Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, AMD has not added anything new to its antitrust charges against Intel - just some color - mostly black redactions - even after riffling through the 145 million pages of discovery that Intel turned over to it. According to AMD, 'Intel has made sure that the written record tells little of the story.' The case has now reached the deposition stage and what's new this week is the revelation that AMD wants the right to take 48 times more depositions than the federal standard allows.

HP is racing to the rescue of those threatening to drown in their own data, but that Web 2.0 lot had better be able to hold on until the fourth quarter when HP can deliver what it calls 'Extreme' storage, the NAS-style ExDS9100. It's a 10U BladeSystem that can hold 820TB of SATA-based data and through the wonders of HP's PolyServe clustering can be strung together into a multi-petabyte system - along the lines of what EMC is promising to do with Hulk and Maui widgetry - that can be managed by a single administrator.

AMD has rethought its roadmap and, given its limited resources and near-death experience with Barcelona, it's scrubbing Montreal, the eight-core chip that was supposed to follow Shanghai, the chip after Barcelona, and substituting a six-core part code named Istanbul to be followed by a 12-core part called Magny-Cours. Speculation has also been rife this week that AMD would finally tease out its so-called asset-lite manufacturing plans, some kind of cost-saving outsourcing scheme, at its shareholders meeting Thursday, chatter that has flamed into speculation that it will break in two - a manufacturing business and a chip design and development operation.

Virtualization stresses existing management systems by introducing increases in the speed, scale, and complexity of the information technology environment. With its EVM Suite, ManageIQ enables enterprises to overcome these challenges with management and automation designed for virtualized environments. ManageIQ's agent free, non-invasive solution assures comprehensive discovery of virtual resources, without the time, expense, and disruption of agent and driver-based approaches. Continuous tracking of virtual resources, and EVM's in- depth analytical capabilities speed problem resolution and help eliminate resource management issues like VM sprawl.

A new scalable virtualization server is now available from Dell and based on the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, AMD announced. Enterprise customers interested in consolidating server infrastructure may turn to two new virtualization servers from Dell utilizing Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, including the Dell PowerEdge R905 which set a new standard in VMmark performance testing with 60 virtual machines. The new Dell servers take advantage of AMD Direct Connect Architecture to reduce bottlenecks, minimize latency and increase the performance of virtualized applications to maximize the benefits of virtualization.

DataCore announced that it has accepted a $30M equity investment from Insight Venture Partners and Updata Partners. Insight Venture Partners is a private equity and venture capital firm focused on the global software and Internet industries. Updata Partners is an information technology-focused venture capital firm whose general partners have been active as investors and operators in the IT industry for more than two decades.

Citrix says that Dell has started pre-installing XenServer on PowerEdge servers at the factory for worldwide distribution. It said XenServer Dell products are the only virtualization solutions to integrate Dell's OpenManage agent technology, which is supposed to make customer feel comfortable.

As oil headed in the direction of $200 a barrel this week, VMware claimed that its virtualization widgetry has saved users 39 billion kWh since 1998, more power than it takes to heal and cool Denmark a year. It calculates the savings at $4.4 billion.

VMware and Lenovo announced an agreement to increase the adoption of VMware virtualization in China. Lenovo will sell, distribute and support the VMware Infrastructure 3 platform on Lenovo server systems. This partnership enables businesses and organizations in China to leverage both the performance and scalability of Lenovo servers with VMware virtualization to reduce operating expenses, improve business continuity, strengthen security and reduce their power consumption and carbon footprint.

SYS-CON Events announced today that the Founder & CEO of FastScale, Lynn LeBlanc, will be giving a top breakout session at SYS-CON's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo in San Jose, CA (20-21 November, 2008).

Currently, an overwhelming majority of organizations are migrating and consolidating servers from physical to virtual environments. While the savings of the virtualized data center are extremely compelling, there is a new set of challenges that IT staffs didn't have to deal with in the physical world. One of the challenges is getting used to the fact that all hardware resources: CPU, memory, storage, and network utilization are shared between virtual machines. This means that applications and users can impact each other and therefore resource monitoring becomes extremely important. If you don?t closely monitor resource consumption by each virtual machine and simply keep adding more virtual machines without doing analysis on how this will impact all four core resources, the result will be bad performance and even system downtime. Ultimately, this means unhappy users, dissatisfied managers, and a negative impact on the virtualization project. So, you need to find a way to prevent this problem.

