Virtually Speaking

November 5th, 2009

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 3:00 am

Categories: Virtual machine software, Virtualization

Tags: Hypervisor, Red Hat Inc., Server, Virtualization, Open Source, Cloud Computing, Storage Management, Utility Computing, Hardware, Storage

Red Hat launched Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers on November 3rd. Although KVM isn’t currently in a leading position in the market, it offers a number of features, including performance, that many find attractive.

What Red Hat had to say about its new products

In September 2009, Red Hat delivered the foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, which offers next-generation Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization technology.

Today (November 3rd), Red Hat delivers the next phase of the portfolio with the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers, which includes the following components:

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November 4th, 2009

Cisco, EMC and VMware Announce Alliance

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 2:00 am

Categories: Cloud computing/SAAS/ISP Issues, Virtual machine software, Virtual processing software, Virtualization

Tags: Alliance, Environment, Industry Standard, VMware Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., EMC Corp., Intel Corp., Vblock Infrastructure Packages, Acadia, Virtualization

Cisco, EMC and VMware announced an alliance/coalition/joint venture with the hopes of pushing forward the use of virtualized environments in general and cloud computing in specific. If nothing else, this move is likely to recast partnerships and alliances throughout the IT industry. It is a bold move that changes the environment in a major way. This move is not without risk for these partners. Now that they’re offering complete system solutions, it may be more difficult for them individually or as a group to play well with others.

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November 3rd, 2009

Cloud computing making new alliances

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 3:00 am

Categories: Cloud computing/SAAS/ISP Issues, Virtualization

Tags: Software, Alliance, Environment, Supplier, Channel Management, Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Storage Management, Utility Computing, Marketing

The concept of cloud computing; where dynamically scalable, reliable, manageable IT resources are made available over the network as a service, has a strong possibility of making vast changes in the competitive environment. We’ve already seen alliances between suppliers of hardware, software or services and suppliers of hosting or managed services.

We’re also seeing virtualization technology allowing a suppliers to take a fresh look at how computers are organized and then begin offering products based upon a different combination of features.

Aren’t we also seeing suppliers attempting to re-implement a mainframe environment in software?

I’m reminded of a colleague’s “buzz word generator.” He developed three word lists on a piece of paper and asked me to select one word from each column. The results, he would point out, would be as good as any industry buzz word or catch phrase.  He was suggesting that I use this technique to develop my own catch phrases.

What we’re beginning to see now is something quite similar - suppliers are getting together to mix and match technologies.

What combinations do you think are viable? Let’s see a blade computer combined with virtual machine software, management software for virtualized environments, storage virtualization technology and a really nice cappuccino machine. We could call it Java virtualization. Wait, I think that one is already taken.

November 2nd, 2009

Oracle's Virtualization Story

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 3:00 am

Categories: Application virtualization, Clustering software, Managing virtualized environments, Marketing, Security in virtualized environments, Virtual machine software, Virtual processing software, Virtual storage, Virtualization

Tags: Oracle Corp., Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Storage Management, Server Virtualization, Utility Computing, Tools & Techniques, Hardware, Storage, Servers

Oracle has been part of the virtualization software market for quite some time. I’ve been following their efforts since they developed technology to support Digital Equipment Corporation’s VAXcluster technology. Their Real Application Cluster (RAC) has been a good example of processing virtualization and their Oracle Cluster File System is an example of storage virtualization. Oracle’s Adam Hawley, Direct of Product Management for Oracle VM, brought me up to date on Oracle’s efforts in the areas of virtual machine software (Oracle VM), their implementation of the XEN virtual machine software project. My quick take is that Oracle’s offerings in the area of virtualization technology will be well received by Oracle’s installed base.

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October 30th, 2009

Eco-IT

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 5:03 am

Categories: Consumer use of Virtualization

Tags: Information Technology, Power Consumption, Organization, Strategy, Virtualization, Management, Hardware, Dan Kusnetzky

I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to listen to the dry runs of analyst presentations for the upcoming 451 Group customer conference. I’ve learned something of interest in each of the sessions. Andy Lawrence, Research Director of the ECO-IT practice, helped me to become more aware of the role power and carbon emissions are likely to have on IT in the coming years.

It’s as if IT is seeing the beginnings of a perfect storm that will be felt by every major user of IT. Although this isn’t a comprehensive list, the following are each pushing organizations to reconsider their current strategies.

