Tag Archives: Virtualization

My Schedule at VMworld US 2017

Posted on by
Reply

After having had to miss out on VMworld last year, I’m pleased to announce my triumphant return to the event. Or at least my return.

VMworld has always been, in my opinion, one of the best yearly events, not just in terms of the technical content and knowledge to be gained, but also because of the size and strength of the community that attends.

So, in that spirit, in the hopes of being able to reconnect with old friends, have in-person meetings with people I’ve only none online, and in making new friends and community connections, here are the places where you’ll most likely be able to find me during the event. Continue reading →

Cisco Announces Intention to Acquire Springpath

Posted on by
Reply

SpringPathOn Monday, Cisco ended over a year of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) speculation and announced their intent to acquire Springpath.

In this case, instead of Cisco the networking company, we’re looking at Cisco the manufacturer of the Unified Computing System (UCS) compute platform. Springpath makes hyperconvergence software. Cisco has been running that software — rebranded as the Cisco HX Data Platform — on their UCS servers and offering that bundle as their HyperFlex HCI solution. You may remember that I wrote about HyperFlex when it first launched back in March of 2016.

I’ve been a fan of the UCS platform since its launch, and I’ve been a fan of Springpath since they came out of stealth.  HyperFlex has always looked like a great HCI solution to me, and I’ve been surprised it hasn’t taken off more than it has.

Cisco’s been making an overall change to put more emphasis on software and its value-add, and the Springpath acquisition obviously fits well with that shift. The Springpath team will be joining Cisco’s Computing Systems Product Group.

At the price — $320Million in cash — it’s a bargain for Cisco even if they’re only acquiring Springpath to ensure exclusive access to the intellectual property, or ongoing support for HyperFlex. The acquisition is expected to close in Q1 of 2018, pending regulatory review.

Cisco Press Release

Voting for Top vBlog 2017 is Open — Closes 30 June

Posted on by
Reply

It’s that time of year again when you’re seeing lots of “Vote for Me!” blog posts and tweets. This is not one of those posts.

Yes, once again, Eric Seibert is running voting for the Top vBlog of 2017 on his really great blog vSphere-Land. (If it’s not already in whatever you’ve moved to since Google Reader went away, take a moment to add it now. I’ll wait.) Again this year, Turbonomic is helping to sponsor the voting.

So, no, I’m not going to ask you to rush over there and vote for me. I am, however going to ask you to go there sometime before voting closes on 30 June 2017 and vote for the blogs (you can choose 12 of them) that you find to be:

  • The most helpful
  • The most informative
  • The best

In the Big Scheme of ThingsTM, does being voted on of the Top vBlogs of 2017 really matter? No. No, it doesn’t.

However, I know that your favorite bloggers will definitely appreciate seeing their blog rise up a little higher in the rankings. I know that a lot of folks out there put a lot of time and effort into their postings — almost all of it during their “free” time — and almost all of them aren’t making any money off of their blogs. (Full Disclosure: From sponsorship, this blog earned slightly more than enough money to cover my hosting fees in 2016, netting approximately $16 USD for the entire year.

So thank them by taking the time to vote for the folks you read and are informed by, whoever they are — I know they’ll appreciate it. (Don’t get me wrong — if you’re having trouble thinking of who to give your 12th vote to, I’ll happily take it, but it won’t bother me in the least if you don’t vote for me at all, as long as you took the time to vote for folks you believe deserve the recognition.)

You can read up on the voting and cast your vote here.

What’s New in VMware vSphere 6.5

Posted on by
6

The big virtualization news from the past week or so was definitely the release and General Availability of VMware vSphere version 6.5, available for download now.

New features include:

  • Improvements to vCenter Server 6.5
  • Transition to Web Client-only
  • Improved host management
  • Enhancements to VMware Tools
  • vRealize Operations Manager updated to 6.4
  • Enhancements to the API, specifically for developers and automation
  • Security enhancements (including VM-level encryption)
  • Improvements to VMware HA and DRS
  • Storage-related enhancements (including automated UNMAP)
  • Networking enhancements

I’ll review each of these areas and also go through some caveats — especially around compatibility with other VMware products. Continue reading →

Avere Systems Announces New Complete Storage Solution

Posted on by
Reply

avere-c2nToday, Avere Systems announced its first complete storage solution. Avere is known for their Edge Filers that virtualize NAS systems and/or act as a file-access gateway to object storage.

The just-announced C2N solution combines Avere FXT Edge Filers with Avere’s own new scale-out object storage platform. This combination allows the C2N to be used as a standalone storage solution, while still using the FXT as to virtualize other NAS devices and as a gateway to other object storage platforms — either on- or off-premises. I’ll walk through the solution below. Continue reading →

Farewell, VMTurbo. Welcome, Turbonomic!

