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#Citrix transfers #Xen to the #Linux Foundation – via @scottjcutter
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In 2007 Citrix acquired XenSource gaining control over the development of the Xen Hypervisor part of the Xen project. Today Citrix announcedthat it will hand over the Xen Project to the Linux Foundation which will continue its development. After both Ian Pratt and Simon Crosby who came from XenSource left Citrix to start their company Bromium, Citrix has clearly been struggling on how to continue its involvement in the development of the Xen project, leading to this decision.
The following companies will contribute to and guide the Xen Project as founding members of the Collaborative Project at The Linux Foundation: Amazon Web Services, AMD, Bromium, Calxeda, CA Technologies, Cisco, Citrix, Google, Intel, Oracle, Samsung and Verizon.
Its interesting to note that the Linux Foundation also supports the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) development, the hypervisor included in…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
#Windows #Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Network now are generally available
As I use to write; THIS IS INTERESTING! I think that Microsoft will take some market share for sure with their cloud service offerings!
Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Network now are generally available. We have new prices for Virtual Machines, Virtual Network, and Cloud Services.
Today is a major milestone for Windows Azure and all of our customers and partners. We are excited to announce that Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Windows Azure Virtual Network now are generally available. We also want to update you on new prices for Virtual Machines, Virtual Network, and Cloud Services.
Virtual Machines and Virtual Network help you meet changing business needs by providing on-demand, scalable infrastructure. These infrastructure services enable you to extend your data centers and workloads into the cloud while using your existing skills and investments. With these services, you can:
- Provision Microsoft SharePoint farms in minutes without up-front hardware investments. Integrate full-trust code to run rich apps and provide Internet-facing collaboration sites.
- Prototype your newest app or extend data marts into the cloud using Virtual Machines as a robust infrastructure for Microsoft SQL Server software. Scale on demand and connect to your on-premises infrastructure using Virtual Network.
- Embrace rapid innovation using the cloud for development and test scenarios. You can spin up any test lab or sandbox quickly, and be agile in your learning, development, and prototyping.
Let’s take a closer look at the news that we are announcing today with general availability.
New high-memory instances for Virtual Machines
When your apps need more memory, new 28-gigabyte (GB) and 56-GB instances deliver.
Updated SLA
When you deploy multiple instances of Virtual Machines, Microsoft provides a financially backed 99.95 percent monthly service level agreement (SLA).
Customer support
Our customer support team is ready and available to help you troubleshoot 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have several support plans tailored to meet your needs—from basic developer support to Premier Support. When you work with Microsoft, you have a single vendor to call for cloud and on-premises needs.
Validated workloads
The best of Microsoft server products are validated to run on Virtual Machines, including Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, BizTalk Server 2013, and more. We also offer prebuilt virtual machine images—such as BizTalk Server and SQL Server—through the Windows Azure Virtual Machines Image Gallery with hourly pricing. Prebuilt Linux images—such as CentOS, Ubuntu, and Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)—are available in the Image Gallery from commercial distributors. In addition, a wide variety of the most popular open source applications are available as prebuilt images in VM Depot, a self-service community portal. Read more…
#Citrix #XenServer Multiple Security Updates released
Severity: Medium
Description of Problem
A number of security vulnerabilities have been identified in Citrix XenServer. These vulnerabilities affect all currently supported versions of Citrix XenServer up to and including version 6.1.
The following vulnerabilities have been addressed:
• interrupt remap entries shared and old ones not cleared on AMD IOMMUs (CVE-2013-0153)
• oxenstored incorrect handling of certain Xenbus ring states (CVE-2013-0215)
• Linux netback DoS via malicious guest ring (CVE-2013-0216, CVE-2013-0217)
• Linux pciback DoS via not rate limited log messages (CVE-2013-0231)
What Customers Should Do
Hotfixes have been released to address these issues in all supported versions and update levels of Citrix XenServer. Citrix recommends that customers using Citrix XenServer identify and apply all the hotfixes that relate to their deployed versions.
Customers using XenServer with AMD CPUs that pass through PCI devices (e.g. using the GPU passthrough feature) should review the hotfix release notes below for more information relevant to their specific deployments.
Continue reading and download updates here!
//Richard
What’s new in SCCM 2012 SP1 – update
In my last post around SCCM 2012 SP1 (yes I know that I’m not supposed to use that abbreviation but I’m still gonna do it!) I forgot to look at and mention another important feature I must say…
OS X support!!!
This is really interesting, I bet that there are so many companies and architects out there sitting with X amount of different MDM and MAM solutions just to fit their needs around device and application management. But there are few out there that are covering all the OS’s and device types in a good manner.
Is SCCM going to try and tackle this at least for the MS, Linux, UNIX and OS X devices? And will they succeed all the way, don’t think so short term but long term perhaps. So now we architects have something to look forward to when planning our wanted position in this area and start evaluating the options for the roadmap towards it!
What’s new in SCCM 2012 SP1 (find more here)
Client Deployment
The following items are new or have changed for client deployment in Configuration Manager SP1:
- Apple Macintosh ClientThe Mac client can be installed on computers that run Mac OS X and provides capabilities to deploy software, collect hardware inventory, and to manage compliance settings.For more information, see How to Install Clients on Mac Computers in Configuration Manager.
- Client for Linux and UnixThe client for Linux and UNIX can be installed on servers that run a supported version of Linux or UNIX, and provides capabilities to deploy software and collect hardware inventory.For more information, see How to Install Clients on Linux and UNIX Computers in Configuration Manager.
- Windows Embedded Client Deployment: You can deploy clients to embedded devices in the same way that you deploy clients to other Windows-based computers.For more information, see the Deploying the Configuration Manager Client to Embedded Devices section in the Introduction to Client Deployment in Configuration Manager topic.
And you guys that want a nice summary of the whole System Center SP1 suite have a look at this great summary from Thomas Maurer!
//Richard
SCCM 2012 for Linux and UNIX
Ok, this is interesting! Microsoft is adding more support for Configuration Manager in terms of managing Linux and UNIX targets. It will be interesting to see what the end-result will be when SP1 ships and most interesting will be if Microsoft will be able to convince the Linux and UNIX community out there that this is something that is competitive with other solutions like Puppet, Chef, STAF etc.
Here is a summary of the feature set planned for the SP1 release;
| Functionality | More information |
|---|---|
| Collections, queries, and maintenance windows | Collections of Linux and UNIX Servers |
| Hardware inventory | Hardware Inventory for Linux and UNIX Servers |
| Software Distribution | Software Deployment to Linux and UNIX Servers |
| Monitoring and reporting | Monitoring the Configuration of Linux and UNIX Servers |
The IT Melting Pot! 