The imminent launch of Intel octal-core CPUs (codename Nehalem-EX) and servers with up to 48 cores (powered by AMD codename Magny-cours CPUs) will dramatically increase the virtualisation hosts density but will highlight how the network layer is becoming one of the weakest point of high-capacity virtual infrastructures. Anandtech just published a very interesting article on this topic, testing the performance of a couple of copper cable 10GBase-CX4 network interface cards against the popular quad-port gigabit NICs we use today in most virtualisation hosts. The benchmark measured dual-port Intel PRO/1000 PT Server adapter (82571EB) against a Supermicro AOC-STG-I2 dual-port 10Gbit/s Intel 82598EB and a Neterion Xframe-E 10Gbit/s. Both NICs were tested with VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 and CentOS 5.4 guest OSes with appropriate drivers. While NICs tested by Anandtech are not the lastest available on the market, the research still is a valuable reading for most virtualisation administrators.

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The well-know virtualisation professional (and blogger) Eric Sloof just released a tool called vmClient . vmClient is a minimal management console that appears as an empty window frame. It features a menu bar where the virtual machines hosted by any VMware vCenter Server or ESX/ESXi host are listed. Each virtual machine in the list can be powered on/off, suspended and restarted.

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Archipel is a new open source virtual infrastructure management system based on the libvirt libraries and the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, formerly Jabber). Still in early stage, the tool supports KVM, Xen, OpenVZ and VirtualBox and it’s currently able to operate single virtual machines and VM groups, displaying performance statistics about them. The interesting twist is that, thanks to the XMPP engine, this console provides instant notification about VMs status to any chat client that supports the (almost) standard protocol. This means that virtual infrastructure administrators can query virtual machine status through their IM program of choice (like Google Talk or Gmail Chat for example). To do so, each virtual infrastructure entity, including hosts and virtual machines, appear as an IM contacts,

At the beginning of January virtualisation.info published a long overview about the VMware’s approach to cloud computing , covering the vCloud APIs, the vCloud Express implementation and the five partners that are currently offering it. One of them, BlueLock, just sent an email to its customers announcing that its vCloud Express offering will (tentatively) move from beta to general availability (GA) on March 25. As far as we know none of the other providers is out of beta yet (this article will be updated if necessary). So, while it’s entirely possible that BlueLock wants to be the first to announce vCloud Express GA, it’s much more likely that all the early adopters will make GA announcements in the same timeframe. And this may mean that VMware is about to release some additional information or bits about its cloud computing platform

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Phoenix Technologies today announced the appointment of Robert Andersen as Interim Chief Financial Officer, effective March 5, 2010. Mr. Andersen replaces Mr. Richard Arnold, who resigned from Phoenix to pursue other opportunities. [[ This is a content summary only

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VMware has launched a Lab site where VMware Engineers can share new tools that they are developing. They are offering a wide range of tools here, each of which are being offered under a Technical Preview or relevant Open Source License. This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]

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Xsigo Systems today announced that its Xsigo I/O Director, an award-winning virtual I/O technology, has been verified as Citrix Ready. The Citrix Ready program helps customers identify third-party solutions that are recommended to enhance virtualisation, networking and cloud computing solutions from Citrix. This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]

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VMware today announced that VMware Express will hit the road this week. VMware Express is a state-of-the-art mobile datacenter, demo lab and briefing center designed to bring desktop virtualisation and cloud computing solutions from VMware directly to customers and partners across the United States and Canada. This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]

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VMware just launched a new online facility called Labs . It seems a sort of R&D website that exposes company’s engineers pet projects before they turn into real products, similarly to what other companies like Microsoft and Google do. At the moment Labs hosts ten projects, all released as Technology Previews, under open source licenses, without any support and without any indication about future inclusion in the VMware product portfolio. Some of them, like the previously covered VMware Guest Console , are extremely interesting: Apache Pivot Like most modern development platforms, Pivot provides a comprehensive set of foundation classes that together comprise a “framework”. These classes form the building blocks upon which more complex and sophisticated applications can be built

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Exactly one year ago, PHD Virtual Technologies (formerly PHD Technologies) lost its CEO Sridhar Murthy . In the last twelve months the company was led by its Executive Chairman Joe Julian, former Senior Vice President of Americas Sales and Global Accounts at Veritas technology. PHD Virtual Technologies yesterday announced that the former CEO of Shunra technology, Thomas Charlton , joined the company as new Chairman and CEO, thus replacing both Murthy and Julian. This is the third CEO the company has since its launch in March 2006.

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