Q-layer announced that it has expanded its operation into the United States. Founded in 2005 in Belgium, the company has experienced great success in the European market with the Virtual Private Data Center software targeted at Service Providers. With the opening of the new office in Mountain View, CA, Q-layer also announced the worldwide appointment of Matthew Powell to president and chief executive officer. As President and CEO, Powell will provide strategic direction and management as Q-layer continues to establish itself as a high standing enabler of cloud computing.

Q-layer announced the Q-layer Delegation Manager, a solution that turns virtual server environments into a true cloud computing platform. This release of Delegation Manager provides complete support for VMware Infrastructure 3 environments, including the VMware ESX Hypervisor, with future support for additional Hypervisors including Xen, Sun Microsystems' xVM VirtualBox and Microsoft Hyper-V. The Q-layer Delegation Manager enables fast browser-based provisioning of data center assets for helpdesk, technical end-users and non- technical end-users, with integrated credit-based charge-back capabilities, reporting and easy to use flash-based management controls. Q-layer's Delegation Manager is installed in minutes through the VMware Virtual Center as a Virtual Appliance and builds on Q-layer's VPDC and Datacenter Abstraction Layer (DAL) technology. It enables model-driven orchestration capabilities for data centers, including workflows to cohesively orchestrate virtual servers, networks and storage.

Alert Logic announced that it has released version 1.1 of its flagship log management product, Alert Logic Log Manager. The company also announced that Log Manager fully leverages the power of grid computing and virtualization technologies.

Certeon announced that Unitus has selected Certeon's aCelera to improve remote file accessibility among its global users. Certeon's aCelera Virtual Appliance for Application Acceleration delivers acceleration as a service through software inside a virtual infrastructure--an ideal solution for enterprises looking to optimize remote access performance over the wide area network (WAN).

Third Brigade Deep Security host IDS/IPS protects critical data and applications on virtual machines and physical servers. With a high performance deep packet inspection engine, Third Brigade Deep Security detects and prevents known and zero-day attacks that bypass or penetrate network defenses and target vulnerabilities in operating systems, and enterprise and web applications. By protecting data at the source on virtual machines, Third Brigade enables greater visibility, mobility and flexibility when securing your virtualized environments.

The eG Monitor for VMware Infrastructures (the eG VM Monitor), part of the eG Enterprise Suite, is a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing all aspects of virtual hosts and guests, whether the infrastructure is used to support server or desktop applications. In May 2008, eG announced support for VMware ESX 3i and Solaris Containers. Later in the year, eG Enterprise will support the Citrix XenServer platform, and subsequently Microsoft, IBM and others as part of the company's commitment to being a supplier of management software for all popular virtualization platforms.

VKernel's Capacity Bottleneck Analyzer continuously monitors CPU, memory, and storage utilization trends in VMware ESX environments across hosts, clusters, and resource pools. By utilizing VKernel's quick-to-install virtual appliance model, users can eliminate current capacity bottlenecks and future ones through a simple, single-screen management dashboard. Users also now have detailed capacity information to effectively plan for the addition of new hosts, clusters, and resource pools. By customizing capacity thresholds, users can receive alerts via email and SNMP.

The Infrastructure Center for VMware, briefly IC, offers essential add-on functionalities for virtual environments based on VMware ESX. mySoftIT's IC is acknowledged as innovation product 2008 and is honored with the IBM Beacon Award 2008 for its worldwide communication with TSM. IC includes six modules expanding existing and delivering missing functionalities of VMware ESX but it does not replace the VirtualCenter. Moreover, it increases business continuity and stands for a simpler and better virtual infrastructure. Each IC module can run automatically as single solution but also in synergetic combination. The GUI applies to all IC modules. IC-CIDeR stands for backup, restore, and disaster recovery, IC-MoRe for monitoring and reporting, IC-PreCog for zero downtime of applications and services, IC-TAM for dynamic accounting of virtual machines according to consumption, IC-RICS for high availability on a sophisticated level, and IC-SchED for the distribution of VMs according to a predefined pattern and schedule.

