Companies found it increasingly difficult to manage their enterprise data centers. They're highly complex, expensive to build out, and difficult to reconfigure. The net result was a high cost of ownership for a resource that was poorly positioned to meet the needs of businesses. Then server virtualization entered- the benefits of which are well documented, but there has been poor adoption to date due to cost and complexity. This session explored the industry standards and open source technologies that helped to open up the benefits of virtualization to a new segment of the market - enabling users to expand their virtualization initiatives.

ScienceLogic announced that it has hired Adnan Hindi as vice president of operations. His ITOM background, particularly in virtualization management and highly-scalable multi-datacenter management, and his entrepreneurial experience will be instrumental in efficiently enabling strong operating conditions for the company to grow even more rapidly.

Hal Stern laid out thought-provoking possibilities, constraints, and some key social and technological implications of Web-next, open source and virtualization for data & application development, security & identity in his introductory keynote speech.

The patent reform legislation that companies like Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and Cisco were hoping would reduce litigation and improve patent quality hit a wall in the US Senate just days before it was to go to the floor for debate and a vote this week. Its sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said it's unlikely to be revived this year, especially since it's an election year and time for major legislation like this is running out.

As more and more enterprises and ISVs seek additional ways to leverage virtualization technology, virtual lab automation (VLA) has emerged as an innovative solution for streamlining software development and automating the entire development and test environment setup while utilizing existing server virtualization infrastructure. Additionally, VLA improves resource utilization and efficiency while pushing products to market faster. This presentation will review the virtual test and development infrastructure and provide best practice recommendations for how VLA can add significant value to developers, testers and IT operations staff and help drive business growth and employee productivity.

There is considerable attention being paid to service oriented architectures (SOA) and their promise of leveraging new and existing application components - services - in composite applications that may span multiple business units within an organization. While the construction, or enablement, of these services is well defined, what is often left as an assumption is that once deployed, the service will simply be available. The reality is that if consideration is not given to the reliability, availability and recoverability of your services, then you may find yourself leaping from the frying pan and into the fire. This presentation will discuss the use of service virtualization and grid technology to enable service execution. Using existing grid technologies, organizations can achieve guaranteed, horizontal scaling of service execution across the entire computing infrastructure, regardless of demand. The result is an infrastructure for deploying, managing and scaling services that delivers the confidence that, when called, your service will be available.

With the rapid deployment of server virtualization technology in the data center, IT management is actively looking at optimizing their SAN storage architecture to reap the full benefits of their virtualization investment, such as workload mobility and disaster recovery, without running into I/O bottlenecks and unpredictable utilization of SAN resources that comes with a much more dynamic environment. This session will explore how Data Center Fabric enables virtual servers and physical servers to stand on an equal footing. It will also discuss capabilities specifically designed to support virtualized environments such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Xen.

Virtual Cloud Computing represents the next wave of virtualization and offers significant market opportunities by providing a new, simpler, and much more pervasive platform for on-demand, desktop and application service delivery. While server-side virtualization helps enterprises optimize data center resources, the use of a universal dialtone technology offers a significantly larger market for desktop users in both commercial and consumer segments. The key to virtual cloud computing is in the universal dialtone which securely links users to desktop applications and content resources, on demand, via any device.

The session will describe the use of system aggregation, a revolutionary virtualization technology that allows end-users to get access to a large shared memory system built using multiple off-the-shelf x86 systems. Aggregation provides organizations with better price/performance compared to traditional symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) systems, and lowers the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) compared to clusters. This new virtualization technology for high-end computing takes advantage of the traditional SMP operating model such as ease of installation and management, as well as large memory, while maintaining the cost structure of x86 clusters.

Join us for an interactive discussion presented by Scalent Systems, as we address the big three challenges facing server failover - software configuration, network connectivity and storage access - and contrast several different approaches, from traditional backup to the use of virtual machines, to the next generation of infrastructure virtualization and management.

