VMware’s 2009 Partner is Here!

michaelmattal — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:44:09 +0000

10 Reasons Why VMware Partner Exchange 2009 is a Must Attend Event!

VMware Partner Exchange 2009 will take place April 14-16 in Orlando, FL. Our event theme is The Power of Partnership. We have a lot in store to demonstrate our commitment to you and ensure you are positioned for success with VMware. Here’s why this event is not to be missed!

Hear VMware’s Virtualization Vision and Roadmap
At VMware Partner Exchange, you will have the exclusive opportunity to hear VMware executives Paul Maritz, President and CEO, Carl Eschenbach, EVP of Worldwide Field Operations, and Dr. Stephen Herrod, CTO, unveil how VMware’s industry vision and roadmap will empower your virtualization initiatives today and into the future.

Be a Virtualization Leader
Businesses are reconsidering IT budgets and refocusing spending toward virtualization as both a strategic investment and a proven way to reduce costs. As the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, VMware is uniquely positioned to enable our partners to address their customers’ virtualization needs. At VMware Partner Exchange, you will get a first-hand preview of VMware’s next-generation products and programs that will accelerate your success in 2009.

Stay Ahead of Your Competition
Leverage our sales tools and marketing program to build your virtualization business and competitively position your company for high quality lead generation. Remember, if you don’t, your competitors will! Learn best practices for acquiring new customers and expanding your current virtualization business initiatives.

Accelerate Your Expertise
Our conference curriculum is designed to meet your needs and ensure you receive a comprehensive education on selling and deploying VMware’s next-generation solutions. With access to more than 130 sessions with targeted content by job role and partner type, you will walk-away with proven go-to-market selling strategies for VMware solutions, key insights on sales and marketing programs, and in-depth training on VMware technology.

Learn to Cross-Sell VMware Solutions with Our Partners
Attend sessions led by VMware Alliance Affiliate partners and learn strategies for driving revenue by cross-selling VMware solutions.

Receive Hands-on Training with VMware Virtualization Experts
Develop your skills and technical expertise in interactive hands-on labs, share best practices during Birds-of-a-Feature roundtables, and meet with VMware sales and technical gurus at the Experts Bar to get your questions answered.

Build Your Partner Network
Connect with more than 1,500 partners and peers from VMware’s global partner ecosystem, including VIP Partners, Corporate Resellers, Distributors, and OEMs. Meet face-to-face, share ideas, and build better business relationships.

Experience The Power of Partnership
Our team is committed to helping you realize the incredible opportunity that exists today with virtualization. At VMware Partner Exchange, you’ll have a chance to meet our team face-to-face, including representatives from Partner Sales, Technical, Enablement and Marketing teams who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to your feedback.

Attend Our Premier Partner Conference
Our goal is make each VMware Partner Exchange bigger, better and more valuable than the last! Feedback from our 2008 attendees showed 99% would attend the next partner conference and 90% walked away with knowledge to develop or grow VMware business opportunities. This year’s event, which will replace Partner Day at VMworld 2009, will include 3 days filled with robust content and high-level networking. We’ve also expanded to incorporate Technology Exchange, formerly a separate event for our Technology Alliance Partners.

Have Fun in the Sun
We’re hosting this year’s event in a world-class resort environment with that famous Florida sunshine. We’ll make sure you have a chance to celebrate at our Partner Appreciation Party. Come early or stay a few extra days after the conference – as a benefit to our conference attendees, we have partnered with Orlando’s Visitors Bureau to provide you with special discounts to local attractions!

Register today! Through March 2, you’ll receive a $100 early bird savings on your conference registration. Returning alumni from our 2008 event save $200. Take advantage of our Schedule Builder feature to create a personal agenda and ensure you attend the breakout sessions specific to your needs.

F5 Virtualization Planning Tool

FitzGerald — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:24:51 +0000

F5 has built a VDC Maturity Model that clusters virtualization technologies into five distinct phases. This easy-to-use planning tool can help you assess where your data center is today, how your specific virtualization technologies map to this level, and you can how to move to the next level. To learn more, read the article: Growing into the Virtual Data Center: The VDC Maturity Model.

