Virtualization News

Sun has released VirtualBox 3.0, a major update introducing Symmetrical Multiprocessing (SMP) in virtual machines as well as much improved 3D support.

VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization solution, developed by Sun Microsystems (it was originally created by German software company Innotek). When it is installed on an existing host operating system (known as the host) additional guest operating systems can be loaded and run, each with its own virtual environment.

VirtualBox the only professional x86 virtualization solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.

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Sun has released the firs beta of VirtualBox 3.0. This release is only a beta and is not be used on production machines. VirtualBox beta releases should be considered a bleeding-edge release meant for early evaluation and testing purposes.

Version 3.0 will be a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Guest SMP with up to 32 virtual CPUs (VT-x and AMD-V only)
  
• Windows guests: ability to use Direct3D 8/9 applications / games (experimental)
  
• Support for OpenGL 2.0 for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests
  

You can download the binaries here:

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0_BETA1/

One of the most important modern innovations of Linux® is its transformation into a hypervisor (or, an operating system for other operating systems). A number of hypervisor solutions have appeared that use Linux as the core. This article explores the ideas behind the hypervisor and two particular hypervisors that use Linux as the platform (KVM and Lguest).

Read more here: Anatomy of a Linux hypervisor

The Japanese software project Karesansui has released the first version of its open source software. The Web console allows management of virtual systems under Xen.

Karesansui provides creation of virtual guests and starting, suspending and shutting down the VM. It also takes snapshots and assigns CPU and RAM resources.

A tutorial with screenshots describes the installation, configuration and use of Karesansui. The project recommends using the free Enterprise Linux CentOS 5.3 or later as the host platform.

Read more here: Karesansui 1.0: Web-Based Management for Xen Guests - Linux Magazine Online

Version 2.2.4 of Sun Microsystem’s open source desktop virtualisation application VirtualBox has been released. VirtualBox 2.2.4 is a maintenance and bug fix release.

The release has a plethora of fixes for all platforms including Windows, Linux and OS X. For those using Windows 7 guests this release includes a fix for incorrect 8-bit guest color depth.

The binaries and the user manual can be downloaded here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

VMware is buying a 5 percent stake in Terremark, a close partner that provides collocation and managed infrastructure services using VMware’s virtualization software, Terremark said on Tuesday.

“VMware and Terremark have worked together for years, with VMware’s software being a key component of our suite of virtualized offerings,” said Manuel Medina, Terremark’s chairman and CEO, in a conference call Tuesday.
“We look forward to continuing our long relationship with VMware as we develop reliable and scalable virtualization solutions for enterprise and federal customers,” he said.

Terremark rents data-center capacity to third-party organizations. Customers can manage their own hardware at its facilities or sign up for managed hosting services using Terremark’s equipment. Terremark uses VMware’s virtualization software to run those managed services.

Read more here: VMware to Buy $20 Million Stake in Terremark - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Have you ever wondered why Microsoft cares so much about server virtualization? After all, it’s only a software representation of a physical machine.

Microsoft has been very content over the last nearly 30 years letting the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM build physical servers with nary a care. When VMware introduced commodity server virtualization back in 1999, Microsoft hardly batted an eye. So what’s happened to make Microsoft not only care, but care enough to invest millions of dollars into their own server virtualization solution?

It’s all about control.

Read more here: Virtualization: Why Microsoft cares - SearchServerVirtualization Blog

This book is about the virtualization solution Xen. Xen is a feature rich, open source, hypervisor-based virtualization solution which, in spite of its relatively recent origins, has gained both wide acceptance and an enviable reputation throughout the IT industry.

The objective of this book is to provide the reader with an understanding of the basic approaches to virtualization together with detailed information on deploying virtualization using Xen technology. Whilst many books tend to focus on the theory of virtualization, this book emphasizes the practical aspects of working with Xen, including detailed step by step tutorials designed to show exactly how to create, deploy and manage Xen based guest domains.

Read more here: Xen Virtualization Essentials (Kindle Edition) : VMblog.com - Virtualization Technology News and Information for Everyone

Replify, the company that pioneered the all-software based approach to application acceleration, has achieved recognition as a Microsoft virtualization solutions partner. Microsoft’s extensive partner ecosystem of independent software, hardware and storage vendors delivers robust, complete solutions for the virtualized infrastructure.

Replify’s Reptor Accelerator suite is a software-only solution for WAN optimization and application acceleration. The product works seamlessly with the Microsoft Hyper-V - and other popular virtualized server platforms. It is ideal for accelerating Microsoft applications that run over WANs such as Sharepoint, CIFS and HTTPS applications. For businesses that are moving to a virtualized application model, Replify is the ideal solution for reducing data load on the wide area network – and improving user experience of centralized business critical applications. Traffic across the WAN is reduced massively, giving mobile workers huge benefits with much faster downloads and much improved user experience.

Read more here: Replify recognised as a Microsoft virtualization solutions partner. | Top 10 Dedicated Server Hosting Reviews, News and Articles

Dr. Bob Sutor, VP of Open Source and Linux from IBM, gave a presentation at Cloud Expo Europe and it is now available online.

As with most presentations, the slides are meant to drive the discussion and not be 100% expositionally complete. In particular, his thesis in this talk is that virtualization is essential for clouds and Linux is an absolutely fine way of providing virtualization.

Read more here: Linux, Virtualization, and Clouds | Blog | Bob Sutor