Earlier this week the US startup Virtual Computer announced the availability of NxTop 3.0. Like Neocleus ( just acquired by Intel ), Virtual Computer pioneered the use of a client hypervisor to enhance the enterprise desktop management. While Neocleus focused on platform security, Virtual Computer focused on virtual machines software and user management. The solution includes two tiers: NxTop Center and the actual client hypervisor, NxTop Client. The marketing investment made by Citrix to promote the upcoming XenClient , and the now-postpostoned launch of VMware Client Virtualization Platform (CVP) , helped to increase a lot the attention for NxTop. So Virtual Computer recently decided to offer a scaled down free version of its platform . Such free version of NxTop still required the centralized management component, but the interest for a client hypervisor from system administrators pushed the startup to release the NxTop Client as a stand-alone, completely free product: NxTop Workstation . So the biggest part of NxTop 3.0 is the first, free, general purpose client hypervisor on the market. And quite remarkably, it doesn’t require the Intel vPro technology at all. NxTop Workstation has a notable support for industry standard hardware, including all Intel and AMD CPUs that feature VT-X and AMD-V, GPUs from Intel, NVIDIA and AMD, 3G/4G USB modems, USB peripherals like webcams, and even serial ports. Best of all, the client hypervisor supports both 32 and 64bit versions of Windows as guest operating systems. As already said, the platform is completely stand-alone, and this means that users can create new virtual machines from the local control panel.  The GUI that glues together the different VMs is well done, even if there’s still a lot of room for improvement in the user experience: the biggest challenge in the area is to intercept and block the users attempts to interact with the Windows control panel inside the VMs. Another area of improvement for NxTop Workstation is the backup and restore of VMs. Without the NxTop Center component this task may become fairly complex to accomplish.  Virtual Computer is already working to address this challenge: in future releases uses will be able to plug an external hard drive in the USB port and seamlessly backup their VMs. Of course NxTop 3.0 also introduces major features on the server side of the suite: A new hierarchical architecture, where large organizations can deploy a secondary copy of NxTop Center in each of their branch offices The capability for system administrators to remotely control end-user virtual desktops A new policy-based bandwidth throttling to control traffic between NxTop Center and NxTop Workstation Virtual Computer has reshaped its offering in three editions: Enterprise, Business and Express. The Express edition is free of charge, capped to 5 users. The Business one is capped to 500 users, while the Enterprise edition is unlimited. Virtual Computer also announced a strategic alliance with Quest . The agreement basically implies that the Quest vWorkspace connector will be shipped out-of-the-box as part of NxTop Workstation starting this October. The Quest connector improves the Microsoft RDP performance thanks to the Experience Optimized Protocol (EOP) developed by Provision Networks. The client is installed in the small footprint virtual appliance that Virtual Computer uses to host the platform management tools (like the control panel) and a bunch of utilities: NxTop Connect. NxTop Connect is a customized Linux distribution, that Virtual Computer turned into a lightweight operating system with essential programs for the users that don’t want to power on their bulky Windows virtual machines. It currently includes Chrome, Skype, and the Linux implementation of the RDP client. Any additional software partnership that Virtual Computer will be able to close, will probably translate in a new component inside Connect. The idea of a speedy, lightweight and extensible virtual machine that can be used for quick operations, is pretty much the same approach that Phoenix Technologies tried to bring to the market with their now defunct HyperCore. HP acquired that asset from Phoenix in June for $12M , and it’s not clear what it plans to do with it. The idea of a minimal operating system, with just browsing, remote access and communication capabilities is also shared with Google which is expected to launch its Chorme OS before the end of the year. It’s entirely possible that Virtual Computer will drop the currently used Linux distro to adopt and extend the Google platform to further reduce the NxTop Connect footprint. Virtual Computer released NxTop 2.0 in March . Despite its size and the limited resources available, the company managed to deliver a remarkable product, beating on time all major players in the space. virtualization.info had the opportunity to try NxTop Workstation 3.0 and had a very positive impression. Virtual Computer has been rated as “Worth Watching” on the Virtualization Industry Radar . Labels: Releases , VDI , Virtual Computer

