So now Oracle has decided to
buy Virtual Iron
. Like Wow.
With this move, Oracle has staked its claim as a major virtualization player. Following its acquisition of Sun, Oracle now has not one (its own), not two (the Sun xVM suite), but three (Virtual Iron) separate virtualization stacks. That's pretty amazing.
It may also signal a shift in Oracle's virtualization strategy -- maybe not so much a shift, though, as an expansion. Oracle plays almost exclusively in the enterprise sandbox, with its database, and now with the hardware (Sun servers) and software (Java, MySQL, xVM) it acquired from Sun.
In stark contrast, Virtual Iron has planted its flag in SMBland. I've talked with Virtual Iron a number of times over the past several years, and that's what they emphasize. Virtual Iron knew it couldn't "out-VMware" VMware, and it wisely didn't try. About two-thirds of its sales are to the SMB market, I was told last year.
Virtual Iron is a very capable virtualization stack (note that everything comes in one package with Virtual Iron; the hypervisor, management component, and so on. The company doesn't dole the stack out piecemeal.) The list of features for the $799/socket Extended Enterprise Edition includes live migration, unlimited virtual servers, HA and P2V/V2V through a PlateSpin module. It's a solid offering that's well-regarded in the community and by users. We gave it a favorable review as well last year.
Oracle also gets, of course, Virtual Iron's Xen-based hypervisor, one of the things missing from Sun's stack. Oracle's own hypervisor is Xen-based, so one question is whether Oracle will consolidate these hypervisors into one offering, or keep them separate, since both have been tweaked for use with its own products.
A related unknown is whether all the virtualization technology Oracle's been buying up will eventually result in one mega-virtualization package, or if it will maintain separate product lines targeted at different business segments. One thing is sure, however: Oracle has decided to move beyond the closed boundaries of running only Oracle databases on only Oracle VMs.
Given Oracle's virtualization buying spree, I now see it as a competitor with the potential to become the No. 2 virtualization player behind VMware, edging out Microsoft. This assumes it executes a sound strategy, and does it with alacrity, given how fast companies like Citrix, Microsoft and VMware are moving the industry forward. I'm not predicting this will happen, but saying the possibility exists.
What's your take on the purchase? Smart or dumb by Oracle? Can it successfully sell to the SMB market? Let me know, or talk about it below.
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/13/20090 comments
I've been working hard on making my
Dell Studio XPS
my new main work machine. It's outfitted with Vista 64-bit, 8GB RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 processor. I had to enable virtualization in my BIOS (which begs the question -- why isn't it enabled by default? I don't know, but I'm going to be asking Intel soon), and it's ready to go.
Other than having to reinstall the OS, the biggest issue I've had is with Cisco's VPN client -- you know, the one Cisco never wants to update. Quite simply, there is no 64-bit client version of the VPN (and why should there be? It's not like anyone has 64-bit clients these days. Yes, that was sarcasm). And although many of my 32-bit applications have worked just fine on my 64-bit OS, the VPN refuses to install.
Since I like and use Outlook, this presented a problem. My solution was to go virtual. I downloaded the free VirtualBox, which installed easily. I then created a VM with 512MB RAM and 15GB virtual hard drive -- also a snap with VirtualBox.
Next, I loaded 32-bit Windows XP SP2 in the VM, then installed Outlook (the Office 2003 version). One of the really nice aspects of VirtualBox is that NAT translation is enabled by default, meaning that outside-the-VM connectivity happens automatically, without messing with any settings.
After a reboot, I held my breath and tried the VPN, then opened Outlook. After a few small hiccups, I had my Outlook open, and everything worked perfectly. I've been running it for about five days now, without issue.
VirtualBox couldn't be simpler to set up and get going with. It does what I need it to do, and doesn't try to do too much. What a great little product. I know it's a Type 2 hypervisor (i.e. hosted by the OS), but it runs XP very fast for me, and uses almost no CPU and about 28MB RAM, according to Windows Task Manager. In other words, almost negligible system impact. I'm delighted.
On the other hand, would it kill Cisco to update its VPN client? I'm not sure why they've orphaned it, but making users (and, I'm sure, many IT departments) do these ridiculous workarounds is extremely aggravating. Get in the game, Cisco, and assign an engineer or two to deal with this situation -- I imagine you have the resources.
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/12/20096 comments
Ed Bott
at ZDNet shares some of my concerns about Windows 7's
Windows XP Mode
; namely, that many Wintel (i.e. Windows running on Intel processors) computers won't be able to take advantage of the mode due to lack of hardware-assisted procs. It's a worthy read.
I would add that I checked out the processors very carefully before putting in the order for my new laptop. It has a P8700 Core 2 Duo chip, fully virtualization-aware. I discovered, though, that virtualization assist isn't enabled by default; I had to dive into the BIOS to take care of that. It's not really difficult, but your average user just won't know how to do it (BTW, so far, mostly so good on the laptop. I ended up having to do an OS reinstall, when Dell support determined that the factory-installed copy was likely corrupt. That was aggravating, but Dell's support was superb and that helped a bunch.)
