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Virtualisation + Technology + Businesses
Citrix Hits VMware with Free XenServer 5.5 Download
[...] Citrix announced XenServer 5.5 in February, and according to Peter Levine, senior vice president and general manager of Citrix's virtualisation management Division, the number of early downloads of the technology is an indication that businesses are looking for less costly and less complex virtualisation options. [...] VMware announced its vSphere 4.0 offering April 21, and started shipping it May 21. In addition, Citrix officials also announced June 16 the 5.5 release of Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualisation technology for improved management capabilities for businesses using XenServer or Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. [...] Citrix Systems has released version 5.5 of its XenServer virtualisation platform less than a month after VMware shipped vSphere 4.0 - and is allowing free downloads. Meanwhile, it also updated Citrix Essentials for both XenServer and Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualisation technology. [...]
HP: Virtualisation Will Help Fight Recession
[...] HP also is unveiling its Consolidation and Virtualisation ROI services, which help businesses calculate the expected ROI on technology projects. In addition, Multi-Tiered Hybrid Design is a new service that gives enterprises the tools to design new data centers or retrofit existing ones to meet businesses needs while keeping costs down. [...] On the product side, HP is unveiling the StorageWorks EVA (Enterprise Virtual Array) 6400 and 8400, storage virtualisation technology that will help enterprises lower storage administration costs by as much as 50 percent, she said. In addition, the company is upgrading its SAN Virtualisation Services Platform 2. [...] The goal is to help businesses prioritise their IT spending, optimise and automate their data center resources and outline options to best align IT with business needs, said Deborah Nelson, senior vice president of marketing for HP's Technology Solutions Group. [...]
Cisco Pushes Beyond Traditional Roots To Challenge HP, IBM
[...] Other Cisco officials have recently talked about areas into which the company will grow. In a briefing on Monday, Cisco chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior outlined how it will expand its reach in the burgeoning cloud computing realm. Warrior pointed to Cisco's UCS and virtualisation as the key drivers for the new virtualised data centre, and said Cisco will sell the various infrastructure pieces that businesses will need for cloud computing. [...] The company will continue to build on its core networking business, Chambers said, but the global recession is helping to fuel a transition in business into such areas as virtualisation, online collaboration and video, all of which can be made use of to help businesses work better and more efficiently. [...] The company also will offer software as a service (SaaS), as it does already with its WebEx collaboration technology, she said. [...]
Mainframe Maker Points To Energy Savings
[...] At the same time that BMC releases the survey results, it also will unveil its Capacity Trend Advisor, a product designed to help businesses using mainframes&mdash.as well as distributed computing environments and virtualisation technology&mdash.to better plan their computing capacity and avoid overprovisioning. [...] BMC Software officials expect that mainframes will play a significant role for businesses as the economy crawls out from under the worldwide recession. [...] BMC's survey found the application modernization, disaster recovery, server virtualisation and MIPS utilization are the top four priorities of mainframe users. [...]
HP Gets Real About Desktop Virtualisation
[...] The recovery in the global economy, coupled with Microsoft's October release of Windows 7, is creating an environment in which businesses are taking a hard look at new technology, including desktop virtualisation, according to Hewlett-Packard officials. [...] HP also is bringing out new offerings for the data center end of the client virtualization environment, introducing three new client virtualisation architectures that touch on Citrix Systems' XenDesktop 4 platform and XenApp application virtualization technology, and VMware's View 4 client virtualisation offering, Carlat said. [...] Hewlett-Packard is rolling out new hardware, software and services designed to help businesses more easily adopt and implement desktop virtualisation environments. [...]
Virtualisation Reality Still Well Behind Vendor Hype
[...] Businesses aren't using server virtualisation to the extent that many people might think, but use of the technology is going to grow rapidly, according to Gartner analysts. [...] He said businesses large and small should take a cautious approach to virtualisation, starting small. Doing so reduces risks and offers businesses time for a learning curve, as well as giving them a good foundation on which to grow. [...] Businesses also need to plan ahead for the changes&mdash.to both management and processes&mdash.that virtualisation brings. [...]
Start-up Takes On Virtualisation Security
[...] The use of virtualisation technology will only grow as more businesses and IT departments are pressed to reduce costs, he said. [...] HyTrust founder and CEO Eric Chiu said that while virtualisation technology has brought a host of benefits, from cost reduction to greater agility in the data center, it also has brought greater complexity and manageability issues. [...] A key concern is ensuring IT administrators have control over their growing virtualised environments and that those environments are in compliance not only with the policies of the particular businesses, but also with such regulations as the federal Sarbanes Oxley Act and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). [...]
Server Maker Offers “Free” Virtualisation Software
[...] The program is designed to give businesses&mdash.particularly small or midsized enterprises, or larger enterprises' remote sites&mdash.easy access to virtualisation technology on Stratus' fault-tolerant systems, Denny Lane, director of product marketing and management at Stratus, said in an interview. [...] A number of vendors, including VMware and Marathon Technologies, are looking to marry fault-tolerance with their virtualisation technology. VMware officials in September announced that they were going to add to the high-availability tool they already offer with a fault-tolerant feature&mdash. [...] In a campaign called We Feel Your Pain , announced last week, Stratus said it is offering VMware Infrastructure Foundation virtualisation technology&mdash.which includes the VMware ESX hypervisor and one agent license for vCenter virtual infrastructure management&mdash. [...]
Virtualisation Is Real But Cloud Is Hazy - Study
[...] While virtualisation is seen as key to cost cutting for many UK companies, firms are less concerned about cloud technology according to a survey from telecommunications specialist Colt. [...] According to the survey, released this week, unsurprisingly given the current global downturn, companies are keen to cut costs but also transform their businesses. Virtualisation was identified as a key way to achieve the cost savings with 82 percent of companies identifying it as important or very important over the next 12 months. [...] But while companies are impressed with the potential of virtualisation, businesses appear to be taking a more circumspect approach to cloud computing with only 27 percent stating that they were planning to introduce the technology in the near future. [...]
IDC: Virtualisation Software Will Grow 20 Percent
[...] Automation software already is becoming a key focus for many of the top players in the data center. Hewlett-Packard officials, in releasing enhancements to its automation software suite on 8 April, said that along with the benefits of reduced costs and increased agility, virtualisation technology also adds complexity into the data centre mix, which calls for greater automation capabilities. [...] Businesses are growing their use of virtualisation technology in the data centre, moving it out of the test-and-development arena and into production environments. That shift comes at the same time that the recession is forcing IT departments to find ways to maintain or grow their levels of service while having to cut their budgets. [...] In its study, IDC also found that many businesses have yet to integrate virtual and physical resource management processes, or aligned virtual server management practices with ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) management standards. IDC also said that as the virtual server management space matures, it will open up opportunities for new competitors. [...]
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