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For years Google has been pretty adamant that it doesn’t need hardware virtualization. Everything started in 2007 when a Google engineer, Luiz André Barroso,  said at the Usenix conference: I think it will be very sad if we need to use virtualization,” he said. “It is hard to claim we will never use it, but we don’t really use it today. In April 2009 Google even (indirectly) responded to VMware’s CEO Paul Maritz about the idea that virtualization is the only viable way to do cloud computing . But now, apparently, something changed at the search giant. The KVM Forum 2010 just ended and the speakers slide decks are now available online . They are full of extremely interesting details about the KVM project and its roadmap. And one of them is especially interesting:  Ganeti as a KVM cluster management interface . Ganeti is a cluster management solution for Xen and KVM that supports live migration, para-virtualized and fully virtualized guest operating systems. The solution is released under the GPL (v2) open source license and maintained by a number of Google employees. This doesn’t imply that Google itself is using it, but one of the last slides in the slide deck above seem to confirm so: The presenter, Guido Trotter , is a Systems Administrator at Google, responsible for the corporate infrastructure, and the maintenance of the corporate services. Now, maybe Google only runs on the “Corporate Computing Infrastructure” internal facilities like CRM, Accounting or other technologies, while keeping its core services on bare-metal. But at least now there’s a confirmation that Google is not totally against hardware virtualization and instead is using KVM internally. Labels: Google , KVM , Platform

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The startup Trustware launched in August 2006 , entering the application virtualization market with a consumer-oriented product called BufferZone. BufferZone didn’t get much traction so far and the company updated it just four times in four years. And now there’s a chance that the company will shift its focus out of the x86 virtualization market. A recent article appeared on TopNews.in titles Trustware develops the pioneering malware for Android : The first of a kind of malware for Google’s Android smartphone OS has been designed by a group of researchers at Trustware. The malware aids in easy access of private information, such as bank credentials, text messages, GPS coordinates and call logs from the smartphone, claims the researchers from Trustware. If Trustware is investing in security research on the Google Android platform, then it’s entirely possible that the company is working to bring its application virtualization platform on that operating system and on the ARM architecture.

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Earlier today GigaOM reported an ongoing acquisition talk between VMware and Engine Yard , the hosting provider that offers a popular Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud for single and multi-tier Ruby-on-Rails applications. So far Engine Yard raised $37.5M in three rounds of investment. Amazon participated the last two rounds. After the acquisitions of SpringSource and the one of GemStone Systems , as well as the partnerships with Salesforce and with Google, it’s clear that VMware has a major interest in owning PaaS cloud providers for different development languages, even if the details of its strategy are still very vague at this point. Almost one year passed since VMware started its expansionistic campaign in the PaaS and SaaS cloud computing markets, and after so much time it’s still extremely hard for customers to understand the new vision of the (former) virtualization vendor. Hopefully this August, at the VMworld 2010 conference, VMware will finally explain how all the companies it bought so far will contribute to form the big picture of its post-Diane Greene era.

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On April 27 VMware and Salesforce plan to announce a new partnership with a public webcast where both companies’ CEOs will appear. None of them disclosed any information about the terms of the deal, but an evidence spotted in Google Cache suggests that Salesforce may launch a VMware-powered Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing facility, turning into a competitor for companies like Amazon and Rackspace (both powered by the Xen hypervisor). virtualisation.info is now able to disclose exactly part of what the two companies are going to announce. There’s at least one 3rd party company that connects both VMware and Salesforce in some ways: CloudShare . CloudShare is a US startup formerly known as IT Structures, managed by former Check Point, VMware and GE executives. Founded in early 2007, it’s funded with $16 million in two rounds, led by Gemini Israel Funds, Sequoia Capital and Charles River Ventures. The company offers a IaaS cloud computing facility which allows to provision multi-tier applications or entire data centers through a self-service portal. Customers can even import their existing virtual machines and replicate complex networking layout thanks to the fencing technology. The virtual infrastructure can be accessed by a simple browser or through a dedicated VPN connection and RDP access. It can be considered an evolution of hosted virtual lab automation (VLA) solutions like the ones offered by Surgient or Skytap. Designed to facilitate the activity of a sales channel, the platform is specifically tailored for pre-sales and post-sales activity (including demos, proof-of-concepts, training, etc.). This is why it includes uncommon features like campaigns management, customers email invitations, multi-level hierarchical access, web interface branding, integrated webinar and whiteboard facility, usage analytics, etc. In many ways it seems to have a CRM approach to the fruition of the hosted virtual infrastructure and it’s not a case that the platform integrates with Salesforce. So far CloudShare technology has been adopted by a number of customers including VMware, Cisco and SAP. VMware and CloudShare are also business partners. The CloudShare platform is powered by vSphere and already supports the draft vCloud API specifications. At today, CloudShare seems one of the very, very few concrete implementations of a IaaS cloud computing facility. And probably the most tangible one based on VMware technologies. The key of the VMware and Salesforce partnership is in a couple of quotes on the CloudShare website. The first one comes from Paul Maritz, VMware’s CEO: “VMware puts great emphasis on giving customers a significant return on their IT investment and creates strategic partnerships with leading vendors to achieve this,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer of VMware. “With its unique capabilities and support for native VMware virtualisation and the VMware vCloud API, we see the CloudShare platform as an attractive technology that strengthens, supports and extends our ecosystem.” The second one comes from Kendall Collings, Salesforce’s Chief Marketing Officer: “Companies continue to explore how to move more business operations like presenting proofs of concept to the cloud,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com. “The addition of CloudShare to the AppExchange gives salesforce.com customers the ability to simplify how they present proofs of concept with a few clicks.” And this is what VMware and Salesforce are going to announce: the capability for Salesforce customers to create and access on-demand VMware virtual infrastructures, hosted inside the Salesforce cloud, fully integrated in the CRM workflow, shareable across the organization, available 24/7 and accessible through a simple web browser. Sources close to both companies confirmed to virtualisation.info that this is the exactly the content part of the announcement and that CloudShare is the technology behind it. Update: Apparently, there are parts of the announcement that are not covered above. One of them should include SpringSource. This article will be updated with additional details as soon as they are available.