I'll be interested to see if AMD's sales pick up as a result of all this. AMD includes virtualization assist in most of its procs, and has for some time. Thus, most off-the-shelf WAMD computers (Windows running on AMD -- I call copyright!) can handle XP Mode. Are enough businesses and consumers interested in virtualization to make a difference to both chip-makers' bottom lines? We'll find out.
Does AMD's inclusion of virtualization-enabled procs make you more likely to consider non-Intel machines? Let me know, or comment underneath.
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/11/20091 comments
YouTube has become a force on the Internet. That's not news, of course. What
is
interesting from a virtualization perspective is how it's being used for marketing purposes.
One of the first instances of this was Microsoft's now-infamous "De-bunking VMware myths" video. In this, two Hyper-V Microsofties call foul on VMware's superiority. Unfortunately, they do a lot of FUDging to make their points, and they've rightly been eviscerated by many in the blogging community for this not-well-thought-out attempt to promote Microsoft virtualization.
More
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/07/20093 comments
The incomparable Mary-Jo Foley, a columnist with
Redmond
magazine and ZDNet blogger (and friend), has an excellent
post
comparing and contrasing
Windows XP Mode
and Virtual PC.
One of the key things I learned is that XP Mode and Virtual PC are separate products, so Virtual PC won't just be a Windows 7 appendage. I wonder, however, whether Microsoft is repeating bad history here. Consider: for some confounding reason, XP Mode requires virtualization-aware processors from Intel (Intel-VT) or AMD (AMD-V). This makes me considerably less enthused about XP Mode than I was a couple of days ago.
More
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/06/20096 comments
Citrix's Synergy conference is happening in Las Vegas this week, and I had a chance to talk with Dave Moxey, director of product marketing, to go over some of the bigger announcements.
A few things stood out to me. First is Dazzle, which Citrix calls a "self-service 'App Store' for corporate employees." Dazzle presents a "storefront" view to get applications that are part of XenApp (formerly Presentation Server). There are two views: a more traditional list view, and an icon-based view which Moxey likens to the look and feel of iTunes.
More
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/05/20090 comments
It's one of the smartest things Microsoft has done with Windows 7. And, in New York cheesecake-thick irony, if Redmond had done it with Vista, it may not have been in such a rush to push Windows 7 out the door.
Windows 7 will feature "Windows XP Mode", allowing greater backwards compatibility of XP applications. The Mode is really just a user-friendly title for Virtual PC, which is due to have a beta of the new version released Tuesday.
More
Posted by Keith Ward on 05/04/200912 comments
Light, almost non-existent, blogging week for me. But, as Han Solo and Lando Calrissian are known to say, "It's not my fault!" I've been out on personal time for a number of days.
The other blogging impediment has been my new laptop. It's here! It even got here early (nice job, Dell.) As I mentioned recently, I ordered a new one to use for virtualization. My goal is to build a vitrualization infrastructure on the computer, to better learn the ins and outs of the technology. I know this is something others need to do as well; for example, sales folks on calls that need to demonstrate their companies' latest and greatest VI3.5 or Hyper-V add-on.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 05/01/20095 comments
My recent
blog
about Hyper-V Server R2 and the free stuff Microsoft is giving away raised a number of questions from readers. Basically, they wanted to know if you get high availability (HA) and live migration without also shelling out for a higher-level management framework like System Center or System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).
Since I live to serve, I asked Microsoft these questions (which are in bold). Their answers are under the questions.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 04/27/20097 comments
Microsoft has further ratcheted up the price pressure on VMware, giving away some high-end functionality in Hyper-V Server 2008.
Zane Adam, senior director of virtualization and System Center, announced on a blog that Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will include not only live migration, but host clustering (up to 16 nodes) for high availability. Hyper-V Server is the free, stand-alone version of Hyper-V; you don't need to buy Windows Server 2008 to get it.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 04/24/20096 comments
VMware's first quarter
earnings
were announced yesterday, and fit into the category of ho-hum; in a way, though, that's a good thing.
Overall revenue was about $470 million, up 7 percent from Q1 2008. Non-GAAP profits, at 25 cents a share, beat expectations by a bit. Any time expectations are exceeded in this recession is cause for cheer.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 04/23/20091 comments
Now that
vSphere
has been announced, the analysis and nitpicking begins. I'm happy to add to all the blognoise (hey, I like that term -- has anybody trademarked it yet? If not, I call dibbs.)
One area I'd like to dig into today is pricing. In my news story, I quote Enterprise Strategy Group Analyst Mark Bowker saying that pricing is the biggest factor in vSphere -- more than VMsafe, Fault Tolerance, VStorage, distributed virtual switches and so on. Burton Group Analyst and Virtualization Review "Virtual Advisor" columnist Chris Wolf also praised the pricing model.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 04/21/20098 comments