Cloud Sidekick announced Early Access release of Cato EE
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On May 7 Cloud Sidekick announced the Early Access Program release of Cato Enterprise Edition (EE) which extends the Community Edition (CE) with Storm Deployment Automation and support for High Availability management server configurations.
With these new features Cato further abstracts AWS API providing the ability to write automation workflows for both AWS public cloud service and private clouds based on Eucalyptus.
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Labels: Cloud Sidekick, Eucalyptus Systems
Release: VMware vCenter Infrastructure Navigator (VIN) 1.1
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On April 26 VMware announced the general availability of VMware vCenter Infrastructure Navigator (VIN) 1.1, previously introduced as a part of vCenter Operations Management Suite.
VIN automatically detects, discovers and maps all the applications virtualized on vSphere reporting all the characteristics and dependencies through vSphere Web Client, visual maps and searchable tables.
There is no need to install additional agents because VIN leverages VMware tools.
An interesting features is the ability to map discovered serves and apps into Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Protection Groups highlighting the impact of all the VM dependencies and the risks associated.
In this new release is introduced the ability to name undiscovered application services that are not present in the knowledge base or are custom applications, and now VIN, as a part of the vCenter Operations Management Enterprise & Enterprise + Suites, provides an additional level of application visibility useful in performance and uptime management procedures.
Labels: management, VMware, vSphere
Citrix Synergy 2012, San Francisco – 5/9/2012
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VMware accelerates security updates after ESX source code leak
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On May 3 VMware released a security update, that the company itself define as “accelerated“, with the purpose to patch five “critical” security issues across VMware ESX and ESXi hypervisor version 3.5, 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0 and also two of the client products, VMware Workstation and Player.
As reported in the Security Note, this update is connected to the source code leak announced on April 24.
Albeit VMware didn’t release any detail about the leak so far, ThreatPost, run by Kaspersky Lab, indicates “Hardcore Charlie” as the hacker claiming to have stolen 300 Megabytes of VMware source code from the military contractor China National Import & Export Corp (CEIEC).
Despite VMware quotes the event in the note, doesn’t evidence any link between the discovered vulnerabilities and the stolen code, merely suggesting the update as a normal security procedure.
1. Are these software patches related to source code associated with the April 23rd incident?
VMware has consistently provided software updates and patches to help customers maintain the most reliable and secure environment. In light of the current circumstances, we have accelerated our most recent security patches and applied them to all affected currently supported products.
Labels: Leaks, Security, VMware
VMware certifies vSphere 5 for Open Compute Project
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On May 3 VMware announced it has joined the Facebook Open Compute Project, an initiative launched in 2011, with the objective of increase technology efficiencies and reduce the environmental impact of data centers.
VMware vSphere 5 is now certified to run on open AMD and Intel-based hardware following the project’s specifications enabling Open Compute users to virtualize production workloads and business-critical applications.
VMware is committed to delivering innovative technology that transforms and redefines how businesses function and operate in the cloud era. VMware vSphere® 5 is now certified to run on Open Compute AMD-and Intel-based v2.0 server platforms. With VMware vSphere 5 now expanding to cover a wide range of embedded processors, I/O devices and servers, customers are offered a greater choice in IT solutions.
said Richard A. Brunner, chief platform architect, VMware.
Labels: Open Compute Project, VMware, VMware View
Teradici announced APEX 2800 support for VMware View 5.1 and vSphere
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Teradici, the developer of the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) remote desktop protocol, which is leveraged in software (by VMware view) and provided with Teradici hardware solutions which are OEM’ed by several vendors, announced the compatibility of APEX 2800 server offload card with the latest release of VMware View 5.1, maintaining full compatibility with all current VMware View and VMware vSphere releases.
The Teradici PCoIP server offload card is an hardware add-on available as a standard PCIe expansion card that monitors the graphical demands and dynamically offloads the most active 64 displays on the server.
Labels: Teradici, VMware View
Catbird announced Catbird vSecurity for VMware View 5.1
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Catbird, the company providing security and compliance solutions with a focus on the virtualization market, yesterday announced that Catbird vSecurity, its product that proactively secures the virtual network and guest operating systems by analyzing and responding to network events and attack, and enforcing correct VM configuration, now integrates the support for static and dynamically provisioned virtual desktops.
