VMware released the long awaited vSphere 4.1. This update of the current vSphere productline has some great new feature included in this release. The notes on "What's new" can be found here.

Some new features include :

Network I/O Control. Traffic-management controls allow flexible partitioning of physical NIC bandwidth between different traffic types, including virtual machine, vMotion, FT, and IP storage traffic (vNetwork Distributed Switch only).

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.

Storage I/O Control. This feature provides quality-of-service capabilities for storage I/O in the form of I/O shares and limits that are enforced across all virtual machines accessing a datastore, regardless of which host they are running on. Using Storage I/O Control, vSphere administrators can ensure that the most important virtual machines get adequate I/O resources even in times of congestion.

Network I/O Control. Traffic-management controls allow flexible partitioning of physical NIC bandwidth between different traffic types, including virtual machine, vMotion, FT, and IP storage traffic (vNetwork Distributed Switch only).

ESX/ESXi Active Directory Integration. Integration with Microsoft Active Directory allows seamless user authentication for ESX/ESXi. You can maintain users and groups in Active Directory for centralized user management and you can assign privileges to users or groups on ESX/ESXi hosts. In vSphere 4.1, integration with Active Directory allows you to roll out permission rules to hosts by using Host Profiles.

Also a nice note is included under Install and Deployment : "Future major releases of VMware vSphere will include only the VMware ESXi architecture." This means that we won't see ESX anymore in the future releases. The result will be that you eventually will need to upgrade to ESXi. Not a bad thing as I already explained in an earlier post here. For more information on how to migrate to ESXi, look at this whitepaper written by VMware.

You can download the new release here. Next thing : update to new release and play with new features

UPDATE : For more information on the vSphere 4.1 go to this link page of Eric Siebert. Excellent resource for all the vSphere 4.1 information out there.

Well it’s going to be big (and is already being hyped as such). It’ll be a paradigm shift in the world of IT as we know it. But as I explained in an earlier post: we still have a long way to go before it’ll be mainstream. Cloud Computing is the come together of multiple technologies that already exist. It can be compared to a chemical reaction : Every component is there, we are now in the process to evolve to a new level in IT.

Defining Cloud Computing seems to be something that nobody can agree upon. Here goes mine:

Cloud Computing is an IT model which allows business to scale IT capabilities in such a way that it suits the needs at any time. This can be realized real-time through on-demand self-service. It will be delivered as-a-service anytime, anywhere and will be paid per use afterwards. 

Such a definition can be broken down into 4 characteristics that build up Cloud Computing:

• Elastic & dynamic infrastructure; The infrastructure on which Cloud Computing is build should be able to handle the ever changing demand from business. In such in needs to be elastic and dynamic to supply this demand. Virtualization is the method to provide this flexibility.
• On-demand self service; Business needs to have the ability to self service their needs real-time. Controls should be provided that service this need without the help of external parties.
• Location independent; End-users should be able to access the service anytime, anywhere. Internet is the highway that will connect the service to standard input devices.
• Pay per use; A consumption model must be in place where one pays for the services that have been provided to them. No more, no less. Just the capacity that has be used should be billed afterwards. 

For more information look at the following information sources :

NIST Working Definition Of Cloud Computing

Maria Spinola - An Essential Guide to Possibilities and Risks of Cloud Computing (whitepaper)

Burton Group - Cloud Computing: Transforming IT (whitepaper / needs free registration)

April 21th was the big day the VMware community was waiting for. Finally the next generation of Virtual Infrastructure was release by VMware. As already announced the new name for this bundle of software is vSphere! It was announced by VMware's CEO Paul Maritz during a simulcast. You can still view the presentation here.

So the word is finally out. Let's have some fun with this new product, but that probably won't be a problem because of all the nice new features. And remember this is just the beginning. After this initial product release more will come. VMware will release new product which will integrate with vSphere in the next couple of months. The list can be found here. And not only VMware is going to release new products, but also the partners will release new innovative product which will make vSphere even a better product. So you'd better stay virtually connected to get the latest update!

Over at CES 2009 last week Microsoft's Janet Galore gave a conceptual demo of how Microsoft's technologies will change the way we find, share and use information. The video below will show you the next gen technologies and the way we will use them. A far as I can see we will:

• Be connected everywhere; Each device will be connected to that one big cloud we have, the internet.
• Have applications with social network integration; Social networking will integrate with applications. No more addressbooks, creating logins, sending emails, etc. We just share all information through the application we're working in. How cool is that!
• Flexible user interface; Apple may be a few steps ahead, but the flexible easy to use interfaces will also make its way in to the most common interface we use. Maybe even your own customized user interface for all devices. Talk about personal tweaking.
• "Mind map" like presentation of information. I like mindmapping. It's fast and structured method of showing information in two-dimensional form. Would be great to have such a feature in the future to present large amounts of information.
• Multi language information display. Would be nice to write something in Dutch and everybody all over the world can read my blog post in their own language.
• Device interaction. Maybe the coolest feature of them all. Devices that can interact with one another. Sharing information for you without much hassle and on display.

So have a look at this video and see what the future has to offer (according to Microsoft ofcourse ).

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more information go here.

Danielle Ruest and Neil Ruest over at Redmond Magazine created a nice comparison of hypervisors that are currently available. Lately VMware, Citrix and Microsoft are bashing one another about who has the best, smallest, cheapest, etc. hypervisor. Hope this article will clear things up a little bit...

I especially like their conclusion, stating to find out yourself first before making a choice.

Article conclusion :

Don't get fooled by stories that outline just how expensive one hypervisor is compared to another. What counts is experience, stability and guest operating system density. When you begin to build your own internal cloud, you'll quickly discover that the best hypervisor is the one you can master in the shortest possible time frame. All vendors offer free virtualization technologies. Try them out in your lab, and see for yourself which one will run the most VMs and offer the best performance on a given set of hardware resources.

The full article can be found here.

Welcome to vKnowledge.NL! This is my first post on my newly created blog. Wanted to do this some time, but have been planning this for a couple of months. It's still a work in progress, but hey everybody got to start somewhere...