Here's one initial
review of Hyper-V, courtesy of one of my favorite all-time bloggers, the irreplacable Mary Jo Foley. It's generally positive in nature. Here's the reviewer's summary:
"Overall, and for what is currently a beta of a 1.0 release, I think Microsoft did a great job with the Hyper-V manager -- console access to the VMs is nice and fast and VM performance is excellent, and the provisioning and setup process is wizard-based and straightforward. I'd currently say that from a polish and maturity standpoint, its management capabilities are definitely better than what is in Citrix XenServer 4.x, and way ahead of what currently exists in Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server."
Some of the negatives:
"Hyper-V falls somewhat short when compared to the cluster management, automated VM migration/load balancing ("VMotion") and HA capabilities built into ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter 3...you can only run the Hyper-V manager on another Windows 2008 Server machine, In other words, if you want to remotely manage a Hyper-V box, even a stripped-down "Core Install" Hyper-V machine, you will need a Windows 2008 box with the full blown Windows 2008 stack installed...The installation process is a bit kludgy and not well scripted like VMWare's tools currently are."
Despite its shortcomings (which are inevitable with a 1.0 product), the reviewer thinks it sends a clear message to VMware.
"Even though Hyper-V is still pre-1.0 code, I think Microsoft has done a bang-up job with its hypervisor...While VMWare's ESX is still superior on a number of fronts, including its aforementioned VMotion technology and its more powerful cluster management tools, Microsoft has certainly sent a major warning shot across its bow and the bows of the respective Linux vendors, as well."
His conclusion? "Hyper-V may be Server 2008's "killer app" that the analysts have been looking for all this time."
We'll have our own review of Hyper-V in our launch issue of the magazine, coming at the end of March. It's written by Chris Wolf, perhaps the most-qualified person on the planet to do this. Chris, a Burton Group analyst, is a columnist for the magazine. He's been following virtualization since the early days, and co-authored one of the seminal virtualization books. He knows the market inside and out, and has been playing with Hyper-V for months now. It's a fantastic review, and you won't want to miss it.
Go here to sign up for a free subscription.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/15/2008 at 12:48 PM5 comments
Sun has made its first real foray into PC virtualization space with the
acquisition of innotek and its flagship product, VirtualBox. (Note that I said "PC virtualization", not "desktop virtualization". They're very different. PC virtualization, for me, is when one desktop OS is hosted inside another OS, the way Parallels, for instance, creates a VM inside a Mac in which you can run Windows. It's a "Type 2" hypervisor, i.e. one that requires a host OS. Desktop virtualization is the delivery of a user's desktop and apps remotely, from a server. Think Citrix.)
VirtualBox is a free, open source hypervisor. I haven't used it, but Sun said in a press release that it's been downloaded more than four million times since January 2007, meaning that there's a lot of curiosity about it.
My first reaction to the acquisition was that Sun was playing "me too." As in, "All the other major virtualization players are getting into PC virtualization, so we need to get into it, too." That kind of impulse buying without a plan rarely works.
But wisely not trusting my instincts, I called up Dan Kusnetzky of Kusnetzky Group. Dan, along with being brilliant and having a taste for Broadway show tunes, is also a real out-of-the-box thinker. He said he thought the same thing initially. "My first thought was I didn't understand why they did this. [Maybe] they were getting so enthusiastic about virtualization technology that they wanted to purchase one of each [type]."
As he examined it further, however, his mind started to change. Maybe, his reasoning went, Sun was waking up and smelling the coffee -- or the Java, to be more exact. It could be the perfect vehicle for various Sun apps to run anywhere, inside a VM, after writing once. Sound familiar? "Having this tool opens up a whole world of opportunities for Sun that wasn't available" before, Kusnetzky said. "I could kind of see that this was the same thinking that led to Java."
When he blogged about this this morning, here's what he said: "If the company was going to make it possible for everyone to come to the Sun party, they needed something that could work just about anywhere. Acquiring this technology would be far easier than developing their own entry into this branch of the virtual machine software market."
