This week, after many rumors and much speculation, VMware officially announced plans to purchase Zimbra from the Yahoo! Corporation.

Zimbra is a powerful commercial open source email server application. One of the leading benefits of the Zimbra platform is it’s cross-platform compatibility with Windows, Linux and Mac clients. Notably, it also offers tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, which is used extensively by businesses small and large. In addition to the core email functions, Zimbra also boasts extensive shared calendaring, address books, wiki document manager, even instant messaging capabilities.

At SUREclient we have been using Zimbra internally and implementing it as an effective solution for our clients for several years. As partners with both Zimbra and VMware, this announcement comes as great news to us. While Yahoo! has made great strides increasing the market adoption of Zimbra, having the product in the hands of innovators like VMware makes the future of Zimbra brighter than ever. Assuming that VMware puts the same quality and level of research and development into Zimbra as they have put into their line of virtualization products, I can see only good coming of this business arrangement.

In addition to what this acquisition will do to enhance Zimbra, this also opens up some interesting observations concerning where the overall VMware strategy is headed as well. By investing in an email server application such as Zimbra, VMware has extended their reach from primarily a virtualization and infrastructure management provider into application platforms as well.

For more information on exactly what this means to VMware, and for an explanation of their reasoning for making this strategic move, read Steve Herrod’s (CTO at VMware) blog post – http://bit.ly/6e68rA.

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If you are interested in learning how VMware virtualization or Zimbra email and collaboration could benefit your business, contact SUREclient Solutions and speak with one of our representatives today! 1-888-371-7873.

In an announcement that hasn’t exactly come as a big surprise to the industry, Cisco, EMC and VMware have formed a Coalition to Accelerate Pervasive Virtualization and Private Cloud Infrastructures.

The coalition aims to ease adoption of virtual environments and accelerate build-outs of private cloud infrastructures with the announcement of Vblock Infrastructure Packages.

Vblock Infrastructure Packages are validated platforms of engineered, integrated IT infrastructure from Cisco, EMC and VMware, that deliver a breakthrough total cost of ownership and pervasive virtualization at a scale to meet today’s most demanding use cases.

For more details on this announcement, visit http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/virtual-computing-environment.html

Today VMware has released the latest version of their desktop virtualization platform, VMware Workstation 7.

VMware Workstation 7 features advanced capabilities to help developers, QA engineers, technical sales professionals, and IT administrators get up and running faster and streamline tasks that save time and improve productivity.

The first desktop virtualization product with Windows Aero support, VMware Workstation 7 also boasts 3D application support and IDE integrations with SpringSource Tools Suite and Eclipse IDE along with support for over 200 guest operating systems.

For more information about this release, visit: http://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/

Today, Microsoft releases updates to both it’s desktop and server operating systems:

Windows 7

Windows 7 marks the latest edition of the Microsoft Windows desktop workstation operating system. While its predecessor, Windows Vista, introduced quite a few new features, the Windows 7 release is a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows product line, geared toward being more “user-centric”, according to Microsoft. Improvements include a redesigned Windows Shell, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and other general performance improvements.

Windows 7 will be available in six different editions, but only Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate will be widely available from retail outlets. The other editions are focused on other markets, such as the developing world or enterprise use.

The Windows 7 Family Pack Upgrade edition is also available, which will license the update of three machines from any 2000 (any edition), XP (any edition), or Vista (Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium editions) to the Windows 7 Home Premium edition.

See more details at Microsoft’s website: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

Windows Server 2008 R2

Often referred to as “Windows 7 Server”, Windows Server 2008 R2 is also now available. This update to the server line of operating systems introduces several significant enhancements. New features include new virtualization features within Hyper-V, new Active Directory features, IIS 7.5, and support for 256 processors. Most notably, support for 32-bit x86 architecture processors has been removed in this release.