Conference in San Francisco. Dvorak held forth on a number of topics, including the new AMD/Intel lawsuit, the viability of Java and Sun, the value of (or lack thereof) of corporate PR, and whether or not a new book about Silicon Valley is really worth reading.

Composite Software provides a virtual approach to data integration. Hundreds of enterprises including five of the top six U.S. investment banks as well several Government agencies, such as the Office of Secretary of Defense and Intelligence, and software vendors including Cognos, Informatica and BMC, rely on the Composite Information Server to virtualize, abstract and federate data from multiple, disparate sources and deliver this real-time information to their applications. Composite Software's technology fulfills real-time information requirements, enabling enterprises to respond faster to business requests, reduce their data integration costs, and keep pace with ever-changing business needs.

SYS-CON Events has announced that VMware CTO Stephen Herrod is to give the Morning Keynote on June 24 at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held June 23-24, 2008, in New York City. Herrod will be taking a 35,000 foot view of the fast-expanding virtualization space, and the lasting role that software that creates and manages virtual machines is now destined to play in the Enterprise IT landscape.

Dell will take a big giant step out ahead of HP and IBM in the virtualization sweepstakes when it announces that it is OEMing PAN, Egenera's data center virtualization and management software. Egenera, which has been doing virtualization way longer than most people, claims PAN is the epitome of what IDC calls 'Virtualization 2.0,' the next step beyond simple VMware-style single server virtualization replete with scalability, faster provisioning, high availability, disaster recovery and resource balancing.

Virtualization is quickly becoming a staple technology for enterprise IT. The theme of this November's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo is 'The Next Generation of Virtualization.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT.

Mike Neil is general manager for virtualization strategy in the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. Mike is focused on the delivery of the Windows virtualization technology, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Virtual PC 2007. Mike also directs the technical enablement of Microsoft's broader vision for virtualization, to include virtualization management tools and virtualized desktop infrastructure. Prior to this role, Mike was responsible for Microsoft?s server and PC virtualization efforts since 2003.

Microsoft is making System Center, its central management scheme, natively manage Linux, Unix and VMware virtual servers. The widgetry has always been a Windows-only affair, but now there are betas available showing off Microsoft's cross-platform prowess, important to Microsoft's place in the data center. Microsoft has released a public beta of so-called Cross-Platform Extensions to its System Center Operations Manager 2007, which for the first time can manage HP-UX, Red Hat, Solaris and SUSE out-of-the-box.

Dell builds appliances that it sells to OEMs like Google's search box. Its latest effort is the OEM CR100 server, a simple, stripped-down, entry-level platform, built with PowerEdge R200 technology. The short-depth 1U is good for a two-year lifecycle.

SunGard announced a partnership with VMware. This strategic partnership will help organizations leverage VMware's proven virtualization platform with open access to SunGard's vast infrastructure, providing secondary data center facilities. Ensuring availability and recoverability of applications, systems and technology in the face of disruptions is a requirement for today's organizations. While 24-48-hour recovery windows were commonplace five years ago, many business leaders now require IT to recover systems in less than eight hours, with even more aggressive recovery time objectives (RTOs) coming soon.

DataCore announced that JMR Construction has become a DataCore SANmelody customer courtesy of DataCore partner Integral Networks. VMware and DataCore serve as a way forward for the DataCore partner and customer alike. The combination provides a cost effective alternative that made it practical for JMR to save by not having to invest in additional, physical servers.

Emulex announced that EMC has qualified the Emulex LightPulse LPe12000 family of 8Gb/s Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) for the EMC CLARiiON, EMC Celerra and EMC Symmetrix networked storage system families. Emulex 8Gb/s HBAs, which are available from EMC through EMC Select, provide customers with new performance, advanced virtualization and security features, while maintaining backward compatibility with existing 4Gb/s and 2Gb/s Fibre Channel products.