Wyse Technology announced that it will bring to market a new class of appliances, specifically designed for the new Citrix XenDesktop product line. By combining Wyse's new appliances with the desktop delivery capabilities found in Citrix XenDesktop, enterprises will have a comprehensive solution for delivering desktops to office workers with the best user experience, simplest administration and lowest cost of ownership.

It's no secret that data centers are faced with exponential storage growth, increasing operational costs, power and cooling limitations, and the need to provision and bring new applications online more rapidly to support critical business needs, many customers look to virtualization strategies to ease the management burden. SRM technology can address the demands and management complexities that virtualization presents. Virtualization, by definition, can apply to operating systems, applications and storage arrays. This session will identify and elaborate on the various virtualization categories, and talk about how SRM technology can enable IT organizations to manage storage in the virtual enterprise.

Storage virtualization introduces a level of abstraction that sits between application servers and physical storage resources to provide centralized volume management and non-disruptive data mobility. These capabilities help storage managers improve productivity, capacity-utilization and service levels. Its unique position between application servers and storage resources demands the highest levels of availability, performance and data integrity. This session will review the benefits of virtualization and how it improves productivity, capacity utilization and service levels. It will also discuss how second generation, network based storage virtualization can be used to meet the demands imposed by its central position in the I/O stack.

VaST Systems announced the appointment of automotive electronics industry veteran Marios Zenios to the VaST board of directors. Zenios has served as a strategic advisor to the company helping VaST form industry initiatives that create more complete virtualization solutions for end customers. Previously, as a senior Motorola executive, Zenios spearheaded the development and adoption of automotive electronics systems at global automotive suppliers and OEMs. Zenios has more than 20 years of automotive, telematics, and communications experience.

mValent announced the availability of its Virtual Automation Module, an extension of its mValent Integrity application configuration management software designed for managing virtualized environments. Server virtualization reduces the complexity of managing the operating system and hardware interactions, transforming the way corporate IT provisions and administers the data center. However, the complexity of managing the applications running inside a virtual server still exists. With both pre- and post-production application environments running on virtual servers - and hundreds of virtual images encapsulating these environments - keeping track of the code and configuration settings and ongoing changes to these virtual environments is increasingly a labor-intensive and high-risk effort.

VKernel announced the availability of its Capacity Bottleneck Analyzer Virtual Appliance. The Capacity Bottleneck Analyzer identifies current and future capacity bottleneck issues in VMware ESX environments, which can lower the cost of each virtual machine while ensuring higher performance. VKernel's patent-pending technology monitors CPU, memory, and storage utilization trends in VMware ESX environments across hosts, clusters, and resource pools. VKernel's virtual appliance model gives users a management dashboard that displays detailed capacity information to effectively plan for the addition of new hosts, clusters, and resource pools. By customizing capacity thresholds, users can receive alerts via email and SNMP.

IBM announced that Palomar Pomerado Health (PPH) has gone live with a virtualized information infrastructure which is enabling PPH to manage and store electronic medical records, improving the availability of critical information and create a more manageable storage infrastructure. To create the new information infrastructure, PPH consolidated mission critical applications over to two IBM System p5 590servers to run its clinical software, support additional users to improve server availability. The hospital also implemented a virtualized storage environment based on the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC).

Egenera announced the availability of VMware virtualization on Egenera systems with full support from Egenera and its resellers. Under the companies' original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement announced in 2007, customers can purchase VMware Infrastructure 3, the data center virtualization and management platform, with the Egenera BladeFrame system, a platform designed to support large-scale virtualized deployments of critical applications with high levels of availability and scalability.

Marathon Technologies unveiled its top tips organizations should consider before getting started with server virtualization. While the benefits of server virtualization are well documented, these tips are designed to help companies determine if server virtualization makes sense for them, and if so, how they should prepare to ensure a successful initial implementation.

Citrix Systems unveiled its Citrix XenDesktop product line and revealed that it will officially begin shipping to customers worldwide on May 20. XenDesktop, which will be co-marketed with Microsoft, is a desktop delivery solution that allows companies to virtualize Windows desktops in the datacenter and deliver them on-demand to office workers in any location. Unlike first-generation virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technologies, XenDesktop is a comprehensive end-to-end desktop delivery system that offers an end-user experience, simplifies desktop management and reduces the cost of traditional desktop computing by up to 40 percent.

