Earlier this month, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), announced new features in the upcoming release of VMware Infrastructure expected to be generally available later this year. VMware Infrastructure (formerly VMware Virtual Infrastructure) will include the new VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 versions.
Some of the enhancements included with ESX Server 3.5 are as follows:
- Expanded storage and networking choices such as support for SATA local storage, 10 Gig Ethernet, and Infiniband expand storage and networking choices for virtual infrastructure
- Support for paravirtualized Linux guest operating systems enables higher levels of performance through virtualization-aware operating systems
- Support for virtual machines with 64GB of RAM and physical machines with up to 128GB of memory
New virtual infrastructure management solutions include the following:
- VMware Distributed Power Management is an experimental feature that reduces power consumption in the data center through intelligent workload balancing. Working in conjunction with VMware DRS, Distributed Power Management is designed to automatically power off servers not currently needed in order to meet service levels, and automatically power on servers as demand for compute resources increases.
- VMware Guided Consolidation, a feature of VMware VirtualCenter enables companies to get started with server consolidation in a step-by-step tutorial fashion. A wizard discovers physical servers, identifies consolidation candidates, converts them to virtual machines, and leveraging intelligently places them onto the best VMware ESX Server or VMware Server hosts. Guided Consolidation helps to make the consolidation process quick and easy for users with little knowledge of virtualization.
This last solution will be a boon to SMBs who can't afford a Virtual Infrastructure Jumpstart engagement or have limited IT resources onsite. With this last solution VMware has really gone to great lengths to simplify the implementation of this technology. Dang! I wish I had bought some stock after the IPO; they're at $102 per share now!
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