VMware Roars at VMworld
As our intrepid review czar Peter Varhol stated in
yesterday's
Redmond Report, VMware is indeed planning to hit it out of the park at VMworld
in San Francisco this week. In fact, the company is hoping to hit it out of
the park again and again.
The spate of announcements the virtualization virtuoso has made at VMworld
this week begins with the company's release of source code for most of its tools
to the open source world as part of VMware's Open Virtual Machine Tools project.
The tools are virtualization components to help improve virtual machine performance.
Check them out here.
VMware is also working with open source vendors like Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu
to integrate its tools into those vendors' installation process. Virtualization
meets open source, everybody's happy.
VMware also unveiled its ESX Server 3i, the company's next-generation thin
hypervisor that will be built into server hardware from manufacturers like Dell,
HP, IBM and NEC. This direct integration with server boxes promises to simplify
and speed up deployment and management of virtual machines.
The company also announced it has just
acquired Dunes Technologies, which offers process orchestration software
for managing virtual environments. "Dunes has developed a powerful orchestration
platform that will allow us to automate the entire virtual machine lifecycle
from requisition to de-commissioning, while complementing existing VMware management
and automation solutions such as VMware Lab Manager and the recently announced
VMware Virtual Desktop Manager," said Raghu Raghuram, VMware's vice president
of products and solutions.
It's not just new tools and new deals: VMware also reports that more than
300 academic institutions are now participating in its Academic Program. As
part of this program, qualified academic institutions get VMware tools for free
to use for research and educational purposes. VMware also plans to roll out
an online Academic Community Center later this year. The online center will
include courseware, research papers, discussion groups and other resources to
promote virtualization higher education.
It's a logical progression for the company. "VMware itself grew out of
academic research and many of our earliest customers were at universities,"
said Dr. Stephen Herrod, vice president of technology development at VMware.
"The VMware Academic Program is our way of contributing back to academia
by making our products available free-of-charge for research and teaching."
When do you suppose the first Bachelor of Science in virtualization be awarded?
Seems like virtualization will soon touch every aspect of computing. How are
you using virtualization? Send me a real message and let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lafe Low on September 12, 2007