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It should be clear to most of us by now that server virtualization changes the disaster recovery game dramatically. Rather than having to maintain a server at your DR site for each server in your production environment, you can replicate physical, and/or virtual, servers from your production site to virtual servers at your DR site, reducing the cost of protecting production systems or increasing the number of servers you can protect.

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Astute readers may have noticed many of my recent blog posts have touched on VM management. I've been doing research for InformationWeek Reports, investigating the state of vendor offerings, real-world experiences, and new solutions to handle VM sprawl.

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A flu virus was picked up by at least a few attendees to the JavaOne Conference at the Moscone Center, the San Francisco Health Department has warned. It didn't say how many of the 15,000 attendees were affected, but as I read this in the San Francisco Chronicle, I'm feeling poorly [look at his pallor] myself.

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What do future generations think about the state of Java and its relevance to their research? The answer may surprise you, and Sun.

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Want to try out desktop virtualization? Take a look at Sun's latest open source VirtualBox -- I bet it has a binary with your name on it.

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Ken Abendshien is CIO of Midwest Health Systems Data Center, a tech support organization that provides outsourced data center services to 27 small county hospitals and long-term care facilities in Kansas, and two in Nebraska. Some of those sites are really tiny -- treating one or two patients a day. And with those hospitals having even tinier IT budgets, Abendshien needs to stretch his resources very carefully.

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Citrix has remade themselves as a virtualization vendor. Now they want to remake your data center as a 'delivery center.'

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This is good news for multihypervisor shops. Microsoft pushed out the beta of Virtual Machine Manager today, which includes management support of VMware.

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When was the last time you got a call from a headhunter? Have those calls cooled down lately? Think it's due to the weak economy, or do you think it's possible that you're just not that "hot" anymore?

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Vizioncore announced availability today of vCharter Pro as an enterprise-class performance monitoring and management solution for ESX shops.

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As much as I want you all reading my stuff, there are a many other folks writing some great content and analysis on the VM front. Here are some of the writers I try to keep up with.

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Pano Logic's virtual desktop solution (VDS) is getting a major rev update to v2.0, picking up WAN, wireless, and improved USB support for its tiny, shiny VDI client.

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The biggest news out of ManageFusion so far? Symantec bought AppStream last night and is rolling 'em into the newly formed "Endpoint Virtualization" group.

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Here's a follow-up with VMware on the company's new Lifecycle Manager add-on for ESX.

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Happy Monday -- I'm catching a plane out to the Altiris ManageFusion conference in Vegas.

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We all know how it starts. You said, 'sure, just this once.' Someone said, 'psst, buddy, try this out.'

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Virtual Center can support 200 hosts and 2,000 VMs. VMware's new Lifecycle Manager offers hope to automate and track those thousands of containers.

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I wrote on Sun's VDI upgrade earlier this month. Charlie Babcock interviewed Jeff Harvey from Cincinnati Bell on his company's VDI deployment for our 3/31 issue.

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Should we call this stage two of adoption for virtualization? Am I jumping too soon with my "1x1 makes sense" pitch?

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If your company is looking for ways to squeeze more out of IT these days (and who isn't), server virtualization is one of the moves some organizations are making to find savings. Just ask Kent Kushar, CIO at wine maker E&J Gallo.

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VMware's Bangalore engineering office is set to grow to 1,000+ in two years. Add in 200 or so other sales and support employees, 160 channel partners, university partnerships, and many customers across India to see the big picture.

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Ubuntu's JeOS (say 'juice' if you must) weighs in at 151 MB. Want to roll your own VMware miniappliance? JeOS is a pretty good place to start.

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Every P2V business case is about cost savings, right? You know the pitch; consolidation will set you (and your budget) free. PR firms are even touting virtualization as the saving grace for budget woes in the coming Dark Age, er, recession. What if I told you that IT pros up and down the food chain are looking at VM'ing to resolve server-build hassles and a list of other operational woes? What if I said those same folks are expecting costs to be neutral, or higher for P2V, but their business case is still good...

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Part of the rationale for Web services has always been that they can tunnel through firewalls, linking networks that are otherwise securely separated. Virtualization puts up similar barriers between applications within a single machine, so will crossing them require similar technology?

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Who else wants Mike's job? He gets to hang out at Intel predicting the future of computing.

