VMworld to Showcase Storage News

VMware's VMworld event in San Francisco this week is expected to showcase a range of supplier announcements that merge server virtualization with storage -- a trend that's slowly but surely gaining momentum. (See Storage Virtualization Edges On, Falconstor Delivers CDP for VMware, XenSource Signs Symantec OEM, and Storage Afterthoughts.) Following is a first look at some of the news we expect in several key areas of storage networking. Stay tuned for more onsite coverage.

REPLICATION AND DISASTER RECOVERY

VMware will add some more flesh to the bones of its own storage virtualization strategy this week, unveiling a software offering called Site Recovery Manager. Linked to VMware's Virtual Center management software, the goal of Site Recovery Manager is to simplify and automate disaster recovery, according to Jon Bock, senior manager for product marketing at VMware. "It's going to show them specifically which VMs are protected [and] it's going to automate the failover," he says.

VMware has developed code that will communicate directly with replication software from a range of suppliers in order to shift virtual machines from one place to another. So far, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, and NetApp have signed on for integration. But precise details of the software have not been released, and VMware has not yet provided pricing information for the product, which will be launched sometime in the first half of next year.

Symantec will be another announcer this week. The vendor is expanding the reach of its Veritas Cluster Server product for VMware environments. "We're adding support for Hitachi TrueCopy data replication," says Jason Nadeau, group manager of product marketing at Symantec. "This gives you site-to-site failover and the fastest possible recovery in the event of a data center outage."Symantec is also adding support for virtualized instances of Microsoft Exchange and SAP to the new version of Veritas Cluster Server. "Before, there was support for SQL Server, IIS, and Apache, but no Exchange or SAP support," says Nadeau.

Despite the enhancements, Symantec nonetheless seems unlikely to emulate its recent XenSource deal with VMware. "That's not what we're announcing today," replied Nadeau, when asked whether a similar deal could be on the cards with VMware. "I don't think that we can comment on that at this time."

Symantec's decision to embed its Storage Foundation product line into XenEnterprise was widely regarded as a clear shot across the bows of EMC, which still owns a large chunk of VMware. (See EMC Still Rules VMware and EMC Plans Product Blitz.)

Priced at $2,395 per CPU, Veritas Cluster Server for ESX Server 5.1 is available now.

Business continuity specialist StorServer will also be busy this week, unveiling an agent for its Appliance for VMware Consolidated Backup. (See SNW: First Take, STORServer, Compellent Team, and StorServer Unveils SMB Wares.) The agent controls the backup for each virtual machine by integrating the appliance with Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). This removes the need for users to write integration scripts, according to StorServer.VIRTUAL APPLIANCES

While not all vendors claim to be enrolled specifically in VMware's Virtual Appliance development program, the principle of running a storage application within VMware will be a frequent feature in this week's news.

LeftHand Networks will take the wraps off a software-based version of its SAN hardware this week, which runs as a virtual machine within VMware's ESX Server. (See LeftHand Partners With Avnet, LeftHand Adds 10-GigE SANs, and LeftHands Supports IBM.)

"What we're offering is an alternative to providing a physical SAN," says John Fanelli, LeftHand Networks's vice president of marketing, explaining that the virtual appliance exploits the internal storage within a standard x86 server. "We're providing the virtualization of the disks, while VMware provides virtualization of the CPU."

The exec told Byte and Switch that the Virtual SAN is particularly aimed at smaller businesses and firms with remote sites. "To put in a SAN and a dual controller is very expensive for remote and branch offices," says Fanelli. "It's geared towards environments where it may not be realistic to build for power and space constraints, as well as cost."Installed as a software agent on x86 servers, the Virtual SAN uses the iSCSI protocol to communicate with the ESX server. Fanelli says that around 10 customers are currently testing the Virtual SAN, although he would not name names.

Available in Q4, the Virtual SAN will be priced at $5,000 for each instance of the software running on a physical server.

Another vendor touting a virtual appliance is email specialist Azaleos, which will demo a software version of its OneServer device at VMworld. (See Azaleos Updates OneServer, NetApp, Azaleos Team , and Azaleos, Avnet Team Up.)