Tagged: F5, Planning

VMware to Collaborate with HP on Comprehensive Solutions to Manage Mixed Physical and Virtual Datacenters

FitzGerald — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:27:54 +0000

VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced its intention to expand its strategic relationship with HP to include the joint development of management software solutions that manage both physical and virtual datacenter resources. VMware intends to deliver with HP integrated physical and virtual datacenter management and automation software solutions that would standardize on various technologies within HP’s Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software. These new solutions would bring even greater management capabilities to the emerging concept of a virtual datacenter operating system (VDC-OS). Today’s announcement expands on the introduction of integrated software offerings from VMware and HP that help customers seamlessly automate the management of heterogeneous environments, announced earlier this year.

As a first step in the companies’ expanded relationship, VMware would work with HP to integrate HP BTO software with VMware vCenter Lab Manager, which provides self-service access to a library of pre-configured virtualized application environments, allowing teams of users to check out systems on-demand while IT maintains administrative control. With Lab Manager, organizations can reduce hardware costs, automate manual provisioning tasks, and accelerate application development and test cycles.

In addition, VMware and HP would jointly develop and bring to market enhanced virtualization management offerings for VMware vCenter and HP BTO customers based on the HP BTO application and infrastructure discovery technologies (HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping) to better manage their VDC-OS environments. A VDC-OS enables businesses to efficiently pool all types of hardware resources (including servers, storage and network) into an “internal enterprise cloud” that acts like a single, giant computer. A VDC-OS can also safely and automatically move workloads to external clouds when additional compute capacity is needed. A VDC-OS is highly elastic, self-managing and self-healing, enabling businesses large and small to benefit from the flexibility and efficiency of the “lights-out” datacenter.

“Through an expanded co-development relationship with HP we would further strengthen the VDC-OS platform as the best place to run all enterprise applications,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president and general manager of VMware’s Server Business Unit. “By integrating HP BTO technologies for application management with VMware vCenter and combining it with the performance, reliability and security of the VMware platform, we would be able to offer our joint customers an ideal foundation for their next-generation datacenters.”

“Customers want to achieve better business value through the management of virtualized business applications. The solutions that we would develop through our collaboration with VMware would achieve just that,” said Robin Purohit, vice president and general manager, Software Products, HP. “By working closely with VMware and taking our joint solutions to market, we would bring the application and infrastructure management capabilities of HP BTO software to thousands of customers who are building out VDC-OS environments on the VMware platform.”

As a result of this enhanced relationship, the two companies would jointly develop go-to-market and sales programs that would leverage and integrate both companies’ direct and channel sales forces.

Tagged: BTO, HP, mgmt, openview, VMWare

Novell and Avnet Partner to Deliver Virtualization and Data Center Management Solutions

FitzGerald — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:45:30 +0000

Collaboration offers sales support, training and market-leading products to solution providers and VARs, enabling them to deliver a more complete data center solution to their customers

Novell and Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT) have announced a strategic relationship to provide virtualization and workload management solutions to data center customers. This relationship leverages Novell’s strength in delivering full lifecycle management capabilities for multi-platform data centers provided by the company’s PlateSpin brand of workload management products. Combined with Avnet’s leadership position as a global technology distributor and extensive partner network, Novell’s technology will allow Avnet’s partners in the U.S. and Canada to differentiate themselves in the marketplace with best-in-class solutions.

“This relationship further demonstrates Novell’s commitment to expanding relationships with solutions distributors, such as Avnet, and to driving sales by enabling solution providers and value–added resellers (VARs),” said Javier Colado, general manager of partners at Novell. “Avnet’s selection of Novell to provide workload management and virtualization solutions is a testament to the strength of our products and reputation in the marketplace. We view our distributor and VAR partners as more than vehicles to customers – we see them as a point of differentiation. The strengths our partners bring to the table will give our customers the complete package – a better overall product, service and support experience.”

Tim FitzGerald, director of the virtualization practice at Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas, said, “Avnet and Novell have a strong vision for enabling high quality virtualization and data center management offerings that can be delivered by our community of value-added partners. By working with Novell, Avnet will be able to supply its partners with a comprehensive portfolio of products that delivers complete workload lifecycle management and virtualization across physical and virtual infrastructures.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Avnet will sell PlateSpin® workload management products including PlateSpin Recon, PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Orchestrate to its community of partners. Both companies will also work together to provide world-class training and sales support for solution providers and value-added resellers. As a result, customers will have access to a greater number of expert solution providers and VARs, resulting in a faster time-to-value and return on investment for their virtualization and data center initiatives.

