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ChChChChanges – Product launches, acquisitions, partnerships, and pricing |
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By Barb Goldworm
published: Friday, February 22 2008
2008 is off
to a quick start in virtualization, with product launches, acquisitions, expanding
partnerships and pricing changes. Here are a few of the interesting happenings thus
far to check out and keep an eye on in 2008.
Microsoft Products, Partnership and Pricing
As Microsoft
moves into high gear for its official February launch of Windows Server 2008,
the virtualization team is also gearing up for Hyper-V and its overall
virtualization strategy. In addition to
an early positive response to the beta release of Hyper-V itself, a few
interesting tidbits have been added to the strategy. Given Microsoft's strength in desktops and
applications, it's not surprising that their virtualization strategy expands
beyond server virtualization to include desktop and application virtualization
as key components, along with management in these areas. As part of this strategy, there have been a
number of product, partnership and pricing changes:
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Systems Center Virtual Machine
Manager (VMM), the tool currently shipping to manage Virtual Server,
will not only manage Hyper-V, but will also add support to manage other
hypervisors, VMware initially, and XenServer after that. VMM
integrates well with other SystemsCenter tools already in wide use-
Configuration Manager (previously SMS) and Operations Manager
(previously MOM). In addition, Systems Center will continue to expand
management capabilities in Application Virtualization (previously
SoftGrid) and Terminal Services. Systems Center will become a key area
for Microsoft in virtualization, offering an integrated management
platform that crosses physical and virtual, as well as OS, application
and presentation virtualization.
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Building
on its long-standing partnerships with both Citrix and its Xen business unit,
and its already discussed interoperability between Hyper-V and XenServer, Microsoft
announced that it will leverage Citrix's XenDesktop offering for delivery of a
virtual desktop architecture (VDA). This approach will allow users connecting
from a thin client or rich client to connect to virtual desktop VMs running XP
or Vista running on a back-end Hyper-V
infrastructure, connecting through the XenDesktop broker/manager.
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As
part of encouraging the market to make the shift to a more complete virtual
infrastructure (as well as to Vista), Microsoft's
Windows pricing for virtual desktops is being reduced through Vista Enterprise
Centralized Desktop (VECD). This
licensing option, available through Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement with
Software Assurance, reduces the price per virtual desktop to roughly $23 per
desktop, for any user connecting from a PC (presuming it is running some
version of Windows) or $110 for users connecting from a thin client. (While the
licensing is known as Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, it also allows
downgrades to connect to XP or other desktops).
VMware Product Release and Thinstall Acquisition
VMware is
also taking strides both in and beyond server virtualization. With its acquisition of Thinstall, VMware
moves into the area of application virtualization. Thinstall's technology has
been around for several years, offering an encapsulated virtual application
environment in the form of a single executable file. The individual executable includes a small
virtual wrapper, and can be easily moved around the network, and then executed
on a client, creating its own virtual application sandbox. Integration and expansion of this technology
within the VMware product line will be an area to watch.
Back on the
server virtualization front, VMware is delivering on its VI3.5 promise, with a
number of new capabilities. Several enhancements focus on converting to
virtual, such as Guided Consolidation and VMware Converter integration. New
management capabilities include Storage VMotion (which allows migration of VM
storage, similar to what VMotion does for VMs) and Update Manager (which automates
patch management for ESX hosts and certain other VMs). VMware HA has also been
expanded to include experimental support for monitoring individual VM failures
to allow auto restart upon VM failure. A number of storage and networking
related enhancements are included in VI3.5 and Virtual Center 2.5, such as
VMotion support for local swap files, VM support for SATA devices, 10 GigE
support, and NPIV support for Fibre Channel SANs (to allow individual VMs to
have their own World Wide Port Name).
Citrix Product Positioning and Partnership
As the Xen
acquisition becomes part of the Citrix culture, virtualization technology is
melding into and across the Citrix product line and nomenclature. Citrix Presentation Server, the flagship
Citrix product for many years, is now renamed XenApp, with the first hints of
where and how Xen will evolve across Citrix.
Citrix now has new optimizations for XenApp/Presentation Server running
in a VM, which will offer significant performance improvements for those
environments where Virtualizing it makes sense.
The newly
named Citrix Delivery Center
will offer a unified family of products including XenServer, XenDesktop,
XenApp, and NetScaler. In addition,
XenServer Platinum and XenDesktop include the Citrix Provisioning Server
capability (from the Ardence acquisition) which provides OS streaming
functionality for streaming the OS to virtual or physical desktops. Tying the components together will be a new
product called Citrix Workflow Studio, designed to help task workflow by
orchestrating communications across multiple Citrix products.
Sun VirtualBox Acquisition
In the
hypervisor arena, Sun late last year announced that they would offer their own
Xen-based hypervisor, called xVM. In February, in a different segment of the
virtualization market, Sun has just announced they they would acquire Innotek,
maker of VirtualBox open source virtualization software targeted for
developers. VirtualBox competes with products such as VMware's Fusion and
Parallels Desktop, allowing developers to run multiple Operating Systems on
their desktop to aid in software development and testing in cross-platform
environments VirtualBox is free, and supports a wide range of OS environments.
Running on Windows, Mac, Linux or Solaris, it makes a nice addition to Sun's
portfolio, as an additional developer tool.
What next?
With
virtualization as one of the hottest spots for 2008, expect to see lots more
activity and acquisitions here this year.
Now that the hypervisor platforms have reset the stage for the coming
years, the market is entering a new stage of maturity. Adjacent markets will continue to heat up,
with more new products from big players and emerging companies, and more
acquisitions coming. Interesting places to watch -- desktop and application
virtualization, virtualization management and virtualization security. Stay tuned...
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Barb Goldworm is president and chief analyst of Focus Consulting, a market research, analyst and consulting firm focused on systems, software and storage. Barb has spent 30 years in various senior management, marketing, sales, engineering, technical and industry analyst roles with IBM, StorageTek, Novell, Enterprise Management Associates and several successful startup ventures. Barb began working with virtualization at IBM in the late 1970s (as a VM technical specialist), and later was VP of Marketing for the company that developed the first PC software distribution product in the mid-1980s (acquired by Novell in 1992). In 2006, she was commissioned by Wiley Publishing to write a book on blades - she agreed but changed the focus of the book to include a major emphasis on virtualization - the book was released in 2007, entitled "Blade Servers and Virtualization: Transforming Enterprise Computing While Cutting Costs", available on Amazon.com, Borders and Barnes and Noble.
Barb is a frequent keynote speaker, chair, and presenter at industry events. In 2007, she chaired the Server Blade Summit on Blades and Virtualization, and has been the keynote speaker for numerous Virtualization Summits this year. She also created and chaired the Interop Network Storage Track and has been one of the top 3 ranked analyst/ knowledge expert speakers at SNW.
Barb has published extensively since the 1990s, and has been a regular contributor to Network World, Computerworld, Computerworld Storage Networking World Online, Tech Target, and now Virtual Strategy Magazine. She has authored numerous research studies, landscape reports, and business and technical white papers on systems, software, storage, storage networking and enterprise management. Barb can be reached at
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