I worked several hours at the VMware booth and the Genius Bar at VMworld Europe the whole time staring at this huge cell phone showing off the new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). The VMware team was on hand showing off the new software at the show. Below is a demo. This technology will have a huge impact on client virtualization and go a long way towards anywhere, anytime, anything (AAA) access. Enjoy the video!
I just updated my blog with Odiogo – a new service that transcodes all of my blog posts into audio feeds. So, if you don’t have time to read me on-line then you can subscribe to my audio feed in the right hand column and listen to me on the go. I’m sure I’ll entertain you on your way to work.
Disclaimer: Not responsible for being so boring and dry that you fall asleep at the wheel and drive off the road.
IBM and Amazon Web Services have partnered to allow developers to use Amazon EC2 to build and run a range of IBM platform technologies, the companies announced today. The new ‘pay-as-you-go’ model provides development and production instances of IBM DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Web Content Management and Novell’s SUSE Linux operating system on EC2.
Developers can use their existing IBM licenses on Amazon EC2 or use new Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that IBM is making available at no charge for development and test purposes, enabling software developers to quickly build applications based on IBM software within Amazon EC2. In coming months, Amazon will introduce production AMIs running IBM services, enabling users to purchase these services by the hour.
(Via Data Center Knowledge.)
My comments.
Managed hosting specialist Savvis, Inc.(SVVS) today unveiled Savvis Cloud Compute, a new service that moves its utility computing service into the cloud, providing enterprise customers more flexibility in how they provision, manage and pay for services running in Savvis data centers.
Central to the new offering is an improved customer portal that gives users more control in provisioning virtual compute and storage capabilities, and the ability to purchase fractional compute resources on demand by the instance with flexible month-to-month business terms.
(Via Data Center Knowledge.)
This is one of the many VMware Powered Service Providers that will make the move to offer cloud based services. I think key to this new offering is the flexibility in how many cycles you actually use and how you get billed for it. Prior to this move Savvis used a more traditional hosted offering of paying for a server (virtual or physical) whether you were actually using those resources or not. This new move will open the offering to customers that perhaps are smaller or to customers that want more utility like services.
It will be interesting to watch the announcements from other Service Providers entering this space and how they go about differentiating from the others in the industry. Perhaps we’ll start to see providers focusing on offering “certified” cloud offerings for hosting HIPAA or PCI regulated content. That’s my guess for what’s next.
You know, a lot of people really get confused on cloud vs grid. The two are closely related. I always think about it in the terms of virtualization vs grid (since I work for VMware). Grid is great if you have an app that needs a lot of combined compute cycles. Virtualization is great if you have a lot of apps that need a little compute cycles each.
Now enter cloud. Cloud really encompasses both of these. The point of cloud is you don’t have to care if you have a grid infrastructure underneath or a virtualization infrastruture underneath. All you do is deploy your app to the cloud and let the cloud figure out how to get the app the resources it needs.
That’s why cloud is the over arching architecture for virtualization or grid or SaaS or PaaS or anything else. All of these can play in the cloud together at the same time. You build your cloud with these blocks as you see fit and based on what you want your cloud to do. Simple as that.
Originally posted as a comment by Mike DiPetrillo on CohesiveFT Elastic Server blog using Disqus.
A couple of weeks ago I posted about SQL Server running in a VM and how disk writes were assured to happen in contradiction to a poorly written article on SQL Solutions. After working with VMware Engineering there’s now a KB article that talks about how and when I/O writes happen with different VMware products. Below is the full text of the KB article. You can also find the source here.
The Citrix Systems-XenSource acquisition has brought disappointment and frustration to some Citrix partners, who said the vendor isn’t being aggressive enough with its server virtualization strategy.
- Via Search Systems Channel
Somehow I told you so just doesn’t cut it. This is the first time I’ve seen some good public documentation backing up my confusion around what the heck is going on with the Citrix acquisition of XenSource. They certainly aren’t making money on this deal. Why they’re not being aggressive with the technology is anyone’s guess.
Today starts what will surely be a wrath of postings about VMworld Europe. For those familiar with VMTN or people that just want to hear a group of really smart people speak don’t miss this event. Duncan over at Yellow Bricks posted the official details of the VMTN Meeting the Experts event.
