Clouds are getting everywhere

So Amazon have just released there Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) this is of course based on the Xen hypervisor. I really think that the timing of this has been key it will certinally give VMware something to talk about this week at VMworld. I guess that VMware will be talking a lot about there 20% stake in Terramark but I still do not believe that they can take on the rest of the Xen hypervisors in the cloud space, if they had someone like Amazon under there belt then yes but how many people outside the hosting field have heard of Terramark.

VMworld next week.

Well VMworld starts next week so it's going to be interesting to see how many attend, I suspect that numbers will be down considerbly down on last year.

So is XEN coming of age?

So Xen have just released the spec's for version 4.0 and yes there does seem to be some very interesting new features and of course there are far more platforms that we will be able too see this hypervisor than just one....

So are Microsoft working on a Client Hyperviser.

Given that both VMWare and Citrix are working on client hypervisers and MS allready have Hyper-V in the server side then they must be looking at a port.
The only fly in the soup would be the hardware requirements for server would have to be changed quit a bit.
So if they are why should anyone else bother, I would say that they should look at enhancing anything that comes out of Redmond, maybe better graphics support and migration and sync to the daracenter VDI solution.

So I guess the one question is why are Redmond being so secretive about it I was in a meeting with them a month or so ago and they did seem to indicate that they were working on something until I quized them amd they quickly denied it.

Spence.

VMware and Project Redwood

VMware at VMWorld this year are possibly going to make a big thing about project Redwood there Cloud computing solution based around Lab Manager and the vCenter Orchestrator, and yes this on the surface sounds like a great idea.

But my great worry is as I have mentioned before, is this not a push too far yes at present VMware has the best product to run a Cloud on, but how can they continue to just add more cost to the offering given the cost of either of the main competitors are using very cost effective hypervisers (free). Yes I know that there is a greater cost in development on the other hypervisers but as time passes there will be far more tools to enable fast deployment and better management it the cost of the underlying technology that i can't see the big cloud providers running with.

Spence..

IPhone's make the best friends.

For about 6 months now I have had an iPhone and to be honest I really don't see how I could cope without one.
Not sure if it's the apps or the music or even the podcasts, I just don't thing it's superb at any one of theses things but put them all together and you have the best gadget in the world.
Just a quick note about the potential new Apple Tablet, there does seem to be a lot of negative press, but given that I spend most evenings in front of the TV with my iPhone browsing the web then I think that Apple could well be onto a good thing, the only main draw back I see at present is price of it's over £400 then I can't see it flying.

VMwares Data Recovery Manager Applaince

Well if there was no better way to see what I mean about losing focus, has anyone out there had a go with the VMware Data Recovery Manager. It seems to have been an after thought that they had to through in as vSphere is the Datacenter Operating System, it has obviously been taken from some other company and well the thing just does not work well enough to sell.

So OK yes it will back up VM's but what is the point if you can't pass that information to Tape, they include an option to store the data on a CIF's share and that is the bit that's well and truly broken.

Sorry about the rant but VMware made a name for it's self creating code that worked and this just seems to be the thin end of the wedge.

Spence...

VDI in the Real World and PowerFuse

Just this week have been with a customer that running a live XenDesktop solution for one of there branches and I have to say very impressed, I should clarify that statement the XenDesktop was not really the the thing that impressed me it was the User Profile management software they used that did.

A few Years ago back when I specialised in Citrix I remember taking a look at some add on software by a Dutch software house called RES, and at the time not being overly impressed it seemed quite complicated and at the time they had to use there own shell on top of Windows which I didn't much like at the time.

But give the number of different interfaces that we know face where it be XP/Vista/Terminal services/VDI or Windows 7, the idea for a corporate to have a single user interface is quite compelling, then onto of that you add in all the other features that PowerFuse adds like complete user customisation and management, pass through authentication, locally installed application pass through to either VDI or XenApp sessions well the list goes on and on.

Just I have to say that it's one of the most impressive solutions I have seen for a long time.

Spence...

Is VMware going the same way as Novell

Over the last few months I have been thinking more and more how VMware could well be going the same as Novell did back in the 90's.

For thus who do not remember back in the mid 90's Novell went though a stage of buying up some very large names and tried to take on the Evil Empire that was Microsoft, during this time they took there eye off the ball and lost there lead surprising quickly in the directory services game.

I remember going to a Compaq Conference in 1995 in Huston where we had Frankenburg (the CEO of Novell at the time) and Bill Gates (remember him) in the afternoon Novell told us in the morning that there market share and presence was that strong that if they never sold another license then they would still be the dominate PC networking company for the next 10 years. Well that certainly did not come to pass did it.

As a said to start with I'm beginning to see history repeating it self with VMware and Microsoft, at present yes VMware does have a good lead and much better technologies, but this will not last and if they keep alienating there customers by increasing the license costs (Enterprise Plus) then it becomes a much easer move to Hyper-V R2 given that the cost for that is Free.

Hyper-V R2 will give you HA, and Live Migration and given that under most circumstances Customers will be buying Datacenter licenses anyway as they run Windows VM's on the host, this means the most compelling reasons to go virtual, workload protection and mobility are free in much the same way that Directory services became free with Active Directory and we all know how that ended up don't we.

Spence...

This Could Be the Start

So I've taken the plunge and started to blog about the Virtual World.