Like LeftHand Networks, Azaleos is also looking to tap into users' space and power constraints. The virtual appliance "dramatically reduces costs and space [issues] in the server room," says Keith McCall, Azaleos's CTO. "It's a completely monitored and managed virtual appliance for Microsoft Exchange 2007."

Azaleos has not yet released pricing and availability for its virtual appliance, although McCall told Byte and Switch that pricing will be similar to the physical OneServer, which starts at $12,995.HBAs

Emulex will team up with VMware this week, demo'ing an HBA compatible with the virtualization vendor's ESX Server product, which follows a slew of recent activity in this space. (See Virtual HBAs Hitch Servers & Storage, 3Leaf Teams With Emulex, and QLogic Sets Record With SANblade.)

"What we're announcing is the ability, through the NPIV standard, of having a separate connection from each virtual machine to external storage," says Jean-Yves Chevallier, Emulex's director of software marketing, explaining that VMware has tweaked ESX server software to make this possible.

The exec told Byte and Switch that this will open the door to "fabric zoning," a form of SAN security, when the HBA is linked to a Cisco MDS switch. "Fabric zoning allows different machines or users to have private, protected, access to their storage," says Chevalier.

Precise details on pricing and availability of the enhanced ESX server software are yet to be revealed.HYPERVISORS AND VIRTUAL DESKTOPS

Other announcements from VMware this week include ESX Server 3i, a stripped down "thin" hypervisor that will be eventually shipped on servers from Dell, IBM, and HP. "We will see them start to introduce it later this year and early next year," says VMware's Bock, explaining that this will ease the strain on users. "If [the hypervisor] comes with the server, you have taken away a lot of the work that you would normally need to do to deploy virtualization."

The virtualization giant will also ramp up its desktop virtualization story, unveiling its Virtual Desktop Manager software. (See Virtual Confabulation, Pano Logic Locks Onto Desktops, Desktops' Virtual Dance, and Ericom Releases Virtual Desktop.) Described by the vendor as a "connection broker", Virtual Desktop Manager links up with Virtual Center to let users control their desktops through the same management software they use for servers. Pricing has not yet been revealed for Virtual Desktop Manager, although the software is expected to be launched later this year.

Another vendor with its eye on the virtual desktop market is Trusted Network Technologies, which will unveil its VdeskTools for monitoring virtual desktops. The software, which works with VMware's ACE and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) offerings, will be available in late September. (See VMware Delivers ACE 2 Enterprise.) Pricing for a workgroup version of the product covering multiple desktops starts at $25,000, although a free version will also be available for standalone VMware servers.

VIRTUALIZATION MANAGMENT Underlining the growing momentum behind storage virtualization, management specialist Vizioncore will launch its Global Alliance Partner Progam at VMworld this week. The program, which aims to develop tighter integration with the vendor's backup, monitoring, replication and migration offerings, has already enticed Data Domain, DataCore, and EqualLogic. (See DataCore Runs on VMs.)

VMworld will also see the debut of management startup Embotics, which plans to emerge from stealth this week. The vendor, which is developing software for managing virtual machines, will debut its V-Commander offering at the show. "You can [use V-Commander to] create a single place to store master copies of your VMs," says David Lynch, the vendor's vice president of marketing.

Running on a standard Microsoft server, V-Commander allows users to tag each virtual machine with metadata. "You can say 'this one is suitable for deployment, [but] this one is not suitable for deployment'," says Lynch.

Pricing for V-Commander, which will be available sometime in Q4, starts at $25,000 for unlimited VMs running on a single ESX Server. Additional ESX Servers can be added for $3,000 each.

CPU virtualization vendor Transitive will also be cranking up its management this week, unveiling the latest version of its QuickTransit software. "We can make code that has been virtualized on one CPU run on another CPU," explains Ian Robinson, the vendor's vice president of marketing.Whereas the initial version of QuickTransit took applications built for Solaris SPARC servers and ran them on Linux x86 machines, the latest version of the software can move the applications onto Itanium or Solaris x86 chips.

The Itanium version of QuickTransit is available now, with the Solaris x86 offering available in October. Pricing for both versions of the software starts at $875 for a single socket deployment.