Product announcements

SolarWinds offers free virtual machine and network monitoring tool

Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds, a provider of downloadable network management software, has released a free tool to monitor the performance of VMware Inc. virtual environments.

The new tool, SolarWinds VM Monitor, and an update to its flagship Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) gives IT a way to manage and monitor their virtual machines (VM).

SolarWinds VM Monitor is operated through a desktop dashboard that continuously monitors a VMware ESX server and the associated VMs by providing real-time monitoring of ESX health indicators.

According to SolarWinds, many of the affordable network management solutions on the market don’t extend monitoring to performance and availability of VMs, potentially impacting critical business services including e-mail, web applications, and ERP.

This appears to be a big issue in data centers, as more than 50,000 customers, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, use products from 10 year old SolarWinds to monitor and manage their networks, according to Kenny Van Zant, chief product strategist at the company.

It makes sense for companies like SolarWinds to extend their capabilities into virtual environments because virtualization adoption is growly rapidly; worldwide virtualization license shipments in the second quarter of 2008 increased 53% year over year, compared to a 72% year-over-year increase the previous quarter, according to Framingham, Mass.-based IDC’s new Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker released October 16.

VMware holds the top position in the virtualization market with 78% revenue share in the second quarter of this year, the Server Virtualization Tracker showed.

In addition to SolarWinds software and the VMware ESX Virtual Infrastructure 3’s built-in monitoring tools, there is a large selection of third-party applications - both free and for a price - that offer performance management capabilities, including Nagios, Vizioncore vCharter Pro, eG VM Monitor Veeam Reporter, Hyperic HQ and others.

SolarWinds’ free tool, available for download today, makes it easy to:

• Quickly check the health of a single VMware ESX server by monitoring CPU and memory utilization, number of VMs configured and running, and more

• View detailed individual VM health statistics including VM name, IP address, VM state, as well as processor, memory and disk usage.

• Prevent performance degradation by checking threshold specific indicators to remediate issues.

Of course, like most free software, there is a better version of it that isn’t free.

To monitor a full VMware virtual environment, the improved version of Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is the way to go, according to SolarWinds. NPM gives network engineers a way to monitor thousands of VMware ESX servers, as well as associated VM instances, and VMware VirtualCenter.

With this update, Orion NPM can read host MIB information from each VMware ESX server and its corresponding VMs, detailing statistics like CPU utilization, memory utilization, disk usage, and much more. The latest release also offers ESX-specific alerts and reports. Orion Network Performance Monitor offers:

• Monitoring and analysis of in-depth network performance metrics for routers, switches, physical servers, ESX servers, virtual machines, and any other SNMP-enabled devices in real time

• Do-it-yourself deployment that allows users to be up and running in about an hour

• An intuitive, customizable web interface that supports multiple views including maps and global Top 10 lists

• Alerting for correlated events, sustained conditions, and complex combinations of device states

• Modules to expand monitoring of NetFlow traffic analysis and VoIP performance, wireless devices, applications and servers

SolarWinds’ Orion NPM is available now and pricing starts at $2,475 (USD) for 100 monitored elements including first year maintenance. Orion NPM customers, currently under maintenance, get the 9.1 updates for free.

Users can find more information, tips from SolarWinds company experts as well as peer support and perspectives on Orion NPM, at Thwack, the SolarWinds online community.

Also, on Thursday, October 30, SolarWinds’ Head Geek (their term, not mine), Josh Stephens will host a “Geek Speak” webcast that will look at monitoring ESX-based virtual environments and the challenges associated with them. For more information and to register for the “Monitoring the Virtual Environment – A Technical Perspective on ESX Server Health and Performance Monitoring” event, go to http://www.solarwinds.com/geek/.

VMware releases update to VirtualCenter and VMware Converter

Last week, VMware released VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3. The release fixes issues with Update 2 (build 104263), which was released in July, before the infamous product expiration issue. In the immediate releases after the problem, a corrected version of Virtual Center was not released.