Pano Logic announced a new software release for its desktop virtualization solution. By leveraging existing virtual infrastructure and integrating hardware at the desktop with software in the data center, Pano Logic provides a complete and easy-to-use virtual desktop solution. The new release, Pano Virtual Desktop Solution (VDS) 2.0, can be deployed in new environments and network topologies, providing support for wide area network (WAN) deployments, dual monitor requirements, and offering certified support for wireless bridges and USB devices. Also, as a further extension of the partnership between Pano Logic and VMware, Pano VDS 2.0 fully integrates support for VMware Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM), giving users deployment flexibility.

Crossbeam announced that Ecritel uses the X-Series Next Generation Security Platform to secure its internal infrastructure and virtualize the delivery of firewall services to its enterprise customers. By managing the delivery of firewall services from its network cloud, Ecritel reduces deployment and maintenance costs, while improving the flexibility, scalability and reliability of its firewall services.

Apani announced the launch of EpiForce VM, the single-platform security solution for protecting both virtual and physical machines. Enterprises are deploying server virtualization to realize benefits associated with increased operational flexibility, improved utilization, avoidance of unplanned downtime and a reduced carbon footprint. The rush to virtualize has caused many to overlook security best-practices common in a physical environment. According to Gartner, through 2009, 60 percent of virtual machines used in production will be less secure than their physical counterparts. While the benefits of server virtualization are clear, security challenges force enterprises to make trade-offs between broad deployment and security that is robust enough to protect their business. By offering robust virtual and physical machine security, EpiForce VM enables enterprises to fully deploy server virtualization and realize the benefits it offers.

Infortrend and Tiger Technology have certified interoperability between Infortrend's Fibre Channel (FC) RAID storage subsystems and Tiger Technology's storage area network (SAN) management and server virtualization software. Adding metaSAN/metaLAN software to EonStor RAID arrays gives IT professionals an affordable, high-performance, cross-platform SAN that allows huge amounts of data to be shared efficiently. The combined solution delivers high throughput and is ideal for complex production environments that rely on a mix of computers running different operating systems.

Continuing its tradition of ecosystem co-innovation, SAP AG announced the formation of the enterprise virtualization community. Uniting technology vendors including AMD, Cisco, Citrix, EMC, HP, Intel Corporation, NetApp, Novell, Red Hat, Sun and VMware, the community aims to develop new strategies for business process-driven virtualization to help companies cut costs while increasing efficiencies.

DataCore Software announced that DDI Health in Australia has selected, deployed and is realizing notable benefits from DataCore's SANmelody virtual SAN software to manage its storage and support its software development servers and VMware systems. DDI Health produces a range of solutions across the diagnostic health services sector. The company was grappling with wasted disk space, 'out of disk space' warnings that force systems and applications to be shut down to add more disks and constant disk provisioning issues. Whereas one set of servers would be full, another set would have disk space to spare, thereby making the provisioning of disk space between systems an on-going and fairly labor-intensive undertaking. With SANmelody in place to allocate disk space to physical and virtual servers as well as workstations, the administration team's disk management headache has disappeared. Now there is very little wasted disk space. Not only had disk administration been labor-intensive, it was also fairly problematic and the resulting downtime was very disruptive to daily operations.

Perfman announced the availability of two additions to its cross-platform systems management solution: the PointView Suite of Executive Dashboards and powerful new reporting features for AIX and Linux on IBM. The Perfman PointView module allows IT and non-IT professionals to view resources by service, line-of-business, location, application or user-defined categories, such as time-sensitive events, to be in sync with a company's short- and long-term business delivery and planning cycles. The product's user-based roles feature provides focused access, to allow a specific audience to participate in problem identification and remediation or to further improve productivity of specific business activities.

