Over the next few weeks, we will be hosting two webcasts that will discuss Virtual Iron 4's features and benefits. In addition to a demo of the new features, there will be time for Q&A and additional discussion.

You can register here for the October 16 webcast and here for the October 25 webcast.

Here's the description from the registration page:

Version 4 extends Virtual Iron’s price, value and performance advantages over all other server virtualization solutions. Key new capabilities and features include:

- Integrated SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Kernel and Drivers - Version 4 integrates the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 kernel and Linux drivers in Virtual Iron’s core virtualization architecture. As a result, users get all the benefits of complete Novell certification and corresponding full global commercial support for their entire spectrum of server, storage and networking hardware supported by Novell in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. This includes systems from IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, Network Appliances, Cisco and many others. Virtual Iron joins VMware as the only server virtualization providers to integrate fully supported kernels and drivers with its hypervisor - a critical requirement for users moving virtualization into production environments.

- LiveConvert™ - P2V and V2V Conversion Capabilities Powered by PlateSpin - Version 4 adds LiveConvert, an automated software solution powered by PlateSpin that enables customers to easily migrate workloads (data, applications, and operating systems) across physical, virtual, blade and image-based infrastructures in any direction. LiveConvert provides Virtual Iron users with the ability to quickly migrate workloads between physical servers and virtual machines allowing users to quickly achieve the benefits of large-scale server consolidation, rapid provisioning, high availability and capacity management.

- New Graphical Management Console and Interface – Version 4 adds a powerful new Windows graphical administration console including new management wizards for creating new virtual machines and managing their entire lifecycle. The console also includes new graphing and reporting tools for measuring resource utilization and performance including CPU, memory, disk and network I/O. These capabilities simplify management of the entire virtual environment.

- New Xen® 3.1 64 Bit Hypervisor – Virtual Iron continues to contribute to and leverage the latest advancements in the Xen open source project. Version 4 integrates the Xen 3.1 hypervisor for increased scalability, increased memory density, support for up to 128 GB of physical memory, and per guest virtual machine limits of 32 GB. The new hypervisor also supports up to 8-way SMP per guest and leverages ACPI to support dynamic hot plugging of CPU, network and storage running into virtual machines. As a result, users can support a larger number of virtual machines per host, increasing utilization and ROI.

- Expanded OS Support - Virtual Iron Version 4 adds support for several new 32 and 64 bit operating systems including Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. This enables Virtual Iron to continue to expand mainstream adoption, provide support for diverse data center environments and increase user flexibility and value.

- Windows SMP Support - Version 4 expands support to virtual machines with up to 8 CPUs, for the ability to virtualize more demanding workloads such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server.