This update fixes 19 various issues but does not provide any new functionality. Several of the resolved issues involve VMware High Availability and Distributed Resource Scheduler functionality — in the previous version, various situations prevented the functionality from working correctly.

VMware Converter Enterprise, now on build 62407, also has an update that will correct two minor issues with connecting to a VirtualCenter server for conversions. This is different than the VMware Converter Enterprise standalone edition, which installs on remote systems instead of the VirtualCenter server. The standalone version remains at version 3.0.3 (build 89816).

More information on VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 can be found in the release notes on VMware’s website.

SixApart and JumpBox go virtual with Movable Type

On Sept. 17, 2008, SixApart and JumpBox announced the release of a jointly developed appliance named Virtual Movable Type. The product can be installed on a server, PC or in a cloud infrastructure and is compatible with the majority of the major virtualization platforms on the market.

As opposed to installing its predecessor Movable Type on a web server, Virtual Movable Type is installed from software and exists as a single virtual machine (VM) which eliminates the need for configuring all of the applications in the server environment. According to JumpBox CEO Kimbro Staken, “It takes minimal technical skill and just minutes to deploy, regardless of whether it’s on your laptop, in the data center or in the cloud. This strips away the barriers to using server based applications like Movable Type and allows a less technical customer to take advantage of this great software.”

For more information on Virtual Movable Type, check out both www.sixapart.com and www.jumpbox.com.

vmSight releases version 4.0

This post was written by Keith Kessinger, Editorial Assistant.

Alpharetta, Ga.-based vmSight has released the latest version of its virtualization management platform, vmSight 4.0.

The new offering gives administrators new tools, responses and controls in order to monitor desktops and applications running in a virtual environment. Some of vmSight 4.0’s new features include the following:

• customizable alerts;
• customizable and scheduled reports; and
• the ability to automate administrative responses.

“We are at the beginning of a transformation in end-user computing - one that involves the convergence of virtual desktops, virtualized applications and cloud computing,” Jonathan Alexander, president and co-founder of vmSight, said in a statement. “This creates new challenges to ensure a good end-user experience. VmSight 4.0 is the only solution that focuses on this problem and provides the full set of capabilities across technologies and platforms that administrators need.”

For more information on vmSight 4.0, visit the company website at www.vmsight.com.

Verizon Business to offer new virtualization services

Verizon Business has announced that it will begin offering services to enterprises seeking to virtualize their data centers. In a statement released this morning at VMworld 2008, Verizon Business will offer a package called Virtualization Consulting and Management Services that consolidates physical data centers into virtual ones. Along with the consolidation service, Verizon Business will also offer remote backup and restore, hosted and instant messaging, an IT service desk, Akamai services, IP application hosting and remote IP service.

In addition to announcing its virtualization initiative, Verizon Business also revealed that it has attained Gold Partner status in the VMware Authorized Consultant (VAC) program. The designation allows Verizon Business access to VMware tools and the newest offerings in order to bolster capability to offer virtualization services to enterprise level IT departments.

For more information on Verizon Business’ Virtualization Consulting and Management Services, visit the company website at www.verizonbusiness.com.

VKernel to support Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V

At VMworld 2008, VKernel announced that it will partner with Microsoft to offer several management tools for Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V. VKernel will modify its line of management tools to better handle Microsoft-based environments.

Although VKernel already supports the majority of VMware platforms, this will be the first foray into tools that are supported for Microsoft Hyper-V. “We see this as an opportunity for VKernel to differentiate ourselves and enable our customers to best manage their environments and assure optimal performance regardless of whether they are using Microsoft or VMware,” VKernel CEO Alex Balkman said in a press release.

Initially only some of the tools that make-up VKernel’s Performance Lifecycle Management bundle will be available for use with Hyper-V. They include Chargeback, a cost analysis tool; Capacity Analyzer which monitors resources; and Modeler which tests new additions to an environment and, prior to launch, analyzes the impact they might have on the environment.

For more information on VKernel’s new initiative with Microsoft, check out the company website at www.vkernel.com.

