Virtualization

Hybrid cloud storage has reinvented the way the cloud is used and implemented. Companies can use aspects of the cloud but choose to store data in a private or public cloud, or on their premises. They are opting to choose which data to store on site and what is stored in the cloud based on risk identification, bandwidth, and other factors. A public storage cloud is certainly fine for disaster recovery and backup, depending on the business’ needs, such as apache pig in the cloud.

When you think of all the major technical trends discussed lately (e.g. cloud computing or mobile,) you may have noticed another one beginning to throw itself into the conversation, virtualization. While virtualization has been around for more than a decade, we're only just beginning to unleash its true potential.

So you have you a shiny new virtual environment up and running.  You may have virtualized all your servers, so that your business-critical databases, CRM systems, ERP applications and email all reside in a virtual environment.  It has been a long project, but now it is complete and you are experiencing the operational, performance and cost gains.  Stop! Think! Have you covered all the bases?  Have you thought about security?

Virtualization seems to be the way to go in the business world today. Many companies are talking about it, and most have either already implemented it or are thinking of using it.  Though there are costs to virtualizing, most businesses say they’re worth it since virtualization often brings big savings in the long run. When talking about virtualization, however, most of the discussion revolves around how large companies are able to take advantage of the technology. Often left out of the conversation are the risks and benefits associated with small businesses employing virtualization. There are a number of important items to consider before deciding if it is right for your small business.

Liferay, Inc., provider of the world’s leading enterprise-class, open source portal, announced yesterday a new collaboration with VMware that makes the deployment of Liferay Portal on the cloud even easier and more accessible to a broad base of enterprise users. Liferay’s web platform is now available on the newly launched VMware Cloud Applications Marketplace™ for download through VMware vFabric™ Application Director™.

I usually spend my weekends writing a few drafts for articles that I'm going to post for CMS Report. The idea is that I'm not competing with the hectic pace I usually find myself in during the weekdays.  Well, I found myself distracted from the usual writing endeavor for two reasons: 1) Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 and 2) the snow finally melting leaving a nice warm weekend to be outside.  Needless to say, not much time was spent with the computer.  However, let's talk about Microsoft and something they finally did right.

A focus lately has been on the fact that you can run Windows inside of an Apple Mac through virtualization.  What the commercials don't talk about is that you can also run the same type of software, such as Parallels, to also run the Linux OS inside your Mac.  Since Microsoft Windows and Linux are the primary operating systems I use at work, the ability to run the two operating systems together is of interest to me.  In fact that interest is so great that for the first time in a decade I've been considering to buy a Mac at home.

During the past five years I've been dual-booting between Windows and Linux on my PCs both at home and work.  However, there are inconveniences with dual-booting due to the the constant need to reboot your machine to get to the other operating system.  This better method is virtualization and something Apple has been promoting the past year or so to lure in Windows users to their computers.  Now Microsoft's free Virtual PC has arrived and I think it is about to change my world.