The Teneros Velocity series is a complete family of Application Continuity Appliances for high availability and disaster recovery of the primary, business-critical application - Microsoft Exchange. Teneros plug-&-go appliances protect essential communications by assuring 24X7, ongoing email operation and access to the valuable email data, calendars, and attachments that fuel business operations, during local technology failures or full site outages from disaster events.

TRANGO's inherently secure Hypervisor runs rich operating systems such as Windows CE, Linux, and Symbian, or RTOS' such as eCOS or uITRON in simultaneous and separate environments on single and multi-core platforms based on a wide variety of ARM and MIPS architectures.

Veeam announced its acquisition of privately held nworks, an innovative creator of enterprise management connectors bridging the gap between VMware virtual infrastructure and enterprise systems management tools from Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. The nworks worldwide customer base consists of Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies. nworks is a VMware Technology Alliance Premier Partner, a Gold HP Business Partner, and a Microsoft Business Partner.

Stoneridge is saving money and data center space worldwide by simplifying its IT operations with Dell PowerEdge servers supported by Dell EqualLogic Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage area networks (SANs). Stoneridge is an independent designer and manufacturer of highly engineered electrical and electronic components, modules and systems principally for the automotive, medium- and heavy-duty truck, agricultural and off-highway vehicle markets. Stoneridge has IT presence in most of its locations in 15 countries. Dell helped the company standardize onto a centralized IT network, providing greater economy and global efficiency.

TBDVirtualFirewall for VMware ESX is designed for virtualized DMZ environments. It allows you to deploy virtualization technology in the DMZ while complying with established security and audit requirements. Virtual Network Policies support the separation of duty needs of security and virtualization professionals. TBD Networks' VMShadowing technology enables highly dynamic, secure environments by following VMs moving between hypervisors via VMotion or cold migration. Integrated into TBDVirtualFabric the software is proven in some of the world's largest, highly secure production networks since 2002.

PerfectDisk 2008 for VMware combines the power of PerfectDisk 2008 with additional functionality for your VMware environment to help you automatically boost VMware performance and reclaim disk space on your host operating system drive. PerfectDisk 2008 for VMware defragments VMware's virtual drives with PerfectDisk's patented SMARTPlacement optimization technology and uses native VMware utilities to automatically re-index and shrink virtual drives. The physical (host) machine's drives are also automatically defragmented and optimized.

OKL4 is a high-performance system software platform, built using cutting-edge microkernel technology, which provides Trustworthy Virtualization and Secure Decomposition capability for embedded systems. OKL4 supports system virtualization, secure execution of components in an execution environment with a minimal trusted computing base, and fault isolation within complex systems using lightweight protected components. Used alone or as a complement to full-featured operating systems, OKL4 enables development teams to deliver systems that are more trustworthy in less time and at lower cost. Open Kernel Labs OKL4 provides developers with the technologies and tools needed to build and deploy innovative, high-performance, and secure intelligent devices.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Server stands head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to server agility, management, hardware enablement and interoperability at a low cost. The recent Service Pack 2 upgrade made it the only Xen-based virtualization solution with full support from Microsoft for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 guests, offering live migration of those guests across physical machines. The platform can run these and other legacy services unmodified with near native performance on fully virtualized servers.

Through Equalizer VLB, which utilizes VMware's management API, Coyote Point Equalizer Series advanced load balancing systems can monitor the real-time performance of virtual servers, using VMware's information to manage the traffic flowing to VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machines. With Equalizer VLB, IT departments can realize a significant fiscal impact through business continuity (non-stop availability), capital expense (fewer servers) and reduced operational expenses (power, cooling, and management).

Virtual Recovery Assistant is a new enhancement to Double-Take for Windows that simplifies the process of migrating to VMware ESX virtual machines by automating the provisioning of the virtual environment and reducing end-user downtime associated with traditional physical-to-virtual (P2V) migration products. This feature can also be used to automate the protection of workloads running on physical servers, moving them to virtual machines automatically in the event of a server outage or site-wide disaster. The Virtual Recovery Assistant replicates changes to data in real-time, so end users can continue to access production applications right up until the moment at which the workload is migrated.

