A few Microsoft customers know that the company is offering a patch management solution for offline virtual machines since July 2008.

The tool is called Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool (OVMST) and uses PowerShell, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Despite the importance of this product, which is released for free, so far Microsoft spent minimal effort in developing and promoting it.

Version 2.0 was released exactly one year ago. And today OVMST only reaches version 2.1, introducing support for the R2 wave of products.

This includes Hyper-V R2 (released in July for partners, in October for public), SCVMM 2008 R2 (released in August), SCCM 2007 SP2, WSUS 3.0 SP2, and Windows 7/2008 R2 guest OSes.

It’s very concerning to see that Microsoft doesn’t recognize the security of virtual data centers as a top priority.
The company should do much better that this to build confidence in itsupcoming Azure-based private cloud offering.

HP always offered a basic capacity planning tool to its customers that want to use ProLiant servers for virtualization.
In November 2005 it released one for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. In March 2007 it released one for VMware VI 3.0.

Yesterday the company released also one for Microsoft Hyper-V R2. This one is not a web tool like the previous versions, but a 50MB Windows application that customers can download and use without restrictions.

To collect data from physical servers, the Sizer tool interacts with the Microsoft Assessment & Planning (MAP) Toolkit (both 3.x and 4.x are supported) or the Windows Performance Monitor, but it can also import information from other tools.
Once data is available, this tool produces a detailed Bill of Materials (BoM) that includes servers and storage equipment, with pricing specified for the customer’s country.

It also includes an update engine which automatically downloads new inventory parts and refreshes prices.
A check of this engine shows that the capacity planning engine is marked as version 4.0:

After a couple of months in beta, Citrix releasesEssentials 5.5 for Hyper-V just before the holidays.

This version of the management platform for the Microsoft hypervisor includes a new technology called StorageLink Site Recovery.

This feature allows the Hyper-V administrators to control the replication features that their SAN arrays without using multiple consoles. From the Essentials console they can test the recovery process with what-if analysis, and restore the protected VMs in isolated, test networks.

The notable thing is that StorageLink Site Recovery is available for every version of Essentials, including the Express one which is free of charge (but it won’t appear there before Dec. 23).
HP announced its support for this technology a long time ago and now confirms integration with StorageWorks SANs.

Citrix published a bunch of videos to show how it works here.

At the moment there are not many (virtualization-aware) solutions for disaster recovery of Hyper-V virtual machines and it’s not clear if Microsoft is going to release its own or not. So Citrix has a good chance here to be considered in most comparisons.

Last Friday Microsoft announced the acquisition of Opalis Software, a run-book automation company founded in 1998 in Canada with 70 employees (according to LinkedIn) and over 300 customers (according to Opalis).

Data center orchestration is one of the most important areas where virtualization will expand in the coming years, as soon as customers will realize that their virtual infrastructures are reaching such a scale and complexity to become inefficient.

VMware and Citrix already invested in this area.
VMware acquired the Swiss startup Dunes Technologies in September 2007, and it’s now offering their solution for free, as part of vSphere 4.0 platform, under the name of Orchestrator.
Citrix offers an orchestration framework called Workflow Studio since January 2009.

Microsoft isn’t shy to say that the Opalis Software technology will be integrated in its System Center portfolio and that it will serve as the automation layer for Hyper-V virtualization and Azure cloud computing.

With this acquisition Microsoft doesn’t need much more to compete end-to-end against VMware on virtualization. Yes, the company still doesn’t have a client hypervisor, and didn’t clarify if it plans to become a major VDI player on its own or not, but the technology to deliver both missing pieces is there.
The Microsoft problem is that its vision about virtualization is nowhere near the VMware’s one. They have a lot of products which could be integrated to form an impressive end-to-end offering, but the today’s reality is completely different. And of course the customers’ trust in the Microsoft capability to compete with VMware reflects this.

Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 will support 64 logical processors — a big deal for existing Hyper-V users, but not enough to win over VMware customers, say experts.

Support for 64 logical processors in Hyper-V R2 is a major upgrade over the existing version of Hyper-V, which supports only 16 processors. Support for 64 logical processors is important for users because of coming advances in hardware, said Chris Wolf, an analyst at Burton Group. IT shops want software that will let them get the most out of the latest hardware.
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VMworld 2009 awards: Nominate a product
Submit your product nominations for the Best of VMworld Awards. Judges will visit contenders’ booths at VMworld 2009, and winners will be announced at the show. Products must be from a company exhibiting at VMworld 2009. In addition to the other awards, a single Best of Show award will be given at the judges’ discretion.
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How Hyper-V snapshots work
Point-in-time snapshots of a virtual machine in Hyper-V can save administrators time, but they aren’t backups, and you need to monitor disk usage and coordinate merges.
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Chargeback is a tough sell in any organization, but VMware isn’t making it any easier by pricing its new vCenter Chargeback so high.
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