Last week, I spoke at the Virtualization Conference and Expo in New York. I thought everybody would enjoy seeing my presentation, which you can view here.

The new Virtual Iron blog is up and running. Over the next few weeks, we'll be moving all of the posts from our old blog over to this new one. If you've subscribed to our RSS feed, please update those links using with http://blog.virtualiron.com/atom.xml.

We'll start posting new entries on this blog in a few weeks, after all of the old posts have been transitioned.

Computer Technology Review has an article up about Truck-Lite, who is using our virtualization software along with DataCore:

Truck-Lite considered options provided by major server virtualization providers, but was impressed by the pricing structure, and the ease of migration in the transition from traditional server to virtual server using Virtual Iron, DataCore said. As for SANmelody complementing Virtual Iron, its agnostic approach means that it supports all major server virtualization applications and hardware investments, the company said. This ensures that Truck-Lite is not locked into a particular provider for servers, disks, licenses or upgrades, it said. The company can have the flexibility of choice for their mixed environment, both now and in the future, DataCore added.

Full article here.

Since we migrated to the new blog, I thought it was a good time to be a little retrospective and post the top five virtualizatiation blog posts over the last year:

The New Economics of Virtualization (from January 30, 2007)

Converting VMware Virtual Appliances for Use with Virtual Iron (from December 18, 2006)

Rapid Fire Q&A from the Virtual Iron and DataCore Webcast (from February 13, 2007)

Virtual Infrastructure (from January 4 and 5, 2007 -- this was a four-parter, so maybe this is really a top nine list)

The VMware Upgrade Program (from March 14, 2007)

We have three new webcast recordings available:

Virtual Iron 3.7 Downloader Webcast: A live demonstration of Virtual Iron and its capabilities.

Get All the Capabilities of VMware - At 1/5th the Price: An introduction to Virtual Iron’s enterprise-class server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management platform and how it compares with VMware.

Using Server Virtualization for Cost-Effective Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Discusses how Virtual Iron enables a more flexible and efficient approach to business continuity and disaster recovery that significantly reduces the need for expensive back-up infrastructure.

Earlier this week, we announced our new distribution partnership with Tech Data, one of the largest software distributors in the world. From the announcement:

“Server virtualization enables our value-added resellers to present their end-user customers with a compelling solution that can cut costs and streamline many data center operations,” said Pete Peterson, senior vice president and general manager of Tech Data’s Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Division. “The addition of Virtual Iron strengthens our server virtualization software offering and provides our value-added resellers greater flexibility when developing the latest data center solutions.”

Read the full press release here.

Techworld.com has an informative article up about VMware's upcoming IPO and how it affects other virtualization vendors and, specifically, us:

Other virtualisation vendors are seeing this as an opportunity -- especially virtualisation vendor Virtual Iron (VI). "We're encouraged," says VI's marketing manager Mike Grandinetti. "It means new attention and visibility to server virtualisation market and it means the financial community is paying attention. Wall Street wants to understand the market, and the financial press is covering it. It all increases the demand."

You can read the full article here: Virtualisation vendors in turmoil

We'll be co-hosting a webcast with Intel on July 24: Data Center Power and Cooling: New Ways to Reduce Cost, Power and Energy

Here is the webcast description:

Today, 50% or more of all data centers are functionally obsolete in terms of power and cooling capacity. Data center power and cooling costs represent $40B in worldwide spend; up from $5B in 1996. However, server spend has remained relatively flat at $60B.

There is an ever-increasing awareness to reduce energy and power consumption, both for cost savings and environmental purpose. Immediate steps must be taken to address this critical issue.

This webcast will present the latest power and cooling trends and highlight best practices for data center power and cooling management. It will also discuss the importance of server virtualization as an efficient cost and power management step that will make an immediate
difference with today's data center and cooling crisis. Attendees will also learn:

• Current power and cooling data center environment challenges
• Semiconductor technology advances Intel is making for the future to reduce data center heat density
• How to reduce power, space and cooling expenses for IT infrastructure
• How server virtualization reduces data center power and cooling
• Real world customer examples that demonstrate significant reductions in power and cooling
• Lessons from Intel on its own world-class data center operation

Register here to attend this webcast.

HP has just published a case study for their BladeSystems, which shows how the PGA TOUR Superstore has successfully used HP BladeSystems and Virtual Iron to simplify, reduce costs and speed up their application deployment.

This case study can be found here: HP BladeSystem and Virtual Iron Software Help PGA TOUR Superstore Drive the Long Ball

Among the benefits the PGA TOUR Superstore saw was a decrease in the time it takes to set up servers (a virtual server in a half hour vs. a physical server taking two weeks), simplified cabling, improved service levels and greatly reduced power costs.

SearchServerVirtualization has posted a very detailed guide to using our VDI solution, which includes:

- Perparing your virtual infrastructure
- What you need before getting started
- Installation and configuration

Read the full article here.

Tomorrow (July 18) at 2pm, we will be hosting a demo of Virtual Iron 3.7 via WebEx. If you'd like to attend, please register here.

We offer these demos on a periodic basis and also have some recorded sessions available (listed as either downloader webcasts or demo).

In addition to a live demonstration of our virtualization software, tomorrow's session will also have time for Q&A. I hope you can attend.

GCN has an article up that talks about the different types of virtualizaiton that can be used in an organization. The article is, of course, written with a slant towards government systems but is informative for all. Click here to read the article.

The end of the article makes a point I truly believe in and have said before: "Consider what type of virtualization might be right for your organization."

From the forums: Using Virtual Hard Disks with Virtual Iron

By default, Virtual Iron creates a vdisks folder in the installation directory (e.g. Program Files\Virtual Iron\vdisks). Sometimes, this folder lives on a disk that does not have sufficent disk space to accomodate virtual hard disks. Virtual Iron provides a way to point this directory to another path. The following steps describe this process.