SourceLabs announced that its Self-Support Suite now supports enterprise-class virtual infrastructure solutions built on the Xen hypervisor, an open-source virtualization software solution for Linux. SourceLabs' Self-Support technology gives developers, corporate IT professionals, and solution providers an on-demand way to reduce the complexity of application development, deployment, troubleshooting and software maintenance for open source technologies. Xen is the industry's de-facto, industry-endorsed open source virtualization standard backed by enterprise solution vendors.

HP may lose the head of its Personal Systems Group (PSG), Todd Bradley, to Motorola. He's on Moto's list of two candidates to run its cell phone operation, according to the Wall Street Journal. Everybody's still in denial because negotiations are at the sensitive stage, the paper said. However, after the story ran Bradley sent an e-mail to his staff saying he was happy where he was.

CohesiveFT and Skytap announced a technology partnership to distribute CohesiveFT's Elastic Servers to Skytap's Virtual Lab platform. The combined solution will provide application development and test teams the capability to dynamically assemble and deploy custom application stacks to a virtual test cloud, freeing them from time-consuming build and set-up tasks and the constraints of traditional test lab environments.

Nirvanix announced the beta of a new set of products that attaches the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network to a local network as a Windows or Linux filer using standard industry networking protocols. Users can then work with the applications they are accustomed to, or simply drag and drop files from their desktops to Nirvanix's storage service.

Microsoft managed to get its VMware-spooking Hyper-V, its hypervisor-based virtualization technology, out the door Thursday, which is something of an accomplishment considering that by Microsoft's clock the thing is weeks early, having not been expected until August sometime.

CohesiveFT and FlexiScale announced a technology partnership to enable deployment of CohesiveFT's Elastic Servers to FlexiScale's Cloud. The integration of technologies from CohesiveFT and FlexiScale will enable true on-demand application stack assembly and deployment on a pay-as-you-go Cloud. This combination allows scalable, high availability production environments that do not require in-house operations expertise to build and maintain such a facility. Beyond manpower savings the combined solution reduces capital and energy expenditures.

Moving in like a weather front, IBM is opening its first - or for that matter anybody's first - cloud computing center in Africa, and a second one China. The African site is in Johannesburg, the Chinese one in Beijing. IBM said the new centers are part of its overall investment in the world's growth markets, to which it committed an additional $1.6 billion earlier this year.

Symantec announced Veritas Virtual Infrastructure, a solution that offers advanced storage capabilities for virtual server environments that effectively manage storage in large scale, x86 production environments. Expected to be available in the fall of 2008, Veritas Virtual Infrastructure combines new, advanced storage management capabilities from Veritas Storage Foundation with the flexible, high-performance Citrix XenServer virtualization technology from Citrix Systems. Veritas Virtual Infrastructure will allow users to fully benefit from server virtualization while both preserving current best practices in storage management from the physical environment and leveraging new opportunities provided by virtualized environments.

Agilent Technologies announced new software capabilities for its E2960B Series protocol analyzer and LTSSM exerciser solution. The software package supports the PCI-SIG Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) and Multi-Root I/O virtualization (MR-IOV) specifications and builds on the PCI Express (PCIe) protocol stack, which makes it possible to run multiple systems' images on a common hardware platform.

Security software and services company Symantec has announced its virtualization software for advanced storage capabilities in large-scale x86 environments. The company said it has combined Veritas Virtual Infrastructure, which supports up to 16 x86 servers with a single management console, with Citrix's XenServer virtualization technology.

Symantec announced its Veritas Virtual Infrastructure, a solution offering advanced storage capabilities for virtual server environments that effectively manage storage in large scale, x86 production environments. Expected to be available in the fall, Veritas Virtual Infrastructure combines new, advanced storage management capabilities from Veritas Storage Foundation with the flexible, high-performance Citrix XenServer virtualization technology from Citrix Systems.