Catbird amplifies the VMware View native security controls to enable our customers to enforce security and demonstrate compliance easily. Catbird makes it simple for our customers to achieve continuous monitoring and to dynamically protect their critical and sensitive desktop environments.
said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End-User Computing, VMware.
The following functionality will be now provided for VMware View 5.1
- Template driven deployment of virtual desktops.
- Catbird’s TrustZones policy automation, which includes firewall controls, to allow comprehensive security management
- Catbird’s Intra-Zone Isolation for sensitive virtual desktops isolation
- Catbird’s vCompliance to measure virtual desktop events and configurations for compliance with PCI 2.0, HIPAA (NIST SP 800-66), FISMA (NIST SP 800-53), DIA
Desktone announced Desktone 5.0 Platform
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On May 2 Desktone, Inc., a US company founded in 2006 and based in MA, announced Desktone 5.0 Platform, the new release of its DaaS platform for service providers and telecommunication companies.
Desktone 5.0 Platform can deliver three sperate types of hosted virtual desktop to end users:
- Hosted Full-Featured VDI: Delivering end users a full-featured desktop that replicates the exact experience of a physical Windows desktop.
- Hosted Shared Leveraging Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH): An ideal option for users such as task workers that don’t require a full-featured desktop.
- Hosted Personal Windows Server: A comparable Windows experience at a more affordable price, often utilized by small to mid-sized companies.
providing multi-tenancy and granting the compliance with Microsoft licensing terms.
Release 5.0 includes DaaS Automation Engine, an OEM oriented feature that automate provisioning and sizing of full tenant environments enabling service providers to offer free “try and buy” deployments.
Another new feature is the multi-data center management capability, that allows dynamic provisioning of hosted desktop, ensuring the shortest path but maintaining centralized administration.
Gabe Knuth, in his article on brianmadden.com, talks about the new change in strategy of Desktone that focuses again towards service providers instead of businesses.
My initial thought on this is that it’s a good move, although I’m left trying to figure out how this is different from the last time they re-tooled. Desktone clearly does DaaS well, and they’ve been solely focused on developing and delivering their DaaS solution for over five years. It stands to reason that service providers would be interested in OEMing a solution from them rather than trying to build on in-house that supports all the use cases and requirements of the Desktone solution. To develop as flexible a solution as they have from the ground up would take forever and be very costly, so in my mind Desktone is doing the right thing by making the technology available to service providers and taking a cut of the action.
Regarding their current enterprise customers, Desktone will continue to support them on the previous platform, but they won’t receive any of the features of 5.0 and subsequent releases. Desktone does use their DaaS systems to test out certain features before implementing them on the released 5.0 product, though. To be clear, they’re not testing on unwitting clients, they’re just using their in-house architecture to vet new features before turning them loose. Existing customers remain on the 4.x product. Of course, there are now plenty of other service providers using the Desktone platform, so they could switch providers and still get the same functionality as they had, plus the new features.
Convirture has updated its management software to include OpenStack support
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Yesterday Convirture announced the update of its virtualization and cloud management software ConVirt Enterprise Cloud to include support for the latest version of OpenStack (Essex) and the certification for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
The company also announced that CloudStack support will be available in a future update planned for the third quarter of this year.
At the same time, Convirture, released ConVirt 2.1 Open Source (formerly XenMan), ts open source management console for multiple hypervisors, including Xen and KVM.
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Labels: Convirture, OpenStack, Platform Management
VMware announced Horizon App Manager now available for on-premises use
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Today VMware announced that Horizon App Manager 1.5 will be available for on-premises use.
Horizon App Manager is VMware’s single sign on (SSO) portal for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that was released in May 2011 hosted by VMware and sold on a per-user subscription.
Horizon App Manager enables organizations to centrally manage the provisioning, access and usage of public and private SaaS application, supports the main SaaS providers like Box.net, Google, Salesforce and WebEx, allows federated login on apps that supports Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) or Open Authentication (OAuth2) and provides split-key identity storage for legacy web applications.
Later in this quarter, Horizon App Manager 1.5, will be available as a virtual appliance that companies can host in their data centers maximising the control over this authentication provider and service providers can host for their costumer or for their direct use.
Go Que vs The World