Skytap revealed its vision for the next generation of offerings that harness the power of virtualized infrastructure. The company has announced limited availability of its offering, Skytap Virtual Lab, a virtual lab automation solution available as an on-demand service over the Web. The company, formerly known as illumita, has also changed its name to Skytap.

Symantec announced updates to Altiris Deployment Solution and Ghost Solution Suite, comprising a complete operating system deployment, imaging and management portfolio. Symantec is providing the next-generation of OS management technologies to help customers of all sizes address OS and data security concerns, the explosion of virtual systems, and heterogeneous hardware and software platforms.

LineSider announced the upcoming release of OverDrive Version 2.5, a network infrastructure control and management solution that extends fully automated policy-driven control to devices from Cisco Systems. This OverDrive solution will be commercially available in May 2008 and will support Cisco's Integrated Services Router (ISR) line routers and selected devices within the Catalyst switch family.

Virtualization company Parallels has now released the third beta of their Parallels Server for Mac. This is the latest edition of their server virtualization software for Intel powered Apple Macs. The company said that this application is designed to enable users to run 'virtualized' operating system and server environments.

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

Marking the next evolution of its network-enabled Data Center 3.0 vision to transform the data center into a virtualized environment providing anytime, anywhere access to content on any device, Cisco unveiled the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series of data center-class switches, introduced interoperability via an ecosystem of application and systems partners and accelerated adoption with a data center channel partner enablement strategy.

Many software providers from large to small are in the race to offer virtualization solutions, and many enterprises are taking advantage. While this futuristic technology certainly offers many benefits, it has one critical challenge to its overall performance -- disk file fragmentation. File fragmentation -- the splitting of files into pieces (fragments) in order to better utilize disk space -- is a performance challenge in non-virtual environments, and has been for many years. But virtualization brings with it even more critical fragmentation issues, requiring solutions like never before.

To achieve the full potential of 'cloud computing' we need a broader definition of virtualization, and that is the complete de-coupling of the logical components of an application (represented by the software stack) and the physical resources. In the case of middleware, whether it is data access, messaging or the business logic, the physical location of the resources should not matter to the developer and to the end user. This is not a trivial thing to do, especially when it comes to data-intensive, stateful (transactional or otherwise) applications and services. In this session we will explore the challenges and propose a solution, including a live demo.

Data center architects naturally seek to employ server virtualization to maximize the use of their hardware systems. An often overlooked factor that can undermine this goal is data connectivity. 75 to 95 percent of the response time now associated with database access can often be attributed to the data connectivity layer - and that's using traditional, non-virtualized servers. Running multiple virtual servers on a single machine can introduce additional complications involving data access. This presentation will examine the importance of data connectivity in a virtualized environment, and the need to take an intelligent approach to data access in order to truly reap the benefit of a virtualization strategy.

As data growth rates continue to climb and business requirements further evolve, customers are feeling the pressure to realign their storage infrastructure to better meet the needs of their business. Mr. Yoshida will discuss how storage virtualization is the key enabler towards the storage-based services required to deliver substantial breakthroughs in efficiency and business agility across the entire enterprise. He will discuss how storage-based services such as thin provisioning, content and file management and dynamic data migration, enabled via controller-based Virtualization, are paving the way for the Dynamic Data Center of tomorrow.

Attune Systems and Mainline Information Systems announced that Service Management Group (SMG) has chosen the Attune Systems file management solution. SMG has selected the Maestro File Manager in a high-availability cluster configuration to help the company keep up with its growing data storage needs.

VMware made its Lifecycle Manager generally available. It's supposed to control the virtual environment, showing who owns a virtual machine, when it was requested, who approved it, where it's deployed, how long it's been in operation and when it's scheduled to be decommissioned. It can be used to measure and chargeback VM use to individual departments.

Patent lawyers are partying. The US Patent and Trademark Office was stopped dead in its tracks Tuesday from changing the rules by a federal judge. In the name of reducing its swelling patent filing backlog, the PTO wanted to limit the number of claims a patent could make to 25 and the number of continuation filings that could be made to three. The changes would have been retroactive. Currently there are no limits.