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October 29th, 2009

Preparing for the 451 Group Customer Conference

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 3:30 am

Categories: Off topic

Tags: Presentation, Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Dan Kusnetzky

The 451 Group is presenting its customer conference in Boston next week and I’ve been reading presentations and taking part in dry runs this week. I’ve also been editing my own presentation for the event. The content I’ve seen tells me that the event will be interesting and thought provoking. It is also rather time consuming to attend all of the dry runs and work to enhance analyst presentations.

I did have the opportunity to speak with the folks from Akorri as I mentioned in the post, Examining datacenter operations with Akorri BalancePoint. As I expected, the presentation was interesting. I was impressed by the depth of information this product makes available. I’ve asked to speak with one of their customers and will present a customer profile afterward.

October 28th, 2009

Revisiting the topic of Office versus OpenOffice.Org

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 4:20 am

Categories: Linux, Mac OS, Off topic, Windows

Tags: Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, OpenOffice, Office Suites, Software, Dan Kusnetzky

In my post, Goodbye, OpenOffice.Org. I’m going back to MS Office, I commented on the interoperability issues I had experienced that can be attributed to my choice to use OpenOffice.org on my production systems. Although OpenOffice and its cousin NeoOffice worked well, I kept learning of formatting problems seen by recipients of documents and presentations.  These problems, of course, never showed up on my system when I looked at those same documents and presentations.

When those little “irregularities” became the topic of discussion of my company’s Senior Team meeting, I knew that the tool had become a liability and I went out that day and purchased Office 2008 for Mac. I’ve not, by the way, heard a single complaint from my colleagues since that change over. I’ve been able to easily read documents and presentations sent by 451 Group subscribers or suppliers of IT hardware, software and services.

I haven’t, by the way, totally abandoned OpenOffice.Org or its cousin NeoOffice. They’re still useful when I’m exchanging documents with folks using those products.

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October 27th, 2009

Examining datacenter operations with Akorri BalancePoint

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 3:00 am

Categories: Managing virtualized environments, Virtualization

Tags: Data Center, Performance, Akorri BalancePoint, Akorri Technology, Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Dan Kusnetzky

Akorri and I have been trying chat and one thing or another has made that impossible.  They’ve sent me a presentation deck in advance of our meeting and so, I’ll present a few highlights here prior to our call.  I’ll follow up on them later.

Here’s how Akorri describes their product

Akorri™ BalancePoint® virtual infrastructure management is the only performance and capacity management software providing analysis across IT virtualization layers and technology silos for both virtual and physical, server and storage infrastructure.  BalancePoint helps companies troubleshoot problems within minutes, optimize utilization, and improve performance in the dynamic data center.

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October 26th, 2009

Saying goodbye to Zimbra

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 3:00 am

Categories: Linux, Mac OS, Mobile computing, Off topic, Windows

Tags: Zimbra, Linux, Apple Mac OS, E-mail, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows, Smart Phones, Software, Online Communications

My organization just completed a move from Zimbra to a hosted version of Exchange. Our overworked, underpaid IT wizards, with the help of the good folks at Rackspace Hosting, were able to complete the move over the weekend and, so far, I’ve not had a single problem.  I’ve been able to access Email from Windows XP, Mac OS, Linux and even from my iPhone.

I’m hoping that when a person misses a meeting that the reason was a surprise customer meeting rather than “Zimbra ate the meeting entry.” I’m also hoping that when one of my colleagues doesn’t respond to a message quickly it is because he/she is really busy not because “Zimbra didn’t deliver the message.”

While no piece of software is perfect, the combination of product feature issues, product quality issues and support issues meant that Zimbra brought me no joy. I’m happy to say “goodbye Zimbra.”

October 22nd, 2009

Carry on blues and the blame game

Posted by Dan Kusnetzky @ 4:00 am

Categories: Off topic, Travel issues

Tags: Game, Luggage, Corporate Governance, Aerospace & Defense, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Manufacturing, Dan Kusnetzky

While returning home from the Site Network Uptime event that was held in Atlanta, I had the opportunity to watch something the travel media has been commenting on for some time. Now that a number of airlines are charging a fee for even the first bag that is checked, travelers are bringing more and more luggage onto the aircraft. This has created slow boarding processes and a great deal of stress.

While boarding my flight, I saw every overhead compartment fill up roughly a third of the way into the boarding process. Frequent fliers, being allowed to board first, saw their luggage safely stored and the occasional traveler and traveling families were left “holding the bag” so to speak.

When a person can’t find a place for his/her roll-aboard bag, there really is no easy way for that person to return to the front of the line to check their luggage. The aisle is packed full of other travelers trying to find their seat and store their own luggage.  So, traffic bunches up in the aisle and cabin crew has to intervene to set things right.

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