Okay, the dates and time have been set for the Meet the VMTN Experts session. We are still looking for an official name for the session but just write down these dates and times and be sure to be there:
Tuesday 24th – 13.00 – 14.00
Wednesday 25th – 13.00 – 14.00
Location: Community Lounge on the solution exchange
Who will be there:
Jason Boche – Boche.net + VMTN Moderator
Thomas Bryant – VMTN Moderator
Steve Beaver – thevirtualblackhole.com + VMTN Moderator
Eric Sloof – NTPro.nl + VMTN/VMUG Contributor
Scott Herold – VMGuru.com + VMTN Contributor and author of VMware ESX Server: Advanced Technical Design Guide
Wil van Antwerpen – vi-toolkit.com + VMTN Contributor
Gabrie van Zanten – gabesvirtualworld.com + VMTN Contributor
Alan Renouf – teckinfo.blogspot.com + VMTN Contributor
Tom Howarth – PlanetVM.net + VMTN Moderator
Duncan Epping – Yellow-Bricks.com + VMTN Moderator
CAUTION! This one is a bit of a rant.
As a lot of people may or may not know I really hate anonymous comments. I do allow them on this blog as do most other blogs but about every month I revisit that decision. On the one hand I don’t want to have to make people register in order to get their opinion posted. On the other hand I really find anonymous comments cowardice. I mean if you really feel strongly about your point then why not just put your name there with it? I always make a point of putting my full, real name on every one of my comments. If that means registering then I take the extra time to do that.
As many of you know I just can’t keep my hands out of the different API sets that VMware offers. From Powershell to VIX to Java it’s all there. The product set is incredibly extensible. I was getting back up to speed on our Java API and found out that the new API set was just released as beta. For those of you in love with Java you’ll be happy to know you don’t need AXIS anymore (it was a royal pain to setup). For more information on the beta or to try it out for yourself just continue reading below or go here.
Starting January 1 this year I moved over to focus on cloud computing and datacenter of the future activities on a global basis here at VMware. There’s a ton of activities going on in the IT world around cloud computing so it’s been a steep ramp to climb in order to get my head around what everyone is doing. I’ll be writing a lot more about cloud, what VMware is doing, and what standards the industry at large is working on in the future.
It does look like I hitched my wagon to a winning horse though. Just this week VMware was awarded 2 out of the 5 awards given out at the Cloud Computing Conference and Expo. The categories were: Best Overall Cloud Product, Best Cloud Platform, Best Cloud Storage Solution, Best Cloud Management Solution, and Best Cloud Application. VMware took home the award for Best Overall Cloud Product and Best Cloud Platform. This was voted on by attendees of the conference which shows that VMware is leading the charge in cloud computing.
Come join VMware in beautiful Cannes, France for their second European User Conference. This promises to be a great event so don’t miss it. You can go and register for the event here.
I got my approval to attend the event. Not sure where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing just yet. I’ll make sure to post an entry with my full schedule as it flushes out. I know I’ll be at the Genius Bar some and probably the cloud computing pavilion and maybe a lab or two.
If you want to meet up at the event then shoot me an email to mikedatl at mac dot com.
Just this morning, VMware announced that it will be opening the source code for the VMware View Client to anyone that wants it. The move is targeted to allow partners to more easily share advances in hosted desktop clients based on the most pervasive hosted desktop system out there – VMware View. The client is licensed under LGPL v 2.1. Some details from the press release:
VMware View Open Client is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1) and is accessible from http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/. Some of the features included in this release support secure tunneling using SSL, two factor authentication with RSA SecurID, Novell SLETC Add-On RPM package and a full command line interface. Support for the source code distribution is available through the VMware View Open Client community at: http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/.
This is an incredible leadership move by VMware to give a kickstart to the true universal client. Just judging by the numerous joint quotes from partners in the press release everyone is really excited about this. Now partners can freely develop on and embed the client into all sorts of devices from cell phones to set top boxes to PCs and laptops. It will be interesting to see how much development takes off in this exciting space. But enough about my excitement. What do you think?
UPDATE (February 3, 2009): I updated the links to the code. It appears it got moved and the press release was wrong. Should work now.
I try and write something new 1-2 times per week. I'll update more when I'm in the office and possibly less when I'm out and traveling. If there's something you'd really like me to hear my thoughts on then just email me.
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