical infrastructure. The product’s software-defined control offloads and automates decision-making from operational staff—reducing time spent troubleshooting and maximizing infrastructure utilization.

N. Louis Shipley, president and chief executive officer at VMTurbo, said:

Net One Systems is leading the charge in solving the real challenges their customers are experiencing in managing cloud services and IT operations in virtualized data centers. They are capitalizing on the opportunities to drive operational efficiencies and capital cost savings, and we look forward to working with such a respected solutions provider in the important Japanese market,IDC Frontier’s decision to select VMTurbo Operations Manager is a great example of leading organizations embracing a new approach to controlling their virtual infrastructure and raising the consistency of service delivery.

Fumihiko Shinoura, executive officer of Net One Systems, declared:

Adding VMTurbo to our portfolio of competitive and innovative IT solutions caters directly to our customers’ business needs, we are seeing the demand for advanced virtualization and cloud solutions escalate, and bringing VMTurbo on board enables us to offer a transformative, automated IT operations solution that ensures cloud and virtualized environments are operating in the most optimized state.

In 2007 Citrix acquired XenSource gaining control over the development of the Xen Hypervisor part of the Xen project. Today Citrix announced that it will hand over the Xen Project to the Linux Foundation which will continue its development. After both Ian Pratt and Simon Crosby who came from XenSource left Citrix to start their company Bromium, Citrix has clearly been struggling on how to continue its involvement in the development of the Xen project, leading to this decision.

The following companies will contribute to and guide the Xen Project as founding members of the Collaborative Project at The Linux Foundation: Amazon Web Services, AMD, Bromium, Calxeda, CA Technologies, Cisco, Citrix, Google, Intel, Oracle, Samsung and Verizon.

Its interesting to note that the Linux Foundation also supports the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) development, the hypervisor included in Linux. Perhaps we can see some joint development towards a new hypervisor in the future, this remains to be seen ofcourse.

Xen.org will be moved to Xenproject.org the new home of the project.

Microsoft today announced the general availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering hosted on Windows Azure, which it already announced in 2010. Up until now Microsoft only offered Platform as a Service on Windows Azure. Between 2010 and today Microsoft has been building the IaaS offering extending it with additional functionality. Microsoft also added support for Windows Azure to its on-premise System Center Suite of products.

Windows Azure Infrastructure Services offers both Windows Server and Linux Virtual Machines plus Azure Virtual Network. Supported VMs available in the Windows Azure Virtual Machine Gallery are: Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 and the following Linux flavors: OpenSUSE 12.1, CentOS 6.2, Ubuntu 12.04 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2. Also included in the release are the Big Compute VMs which Microsoft announced in November last year.

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On April 9, LANDesk acquired VMware’s Protect product family of IT management solutions, formerly known as Shavlik Technologies.

LANDesk Software, founded in 1985 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah , provides systems management, security management, service management, asset management and process management solutions.

The Shavlik Protect portfolio, how LANDesk is calling the solution, is aimed to expand LANDesk’s user-oriented IT management market presence accessing new channels and a product line that is going to complement its existing portfolio of Total User Management solutions.

LANDesk and VMware also signed a technology and services agreement, adding VMware to LANDesk’s list of industry leading Alliance Partners, which includes HP, Intel and Lenovo.

Stephen Daly, CEO of LANDesk Software, declares:

We are continuing our successful acquisition strategy to expand our IT management market presence, and with the addition of the Shavlik Protect portfolio, will deliver unmatched user-oriented IT management technologies, products and expertise for our enterprise customers, with the Shavlik Protect portfolio, we are also adding an important new go-to-market channel which will allow us to make some of our offerings available for download.

Microsoft has released a new version of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) version 2013. MDOP is a suite which consists of several desktop management tools available for subscribers to the Microsoft Software Assurance Program. The 2013 update contains a new version of the Microsoft Bitlocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM) tool and provides Service Pack 1 releases for AGPM 4.0, DaRT 8.0, App-V 5.0 and UE-V 1.0.

This release doesn’t include any updates to the Microsoft Enterprise Destkop Virtualization (MED-V) tool, most likely Microsoft will not provide any update for this tool anymore therefore supporting it for use on Windows 8, since it hasn’t been updated since 2011 where it added support for Windows 7.

