Going Hyperdense - VMCs Latest Virtualization Appliances

Here is some information on the new VA1200Series and VA2400 Series virtualization appliances from the Virtual Machine Company

The first of the new 2400Series started shipping this March. The 1200 Series in January.

Both are based on the latest 12 Core AMD Opteron CPUs and designed to deliver market beating performance 'and' hyper-density.

A VMC virtualization appliance is a high-performance x86-64 based server especially configured and tuned for virtualization; with your choice of hypervisor pre-installed configured and running our Virtual Estate Manager performance management software. Virtual Estate Manager is a small VM that provides both physical and virtual environment monitoring, alerting and reporting software which can help you gain the maximum advantage from virtualization.

Per unit VMC are appliances are keenly priced to compete with commodity server manufacturers, but much cheaper to run, and due to our Hyper-dense technology fewer units are required overall. The savings will of course depend on size of the estate, VM density and electricity tariff.

Price paid includes: Virtualization Appliance Hardware, Virtual Estate Manager Software, In-Cloud Monitoring and reporting service and 12 months next business day onsite hardware support, but excludes the cost of the Hypervisor license as this varies based on individual client requirements.

Model & description: 2400 Series
VA2400 2U, 4CPU, 48 Cores, 128Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
VA2450 2U, 4CPU, 48 Cores, 256Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
VA2500 2U, 4CPU, 48 Cores, 512Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM

Model & description: 1200 Series
VA1200 1U, 2CPU, 24Cores, 64Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
VA1220 1U, 2CPU, 24Cores, 96Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
VA1250 1U, 2CPU, 24Cores, 128Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
VA1280 1U, 2CPU, 24Cores, 192Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM

As well as 12 months NBD support we also include 12 months complimentary subscription to the 'In-Cloud'; our virtual server babysitting service which provides 24 x 7 monitoring, reporting and alerting. Additional support options are available inc 4 hour same day, 24/7 and one, three or five year support periods.

The pricing is keenly set against vanilla hardware from the the commodity manufacturers; which belies the fact that the turn-key Appliance approach delivers ready-to-rack systems that are tuned to spec'. They are considerably faster, have better VM performance, offer greater VM density, require as little as half power & cooling - and come with some really great management software.

We also offer the IR (Infinitely Radical) upgrade which moves performance up another notch proving that you can have seriously hot performance and extreme VM density.

Some recently published the results from Geekbench give comparative performance and ratings against the main competition.

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/top

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/compare/303256/318534

You can also find spec sheets and product info here.

Geekbench: VMC virtualisation hardware tops benchmark

The results are in from the independent performance testing of our new hardware appliance platform.

Like the song says 'It's not what you do it's the way that you do it. Our HPC approach to virtualisation really delivers on the promise of the MultiCore x86-64 vision.

So to the results:
The VMC 1200 series - 2P 24 Core system comfortably faces down the latest 4P 48Core DELL R815. In the real world that saves you a VMware license

The 4P 48Core VMC 2400 series slips past a 'quant-built' 8P 128Core custom rig to take top slot, leaving the 8P 64Core IBM System x3850 X5 trailing in 3rd; and that would save you 2 VMware licenses.

But seriously, it's not simply license savings when you move to very dense virtualisation solutions like ours. You save on everything; rack-space, power, cooling, software licenses, networking infrastructure and storage solutions.

Checkout the VMC VA1200 Series specifications.

Wikileaks: Avoiding the problem in the first place

As young Mr Assange makes a return trip to court this week, one of our partner companies issues some guidelines on improving your cyber-security.

Topics
(1) Recognise Where You Are Vulnerable
(2) Know If You Are A Target
(3) Diligence And Statutory Obligations (Compliance)
(4) Segment Your Data
(5) The Human Element, A Matter Of Staff Maturity And Common Sense
(6) Handling A Leak

Check it out here

As an ex-security guy myself I've found that most day to day security breaches are people based; systems left open, people sharing a user account, shared passwords and most often a text file full of passwords on the computer itself.

Here is what past master Kevin Metnick has to say about social engineering your way into someones data-store.

Cloud Computing Explained

This little video seems quite simple, but has some powerful reminders:

1. Make sure your provider has the same level of security that you would have on site
2. Ensure you understand the service level agreements and what happens if they are not met
3. Be clear as to what services 'must be available' for your users - and make sure they agree to...
4. What happens if you cannot access the Internet? or if the Cloud Provider goes bust!

• Cloud computing explained
• |
• silicon.com

Also, don't forget the data remains your responsibility where ever it's held so make sure your Cloud provider so check all stored data is encrypted, and do make sure you know where in the world that data is being processed or stored - data protection legislation still applies to your data in the Cloud.

It's that time again

We're closing down for Christmas on the 23rd and will be back on the 4th of January 2011. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support in 2010 wish you all a Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

All the best from Nick, Steve, Andy & the VMC team

Citrix XenServer 5.6 ESG Lab Validation Report

The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) has released a report titled: Lab Validation Report, Citrix XenServer, Complete, Cost-effective Data Center and Server Virtualization.

The 20 page report which contains hands-­‐on testing of Citrix XenServer 5.6 with a focus on manageability, consolidation, and cost effectiveness.

The following features were tested: Initial deployment, managebility, XenConvert, OVG Appliance Import, Dynamic Memory Control, Workload Balancing, XenServer HA and StorageLink with Site Recovery.

Bit of light reading :0)

DCIG 2011 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide Now Available

DCIG is a great resource for information on products and services in IT and I particularly like their technology reviews. I've been waiting for this report on Virtual Server Backup Software for a while and it was released today and is free to download from here.

The 2011 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide weights, scores and ranks over 20 virtual server backup software products. It's worth a read.