To provide enterprises with virtualization management capabilities, Citrix offers Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V in Enterprise and Platinum editions. What's interesting is that the pricing for the Hyper-V version is actually cheaper than it is for the XenServer version. In essence, Citrix is incentivizing customers to go with Hyper-V.

As of October 22, 2009 the per-server pricing is as follows:

• Citrix Essentials for XenServer, Enterprise Edition: $2,750 USD
• Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, Enterprise Edition: $1,650 USD
• Citrix Essentials for XenServer, Platinum Edition: $5,500 USD
• Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, Platinum Edition: $3,300 USD

In a nutshell, Citrix Essentials is

• $1,100 more expensive per physical server running XenServer for the Enterprise Edition
• $2,200 more expensive per physical server running XenServer for the Platinum Edition

  What's even more interesting is that Citrix even offers a free Citrix Essentials Express Edition for Hyper-V but not for XenServer.

Regardless of the underlying platform selected, Lanamark Suite supports virtual infrastructure solution design (including licensing calculations) for both Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V. Citrix Essentials in Enterprise and Platinum Editions as well as Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager can be included in the what-if scenarios presented to enterprise customers by Lanamark partners.

Today VMware announced VMware vCenter CapacityIQ 1.0, a capacity management product for virtual infrastructure. The new product is rough around the edges. For example it still does not support VMware vSphere (VMware should have a policy for not launching new products that do not support its latest platform) nor does it provide enough emphasis on storage capacity planning.

In a nutshell, VMware CapacityIQ allows customers to reduce costs by right-sizing resources allocated to virtual machines. It also helps customers model the effect of capacity changes and forecast future capacity needs.

One particular company that will be severely impacted by VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is VKernel. At present, all VKernel products only work with VMware ESX and VMware vSphere, putting the company in a bit of a vice until support for other platforms is added. Each major VMware vCenter CapacityIQ feature competes with a product offered by VKernel:

• Capacity Awareness competes with VKernel Capacity Analyzer
• Capacity Optimization competes with VKernel Optimization Pack
• Capacity Prediction competes with VKernel Modeler

While VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is a fairly new product, it does have a critical mass of capabilities to spell trouble for VKernel and any other vendor offering capacity management software to the enterprise on top of the VMware platform. VKernel does seem to have a superset of capabilities available in VMware CapacityIQ such as support for vSphere, but it's just a matter of time before VMware closes the necessary product gaps.

VKernel announced its plans to support other platforms such as Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V later this year. Now the pressure is on VKernel to deliver.

Update (October 21, 2009)

David Marshall wrote the VMware tries its hand at capacity planning article on InfoWorld, quoting Alex Bakman, CEO of VKernel, saying "CapacityIQ may be good enough for some but our Capacity Analyzer and Optimization Pack provides many more features and functionality and delivers our users the answers and actionable information to make them successful in managing and optimizing their environments."

Indeed, VKernel does have more capacity management capabilities - after all, this is all VKernel has been focused on as a company for the last two years. As much as Alex would like to "thank VMware for validating the market need for capacity planning, management, and optimization," VMware is going to sell CapacityIQ as part of a complete vCenter stack and injecting a third-party (VKernel) appliance will not be an easy sell. Even if VKernel manages to get into the sales cycle and go up against CapacityIQ, the sales cycles will become longer and more expensive - not particularly favorable for a startup.

Update (November 9, 2009)

David Marshall followed up with another article on VKernel, detailing how VKernel is making Capacity Modeler free until December 31, 2009 in response to VMware CapacityIQ. VKernel Capacity Modeler 1.0 was released on March 31, 2009 with pricing starting at $199 per CPU socket.

The move only validates the frustration VKernel must be experiencing as it starts to see VMware in its sales cycles. And no matter how much VKernel and other vendors discount VMware CapacityIQ, the product is obviously "good enough" to force VKernel to go on the defensive. It's ironic that VKernel initially discounted VMware's offering and then actually had to discount its own.

Novell recently launched Novell PlateSpin Recon 3.7, claiming that it "...Delivers New Capacity Tool to Give Deep Insight into...Storage".

First, PlateSpin got so excited about the new capacity planning tool that it actually forgot to post the press release on its own website. However, the parent company, Novell, did the honors.

Second, there is a mention of a "new capacity tool" for storage. There is no new tool - storage planning is a feature of an existing Novell PlateSpin Recon product.

Finally, PlateSpin published a KB article stating the following limitation:

"Another exception to this function is the inability to list attached SAN disks as fiber Channel (FC) storage type for Windows 2003 server platform. This is because Windows 2003 server doesn’t have the required file (hbaapi.mof) which is responsible for identifying the disk type as FC. Therefore, in the properties of inventoried Windows 2003 server, the SAN disk type is listed incorrectly as "Local" under "Storage" tab. This file exists on Windows 2008 server."

The best part is the workaround:

"The work around to address this issue is copying this file from a Windows 2008 server to the Windows 2003 server which has attached SAN drives."

This makes users wonder what other manual work they will have to do to perform storage capacity planning.

If you are looking to get deep insight into storage infrastructure, products like Quest Storage Horizon (formerly MonoSphere) provide excellent capabilities in this space. If you are a solution provider designing storage infrastructure for virtualized environments, then the Storage Design Module in the Lanamark Suite is worth taking a look at.