Dan says that he doesn't have any inside information on this; it's just his supposition. But it does make more sense than "Hey, we need a PC virtualization solution since VMware, Microsoft, Parallels and everyone else does!" And it seems to go beyond being a software development tool for Solaris (which Sun made great pains to point out in its press release announcing the innotek purchase). Sun has devoted a ton of resources to their virtualization efforts, and it's coming out with some very sophisticated products, including its Xen-based xVM bare-metal hypervisor and xVM Ops Center management software. In fact, Sun is one of the few companies that comes at virtualization from both the hardware and software end of things. It seems unlikely (although certainly possible) to be a panic move for a company that has taken slow, deliberate steps into the virtualization market.
In the meantime, if you've used VirtualBox, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think of it.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/13/2008 at 12:48 PM1 comments
Wow. Microsoft won't let Yahoo go
without a fight. Gotta say, I'm not a big fan of hostile takeovers. If Yahoo wants to continue to underperform, lay people off, and generally stumble around the Internet yard like it's wearing a blindfold, Microsoft should let 'em.
Another question: I'm not very sophisticated about high-falutin' financial stuff, but I was a little surprised to hear that Yahoo thinks Microsoft's $44 billion offer "undervalued" the company. How is it undervaluing a company when you offer to buy it for about 62 percent more than its market value? And I'm not even asking that sarcastically (for a change). I guess I just don't understand. If you have some insight that I don't (which shouldn't be too hard), feel free to share.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/12/2008 at 12:48 PM2 comments
Interesting
study on virtualization usage by companies, reported on by the inimitable Becky Nagel.
Becky writes, "74 percent of those surveyed (88 percent in the U.S.) ranked servers as the most important area for virtualization, followed by storage (60 percent worldwide/63 percent U.S.), applications (49 percent worldwide/54 percent U.S.) and the entire enterprise/data center (43 percent for both)."
This, of course, isn't surprising, but it is nice to see some hard data confirming that server virtualization continues to be the point of entry for most into the virtualization arena. Storage virtualization isn't that far behind, though, as IT admins and managers realize that server virtualization works hand-in-hand with storage virtualization. You can have one without the other, but like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, they're much better together.
Another reason server virtualization remains at the top is that it has the easiest ROI story: calculate how much a new physical server costs, find out how many fewer you'll need through virtualization, and multiply. Infrastructure, manpower, and other savings through virtualization are harder to quantify (but getting easier.)
The results, overall, show an encouraging trend in sophistication among the IT crowd. They're starting to understand that there's much more to virtualization than just server consolidation.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/12/2008 at 12:48 PM1 comments
Citrix XenServer 4.1, the first upgrade to its Xen-based hypervisor since Citrix bought the open source company last year, is scheduled for
release next month.
The Citrix press release claims that more than 50 enhancements have been made in the upgrade from 4.0 to 4.1. Among the changes Citrix touts most highly are improvements for XenApp, its application virtualization product, and integration with NetApp's Data ONTAP storage devices. In addition, XenServer 4.1 will support 64-bit Linux guests. Most other changes appear to be plumbing related, including NIC bonding and 10Gb/s networking capabilities.
Citrix also announced the availability of XenServer Platinum Edition, expected sometime in Q2. The company gave few details of Platinum's advantages, other than vague promises about "powerful new capabilities that dynamically provision both virtual and physical servers." It appears that it will be the most enterprise-ready of the XenServer line, and will come with the heftiest price tag: for a standard 2 CPU socket system, Platinum Edition starts at $5,000; the Enterprise Edition starts at $3,000, and $900 for Standard Edition. Annual license deals can shave some of that price, and the Express Edition continues to be free.
This is a very important release for Citrix, much more important than your standard point upgrade. It's Citrix' first release of XenServer since the XenSource acquisition; and it's no longer free. The Xen hypervisor is still free, and can be downloaded from the Xen site, which is now owned by Citrix. Despite that, Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, in a recent interview with yours truly and some other editors from 1105 Media, took pains to emphasize that Xen is still independent, and run by the open source community rather than Citrix. Here's a quote from Templeton from that interview, when asked whether complaints about the buyout of XenSource being a betrayal of open source ideals are legitimate:
"No, I think it's not. All complaints are legitimate, but it's a question of what the facts are. The facts here really straightforward. Everything that was free before the acquisition, specifically the Xen open source hypervisor, and now what we have rebranded as the Xen Server Express, they are still free. And by the way, they are better than they were before. So, they're still free and they're better. Anyone who had some angst around the open source project and the notion of quality and, you know, being free, should just go back to the Web site and download either on the open source project Web site the hypervisor there and what's free from the open source community."