VKernel announced a partnership with Xcedex. Under the agreement, Xcedex is a VKernel Gold Partner that will resell VKernel's Suite of Virtual Appliances for analyzing and monitoring capacity, implementing chargeback, and gaining cost visibility in VMware ESX environments to its growing customer base.

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, announced the latest release of its RSA Identity Verification knowledge-based authentication system - a system that has previously been successfully used by companies to reduce costs and to improve security and customer satisfaction. RSA's knowledge-based authentication (KBA) solution is designed to instantly verify customers' identities and to provide organizations with a higher level of confidence, while simultaneously reducing the risk of fraud associated with handling critical customer information.

Red Hat announced three strategic initiatives targeting enterprise-wide adoption of next-generation virtualization. These initiatives will enable customers to deploy virtualization across their IT infrastructure by offering features and cost benefits that go beyond competitive solutions. With this portfolio growth, Red Hat solutions provide the market with comprehensive virtualization capabilities.

CDNetworks and Nirvanix announced a strategic partnership to deliver a unified cloud storage and content delivery service. Available immediately, CDNetworks' customers will be able to store unlimited amounts of protected and secure content online and move content instantly to and from any of CDNetworks' 63 nodes worldwide at previously unseen economies. The partnership with CDNetworks will provide Nirvanix customers with the ability to not only securely store massive amounts of media and content but also stage content for instant delivery anywhere in the world, utilizing one of CDNetworks' data centers for local delivery. By combining these services, companies will have better overall media delivery capability and also save 80 to 90 percent over building or growing storage infrastructures of their own.

Neocleus, a pioneer in endpoint virtualization, announced that it has raised $11.4M in Series B funding. Neocleus? solutions create a more flexible, secure and efficient endpoint infrastructure. The round was led by Battery Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds, the company's original investors. Neocleus applies virtualization to desktops and laptops delivering the flexibility, manageability and security needed to address different user scenarios within a dynamic, dispersed enterprise.

IT and data center managers are starting to envision the benefits of virtual environments. The widespread interest in virtualization today has companies that are intent on cashing in on the advantages of virtualization technologies eager to reduce the financial and physical footprint associated with racks of computers.

There is no lack of evidence of the pain of provisioning, maintaining, and using traditional PC desktops. User satisfaction is low; maintenance costs high; and stories of lost data, hacked networks, and virus, worm, and DoS attacks are reported almost daily in the press. As Credit Suisse noted recently in a report on Desktop Virtualization, 'What began as a useful tool that boosted productivity has grown into a bloated device requiring constant upgrades and maintenance due to compatibility issues associated with patches, new hardware, and software releases.'

The two Detroit pension funds suing Yahoo in Delaware to invalidate its severance plan 'poison pill' have been denied the expedited trial that they asked for ahead of the August 1 stockholders meeting. The plan is supposed to incentivize Google staff to leave if an acquisition were to come off.

Salesforce.com, which has already linked its CRM software to Google Apps and integrated AdWords tracking into its platform, is deploying a free new Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs so third-party developers can interact with data in Google services. The toolkit is supposed to bring together data and content in Google Apps with the database, logic and workflow capabilities in Salesforce.com?s Force.com development platform. Salesforce claims the move creates a -multi-cloud computing platform? that will accelerate the creation of newfangled web-based applications.

Open Source. Open Standards. Open Collaboration. At the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo, Red Hat's CTO Brian Stevens spoke about how, over the past five years, the open source community has turned its attention to virtualization and what has been achieved and what is under development, and most important why open source is critical when building integrated infrastructure solutions.

Hewlett-Packard has torn a page out of Sun's book - at least the Sun edition that reads give gear away for free to buy market share - except HP's target is IBM and IBM's precious, profitable mainframe preserve. The notion, called the 'NonStop Freedom' incentive plan, is part of HP's 'Blade Everything' concept.