For more details on the new and updated features in the Windows Server 2008 R2 release, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/r2-compare-features.aspx

This Monday, VMware issued the following press release announcing the availability of their new VMware vCenter CapacityIQ product:

VMware Delivers New Management Solution for Unprecedented Insight Into Datacenter Capacity – Optimizing for Reduced Waste, Overhead and Risk

PALO ALTO, Calif., October 19, 2009 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced the availability of VMware vCenter CapacityIQ, a new product in the VMware vCenter Product Family that provides complete capacity management for VMware virtualized environments. VMware CapacityIQ empowers IT administrators with the necessary intelligence to be able to right-size capacity in a dynamic virtual environment. It provides unprecedented visibility into past, present and future infrastructure capacity in order to analyze what is available and what is being used; forecast what is needed; and plan when capacity will run out. As a result, VMware CapacityIQ helps eliminate infrastructure waste, reduce operational overhead and minimize business risk of outages, failures and disasters.

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ enables customers to proactively monitor capacity at multiple levels, analyze the impact of changes and forecast future needs based on consumption patterns. VMware CapacityIQ is critical for VMware customers who are interested in growing their virtual infrastructure cost-effectively –supporting server applications or virtual desktops – enabling them to:

• Reduce cost by reclaiming unused capacity. CapacityIQ proactively analyzes resource usage patterns and automatically generates a list of virtual machines that have been over-provisioned. Armed with this information, virtual infrastructure administrators can reclaim unused resources instead of purchasing additional capacity.
• Mitigate risk by modeling the effect of capacity changes. CapacityIQ helps customers avoid potential business and service disruptions by proactively modeling the impact of a planned change such as an acquisition or new application or an unplanned outage, failure or disaster.
• Deliver the right capacity at the right time. CapacityIQ keeps track of a dynamic VMware virtual environment by helping customers monitor capacity and forecast future capacity needs, helping to ensure capacity is always available to meet required service levels.

“In virtualized environments, customers can optimize performance and boost their ROIs by properly allocating resources,” said Bogomil Balkansky, VP, product marketing, server business unit, for VMware. “VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is the first product that enables customers to fully analyze their virtualized environments, identify bottlenecks and wasted resources, and plan for current and future capacity needs so they have confidence that they can meet business demands.”

“With VMware vCenter CapacityIQ, VMware is delivering a key solution for one of the most impactful areas of virtual systems management,” said Andi Mann, VP of research for independent IT analyst firm, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). “Good capacity planning tools are essential for any virtualization deployment. EMA research clearly shows that this discipline contributes to higher VM densities, higher admin efficiency, better application performance, and more best practice outcomes.”

“In a virtual infrastructure where all resources are shared, optimal performance can only be achieved with the right amount of properly allocated resources,” said Mike Laskowski, solutions architect, R.R. Donnelly.  “With vCenter Capacity IQ, we can easily identify over- and under-provisioned virtual machines, helping us to reduce both waste and performance risk. CapacityIQ’s ‘what if analysis’ and reporting features help us with ongoing planning and deployment to ensure the right level of resources and the best possible ROI.”

Availability and Pricing
For more information or to purchase VMware vCenter CapacityIQ, please visit: http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-capacityiq/.

About VMware
VMware delivers solutions for business infrastructure virtualization that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes.  With the industry leading virtualization platform – VMware vSphere™ – customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2008 revenues of $1.9 billion, more than 150,000 customers and 22,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware and VMware vCenter are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.
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VMware Expands Enterprise Class Automated Disaster Recovery without Cost and Complexity

New VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4 Provides Better Protection of Environments with Optimized Control, Expanded Storage Support and Ability to Failover Multiple Sites to One

PALO ALTO, Calif., October 5, 2009 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced the availability of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4, enabling automated, reliable and affordable disaster recovery. Part of the VMware vCenter Product Family, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager provides automated disaster recovery for virtual environments. Now, with added support for Network File System (NFS) based storage replication, compatibility with VMware vSphere™ 4, and simplified “many-to-one” failover using shared recovery sites, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager makes it even easier for customers to confidently protect all of their virtual environments.