A full transcript of Templeton's fascinating interview will be available on the Web site here when the story appears, and a truncated version will be in our first print issue, expected near the end of March.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/11/2008 at 12:48 PM2 comments
One of my goals with this Website is to become a one-stop shop for virtualization information. To that end, I check a multitude of sites for information, press releases, etc. But I'd like your help as well. If you're a vendor and have a new product coming up, please contact me. If you're a reader and are experiencing a problem with a virtualization product (say, for instance, your testing of Hyper-V is uncovering some weirdness), let me know. If you're hearing rumors about a buyout, pass them along; I'll try to verify. If you have a question you need answered, I'll try to get an answer if I don't know it myself. Basically, I want you to partner with me on this project.
Your anonymity is guaranteed. I will never publish the name of a source unless given specific permission -- what that means is that you don't have to tell me, "Keep my name out of this!", to remain nameless. You must say "I give you permission to use my name with this," or some variation thereof, to have your name used.
I want a dialogue with you, not a one-way conversation with me making pronouncements from a mountaintop. This can be a great site, but to get there, I absolutely need you to help me. Let's get going, shall we?
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/11/2008 at 12:48 PM2 comments
I was born in Washington D.C. and my dad used to be a Redskins' season-ticket holder, in the pre-Lombardi days when they were a joke year after year. So that might give you an idea of what football team I follow.
Anyway, the Skins finally ended their endless search for a head coach to take over the reigns from Joe Gibbs. And in typical (owner) Dan Snyder style, they did the strangest thing possible and promoted their just-hired offensive coordinator, Jim Zorn, to head coach. They interviewed everyone except me for the job, and I half expected a call from head honcho (and extremely scary-looking guy; seriously, would you want him babysitting your kids?) Vinny Cerrato asking me if I was available.
Jim Zorn? He's never been a head coach at any level. He was a good QB for the Seahawks for a long time, and is a highly-regarded assistant. But he's never even been a coordinator in the NFL. Head coach? Wow.
I will say I'd prefer Zorn to Jim Fassell, who was the leading candidate for weeks. I just can't fathom the thought of an ex-Giants coach leading my beloved, dysfunctional Redskins. But I would've liked former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams or, even better, ex-Hog and well-thought-of assistant Russ Grimm in that slot. I assume it has a lot to do with Zorn's ability to develop quarterbacks; the Skins have a very promising young guy named Jason Campbell as their future, and he does need some coaching-up. But will he be able to put in the time necessary to do the job right, with all the other duties a HC has? We'll see.
Oh, and Snyder, if you're reading this ("as if", as Wayne would say), sell the team. Now. You're an embarrassment to Skins fans everywhere.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/09/2008 at 12:48 PM4 comments
Warning: Jazz content! I've gotta give props to my friend
Eric Byrd. Eric is a composer and pianist who specializes in Jazz. His fourth album was just released, and it's called
Brother Ray. It's a tribute album to Ray Charles, one of Eric's primary musical influences. The album focuses on Charles' jazz stuff, and it's fantastic. I bought it earlier this week at one of his gigs (he plays a lot in Westminster, MD, where he and I both live.) It swings like crazy!
Eric's a terrific musician, and has played at Blues Alley in Washington D.C., the premiere Jazz club in the region. He's toured internationally, and regularly plays at Jazz festivals on the East Coast. He's really started to build something with his talented trio, and deserves much wider recognition than he currently has. I think his latest album could catapult him there. It's got a lot more horns than his previous albums, and is lushly produced.
I especially love his drummer, Al Young. As a 'weekend hacker'-type drummer myself, I pay special attention to the drums. Al is incredible, almost intimidatingly good; if I could ever get to be half the drummer he is, I would consider it a monumental achievement (not that I ever expect to reach that level).
Eric, Al and Bhagwan Khalsa, who plays a superb acoustic bass, have been playing together for a long time, and it shows. If you're ever in the D.C.-Baltimore area and can hear them live, do yourself a favor and get to a gig. They love playing together, and it shows.
His earlier albums are also terrific, and worth checking out. Most of his stuff is also available via iTunes.