3PAR announced that a recently released report by the Taneja Group defines and analyzes a new category of next-generation Fibre Channel storage systems from vendors including 3PAR. The report forecasts revenue growth for next-generation Fibre Channel storage systems for the period between 2007 and 2011 and identifies shifts in the Fibre Channel storage market that Taneja believes are largely responsible for driving revenue growth for this new segment.

Dell announced its broadest lineup of dedicated virtualization solutions ever. More than a dozen new servers, tools, and services simplify the deployment and management of virtualization in Enterprises of any size.

3PAR is a provider of utility storage, a category of highly-virtualized, tightly-clustered, and dynamically-tiered storage arrays built for utility computing. Organizations use utility computing to build cost-effective virtualized IT infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation. 3PAR Utility Storage gives customers an alternative to traditional arrays by delivering resilient infrastructure with increased agility at a lower total cost to meet their changing business needs. As a pioneer of thin provisioning - a green technology developed to address storage underutilization and inefficiencies - 3PAR offers products designed to minimize power consumption and promote environmental responsibility. With 3PAR, customers have reduced the costs of allocated storage capacity, administration, and SAN infrastructure while increasing adaptability and resiliency. 3PAR Utility Storage is built to meet the demands of open systems consolidation, integrated data lifecycle management, and performance-intensive applications.

Motorola through Motorola Ventures, its strategic venture capital arm, announced it made an equity investment in VirtualLogix, a maker of virtualization software for communications devices and infrastructure equipment. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. VirtualLogix specializes in real-time virtualization - an innovative technology that is shaping the future for communications devices and equipment. Their technology enables the mobility of applications from the desktop to devices, improves quality of service and security in an open mobile world, and will enable a new generation of dynamic individual user experiences.

Neocleus announced that it has completed more than 18 months of work to enhance the Xen hypervisor to work on endpoints such as desktops and laptops. Neocleus will contribute these enhancements to the open source community to accelerate the adoption and development of a new generation of enterprise endpoint solutions. To create the hypervisor, Neocleus enhanced the Xen Open Source server-oriented hypervisor and transformed it into an endpoint-oriented hypervisor.

Neocleus announced the culmination of 18 months of innovation and research by unveiling its strategy and approach for addressing the security, performance and IT manageability requirements of enterprise endpoints across a distributed network. The Neocleus strategy provides businesses with a new paradigm for endpoints such as desktops and laptops that changes the way business is conducted and resources are secured, to allow IT departments to maintain unprecedented control of their distributed IT assets and to give end users the complete flexibility they need to do their work.

ClearCube announced that its software business is being spun-off and launched as an independent new company called VDIworks. Built on five generations of proven success within enterprise production environments, VDIworks delivers comprehensive, flexible software management platforms for creating, deploying and managing virtual desktop infrastructure. ClearCube, on the other hand, will continue to provide its complete solutions for centralized desktop computing, including end-to-end desktop virtualization. As independent companies, both ClearCube and VDIworks will maximize their business potential and gain the flexibility to meet the rapidly growing demands of their respective target markets.

MonoSphere announced Storage Horizon 3.7 with a range of analytical capabilities, which reduce the complexity and time required to manage today's heterogeneous storage environments. Storage Horizon 3.7 includes enhanced support for VMware environments, a new automated chargeback capability, advanced analytics, advanced analysis of storage consumed by databases, and adds support for EMC Celerra and IBM DS and ESS arrays.

Virtutech announced that General Dynamics C4 Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, is deploying Virtutech Simics for the ground segment of the U.S. Navy's Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) program. The ground system will be provided by Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the MUOS program.

VirtualLogix introduced VLX vHA, a solution that enables high-availability (HA) assurances for communications equipment utilizing virtualization. Tightly integrated with its real-time virtualization solution for network equipment, VLX for Network Infrastructure, VLX vHA increases system availability without the cost and scalability restrictions of traditional solutions. VLX vHA also meets the needs of high-end systems with demanding availability requirements that want to overcome the design challenges presented by new multicore processor-based systems.

Ericom announced the availability of Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect for Oracle VM, a desktop virtualization (VDI) solution based on Oracle's server virtualization software. Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect for Oracle VM harnesses the power of the companies' respective virtualization products to deliver secure, on-demand, and centrally managed access to virtual desktops and applications.