Tagged: Disaster Recovery, mgmt, Novell, platespin

Deploying Virtual Desktops in 60 Minutes or Less:

FitzGerald — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:52:30 +0000

Pano Logic will host a webinar to give a tour of the Pano Virtual Desktop Solution. whether you are familiar with Pano Logic or just curious about virtual desktop computing, register now to get a guided tour with time for Q&A.

Thursday December 18

8 AM or 1 PM

Pacific

>Register Here

Tagged: Desktop, pano logic

PANO LOGIC DELIVERS FIRST WINDOWS NATIVE VDI SOLUTION

FitzGerald — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:48:37 +0000

New Pano VDS release delivers users a fully native Windows user experience without using RDP, providing for optimized audio, video and native support for PC compatible USB devices, purpose built for virtualization

Pano Logic, developer of a server-based desktop virtualization solution, today announced Pano Virtual Desktop Solution (VDS) 2.5. The new release is the first desktop virtualization solution to optimize the Windows user experience without using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), which eliminates the dependence on Microsoft Terminal Services technology and provides native session support for Windows applications, video, and audio interfaces and native USB device drivers. These new capabilities are available through Console Direct, a new technology in Pano VDS 2.5 that plugs directly into the Windows Operating System to deliver a fully native experience. In addition, new capabilities for Pano Manager improve It’s ability to maintain and support virtual infrastructure through quick and easy role-based access for the help desk.
To learn more about Console Direct technology, click on the video link above

Tagged: Desktop, pano logic

Enhanced PlateSpin Product Portfolio Delivers Next Generation Data Center

FitzGerald — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:52:08 +0000

On December 3rd, Novell announced significant enhancements to the PlateSpin Workload Management solution which helps enterprises simplify the ongoing management of mixed IT environments. Leveraging Novell’s strengths in interoperability, new PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Recon products enable customers to profile, migrate and protect server workloads between physical and virtual infrastructures.

Sign up for this webinar for a first look at the new products, features and functionality in PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Recon. Hear how the combination of these enterprise-class products helps reduce data center costs, complexity and risk. Learn how PlateSpin Workload Management is the only solution to support 32-and 64-bit Windows and Linux servers, as well as all leading hypervisors including Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and Virtual Server, VMware ESX and ESXi and Xen integrated in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Webinar Details

Presented by: John Stetic, Director of Product Management, Novell Systems and Resource Management

Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Time: 11:00 AM EST (8:00 AM PST; 4:00 PM Local London Time)

Discussion Topics:

• Building a more efficient, well-balanced and resilient data center with workload management
• What’s new in PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Recon
• Gaining deeper visibility into multiplatform data centers with new platform and hypervisor support
• Accelerating data center initiatives and improving the quality of the results
• Simplifying ongoing management burdens with cohesive workload profiling, migration and protection

Tagged: management, platespin

Complimentary Gartner Webinar on Server Virtualization

FitzGerald — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:28:44 +0000

View the replay of the webinar Server Virtualization for x86:
Trends, Best Practices and the Future Webinar presented by Tom Bittman, Gartner VP & Distinguished Analyst. This webinar covers Tom’s view on where the world of x86 Servier Virtualization is going and the impact on datacenters.

Click here to view.

Tagged: datacenter, gartner, Server, Virtualization

Novell Redefines Workload Management for the Mixed IT Data Center

FitzGerald — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:05:27 +0000

Novell today announced significant enhancements to its PlateSpin® Workload Management solution. Leveraging Novell’s strengths in interoperability, the new PlateSpin ReconTM, PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protectand PlateSpin OrchestrateTM enable customers to profile, migrate, protect and manage server workloads between physical and virtual infrastructures in heterogeneous IT environments. Through these new enhancements, PlateSpin Workload Management is the only solution on the market today to support 32- and 64-bit Windows* and Linux* servers, as well as all leading hypervisors including Citrix* XenServer*, Microsoft* Hyper-V and Virtual Server, VMware* ESX and ESXi and Xen* integrated in SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server.