Integrien previews new VMware-specific features for Alive

On Tuesday, Sept. 16, Irvine, Calif.- based Integrien Corp. previewed the newest incarnation of its systems management software, Alive, at VMworld 2008. This new release is notable because it contains VMware-specific capabilities for the first time in Alive.

The newest version of Alive can monitor the behavior of VMware ESX servers, clusters and virtual machines (VMs) while providing a picture of the overall health of a VMware infrastructure. It will also contain more in-depth analysis including an overall environment “health” score regardless of whether the infrastructure comprises heterogeneous tools or VMware-only tools. In addition Alive sends an alert to the administrator prior to a problem’s manifestation, along with the root cause, because of its ability to learn the behavior of an environment.

For more information on Alive and its new VMware-specific capabilities check out the company’s website at www.integrien.com.

Desktone and Wyse to enable Flash in DaaS environments

At VMworld 2008 this week, Desktone Inc. and Wyse Technology announced that they have formed a partnership to bring Flash to Desktop as a Service (DaaS) infrastructures.

The collaboration will consist primarily of the integration of two products. Wyse TCX Multimedia, which works with remote desktop protocols (RDPs) and independent computing architecture (ICA) protocols that connect virtual machines (VMs) on the server to the client, provides PC-quality multimedia while organizing and balancing workloads on the client. Desktone dtFlash, the second product, acts as the interface between the Flash player and Wyse TCX to facilitate the use of multimedia applications on the client.

For more information on this collaboration between Wyse and Desktone be sure to check the websites of both companies, www.wyse.com and www.desktone.com.

Reflex Security releases Virtualization Management Center for VM management

This post was written by SearchEnterpriseLinux.com assistant editor Caroline Hunter

At VMworld 2008, virtualization security leader Reflex Security Inc. will release Virtualization Management Center (VMC), a product that makes virtual machine (VM) activity visible to security administrators. By providing security administrators with essential VM activity data, VMC improves visibility, management and granular control of next-generation virtual data centers.

The product features a number of monitoring, reporting and regulatory functions, including the following:

• Applications and services discovery, which protects the virtual environment by inspecting traffic content and seeking out applications and protocols over a virtual network.

• Revision control and configuration monitoring, which enables administrators to monitor and analyze virtual infrastructure changes in real time and historically by tracking network revisions that generate network diagrams.

• Virtual machine lifecycle management, which monitors the health of VMs from creation to decommissioning by tracking users, configurations, applications and performance in the context of security.

• Virtual infrastructure discovery and mapping, whereby VMC utilizes extensive real-time and historical visual reporting through timeline-based, graphical topology maps.

• Network and application performance monitoring, which improves service levels for critical applications and quickly troubleshoots issues by analyzing virtual network performance and discovering virtual network bottlenecks.

• Virtual network security (FW/IDS/IPS), which helps reduce the risk of virtual machine intrusion, infection and compliance violations by detecting and preventing attacks on a virtual infrastructure and enforcing IT policies.

• Virtualization policy management, which defines and enforces IT policies throughout heterogeneous virtual environments.

As virtualization becomes more prevalent and virtual machine security risks increase, Virtual Management Center addresses the growing anxiety among data center admins and managers concerning virtual environments by providing the necessary information, analyzing risks and managing complexity.

Perfman 7.2 premieres at VMworld

Perfman 7.2, the newest version of Perfman’s cross-platform capacity planning and performance management software, was announced at VMworld this morning in Las Vegas.

Among the notable new features in Perfman 7.2, the VMware Sprawl Reporting tool and virtualization planning tool stand out. The VMware Sprawl Reporting tool gives users a detailed report of the growth of virtual machines (VMs) across the entire environment. In addition, it shows the rate of VM growth per each ESX Server, while also listing VMs that were once active but have become inactive.

The virtualization planning tool allows administrators to evaluate which physical servers and applications would be good candidates for virtualization while producing a model of the expected performance of the new virtual environment. In addition, the virtualization planning tool will produce hypothetical scenarios to predict the performance of the system with new workloads or how existing workloads would respond on new hardware.

For more information on Perfman7.2 visit the company’s website at www.perfman.com.