Just a couple of weeks ago Microsoft opened the public beta program for the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Service Pack 1. The update is especially interesting as it introduces two key technologies for virtualization: Dynamic Memory for Hyper-V and RemoteFX for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) . Earlier this year, widespread rumors suggested that the SP1 would arrive within the end of this year, but Microsoft recently published in its FAQ page , a different roadmap which places the update somewhere in H1 2011. Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet is reporting the rumored date of April 2011. Microsoft is trying to change the market perception about its capability to execute, fighting its fame of over-promising and under-delivering vendor, while surprising competitors at the same time. So it won’t be too surprising to see the SP1 indeed arriving before the end of this year. Labels: Microsoft , Platform

Read this article:
virtualization.info

Last week VMware released vSphere 4.1 , an impressive minor release for its virtual infrastructure which introduced a number of remarkable new features. One of them is called Memory Compression: Compressed memory is a new level of the memory hierarchy, between RAM and disk. Slower than memory, but much faster than disk, compressed memory improves the performance of virtual machines when memory is under contention, because less virtual memory is swapped to disk. See Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX 4.1 for more details. While virtualization.info can’t say when the IT industry started researching the memory compression technique, we certainly can report about Nitin Gupta , a former member of the VMware’s Technical Staff part of the ESX Resource Management team from India, who mentioned memory compression on his personal blog in March 2009. Gupta is working on this technology since 2007, turning it into a GPLv2 open source project available for free on Google Code under the name of compcache (aka Compressed Caching for Linux). More than that, Gupta left VMware in April 2010 and submitted compcache to the Google Summer of Code (SoC) 2010 program. SoC is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. Google accepted compcache based on the Gupta’s paper Memory Compression for Virtualized Environments , where he describes how to apply his generic memory compression software to hypervisors. Gupta already contributed code to the Linux kernel and Xen, so while his paper doesn’t specifically mention any hypervisor, it’s clear where compcache will end up. Assuming this whole thing is perfectly legal, it will be interesting to see how long will take for Citrix, Oracle or even Red Hat to hire the guy.

Read this article:
virtualization.info

Now that the TechEd 2010 conference is ended, Microsoft is publishing its breakout session video on TechEd Online. Just last week virtualization.info mentioned a must-see session about the Hyper-V Dynamic Memory feature , part of the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. Today we’d like mention another interesting session titled Hyper-V Backup Deep Dive: A Look Under the Hood . The 53-minutes presentation is available for on-demand streaming (you’ll need Silverlight) and for download (both WMV and MP4 formats). Microsoft also published the slide deck.

Read more:
virtualization.info

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.

Read the rest here:
virtualization.info

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:

One hour before starting a joint webcast with Citrix about its new virtualisation strategy for desktops, Microsoft briefly announces a number of new initiatives, upcoming technologies and licensing changes. About hosted desktop virtualisation: The Windows XP SP3 virtual machine that can be run on Windows 7 Virtual PC, called XP Mode, will no longer require hardware virtualisation to be executed. This is probably the best way Microsoft found to solve the problems that Sony created to many customers with its shortsighted strategy . The new version will be released today as an hotfix. About bare-metal server virtualisation: Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 will introduce a memory overcommit technique for Hyper-V R2 called Dynamic Memory . The news leaked at the beginning of February. About VDI: The remote desktop acceleration technology acquired by Calista in January 2008, now renamed as RemoteFX , will arrive with Windows Server R2 Service Pack 1 and will be integrated in Remote Desktop Services (RDS) . RemoteFX can be considered an accelerator for RDP over the LAN for Windows 7 SP1 clients only. Beginning July 1, 2010, Windows Client technology Assurance (SA) will include the VECD license for free. Customers that don’t wont to subscribe the SA will be able to buy a new Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) license: $100 /device/year instead of $110 of the VECD. Beginning July 1, 2010, Windows Client technology Assurance (SA) and new Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) license customers will have the right to access their virtual desktop and Office applications inside it on secondary, non-corporate network devices, such as home PCs and kiosks. Microsoft and Citrix signed a new technology agreement to integrate and extend Microsoft RemoteFX with Citrix HDX. Microsoft and Citrix launched a joint trade-in program dubbed “Rescue for VMware VDI”, offering up to 500 licenses to VMware View customers at no additional cost, and offering to new customers a 70% discount on Microsoft VDI Standard Suite subscription license and a 50% discount on Citrix XenDesktop VDI Edition annual license ( $28 per device for up to 250 devices for one year ). Update: Brian Madden just published a video of RemoteFX in action.

Continued here:
virtualisation.info

Citrix launches today the public beta of XenServer 5.6, which is released as open source since February, and Essentials for XenServer 5.6. The list of new features include: Dynamic Memory Control (DMC) This feature can increase the number of VMs per host by permitting the memory utilization of existing VMs to be compressed so that additional VMs can boot on the host.

Almost one month ago, immediately after the VMware Partner Exchange conference, TechTarget published a scoop about some new features that may appear in the upcoming version of vSphere, expected later this year. The list includes: Transparent Memory Compression This will avoid swap when RAM is overcommited by compressing a set of target pages to a special region . VMware measured the latency of this technique as a hundred times better than the latency of swapping on rotating disks.

Red Hat recently launched the public beta of its Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.5 which introduces a memory overcommitment technique for KVM. The beta build finally includes the virtio balloon driver that was missing in RHEL 5.4. This means that KVM virtual machines will be able to change allocated memory at run-time. KVM got memory ballooning in September 2008 but only now it appears in an enterprise Linux distribution.

Excerpt from:
virtualisation.info