VMware had $1.33 billion in revenue during 2007, an 88% increase from the year before. But the virtualization software vendor, which reported its latest financial results on Monday, didn't meet Wall Street's fourth-quarter expectations, and its stock price was hit hard in after-hours trading. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company also toned down its business outlook for this year, forecasting a 50% increase in revenue for 2008 as a whole. VMware officials cited several reasons for the reduced growth rate, including the increasing size of the company's revenue base, which makes it harder to sustain a meteoric rise in sales. But they also acknowledged that there is more competition in the virtualization market, even if it was something of a backhanded compliment to rival vendors. For instance, Mark Peek, VMware's chief financial officer, said during a conference call about the results that there is "an increasing number of competing companies marketing their intent to introduce virtualization products." Read the full story at the source.
Sunday, January 27. 2008
John Troyer launches reddit virtualization
John Troyer recently has posted a new article on his weblog "VMware connected". It’s about the new virtualization section on reddit, a source for what's new and popular on the web -- personalized for you. Reddit wants to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it. Your votes train a filter, so let reddit know what you liked and disliked, because you'll begin to be recommended links filtered to your tastes. All of the content on reddit is from users who are rewarded for good submissions (and punished for bad ones) by their peers; you decide what appears on your front page and which submissions rise to fame or fall into obscurity. John Troyer will try to keep dropping links, but feel free to submit your own links -- good articles, articles from your blog, etc. Obviously, since John works for VMware, his links will be VMware-centric, but he’s interested in any virtualization, so feel free to contribute.
Eric Sloof is conducting an interview with John Troyer at the VMworld 2007,
The photo is taken by Viktor van den berg.
Thursday, January 24. 2008
An Interview with VCP-52
Last week I created the VMware LinkedIn Groups and received a lot of positive responses. One reaction caught my eye, it was a message from Robin Prudholm asking me if he could join the VCP group with VCP number 52. My first thought was “Wow VCP number 52��?, I want to know more about that guy. One thing led to another and Robin was nice enough to answer a few questions. But first let’s start with a short introduction.
Robin Prudholm is a Senior Systems Engineer and Technical Spokesman for the Nordics at VMware for 3 years now, he lives nearby Copenhagen, Denmark. Robin has over 20 years of experience in the IT-industry.
I asked Robin if he experienced the VCP exam as difficult ?
Well, first exam was taken just after I got introduced to VMware and the fact that I was designated to be the first VMware instructor in the Nordics… I took the course with Richard Garsthagen and Brian Rice as trainers, and that did make it a bit easier as they both are top notch! Spend an additional 2 weeks reading like crazy (Linux part of it was all news to me, a long time MCSE with Windows as main focus) and took the test… Passed with 80% and had to have VUE reopen it, as I needed minimum 85% the VCI (*sigh*). Another week of intense studying and I was ready for another shot at it; passed with 92% (if memory serves me right, it is a while ago) and what a happy day… §;-)
Did being a VCP influence your career ?
It most certainly did… Being the first VCI in the Nordics and the only one doing training here for about a year, meant that I was able to build avery good network with all the Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Danish partner engineers/consultants coming for the training. VMware was just starting up their business in this region at that time, so it gave me an opportunity to be part of the virtualization revolution from day one. When VMware needed their first Partner SE in the region, I was lucky enough to make the move to VMware and what a great move that has been! VMware is a fantastic company to work for; not only is the technology cutting edge and just world class, the one thing that strikes me working for this great company, is the quality of the people working here. I have never in my entire career worked with so many talented colleagues, it is a fantastic team and a great inspiration!
Denmark is one of the leading countries in Europe why ?
Well, not just Denmark, but the Nordics in general have always been very technology ready… Customers here are very quick to adopt and embrace new technology, to take advantage of the business benefits that it brings to the table. I think there are primarily 2 main reasons for this
a. Tax is very high in this region (also on business) and that means wages are comparatively higher here, then in the rest of Europe/US. This means Nordic companies have to find other ways of cutting costs to be able to compete internationally and adopting new technology with real impact on the bottom line faster than the competition is certainly one way to achieve this.
b. Generally the level of education in the Nordics is very high, and I think that makes it easier to explain to customers the benefits of new emerging technology.
I can share the happy feeling with Robin when passing the exam above the 85%, it took me three times. When you want to know more about VMware activity in the Nordics, you should visit http://www.vmug.dk using an online Danisch translator. ;-)
VMworld Europe Videos
Richard Garsthagen over at Run-Virtual.com created some introduction video’s to warm you up for Europe’s virtualization event of the year.
Richard - General Introduction
Carter - Simplifying VMware Automation with PowerShell
Bing - NFS & iSCSI - Performance Characterization
Ashwin - Best Practices for deploying VI3 v3.5 in your environment
Wednesday, January 23. 2008
vmSight Releases Report Pack
vmSight, the first and leading provider of virtual network intelligence, announced the first report pack release for its product suite. Offering key intelligence data required for IT planning, IT accounting and IT auditing, the report pack consists of easy-to-add templates that enable scheduled reports, approval workflows and alerts within vmSight’s virtual network intelligence product suite, which provides extensive analytics and alerts on all activities within virtual networks. Report Pack Templates Include System Management and HIPAA & PCI Compliance Reports for Virtual Networks.
Tuesday, January 22. 2008
Java Virtual Interface for VMware, Xen and KVM
Introducing ivi - a Java Virtual Interface for VMware, Xen, KVM, and OpenVZ, ivi (pronounced eve-e) stands for Java Virtual Interface and it is a project that aims to create a single, graphical, management interface for all the major virtualization products. ivi is implemented in Java+Swing, so it is truly portable. Currently ivi uses the VI3 SDK to communicate with VI servers and the XenApi to talk to Xen servers. Future plans include adding support for libvirt to allow communication with KVM and OpenVZ, and eventually support for the Common Information Model (CIM) as a way to talk with VMware, Xen, and Microsoft all through one interface.
You can read more about ivi at http://www.lostcreations.com/code/wiki/ivi.