Performance Monitoring for Cloud Hosted Applications – Time for a Clean Sheet of Paper

September 24, 2009
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Cloud hosted applications require a new approach to applications performance management. An approach that is offered on a SAAS basis, with an easy to install application resident agent, and that focuses upon response time instead of resource utilization is required. New Relic RPM is the first example of such an approach.

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The Hypervisor Wars, a 2000-year old story

September 23, 2009
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In the fog of the datacenter virtualization war, it is difficult to see clearly who will end up on top, and yet the outcome is almost certainly determined, and the victorious generals are even now moving on to fight new battles. Here at the Virtualization Practice we too would like to think we can see…

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I/O Virtualization Shines at VMworld 2009

September 22, 2009
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I/O virtualization prominent at VMworld 2009. Whether it can displace Cisco at the top of the rack remains to be seen.

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40,000 Firewalls! Help Please!?

September 21, 2009
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While at VMworld I was suddenly hit with a blast of heat generated by the 40,000 VMs running within the VMworld Datacenter of 150 Cisco UCS blades or so. This got me thinking about how would VMsafe fit into this environment and therefore about real virtualization security within the massive virtual machine possible within a…

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VirtualBox OSE 3.0 – Still a viable Open Source option?

September 20, 2009
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In trying to re-use some old server hardware I re-vsisted VirtualBox/Ubuntu, a viable and completely free Open Source option for non-virtualization-enabled hardware. It is a neat solution, simple and well-supported, but the open source version of VirtualBox is nobbled to make it extremely awkward to use, in a different way to VMware's nobbling of the…

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VMsafe – Vendor Implementations at VMworld

September 18, 2009
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VMsafe – Vendor Implementations at VMworld

With the advent of existing VMsafe products from Altor Networks, Reflex Systems, and ones on the horizon from Trend Micro and others in the security space, all administrators should have a clear understanding of how they work under the covers. Where does VMsafe appear within the stack? Is VMsafe on the incoming physical NICs, within…

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Citrix Enhances XenApp with Virtual Machine-based Delivery

September 17, 2009
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Citrix Enhances XenApp with Virtual Machine-based Delivery

Citrix have announced significant new enhancements to Citrix XenApp 5 as part of their new Feature Release 2, available on 29th September. These enhancements include VM Hosted Apps, Power Management and the introduction of HDX Technologies to XenApp. With these new features, Citrix continue to develop and enhance their XenApp product.

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vCloud Express

September 16, 2009
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The launch of vCloud Express came with little detail on its features and functions with many confused as to what type of solution it was. Is it a product, a service, a program or a certification?

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VMware’s “No OS” Application Platform Strategy

September 15, 2009
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VMware’s “No OS” Application Platform Strategy

VMware's SpringSource acquisition will result in VMware directly implementing the SpringSource Java runtimes in a VMware Guest. VMware will also work to allow other open source application frameworks like Ruby on Rails, Python and PHP to run directly in VMware Guests. VMware will provide value added API's to these run time frameworks, that will make…

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