Virtualizing the Sphere's Edge…

VMware just released a very useful, 54-pages free ebook that collects many the principal guidelines to optimize the performance of the new vSphere: Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0.
It includes four chapters:

Hardware for Use with VMware vSphere
ESX and Virtual Machines
Guest Operating Systems
Virtual Infrastructure Management

If you are planning a migration to the new platform this [...]

virtualization.info keeps tracking the massive executive replacement that VMware is operating on a global scale, in almost every area, including the PR, the marketing and the sales department.
Last month we reported how a growing number of former Business Objects executives are joining VMware in the EMEA region after Maurizio Carli was hired as General Manager [...]

Last month virtualization.info announced a new initiative called OneHourOn.
OneHourOn is a live webcast that virtualization.info will host from its cutting-edge Rent-A-Lab facility in Zurich.
The webcast shows a live configuration and/or management of a popular virtualization product among the ones that we daily track in the news.
There are no slides at all. Everything is performed live [...]

Last week Wyse Technology announced the release of Virtual Desktop Accelerator (VDA).
This new protocol enhancement, probably a superset of the existing TCX Multimedia technology that VMware is OEM’ing, is promised to accelerate up to 3 times the performance of Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp (using the ICA protocol), VMware View and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (both [...]

Just yesterday virtualization.info reported how Citrix is reorganizing its application virtualization division by appointing a new CTO.
VMware is doing exactly the same: virtualization.info has learned from trusted sources that the company is looking for a new CTO just for the desktop division, to take care of View, ThinApp, the new remote desktop in co-development with [...]

After more than one year VMware finally seems to make some progress on one of the most useful tools in its revamped product portfolio: Lifecycle Manager.
The technology behind this product was acquired in September 2007 from the Swiss startup Dunes Technologies.
The Dunes orchestration framework was used to build a simple yet very useful web portal [...]

Despite vSphere 4.0 is finally out VMware didn’t stop to release major updates for the previous platform.
The new Update 5 (build 174841), available today for vCenter Server 2.5 only, introduces support for up to 80 virtual machines per host in a HA cluster.
Reaching the new limit requires some modification on the virtual infrastructure that are [...]

Today VMware releases the first minor update for its disk and file backup/restore product Data Recovery, included in bundle with vSphere 4.0 Plus, Advanced and Essential Plus licenses.
The new build (176771) doesn’t introduce any new feature but fixes a number of bugs and improves the performance.

Today VMware releases some of the new vCenter applications announced in January.
The first ones, Data Recovery and vShield Zones, came out with vSphere 4.0 last month.
Today is time for vCenter Chargeback 1.0 and AppSpeed 1.0.
The need for chargeback capabilities is growing at a fast pace as the virtualization technologies mature and multiple departments of the [...]

Today VMware releases the fourth generation of its virtual lab automation tool Lab Manager.
The new 4.0 version (build 1140) introduces the following features:

Support for multiple workspaces (isolation of resources in multiple workspaces in the same organization, sharing of configurations across different workspaces)
Host spanning across network fencing (network-fenced virtual labs can see the same host)
Resource usage [...]