Posted on by
Reply

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve been a fan of VMTurbo from the start.

turbo-heartWell, as of a week ago, VMTurbo is no more. Don’t worry — they haven’t gone away, they’ve changed their name to Turbonomic, to rebrand themselves in the IT marketspace. The name change comes in three parts.

First, they lost the “VM”. This is part of a move to show that they’re not just for virtual environments any more. That’s where they got their start, and while their product monitoring and management functionality has expanded beyond that, a lot of folks still think of them in that “virtual-only” box.

Second, is “Turbo”. They kept this as part of their name because it still applies. The idea is that they can help your IT infrastructure perform at “Turbo speed”.

Lastly, the “nomic”. This comes from two sources. The first is the economic modeling that the Turbonomic algorithms use for resource allocation. The second is how they allow for autonomic management of the IT environment.

I’m looking forward to more new developments coming out under the new name.

Voting for Top vBlogs of 2016 is Open!

Posted on by
Reply

vote-button1vSphere-land is running the annual voting for the Top Virtualization Blogs (vBlogs) of 2016. There are so many good blogs out there Eric (who runs vSphere-Land) has made two changes to the voting this year:

  1. To qualify, a blog needs to have had at least 10 posts published in 2015.
  2. You can now vote for your 12 favorite blogs (up from 10 last year).

There are a lot of great blogs out there, many of them written by folks who are doing the work on their own time. If you’ve benefitted from reading them, help thank your favorite authors by taking a few minutes to vote for them.

And while I’d love your vote (I’m also in the categories Best Storage Blog and Best Independent Blog (just saying…)), it’s more important that you vote for the folks you’ve benefitted from.

Keep it classy, though. Every year Eric does a lot of work to stop folks from trying to work the system to get more votes for themselves. Don’t make his job harder on him.

Take a few minutes and vote for your favorites here.

SimpliVity Announces OmniStack 3.5 and OmniView

Posted on by
Reply

SimpliVityToday, SimpliVity announced version 3.5 of their OmniStack Data Virtualization Platform and a new predictive analytics offering called OmniView.

Introduction to SimpliVity

Founded in 2009 with a mission to simplify IT infrastructure, SimpliVity is one of the “Names” in the hyperconverged infrastructure space. Their OmniStack Data Virtualization Platform can be purchased in one of two ways:

  • Pre-installed on a hardware appliance called an OmniCube
  • As software to run on approved supported server hardware like Cisco UCS and Lenovo

The key to the OmniStack Data Virtualization Platform (DVP) is the inline, global data deduplication. As Simplivity is fond of saying, the least expensive write is one you don’t need to write. Continue reading →

Cisco Enters Hyperconverged Market with HyperFlex

Posted on by
9

HyperFlex HX240cToday Cisco announced their entry in the Hyperconverged Infrastructure marketplace, a solution called HyperFlex.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) can be thought of as “Virutalization in a Box”. An HCI solution is one that offers everything needed for server virtualization: compute, memory, network, storage, hypervisor, and management/orchestration for all of these.

Cisco’s HyperFlex solution uses:

  • Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) to provide the compute, memory, and storage hardware
  • Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects to provide the network hardware
  • Cisco UCS Manager for compute, memory, and network management
  • VMware ESXi for the hypervisor
  • SpringPath software, re-branded as the Cisco HX Data Platform, to provide the data services, and storage optimization and orchestration

The HyperFlex solution will initially be offered in three different ways: small footprint, capacity-heavy, and compute-heavy.

I’ll walk through the various components and the complete solution below. Continue reading →

Nutanix Files Intent to IPO

Posted on by
1

NutanixYesterday, Nutanix announced that it had filed Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Form S-1 is what companies use to proposed creating an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of publicly-traded shares of stock.

Nutanix intends to list its Class A Common Stock under the ticker symbol “NTNX”. The number of shares to be offered or their initial price point hasn’t been determined yet, but Nutanix says that they aim to sell a maximum of $200 Million in shares of stock. The deal is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Credit Suisse.

Nutanix makes a hyperconverged infrastructure appliance. They have OEM partnership deals with both Dell and Lenovo.

Nutanix is most often seen as a competitor to SimpliVity, but they try to paint themselves in a different light. In the filing, Nutanix positions itself as competing with traditional storage vendors and specifically lists EMC, NetApp, and Hitachi Data Systems. Nutanix also calls out VMware as a competitor. You can read the full text of the SEC filing here.

During their most recent fiscal year, Nutanix registered $241 Million in revenue with a net $126 Million loss.

It will be interesting to see if the market is ready to get behind hyperconvergence.