1. Go to the Virtualization Manager installation directory (C:\Program Files\Virtual Iron\VirtualizationManager)

2. Go to the etc directory

3. Open the vdi.properties file and set defaultVHDRepositoryPath to the desired directory.

For Linux management servers, standard naming rules and directory separator characters apply. For example, to set the repository to the directory /opt/storage/vdisks:

defaultVHDRepositoryPath = "/opt/storage/vdisks"

For Windows management servers, windows-specific UNC syntax is required. This consists of the drive letter and colon, for "\" characters ("\\\\"), and the path. Subdirectories in the path are specified with 2 "\" characters ("\\"). For example, to set the VHD repository to the directory NAS Storage\VHD Repository on the g: drive"

defaultVHDRepositoryPath = "g:\\\\NAS Storage\\VHD Repository"

4. Then restart the management server. The directory will be created, if it doesn't already exist. If an invalid directory is specified, or if the directory can't be created, an error is logged, and the directory will remain set to the last valid directory set.

From LinuxInsider: Virtualization: A New Reality for Corporate IT

There's a nice description of the HA capability of virtualization, which is available in Virtual Iron as LiveRecovery. LiveRecovery lets you transparently fail-over without any additional OS or application configuration.

Virtualization technology also allows for high-availability environments. In order to implement high availability in a traditional environment you need to have a full machine standing by to take over in the event of a failure on another physical server. With virtual machines, the server can be moved from one machine to another without the user being aware the machine is being moved. Implementing high availability with physical servers is expensive but is part of most virtual server installations and requires minimal investment beyond the cost of hardware.

In summary, the article notes that "virtualization holds an important place in corporate IT" and has "real potential to drive down the cost of IT." So true.

Our next webcast is tomorrow and we're co-presenting with Intel: Data Center Power and Cooling: Reduce Data Center Power and Cooling Costs Webcast -- registration is free. This webcast will be tomorrow, July 24, at 2pm Eastern time.

Via DABCC, Ecofriend discusses saving power by using virtualization:

So, the final take is that users should first establish exactly what amount of power they might save by virtualization, once properly checked they can surely save power, money and the planet with their venture.

(And don't forget about our power and energy saving webcast today!)

The Virtual Appliances Blog has announce the pre-release build of the LAMP Virtual Appliance for Virtual Iron (and others). More information and download links can be found in the Virtual Appliances Forum.

Network World featured a profile on Owen Bird, a law firm which recently moved from using VMware to using Virtual Iron, in their recent newsletter.

I couldn't find a copy of the newsletter online, so I'm including the full article (which is part 1 of a 2 part article):

From IT Business comes an article on how rising energy costs on causing more people to look into virtualizaiton (specifically VDI): Virtualizing the desktop - Rising energy costs have companies examining new virtualization territory

Everyone wants to escape the horror of rising energy costs. So why not run fewer servers? That's the no-brainer benefit of server virtualization and consolidation, which is already saving forward-looking companies big bucks in kilowatt hours of electricity, not to mention in hardware and server administration. No wonder so many enterprises are eying fresh virtualization territory: the humble desktop.

Network World published the second part of their Owen Bird profile, a Virtual Iron custom. You can find Part 1 here.

What follows is the conclusion of my talk with Stephen Bakerman, IT manager at Owen Bird, a law firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. In this newsletter, Bakerman talks in more specifics about Virtual Iron and why the law firm is using Virtual Iron’s technology to reach its virtualization goals. Read Part 1 of the interview here.

Jennifer Mears: You’ve had Virtual Iron now for about a month. Are you running it in production?

Stephen Bakerman: Yes, we’re running in both test and production. We only have a single physical server running Virtual Iron at this point, but we’re running our BlackBerry server on there in full production. We’re going to be rebuilding our terminal server configuration and we’re going to be building that on that unit. We also keep a test environment for our accounting package running, which is a SQL server and another terminal server, which will be running on there 24/7.

Mears: Are all of these applications Windows applications? Virtual Iron’s support for Windows is relatively new, isn’t it?

Our recent webcast, co-hosted with Intel, is now available as a recording.

This webcast runs for about an hour and goes over a variety of virtualization/data center items:

- Current power and cooling data center environment challenges
- Semiconductor technology advances Intel is making for the future to reduce data center heat density
- How to reduce power, space and cooling expenses for IT infrastructure
- How server virtualization reduces data center power and cooling
- Real world customer examples that demonstrate significant reductions in power and cooling
- Lessons from Intel on its own world-class data center operation

Click here to watch the webcast.

Are you migrating from the single server version of Virtual Iron to our Enterprise version? If so, here are easy instructions for upgrading.

If you need Enterprise Edition, you can download it here (fully functional 30 day trial) or you can purchase it from one of our resellers.

Mike Grandinetti, Virtual Iron's CMO and a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, will be speaking at two of the virtualization panels at next week's Linux World/Next Generation Data Center Expo.

The first panel is "Data Center Virtualization: What's Real, What's Not" on August 8 at 11:30am:

Join a panel of experts, including experienced end-user customers, professional services consultants and technology specialists who will serve to demystify server and storage virtualization, with a specific focus on what technologies are ready for prime time today, which ones are still immature, what benefits that users are truly realizing today, and what we can expect to see in the next twelve months.

The second session, which Mike will be hosting, is "Virtualization and Blades: Complementary or Competitive?" on August 8 at 3pm:

This session will demystify these two very topical technologies by directing the panelists with hard hitting questions, with a specific focus on what capabilities are ready for prime time today, which capabilities are still immature, what benefits that users are truly realizing today. This discussion will also cover where virtualization and blades complement one another and where they overlap, and what we can expect to see in the next twelve months.