MDOP consists of the following tools:

• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)
• Microsoft User Experience Virtualization (UE-V)
• Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V)
• Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM)
• Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT)
• Microsoft Bitlocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM)

The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2013 provides the following new features (among others):

Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 5.0 Service Pack 1 as described here

• Changes to supported languages (24 for client and 11 for server)
• Enhanced support for Microsoft Office 2010

Microsoft User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) 1.0 Service Pack 1 as described here

• Support for additional languages
• Office 2007 Settings Location Templates
• Office 2010 Settings Location Templates Updates
• Scheduled Task for Catalog Updates is now randomized
• Support for Citrix EdgeSight
• Indexing of Internet Explorer favorites
• New setup.exe command line parameters for UE-V Agent and UE-V Generator
• New error codes for setup

Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) 4.0 Service Pack 1 as described here

• New and changed client-side extensions supporting Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
• Rollup of several fixes

Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) 8.0 Service Pack 1 as described here

• Language Support adding 10 new languages
• Defender has been updated to include improved protection capabilities
• Rollup of several fixes

Microsoft Bitlocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM) 2.0 as described here

• Support for integration with System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2007 and 2012
• Support for Windows 8 as a target platform
• Self-Service Portal for end users
• Ability to Automatically Resume BitLocker Protection from a Suspended State
• Fixed Data Drives Can Be Configured to Automatically Unlock Without a Password

Embotics which we know for its VM lifecycle management solution V-Commander has released version 4.7 of V-Commander adding support for Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager now providing a solution capable of managing multiple hypervisors following many other solutions.

The solution itself evolved from a VM lifecycle management solution into a cloud management solution offering Self-Service -, Configuration -, Change -, Lifecycle -, Performance – and Capacity Management and Chargeback. This version is the follow up of version 4.6 which was released in August last year.

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Microsoft has released Update Rollup 2 which can be installed on top of System Center 2012 Service Pack 1. The Update Rollup package contains fixes for all the System Center 2012 products except Configuration Manager which has its own Update Rollup mechanism. This Update is cumulative, meaning that it also contains the updates coming from Update Rollup 1.

Some of the fixes in this Update Rollup include:

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VMware has released version 5.7 of its operations suite, vCenter Operations Manager. This version is the follow up of version 5.6 which was released in November last year. The product which was first released in March 2011, combines several products acquired by VMware in the past and is part of the vCloud suite.

This version introduces several new functionalities, as described in the release notes:

• Assess capacity risk and plan by allocation and/or actual demand
• New views for Cluster Capacity Risk
• New policies for common environments and workloads
• New diagnostics metrics to monitor the health and availability of vCenter Operations Manager components, such as Analytics, Collector, Active MQ, Web server, database, and operating system.
• Widgets with Improved Flexibility and Usability
• Custom UI Import and Export Changes for Dashboards and Super Metrics
• Balanced Metrics Profile
• VMware vCenter Infrastructure Navigator Filtering Capability
• New support for the following browsers: Apple Safari version 6, Google Chrome versions 24 and 25, and Mozilla Firefox 18 and 19.
• Additional security hardening and increases compliance with The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and The Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) guidelines

Veeam today released version 6.0 of the Management Pack for monitoring and management of VMware using Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2012. The management pack extends System Center Operations Manager with the ability to monitor VMware environments from the Operations Manager console. This new release of Veeam MP includes new capacity planning reports for VMware on host failure modeling, performance forecasts for datastores, performance forecasts for vSphere clusters, and VM capacity prediction.

Version 6 of the management pack also includes:

• Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2012,
• Support for Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1
• Support for VMware vSphere 5.1
• New Topology Views for Storage, Network and Compute
• 30 New System Center 2012 Dashboards
• New vSphere Analysis Reports
• Unique Performance Analysis and Correlation Monitors

More information about what’s new can be found in the What’s New in v6 document.

Hotlink today released a new version of Hotlink Hybrid Express, a solution to manage Amazon EC2 from the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) console. Hybrid Express is Hotlinks product for deploying, managing and administrating hybrid and off-premise cloud, using either SCVMM or VMware vCenter. Hotlink also announced the availability of a free edition of Hybrid Express for both SCVMM and vCenter.

HotLink’s patent-pending transformation technology abstracts public cloud platforms and workloads so on-premise management consoles treat them just like on-premise hosts and virtual machines — fully integrated and managed as a unified pool of resources without the need for a separate management console.

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Dell has released version 8 of its VDI connection broker software vWorkspace. This is the first release rebranded under the Dell brand after Quest was acquired by Dell in September last year.

