Yes, you’ve heard it before - virtualization is a hot, growing market. The strange thing is, it isn’t just the analysts and media talking about it anymore. And it’s not just those people in the virtualization community talking about it either. Venture capital firms have recognized the trend and can see where virtualization is going. Because of that, we’ve seen an increase in the funding of these companies. Why, just in the last week or so we’ve seen a number of press releases hit the wire about additional funding. ————- CiRBA Inc., a leader in Data Center Intelligence software, today… READ MORE

Devoted users of VMware’s desktop virtualization application for Mac might be happy to hear that VMware has updated the product with a new dot release (VMware Fusion 1.1.1). And its true, while a minor dot release normally wouldn’t make people stand up and take notice, perhaps the dozen or so bug fixes in this “maintenance release” will make your life a little bit easier. One interesting new capability has been added, VMware Fusion now transparently remaps keyboard shortcuts when the user goes back and forth between applications in the guest and in the host. Keyboard remapping can now take place… READ MORE

InformationWeek is reporting a deal between French automaker Renault & Microsoft : “Under the arrangement, Microsoft will provide Renault with 1,000 “certificates” for Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise server product. The deal also includes a controversial “IP assurance” provision under which Microsoft pledges not to sue customers who use Linux distributed by its partner Novell.” I’ve asked this before, but why should a customer care about IP assurance? IP indemnification is a vendor issue, just like ensuring environmental rules or workplace safety regulations are being adhered to. It’s a disgrace that vendors have made indemnification a customer concern. “Last year, Microsoft… READ MORE

VMLogix is joining forces with Florida-based Citrix to make its virtual lab automation solution, VMLogix LabManager, the first solution of its kind available on the Citrix XenServer hypervisor. The partnership is an extension of a relationship that was originally established in August 2007 between VMLogix and XenSource. XenSource was the commercial side of the open source Xen hypervisor, which was acquired by Citrix in October of that same year. VMLogix LabManager is an all-inclusive software lifecycle management solution which supports all leading enterprise-level virtualization platforms. VMLogix LabManager helps software engineering organizations ensure fast, repeatable and consistent development and test environment… READ MORE

Interesting things happening in China. An article in the English edition of the People’s Daily on line is headlined, Decimal network security address begins operation: “China’s decimal network security address was officially launched. China has made a fundamental breakthrough in its Internet development; and actual use has been successful. The birth of decimal network technology makes China the only country able to unify domain names, IP addresses and MAC addresses into the text of a metric system…” Someone asked whether this was a rumored IPv9? It appears IPv9 is a project name, not a new protocol. It lumps together several activities, including at least… More…

This is big… For the upper band C Block, the FCC mandated that any winning licensee have in place “no locking” and “no blocking” provisions conditioning its use of this spectrum: “Licensees offering service on spectrum subject to this section shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice on the licensee…” The no-locking, no-blocking requirements were hedged in by substantial limitations… But it’s still important… Particularly if Google is the winning bidder, something we may not know for a month or so. More…

Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia have been left without access to the web after a technical fault cut millions of connections. The outage, which is being blamed on a fault in a single undersea cable, has severely restricted internet access in countries including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and left huge numbers of people struggling to get online. More…

After 17 rounds, the 700MHz spectrum auction has finally hit its one of its most closely watched targets: bidding on Block C has surpassed the Federal Communications Commission’s mandated $4.638 billion reserve, meaning that the FCC’s mandated open access rules will come into play. Bids on the block of spectrum totaled $4.744 billion after Round 17. More…

A recent report released by the Discovery Institute estimates that by 2015, U.S. IP traffic could reach an annual total of one zettabyte (1021 bytes), or one million million billion bytes. From YouTube, IPTV, and high-definition images, to “cloud computing” and ubiquitous mobile cameras, 3D games, virtual worlds, and photorealistic telepresence, the new wave is swelling into an exaflood of Internet and IP traffic. More…

Hyperic has announced a new major version of their HQ monitoring system that adds plenty of new capabilities. HQ enables companies with a web infrastructure to monitor all the various components of the stack, whether open source, closed or a mix. For example, HQ can monitor Windows, IIS, MySQL, and JBoss. Or whatever combination you have in your environment. The latest release also enables users to incorporate existing Nagios scripts and now uses MySQL as the back end database. The combination of HQ and MySQL has been used to track 1.5 million metrics per minute with plenty of headroom for… READ MORE