Disaster recovery is critical for companies to protect corporate data, but has typically been difficult to achieve due to costs and complexity. Disasters in the datacenter – whether they are caused by hurricanes, earthquakes, power outages, or other unexpected events – can result in downtime for business critical applications. Extended downtime significantly impacts revenues, service level agreements (SLAs) and business operations. Traditional solutions for disaster recovery require complex, manual recovery processes, and can be very difficult to set up, test and keep up-to-date. Regulatory requirements can also present challenges to disaster recovery solutions. As a result, organizations only provide disaster recovery plans for the most critical applications.

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager addresses these challenges by centralizing management of recovery plans and automating the testing and recovery process, resulting in rapid, reliable, affordable disaster recovery. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, originally released in 2008, has become the defacto standard for automating disaster recovery, with more than 2,000 customers and support from 12 leading storage vendors www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/srm4-partner.html.

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4 now provides:

• VMware vSphere 4 Support. Customers can now take advantage of the capabilities of VMware vSphere 4, including Fault Tolerance, for better performance and protection of applications.
• Expanded Storage Support. Lets users leverage iSCSI, Fiber Channel, and NFS storage and replication solutions
• Many-to-One Failover. Protects multiple production sites with automated failover into a single, shared recovery site

“VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4 dramatically simplifies the disaster recovery process for customers so they can meet demanding business needs for disaster recovery, including regulatory compliance issues,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president and general manager, server business unit, for VMware. “Now with many-to-one failover and expanded storage support, more customers can take advantage of low-cost disaster recovery and gain peace of mind that their data is safe in the event of a disaster.”
"Disaster recovery is one of the most daunting and complicated challenges for IT organizations, and it isn’t getting any easier as applications proliferate and expectations with regard to recovery times shorten," said Richard Villars, vice president of storage and executive strategies at IDC. "Virtualization of server and storage environments are playing a key role in helping companies reduce the costs and complexities associated with implementing, testing, and executing a full disaster recovery, yet their effectiveness increasingly depends upon solutions that automate the fast expanding disaster recovery process itself."

“In my 25 years of IT experience, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager is one of the best solutions that I have ever implemented,” said Ed Belliveau, principal systems engineer, Bentley University. “With the latest Site Recovery Manager improvements and features, coupled with integration with VMware vSphere™, disaster recovery preparation is much easier.”

Leading storage vendors have shown strong support for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager with integrations for their storage and replication systems. Visit www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/srm4-partner.html to view partner support for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4. For more information or to purchase VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, visit: http://www.vmware.com/products/srm

SUREclient Solutions is pleased to announce that our new partnership with VMware as a Professional Solution Partners will allow us to bring our clients the power and functionality that VMware’s mature enterprise virtualization platform has to offer.

VMware delivers solutions for business infrastructure virtualization that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes.  With the industry leading virtualization platform – VMware vSphere™ – customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2008 revenues of $1.9 billion, more than 150,000 customers and 22,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

If you are interested in learning more about how virtualization can benefit your business by cutting operating costs and improving efficiency, our VMware Technical Sales Professionals will be happy to assist you. Contact SUREclient today! 1-888-371-7873

After many years of providing industry-leading web and email hosting services and pioneering early cloud hosting services, we have begun transitioning our business focus away from that of a cloud hosting service provider to a professional IT consulting firm.

With years of skilled IT planning, implementation and system administration under our belt, our team is excited to now offer professional consulting services to help you effectively harness the rapidly-growing technology which is now available and exploding before our eyes:

• Business Process Flow Consulting
• Communications and Media Technologies
• Technology Research and Recommendations
• Virtualization Planning and Implementation
• Disaster Mitigation and Recovery
• …and much more.

Shortly we’ll be introducing some of our new team members here on our blog.  Stay tuned!