“PlateSpin Workload Management is another great example of Novell’s mission to make IT work as one,” said Joe Wagner, senior vice president and general manager of Systems and Resource Management at Novell. “Today’s announcement strengthens our position as the leading cross-platform provider of workload management products for the mixed IT data center. Novell delivers best-in-class capabilities that empower customers to make better IT decisions, simplify and accelerate data center initiatives – such as server consolidation and disaster recovery – and reduce cost, complexity and risk.”

As data centers increasingly deploy diverse hardware platforms, operating systems and virtualization technologies in heterogeneous environments, the artificial boundaries between physical and virtual machines are being erased by portable workloads – the combination of an operating system, application and data software independent from the underlying physical or virtual platform. PlateSpin Workload Management enables data center administrators to optimize the distribution of workloads to provide the best performance for users and applications across both physical and virtual machines. As a result, customers can transform their IT environment into a more efficient and resilient next-generation data center.

“IT organizations are looking for holistic management tools that can support both physical and virtual environments without requiring platform-specific point products,” said Tim Grieser, IDC program vice president, Enterprise System Management Software. “Companies that focus on solutions that manage workloads across multiple hypervisors and platforms can eliminate the need for single-purpose management tools that reinforce silo-based management of data center infrastructure. The holistic approach positions companies toward end-to-end service management which helps IT organizations align with business needs and priorities.”

Expanded Line of PlateSpin Workload Management Products

PlateSpin Workload Management has added key functionality that makes PlateSpin a critical component of the day-to-day operation of the next-generation data center. PlateSpin Workload Management includes the following products:

PlateSpin Migrate: Leveraging the unique workload portability technology of PlateSpin PowerConvert®, PlateSpin Migrate decouples server workloads from their underlying hardware and enables anywhere-to-anywhere migration over the network between physical servers, virtual hosts and image archives. New features in PlateSpin Migrate include broader hypervisor and platform support and significant security, automation and scalability enhancements.

PlateSpin Protect: Developed from PlateSpin PowerConvert, PlateSpin Protect provides whole workload protection by replicating entire workloads for flexible image back-up and hardware independent restore, as well as consolidated recovery using virtualization as a recovery platform for physical and virtual workloads. Similar to PlateSpin Migrate, new features in PlateSpin Protect include broader hypervisor and platform support and significant security, automation and scalability enhancements.

PlateSpin Recon: PlateSpin Recon, an updated edition of PowerRecon™, is a sophisticated workload profiling, analysis and planning solution that eliminates guesswork and provides data center managers with the intelligence needed to effectively manage and optimize server workloads across physical and virtual environments. New to this release are increased assessment accuracy, the ability to import resource utilization data from other monitoring tools and additional hypervisor and operating system support.

PlateSpin Orchestrate: PlateSpin Orchestrate, the evolution of ZENworks® Orchestrator, interacts with configuration and storage resource management servers to manage the relationship between physical computer and storage resources. PlateSpin Orchestrate also manages virtual resources, controlling the entire life cycle of each virtual machine. New features in PlateSpin Orchestrate include a powerful, easy-to-use interface and expanded hypervisor and operating system support.

“Managing our enterprise data center means keeping track of large numbers of physical and virtual servers and continually monitoring them to make sure we minimize expenses and maximize resource usage, while getting the most out of our VMware Virtual environment,” said Troy Szabo, Senior Systems Engineer at Nvidia Corporation. “PlateSpin’s capacity planning and workload profiling takes away all the guesswork; I wouldn’t be able to do my job without it.”

Tagged: management, Novell, Orchestrate, platespin

DoubleTake adds VMware Expert Session: Keeping Data Current Throughout the P2V Process

FitzGerald — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:10:03 +0000

VMworld VRA Expert Session Overview

Though server virtualization technology has changed the IT landscape for the better in many ways, it has also presented several new challenges. One of the chief concerns that IT decision makers face is how to most effectively migrate between disparate server and storage infrastructures without halting production applications or requiring extensive manual intervention. Using a combination of real-time data replication and full-server failover technologies for workload migration can be an effective way to address this challenge.

This Expert Sesssion will run on VMworld.com from December 1-19th. View the Double-Take Virtual Recovery Assistant video and ask industry experts how to eliminate downtime during the virtual conversion process.

View the session here

Tagged: Disaster Recovery, doubletake, DR, Security