Don't be confused. Virtualization and emulation aren't the same thing. Here we sort out the differences.

Was in Singapore this last week and was talking with the VMware SEs and Cisco SEs there – sharing best practices, tools, and “dos and don’ts”.   There was an interesting discussion/whiteboard around the topic of storage network design around FC/FCoE (though this applies to iSCSI as well).   The Cisco folks made some really interesting analogies with VoIP and TP “micro-bursting” that I thought were awesome and I wanted to share.

Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online by Michael Miller is an excellent introduction to this phenomenon within the software industry. Written using a style that takes the reader on a gentle journey through a "brief history of computing," explaining where we have been and why we'll be living and working in the clouds in our future, the book is an excellent introduction.read more

Dell's new machines are distinguished by extensively scalable RAM, substantial network I/O, and embedded virtualization software options that simplify setup. Here's how their virtualization-optimized servers stack up.

Fortisphere announced that Network World Magazine, one of the networking industry's premier publications, selected Fortisphere Virtual Essentials(TM) as one of its top 10 "Must Have Virtualization Tools." The Fortisphere Virtual Essentials product suite was selected for its policy-based management solutions that enable enterprises to track and control their virtualized infrastructures. ...

Detailed product review of vmSight, a performance and access management solution for virtualized desktops on the VMware, Citrix Xen and soon Microsoft Hyper-V platforms. ...

This is a powerful performance monitoring and reporting system for servers running VMware ESX Server. Web-based dashboards show the resources in use by servers and their VMs, while the reporting module delivers printable reports of historical data....

Hyper-V is finally here - almost. With the recent delivery of Release Candidate 1, Microsoft is shifting from major engineering operations mode to cross-the-i's-and-dot-the-t's mode. The majority of the Hyper-V bits, including an ever-expanding list of supported guest operating systems, are now in place, and Microsoft customers can start migrating their test VMs into preproduction and production roles with a fair degree of confidence. ...

Yesterday’s headlines were all about Microsoft’s release of the Hyper-V virtualization software, so it’s inevitable that today we see the rush of reviews. And on the whole, they’re not bad. Even those who point out the system’s flaws are quick to note that its positive attributes more than make up for the negatives, giving Hyper-V a [...]

Management tools are still catching up, but taken on its own, Hyper-V appears to accomplish the job users need it to do.