And in case you're wondering, I don't get a cent if you buy a song or album. I just love Jazz and want to turn as many people on to it as possible. Check out Brother Ray; you won't regret it.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/09/2008 at 12:48 PM6 comments
Linus Torvalds doesn't think virtualization is a transformational technology. I'm a big Torvalds fan in general, but in this case, the founder of the Linux OS is simply dead wrong. Here's what he said in an
interview with the Linux Foundation:
"Jim Zemlin: Virtualization. Game-changer? Not that big of a deal?
Linus Torvalds: Not that big of a deal.
Jim Zemlin: Why do you say that?
Linus Torvalds: It's been around for probably 50 years. I forget when IBM started offering virtualization on their big hardware. Maybe not 50 years, but it's been all around for decades and it's very interesting in niche markets - I think the people who expected to change things radically are just fooling themselves.
I'd say that the real change comes from new uses, completely new uses of computers and that might just happen because computers get pushed down and become cheaper and that might change the whole picture of operating systems.
But also, I'd actually expect that new form factor is in new input and output devices. If we actually end up getting projection displays on cell phones, that might actually change how people start thinking of hardware and that, in turn, might change how we interact and how we use operating systems. But virtualization will not be it."
I don't know if he's just ignorant of the virtualization market, but his comments couldn't be further off the mark. It's my strong belief that virtualization will change everything, and soon. We're breaking away from the old way of thinking about software and hardware, and that they have to be married in a certain way. I've talked to admins whose entire thought processes changed once his environment moved to VMware ESX Server (in fact, I wrote a case study story about one for an early issue of the forthcoming magazine.) And I'll be working on a video story for this website for later this month about how a device from NComputing can allow multiple users (in this case, Baltimore schoolchildren) to share the resources of one ordinary desktop computer.
That kind of innovation is starting to take hold in the industry. It's incredibly exciting, and Torvalds doesn't see it. Ironic that a visionary as highly regarded as he (with good reason) is so narrow when it comes to virtualization.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/08/2008 at 12:48 PM2 comments
VKernel just got $4.6 million in funding. The money will go toward advancing product development, increasing sales and expanding market awareness, according to a press release announcing the cash influx. Sounds like a good use to me.
VKernel makes two products: a capacity analyzer, so you can tell how many VMs you can add to a pool of resources, and be alerted to processing bottlenecks in your virtual environment; and a very interesting tool called a chargeback virtual appliance. The idea behind a chargeback appliance is that you can determine which virtual resources are being used by which computers in a company, and the value of that usage. So, for example, you can find out just how much more the Engineering department is costing you, in terms of computing resources, than Accounting. A useful tool, I'd say, around budgeting time.
Note that VKernel's products are ESX Server-specific; nothing to help those of you on Xen, Hyper-V, Virtual Server, etc.
Network Computing has a good review of the Chargeback Virtual Appliance. It gives it strong marks in general, while pointing out several areas in need of improvement.
Is this something that appeals to you? Are you already using chargeback technology, or would you consider it? Let me know.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/06/2008 at 12:48 PM0 comments
So Microsoft, do you want more evidence of why people are, for the most part, shying away from Windows Vista and sticking with Windows XP? Consider this: I use a MacBook Pro as my main work machine. It has an Intel Core-Duo processor and 2 GB RAM. I use VMware Fusion to run my VMs. I've been doing some fiddling around today, and finding some rather shocking figures about Vista's resource usage compared to XP's.
For instance, loading Vista in the VM takes about 1:32 (averaging out multiple attempts). XP loads in about 36 seconds. But the bigger shocker is the load that each OS is putting on my processor. According to Activity Monitor (the Apple equivalent of the Performance tab in Windows Task Manager), Vista uses about 50 percent of my processor's power, on average. XP is averaging out to around 5-7 percent of my CPU's horses. When you multi-task the way I do, that's ginormous.
Given those stats, which OS am I more likely to load into the VM? That's what's known as a no-brainer. Of course, this doesn't mean that Vista is going to be that much more of a resource hog for everyone, but I think it's a telling bit of information. And last I saw, Service Pack 1 of Vista doesn't lessen its footprint, although a clever college student has managed to shrink the full Vista install down -- way down.
Here's hoping Microsoft translates some of its Server Core technology to the desktop, and we'll soon have Desktop Core.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/06/2008 at 12:48 PM7 comments