Today Microsoft officially announced the first beta of the Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. The beta actually started in late June but the company today makes the bits publicly available. As expected, the Service Pack 1 introduces the Dynamic Memory feature for Hyper-V and RemoteFX for the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) . While many server-based computing (SBC) players announced their support for RemoteFX , the real winner here is NVIDIA, which suddenly has a huge opportunity to enter the server market. NVIDIA is working with Microsoft and the leading OEMs to ship its Quadro GPUs ( including the existing FX 5800, the FX 4800 and the FX 3800 ) in upcoming servers tailored for VDI. If RemoteFX gets some serious traction, NVIDIA may start producing VDI GPUs that other virtualization players want too. And this includes Citrix, Oracle, Red Hat and even VMware, which has an OEM agreement with Teradici but its business is definitively not producing graphic cards.

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Last week, during its Synergy 2010 conference ( see virtualization.info coverage ), Citrix announced the availability of XenServer 5.6. This is the first update since Citrix decided to release XenServer as a free and open source hypervisor in February 2010, and with it Citrix completely changed the naming convention for the product. The stand-alone product called Essentials for XenServer doesn’t exist anymore: the enterprise management capabilities that it offers have been integrated in the XenServer package, and distributed across four different editions: Free (the one fully open source), Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum. In details, the XenServer 5.6 new features are: Dynamic Memory (reported as “Memory optimization in the chart above”) Dynamic Memory, a memory overcommit technology, auto-adjust the memory of running virtual machines, but keeps the memory within a range of pre-defined functioning limits (dynamic minimum and dynamic maximum) as specified by the administrator.  When DMC is enabled, even when hosts are full, XenServer will attempt to reclaim memory (by reducing the memory allocation of running VMs within their defined dynamic ranges). In this way running VMs are squeezed proportionally at the same distance between the dynamic minimum and dynamic maximum for all VMs on the host. So, while DMC is on and the host’s memory is plentiful, all running VMs will receive their Dynamic Maximum Memory level. When DMC is on and the host’s memory is scarce, all running VMs will receive their Dynamic Minimum Memory level. Support for guest operating systems is limited . Automated Workload Balancing Workload balancing (WLB) offers the ability to reduce power consumption by consolidating workloads on the smallest number of hosts and powering off unused hosts.  WLB configuration includes the option to exclude specific hosts from WLB algorithms. Host Power Management Power Management features include support for wake-on-LAN and vendor-specific implementations from HP, Dell, and others. Role-based Administration Administrative users can be assigned one of several roles, which govern the actions they are able to complete from XenCenter and the command-line interface (CLI). StorageLink Site Recovery Enhanced integration with storage-level replication enables recovery of an entire virtual infrastructure at a secondary disaster recovery site. Performance Alerting and Reporting Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS/Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 Support for up to 64 logical processors, 256 GB RAM, and 16 NICs per host Support for OVF import/export in XenCenter Essentials still exists but just for Microsoft Hyper-V. XenServer 5.6 will be available for download starting May 28.

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After a few weeks since the first public draft, Microsoft released its new Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide dedicated to the so-called Dynamic Data Center . As virtualisation.info reported in a previous article about the draft , the 46-pages blueprint includes design recommendations for several aspects of the infrastructure, from the virtualisation hosts to the network infrastructure: Determine the Dynamic Data Center Scope This part helps to define the scope and determine the workloads that will be included in the Dynamic Data Center project. Design the virtualisation Hosts This part helps to design hosts that meet the capacity, performance, placement, and fault-tolerance requirements of the organization. Design the technology Infrastructure This part helps to design the technology infrastructure in a way it can provide directory and authentication services, virtual machine management, configuration management, technology distribution/inventory/patch management, event monitoring and collection, remote desktop services and hardware management. Design the Dynamic Data Center Storage This part helps to design the storage infrastructure in a way it meets requirements of capacity, performance delivery, fault tolerance and manageability. Design the Network Infrastructure This part helps to design the network infrastructure to accommodate the requirements accumulated throughout previous steps.

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There’s a lot of interest around the just announced Dynamic Memory feature that will be included in Hyper-V as soon as Microsoft release the Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 (rumored to arrive no earlier than Q4 2010). For a lot of time Microsoft downplayed the VMware’s memory overcommitment techniques, suggesting that they are the solution for every problem and that even the competitor recommends to not use them. Now this Dynamic Memory, which was originally planned for a 2009 release , seems exactly a memory overcommitment feature. James O’Neill, IT Pro Evangelist at Microsoft, shares some concrete details about the feature for the first time, trying to explain why Dynamic Memory is not about overcommit memory:

Microsoft just published the beta version of a new Infrastructure Planning and Design guide. Titled Dynamic Data Center , this 43-pages blueprint on what Microsoft defines “a combination of automation, control, and resource management technology with a well-defined topology of virtualisation, servers, storage, and networking hardware”. The guide is divided in five main parts: Determine the Dynamic Data Center Scope This part helps to define the scope and determine the workloads that will be included in the Dynamic Data Center project. It’s divided in three steps: Determine the proposed initial workloads for the Dynamic Data Center.

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A couple of days ago Oracle finally announced its Sun merger plan. virtualisation.info reported live about those parts of the announcement that are related to virtualisation. While the company highlighted its commitment to continue investing and offering the Sun virtualisation technologies (Solaris Containers, Logical Domains, Dynamic Domains, VDI, VirtualBox), it didn’t offer much details about how its own virtualisation platform, Oracle VM, will benefit from this integration. Shortly after the live event, Oracle also published a series of recorded webcast that provides more insights about the products roadmap. The series includes a webcast about virtualisation where Oracle exposes a part of the Oracle VM 3.0 and VirtualBox roadmap.

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