Virtualization Strategies for the CIO
VMware releases first update to vSphere 4.1
VMware released its first update to vSphere 4.1 this week for download on its
website. ESXi 4.1 Update 1 can be configured to boot with Intel Trusted Execution
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Technology (TXT),
a boot option that, according to the update release
notes, can protect ESXi in some cases where system binaries are corrupted or have been tampered
with. TXT is currently available on Intel Xeon 5600 series servers.
ESXi 4.1 Update 1 supports up to 160 logical processors, and provides new support for guest operating systems including Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6, RHEL 5.6, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 for VMware, Ubuntu 10.10 and Solaris 10 Update 9. Finally, ESXi 4.1 Update 1 includes the 3ware SCSI 2.26.08.036vm40 and Neterion vxge 2.0.28.21239-p3.0.1.2 drivers. For earlier releases, these drivers are only available as separate downloads. The release also contains a number of bugfixes.
Red Hat and IBM claim virtualization performance crown
Using the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC)’s SPECvirt benchmark, Red Hat
officials said this week, Red Hat’s Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) running on IBM’s x3850 and
x3690 holds the virtualization performance world record.
To date, there have been only six SPECvirt results published, and four are for Red Hat virtualization running on IBM hardware. The other two are for vSphere running on Bull and Hewlett-Packard Co. hardware, respectively.
The SPECvirt metric, according to a Feb 8 post on Red Hat’s virtualization team blog, “is the SPECvirt_sc2010, which is a composite number derived from the performance of the virtualized applications and a Quality of Service (QoS) requirement.” The two most recent world-record results for performance according to this metric were published by IBM in November, according to the post, which adds, “These results are delivered on the largest systems yet published – systems on which no other virtualization vendor can run except Red Hat with our KVM technology, which leverages the power of the Linux kernel.”
HyTrust names VMware veteran new CEO
Virtualization security and access control software maker HyTrust Inc. said this week that it has
appointed John De Santis, formerly VMware’s vice president of cloud services following VMware’s
acquisition of TriCipher, as its chairman and CEO. Prior to that, De Santis served as CEO of
enterprise security software company Sygate Technologies from 2000 until its acquisition by
Symantec in 2005. Founder Eric Chiu remains as president. HyTrust’s federated access control
product is already integrated with VMware’s vCloud Director.
Acronis supports VMware vCloud Director disaster recovery
In an announcement at this week’s VMware’s Partner Exchange, backup and recovery software maker
Acronis says it has been recognized as one of a group of disaster recovery providers for VMware’s
vCloud Director. Acronis’s Backup and Recovery10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition allows backup from
the cloud to physical, virtual or other cloud environments, allows migration of data between mixed
environments (e.g., physical to virtual, virtual to cloud, cloud to physical, etc.), and allows
either the end user or a vCloud service provider to manage data
backups.
HDS ships heterogeneous storage support for VMware’s VAAI
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), the U.S. arm of Hitachi Ltd., announced this week that it has updated
support for VMware’s vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) within its Virtual Storage Platform
storage controller to support extension of the features to third-party arrays. HDS has previously
extended other storage management features, including automated tiered storage and thin
provisioning, to third-party arrays.
Beth Pariseau is a senior news writer for SearchServerVirtualization.com. Write to her at bpariseau@techtarget.com.
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