After releasing PlateSpin Recon 3.6 in April, Novell announced PlateSpinRecon 3.7. The new version includes the following enhancements:

• Support for IBM AIX 5.2, 5.3 and 6.1
• Collection of additional disk performance metrics
• Identification of disk type attached to the workload (local, iSCSI, FC)

Unlike Lanamark Suite, PlateSpin Recon continues to use agents that can affect the security, performance and compliance of target systems. However, the user guide seems to contradict itself:

• PlateSpin Recon does not require the installation of agent software, eliminating the need to physically touch data center servers. All performance and inventory data is collected via standard OS instrumentation capabilities. (p. 11, 16)
• Windows: PlateSpin Recon copies an executable onto the machine being inventoried to the a directory within ADMIN$. PlateSpin Recon runs the executable through WMI or a remote service. (p. 165)
• Linux/Solaris: PlateSpin Recon uses the SCP protocol to transfer a platform-specific inventory binary and libraries to the /tmp directory of the machine being inventoried. (p. 164)

An agent, such as the one deployed by Novell PlateSpin Recon, can set off intrusion detection systems and void compliance of locked down target systems in enterprise environments. Furthermore, if a malicious third-party gains access to the host running Novell PlateSpin Recon and substitutes the executable/binary with malicious software (malware), then the malware can be launched on all systems accessed by PlateSpin Recon with administrative privileges. This single point of attack makes the enterprise particularly vulnerable to a security breach.

To avoid a slap on the wrist from customers, most solution providers would opt-in for an agent-less approach.

Oracle today announced availability of Oracle VM 2.2 as well as Oracle VM Storage Connect Program that will simplify management of storage infrastructure supporting virtual environments. The new release includes the following key features:

• Support for Xen 3.4 (latest Xen hypervisor)
• Support for migrating Virtual Iron VMs to Oracle VM images
• CPU power management, memory management, and direct disk I/O capabilities
• Support for the Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) 1.4 to enable faster VM provisioning and cloning
• Direct support for multipath storage devices that can enhance performance of clustered applications
• Options to set the scheduling priority for virtual CPUs in VMs and cap the maximum percentage of CPU time each individual VM can access
• Support for Intel Xeon 5500 series and six-core AMD Opteron processors

While Oracle may be coming late to the server virtualization party, it is clearly adding key enterprise features that are reducing the lead of its competitors. Furthermore, with Sun Microsystems, Oracle can offer what no other virtualization vendor can - a complete virtualization stack with all the key software and hardware components. And the complete stack can be easily designed and presented by Oracle partners using Lanamark Suite.

With the launch of Parallels Server Bare Metal, Parallels is expanding its value proposition in the crowded virtualization marketplace. But how is its approach different from other virtualization vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft and VMware?

First, Parallels offers a differentiated approach to virtualization that includes both hardware virtualization with Parallels Server Bare Metal and OS virtualization with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers. When the OS environment is heterogeneous, Parallels Server Bare Metal provides flexibility for hosting workloads with different operating systems on the same physical server. This approach is similar to Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle VM and VMware vSphere. However when the OS environment is homogeneous, Parallels provides capabilities to consolidate workloads with much lower virtualization overhead and much higher consolidation ratios. This is particularly useful for desktop virtualization.

Second, Parallels is clearly positioning itself for cloud enablement. Changes in messaging from "Automation and virtualization leader" to "Cloud enablement leader" clearly speak to that. And while other vendors are getting ready for cloud adoption, Parallels is already there with major market and mind share from service providers. Starting from its position of strength, Parallels can now go to all its partners using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and help them expand their value proposition to customers with the addition of Parallels Server Bare Metal.

Finally, Parallels provides Parallels Virtual Automation for comprehensive management of both physical and virtual environments. Because of its strong expertise in enabling services providers, these capabilities push self-service and automation to levels that dramatically reduce the cost of implementing and managing virtual infrastructure.

In the last six years, leading vendors made significant investments to capitalize on opportunities presented by virtualization technologies:

• EMC acquired VMware in 2003 for $635 million
• Citrix acquired XenSource in 2007 for $500 million
• Red Hat acquired Qumranet in 2008 for $107 million
• Oracle acquired Virtual Iron in 2009 and is finalizing acquisition of Sun Microsystems

Now the big question is, who else wants to have a strong play in the virtualization and the cloud space?

Regardless of what happens, Lanamark Suite will enable the IT channel to design and deliver desktop and server virtualization solutions across all the leading virtualization platforms.

Today, Lanamark had the pleasure of exhibiting at interAct Partner Day and meeting with a number of channel partners delivering virtualization solutions. Mark Angelo, CEO of Lanamark, shared the stage with Rudi Lenaerts, CEO of interAct, who delivered the keynote in the afternoon. Mark Angelo also participated in the CEO roundtable and was interviewed by the IT Reseller magazine.

The event was very well organized and executed by a stellar interAct team. Other exhibitors at the event included AppSense, Citrix, DataCore, Endeavors Technologies, IGEL, RES Software and ScriptLogic. During his keynote, Scott Herren, Group Vice President and General Manager, Virtualization Systems at Citrix Systems announced XenDesktop 4.0.

Many thanks to everyone at interAct who worked tirelessly to put together the event and to all channel partners who took the time to participate.

Mark Angelo sharing the keynote with Rudi Lenaerts

Mark Angelo getting serious at the CEO Roundtable