Version 8 of vWorkspace supports Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, and Dell claims that by using the new RemoteFX/RDP8 capabilities of this platform it can reduce bandwidth consumption with 80%. Windows 8 is supported as a VDI platform and vWorkspace Connector platform.

Version 8.0 provides the following new functionality:

• Full Support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8
• Enhanced Hyper-V Catalyst Components
  • Automatic optimization of HyperCache configuration
  • HyperDeploy providing optimization of storage of virtual desktops which are either persistent or non-persistent
  • Improved support for Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) by both HyperCache and HyperDeploy
• Monitoring of User Experience of live sessions and past user sessions
• Integration of Foglight for Virtual Desktops into the vWorkspace Management Console
• Reporting Improvements, farm utilization, Managed Applications usage, process utilization, and more
• Multi-Tenancy Support
• Anonymous User Support
• Integration of Quest Password Manager
• EOP Flash Acceleration Improvements

More added functionality can be found in the what’s new documentation.

On April 9, Midokura announced that is going sponsor, exhibit and present at the OpenStack Summit which will be held in Portland, Oregon next April 15-18. The executives of the japanese company are going to present on topics including network virtualization and SDN throughout the event.

Japanese startup Midokura, focused on network virtualization and based in San Francisco, Barcelona and Tokyo, announced today it has raised  $17.3M in Series A funding from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), a Japanese public-private partnership, among the investors who participated also NTT Group’s Venture Fund: NTT Investment Partners, L.P. and NEC Group’s Venture Fund: Innovative Ventures Fund Investment L.P.

Midokura also named co-founder and previous CTO Dan Mihai Dumitriu as the new CEO, co-founder Tatsuya Kato, who was the previous CEO, is now Chairman of the Board.

The funding will be used toward furthering Midokura’s vision, product innovation and go-to-market strategy. Midokura’s MidoNet allow users to virtualize the network stack for popular cloud platforms and also integrates with cloud management solutions so that virtual network device provisioning is automated.

Dan Mihai Dumitriu, CEO of Midokura, affirms:

As enterprises and carriers embrace and build out IaaS clouds, an overlay-based network virtualization platform will soon be a must-have technology. The financial support of Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, and other key backers, validates our strategy as well as the work we’ve done over the past three years developing our industry leading product MidoNet. This funding will enable us to accelerate our product engineering, the establishment of partnerships, and the growth of our customer base. We look forward to delivering the most preformant, scalable and fault tolerant network virtualization solution to the IaaS infrastructure market.

Today, April 2, PHD Virtual Technologies announced that it has acquired privately-held VirtualSharp Software.

Pennsylvanian PHD Virtual Technologies Inc. founded in 2002 decided to acquire the McLean, Virginia-based provider of next generation automated disaster recovery for virtualized environments and private and public clouds.

This acquisition allows PHD Virtual to deliver transformational technology for virtual backup and disaster recovery assurance providing solutions for data protection and business continuity, automatically certifying achievement of Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs).

VirtualSharp Software Corporation provides Disaster Recovery automation for virtualized environments and private clouds, and has the concept of Disaster Recovery Assurance which is based on a series of recovery policies for individual applications in a datacenters and enables the automated enforcement of RPOs (maximum data loss) and the continuous measurement and compliance of RTOs (maximum outage time). Furthermore Recovery tests can be executed without any human intervention and without impacting production systems.

Carlos Escapa, CEO and Co-Founder of VirtualSharp Software, said

We are thrilled to have VirtualSharp become part of PHD Virtual because the worlds of virtual backup and disaster recovery are merging and the combination of the two companies is a game-changer, our product portfolio becomes the one-stop shop with a solution spanning backup, replication, disaster recovery testing and compliance assurance. PHD Virtual also provides us with the marketing and sales resources we need to exponentially grow our combined solutions on a global scale.

Frank Denneman senior technical marketing architect within the Cloud Infrastructure Product Marketing group at VMware is conducting a survey about storage reservation, a feature coming to vSphere which is currently in development.

The current version of Storage I/O Control provides tools to prioritize and provide fairness to I/O streams of virtual machines. However the current version does not provide a function to specify number of IOPS to guarantee a minimum level. Because the storage subsystem can be shared, external workloads can impact the performance capacity (in terms of IOPS) of the datastores and therefore a guarantee cannot be met temporarily. This is one of the challenges that must be taken into account when developing storage reservations and we must understand how stringent you want the guarantee to be.

You can take the survey here.