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VMware acquired SpringSource in August 2009, as part of what seems a rather complex (and honestly pretty much obscure) strategy to lead the emerging cloud computing market. While SpringSource continues to exist as an independent subsidiary, it’s clear that every move is done to execute the VMware’s vision. virtualisation.info even received unconfirmed tips that SpringSource was operating on behalf of VMware well before August 2009: the SpringSource acquisition of Hyperic was exactly requested (and funded) by the virtualisation vendor. Yesterday SpringSource acquired a third firm for an undisclosed sum: Rabbit Tecnologies . The second one was Cloud Foundry , acquired ten days after the deal with VMware was announced. Rabbit Technologies is a small UK company that offers an open source enterprise messaging system called RabbitMQ. RabbitMQ, available for Linux and Windows operating systems, is based on the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) , an open language developed to simplify and make more reliable and secure communications between middleware solutions. Born in 2006, AMQP may become an official standard. Its working group includes remarkable companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Novell and Red Hat, as well as a number of major financial entities, including Bank of America, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Börse Systems, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Excluding RabbitMQ, there are a number of other implementations, including ones from Apache Foundation and Red Hat. JPMorgan has even deployed an application that leverages AMQP. In many ways AMQP can be compared to the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, formerly Jabber), which is supported (and sometimes extended) by many instant messaging programs, including the Facebook Chat and Google Wave. It’s worth to note that in September 2008 Cisco acquired Jabber Inc., the most popular company (before Google adopted it in Google Talk) developing commercial implementations of XMPP. Question is: why VMware needs a business messaging platform based on a potentially standard protocol? In the immediate future RabbitMQ will be integrated in the Spring Framework, but the key point is what is its place in the VMware’s cloud computing platform of tomorrow. It’s safe to assume that this is going to be way more than an enterprise chat implementation to pair with the recently acquired enterprise messaging suite Zimbra and the next generation database Redis .

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Today VMware sent out a number of invitations to promote an upcoming announcement planned for April 27. The online webcast will be jointly presented with Salesforce, one of the leading companies in the technology-as-a-Service (SaaS) market since years, and it’s dubbed VMforce . Because it’s highly unlikely that VMware and Salesforce would disclose a merge in such a way, the expectations to have a groundbreaking announcement are set rather low. Nonetheless, a new evidence discovered just a few hours ago, may suggest something really big between the two. Dave McCrory , founder and CTO at the startup Hyper9, just discovered in the Google Cache a Salesforce job announcement that doesn’t exist anymore and that contains the following key sentence: Build new VMware technology-based grid with thousands of virtual machines to host… This single line is enough to speculate on a scenario where Salesforce starts offering to end users hosted virtual servers (or even virtual desktops), targeting both Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure ( when it will finally evolve from just a PaaS cloud architecture ), and where of course the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud is provided by VMware. That would be a remarkable announcement.

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NComputing today announced the launch and immediate availability of its Numo family of chips. Numo is anambidextrous chip that will power consumer applications, such as accessing Google from a smart TV, as well as enterprise applications, such as using Microsoft Windows-based virtual desktops in bank branch offices. This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]

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With an unexpected move, at the end of last week Parallels announced support for the upcoming Google operating system, Chrome OS , in its Desktop 5 for Mac. While it’s entirely expected that consumers use desktop virtualisation platforms to test new operating systems, it’s pretty uncommon to see a vendor that officially supports a beta product that is not widely deployed like Windows. Considering the long beta cycles that Google products have (sometimes years), the effort to support multiple beta builds will be remarkable for Parallels. The first stable release for Chrome OS is not expected to arrive before the second half of 2010.

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A lot of discussion is going on these days around some performance issues that Amazon customers are suffering with the Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2). The discussion was triggered by Alan Williamson , a prominent voice in the Java community, who posted an interesting description of his 3-years experience with EC2.