VMworld Europe 2009 Day 1 News: VDC-OS Private Clouds, CVP Client Hypervisor, vCenter Heartbeat, vShield Zones, and Virtualized SAP
February 24th, 2009 | 
Author: As expected, several news releases from VMware can be found this morning to coincide with the first day of the VMworld Europe 2009 Conference under way in Cannes, France. The initial reports I have seen of Paul Maritz’s opening Keynote session (mostly via live blogs and Twitter) indicate that most, if not all, of the content in these press releases was presented to the thousands of VMworld Europe attendees. I plan to watch the recorded Keynote when it becomes available on Vmworld.com.
Here is my early take on what has been announced.
- VMware has confirmed that the VDC-OS initiative will ship in 2009 and foster the adoption of internal, private cloud infrastructure. VMware envisions this shift in infrastructure to include the desktop with technologies that provide the vClient initiative. I am hoping to hear a clearer message about the VDC-OS / vSphere / ESX naming of initiatives / technology layers / products, but news provided today does not seem to offer any additional clarity.
- VMware has a bare metal desktop hypervisor and it’s name is CVP. Working with VMware View, CVP will allow users to work offline and be managed centrally by VDI administrators.
- VMware and Neverfail have developed a high availability solution for VirtualCenter (VC) in the form of an active / passive host based cluster named VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat. This solution appears to be primarily designed for VC to fail over to a standby server on the LAN, but apparently a WAN configuration is also available. Previously, virtual administrators would have to rely on MSCS Clustering solutions to provide high availability for physical instances of VC.
- The introduction of VMware vShield Zones in ESX Clusters will allow for a more efficient mix of virtual machines without compromising security. VI design in the past has presented challenges when considering how to isolate VMs in the DMZ from VMs in production for example, and this has lead to the creation of additional ESX hosts and Clusters to insure isolation and prevent system compromise. Now with the vShield Zones virtual appliance, different security policies can be created and enforced even as guests migrate between ESX hosts thus allowing the consolidation of ESX hosts and VMs.
- Fujitsu Siemens Computers and VMware have announced Flexframe for SAP which allows companies to virtualize SAP. Flexframe is a solution that provides guaranteed resources for the best end user experience under dynamically changing conditions.
In the rest of this post I am providing a link to all the announcements along with some key quotes from each press release. For full details read the original announcements in their entirety.
VMware Initiatives Will Help Customers Embrace Cloud Computing
“VDC-OS: The Foundation for the Cloud
The move to a private cloud is catalyzed by the increasing power and attractive economics of industry-standard x86 hardware, the maturing of virtualization technologies, increasing choice in new application architectures, and the availability of vast new clouds of cheap and readily accessible computing power. The first step is to evolve the datacenter from components of complex infrastructure to a more dynamic, manageable internal cloud. Internal clouds have, at their foundation, a new substrate layer that pools all internal compute capacity – servers, storage, and networking capacity into an internal cloud. VMware announced its focus on creating this new layer as its VDC-OS Initiative and the company is expected to ship the first instantiation of it in 2009. “
VMware to Deliver Client Virtualization Platform on Intel® vPro™ Technology
“VMware CVP is a bare-metal client hypervisor optimized to run on desktop and notebook client PCs utilizing Intel® Core®2 and Centrino® 2 processors with Intel® vPro™ technology. CVP will extend the centralized management capabilities of VMware View by enabling end users to run their virtualized desktop environments on desktop or notebook PCs and work online or offline while IT administrators manage these environments securely from a central location. This helps customers further reduce the operating costs of PC management while boosting business flexibility and end user productivity.”
“VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat, licensed from VMware partner Neverfail, protects the VMware vCenter Server against a broad range of downtime risks by replicating the server configuration and data to a passive standby server.
With more customers than ever running business critical applications on VMware Infrastructure to gain the benefits of virtualization – flexibility, cost-efficiency, and reliability– the resilience of application and infrastructure management is critical. Now VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat monitors the vCenter Server connectivity and components, including the license server and VMware vCenter Update Manager, and can restart the entire vCenter Server on the passive server. This can help ensure a consistent, reliable operation of VMware vCenter Server if it is threatened by unplanned or planned downtime, and it provides a broad range of protection against operator errors, operating system or hardware failure, or external events. “
New VMware vShield™ Zones to Deliver Security and Compliance Across the Datacenter
“Until now, companies virtualizing security-sensitive applications faced the choice of either leveraging virtualization capabilities such as live migration for optimal load balancing and availability, or enforcing strict security compliance. To solve that dilemma, most customers ended up dividing their virtual environments into smaller, less efficient clusters for areas such as their Internet-facing demilitarized zones (DMZ’s) or consumer credit data processing systems subject to Payment Card Industry regulations. VMware vShield Zones will enable customers to create security zones within enterprises or in multi-tenant cloud infrastructures, where security policies are enforced even as virtual machines dynamically migrate between hardware devices. Deployed as a virtual appliance and integrated with VMware vCenter™ Server, VMware vShield Zones helps make it easy to centrally manage and enforce compliance with security policies across large pools of servers and virtual machines. Built-in auditing capabilities make compliance straightforward and verifiable.”
“Fujitsu Siemens Computers and VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), today announced a joint solution that guarantees high quality of service for SAP applications. Developed by Fujitsu Siemens Computers, the new version of FlexFrame for SAP pre-integrates VMware Infrastructure, physical and virtual datacenter infrastructure, virtualized network and storage components, and comprehensive services, all contained within a single, complete, and cost-efficient IT solution. FlexFrame for SAP with pre-integrated VMware Infrastructure is available immediately.”
“By dynamically assigning physical or virtualized servers to SAP applications on demand, FlexFrame for SAP ensures that compute resources are optimally allocated to maximize quality of service and ensure a best user experience at the lowest possible infrastructure cost. The solution increases application uptime by automatically restarting applications on any available system – virtual or physical – in case of hardware failure, and it monitors all the SAP application components and triggers automated recovery actions should an application fail.”
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Posted in news, vmware, vmworld | 
Tags: cloud, cvp, vdcos, vdi, virtualcenter, virtualization, vmware, vmworldeurope2009
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