DataCore announced that it has accepted a $30 million equity investment from Insight Venture Partners and Updata Partners. Insight Venture Partners is a private equity and venture capital firm focused on the global software and Internet industries. Updata Partners is an information technology-focused venture capital firm whose general partners have been active as investors and operators in the IT industry for more than two decades.

Virtualization Journal now reaches more than 60,000 online readers with monthly digital editions and weekly newsletters. The premier issue of the magazine's print edition, which debuts on May 6, 2008, at JavaOne in San Francisco, as a media sponsor of this event, will be available on newsstands worldwide. Article submission inquiries can be directed by email to editorial(at)sys-con.com and the world's most targeted advertising opportunities can be explored by contacting ad vertising(at)sys-con.com, or by phone 201 802-3021.

Dell is talking with Tecom Investments, an investment arm of the Dubai government, about a joint venture that could raise Dell's sales profile in the Middle East. Michael Dell mentioned it at a press conference in Dubai but offered no details and early reports suggested Dubai was going to make a direct investment in Dell a la AMD, which may be what happens. Both Dow Jones and Bloomberg quote Michael Dell as saying he'd welcome an investment from the oil-rich emirate. Local papers quote Telcom CEO Abdulatif Almulla as saying, 'We are considering some strategic initiatives.'

Quest Software has expanded its set of solutions to help organizations plan, deploy and manage their IT infrastructures by maximizing their investment in the Microsoft System Center Platform. Quest will unveil its comprehensive solutions, including the availability of Quest Management Extensions - Configuration Manager 2007 Edition and the Quest Management Pack for Oracle - Operations Manager 2007 Edition. Quest is also announcing dedicated initiatives supporting Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross-Platform Management Extensions and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Performance & Resource Optimization (PRO) feature.

Egenera announced the Dell PAN System as a key component of Dell's virtualization solutions portfolio. Dell and Egenera are partnering to deliver the dynamic data center to customers -- making virtualization and data center automation a reality beyond the blade chassis. The Dell PAN system is built on proven PowerEdge 1950 and 2950 servers, Dell|EMC storage, and Citrix XenServer -- all factory-integrated as a complete, turn-key solution that virtualizes and pools compute, networking and storage resources into scalable, changeable assets that can be applied and managed based on business requirements.

Citrix announced the availability of Citrix XenServer software factory integrated on Dell PowerEdge servers. Citrix and Dell have partnered to make integrated server virtualization technology a reality for customers of all sizes. The initial products now available to Dell customers worldwide include the Citrix XenServer Dell Express Edition and Citrix XenServer Dell Enterprise Edition as part of factory-integrated solutions designed to make it even easier for customers to begin implementing their virtualization strategies. The Citrix XenServer Dell products are virtualization solutions that feature integrated Dell management agent technology. As a result, customers can use the same familiar Dell OpenManage System Management software on their existing Dell servers to help increase server and storage utilization. By coupling Citrix XenServer with Dell?s PowerEdge servers, the companies bring built-in, easy-to-use virtual machine installation and management to millions of Dell customers worldwide.

International Virtualization Conference & Expo faculty alumni include such notable speakers as: Brian Stevens, CTO of Red Hat; Stephen Herrod, CTO of VMware; Vern Brownell, founder and CEO of Egenera; Simon Crosby, founder and CTO of Citrix XenSource; Hubert Yoshida, vice president and CTO of Hitachi Data Systems; Jeffrey Nick, CTO of EMC; David Greschler, director of Virtualization Strategy for Microsoft; Hal Stern, vice president and distinguished engineer for Sun Microsystems; Andrew Hillier, founder and CTO of CiRBA; Alex Vasilevsky, founder and CEO of Virtual Iron; Jack Zubarev, founder and COO of SWsoft; Stephen Pollack, founder and CEO of PlateSpin; Brett Adam, founder and CEO of rPath; Kevin Brown, founder and CEO of Kidaro; Bob Lozano, founder and CEO of Appistry; and Harry Ruda, founder and CEO of Desktone.