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Sun's rapid move to v2.0 brings a new Virtual Desktop Connector hoping to serve as a "universal translator" for many-to-any desktop delivery.

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I spoke with Kidaro CEO Kevin Brown for about 90 seconds yesterday afternoon; the conversation was cut short due to an emergency conflict on my end. Kevin and I hope to reconnect via phone next week while he is in Israel. I suspect he and his will be a bit busy for the foreseeable future, what with that recent Microsoft acquisition...

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I've been digging into I/O virtualization lately and ended up speaking with some folks who want to virtualize everything. Everything. Data I/O. Network. Entire physical servers. Liquid Computing is hoping to be the next major disruption in the force.

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I've spent the better part of the last week reconfiguring gear in the virtualization test lab, getting reacquainted with machine specs and idiosyncrasies. We have a variety of servers connected to a Dell, nee EqualLogic, iSCSI SAN. Half of our HP servers and one Xserve also have 2 Gb Fibre Channel HBAs, unused since we lost our FC SAN. Remember when those 2 Gb FC connections seemed zippy? 4 Gb HBAs have been on the market for a couple years, and a number of recent 8 Gb FC solutions are being touted as a remedy for I/O constraints in virtualized environments.

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Novell's Richard Whitehead and I sat down to a lively discussion on the trials and tribulations of VM management. Whitehead was good enough to remind me of Novell's open source chops on SUSE and Xen...

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I missed Intel's 10GbE and IOV news. Read on for why you shouldn't make the same mistake.

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When Cisco and Juniper first said they were opening their router OSes, I thought that they'd be about as open as the iPhone. With Cisco's launch of IOS XE, I realize I was wrong: The iPhone is much more open.

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Overheard in an Apple Store today: "Parallels ... made by VMware; Boot Camp, like, way better for running Windows."

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So you liked trekking to Cannes for VMworld? Pony up for autumn in the U.K. to attend the vendor-independent "Virtualization Congress."

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VMworld Europe offered a bunch o' news. I/O is big. IOV is getting bigger. VMware and others came out strong on systems management and security tools. I guess they have been listening to their customers.

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I spoke with Stonesoft on Wednesday regarding the company's new security solutions for VMware. Intrahost protection, anyone?

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A death notice was posted to one of my blogs last week. I'm guessing it was someone with a personal grudge. Turns out Reflex Security is alive and well.

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IT budgets and tech staffs were clobbered during the recession of the early 2000s. But how would they survive this time around? Hasn't most of the "fat" already been slashed, or has much of it returned?

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An Indy-based independent consultant I know turned me on to Stoneware, makers of a webOS, not the heavy stuff your mother-in-law collects. Will they break into the desktop virt market?

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I had a very informal chat with a buddy of mine about service management. And virtualization. Many TLAs were used.

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The party invites keep rolling in for product announcements in Cannes. Where, sadly I won't be for VMworld Europe 2008. But I have received a number of goodies, offers, and handouts here in the States.

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I was weighing topic posts tonight, and Xen won out over VMware. Will this be a trend in the market? Demo v4.1 and see for yourself.

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Just how much CO₂ is offset by virtualizing your servers? Oriel, an Aussie VMware partner, offers a calculator that explicitly shows the benefit to the planet for P-to-V conversions.

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I spoke with VMware last week about its recent channel initiatives. The company is listening to its partners, broadening incentives worldwide to crank up sales.

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Last fall CA hit up IT management at shops earning $250M+ revenue to check the pulse of virtualization. Some 300 professionals from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Korea replied. They're sharing the goods.

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VMware and Citrix have been stepping on each other's toes. A bunch. Will they meet somewhere in the middle, or are they shooting for winner takes all?

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I'm attending a symposium on Fair Use at Columbia Law today. Here's a 'rights' angle to consider for VMs while I listen to eight hours of lawyer-talk.

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I just got back from a short-term consulting gig in the mid-Atlantic region. The local IT team had heard of virtualization. Maybe.

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VMware’s stock price might have tumbled, but that isn’t stopping VC investment in the virtualization space. Two startups raked in millions this week.

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We've written about VKernel before; the young New Hampshire startup produces virtual appliances for VMware. It looks like the Nashua-based folks have something to be happy about after the Pats loss on Sunday -- they've picked up $4.6M in VC funding.

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