Symantec offers Veritas Cluster Server for virtualized environments
Symantec Corp. unveiled Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) 5.0 for VMware ESX, bringing high availability and disaster recovery to heterogeneous data centres running virtual server software.
VCS for VMware ESX automates remote failover for disaster recovery and provides management of clustered virtual and physical servers. VCS for VMware ESX centralizes cluster management in a single ESX server or across a campus or WAN. VCS is a component of Veritas Server Foundation, a suite of products which enables enterprise customers to discover in detail what is running on the servers in their data centre, actively manage and administer those servers, and ensure that mission critical applications running on those servers are always available.
VCS for VMware ESX also allows customers to maximize the advanced features of VMware by recognizing and interoperating with VMware’s VMotion and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). If a virtual machine is moved from one server to another for planned maintenance using VMotion, the movement will be recognized by VCS and VCS will take the necessary action to update the cluster status accordingly. It is also compatible with Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), VMware’s workload optimization feature.
VCS also features Fire Drill, which provides an added layer of protection for virtual servers. With Fire Drill, organizations can verify their disaster recovery plan and configuration without impacting the production environment. In virtual environments where server locations change frequently, Fire Drill helps monitor and track mobile servers, their configuration and dependency links.
Veritas Cluster Server for VMware ESX is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2007. Pricing for VCS for VMware ESX starts at US$1,995 per server.
IP Storage Gateway 9400 features TrueBlock
Reldata announced the Reldata IP Storage Gateway 9400 featuring the latest 4 Gbps Fibre Channel connectivity and a new version of its TrueBlock storage virtualization software platform.
Highlights of the IP 9400 are dual 4 Gbps Fibre Channel ports, multi-path and failover, ability to resize volumes and file systems on the fly, plus improved throughput for I/O intensive storage environments.
The IP Storage Gateway 9400 is the successor to the IP 9200 and provides universal IP SAN and NAS virtualization of Fibre Channel arrays and FC SANs. TrueBlock software platform lets users expand virtual volumes to ensure applications can fully exploit the full potential of unifying IP and FC-based storage architectures. Included in the TrueBlock software platform are truly parallel iSCSI SAN and CIFS/NFS NAS access to shared storage resources and block-level snapshot, incremental replication and remote mirroring capabilities.
The 9400 incorporates six 1 GbE ports and two Ultra SCSI ports in addition to the dual 4 Gbps FC ports providing flexible connectivity preserving existing Fibre Channel, SCSI and iSCSI storage investments.
Latitude 131L aimed at small business users
Dell announced the Latitude 131L, a notebook for small business customers interested in productivity and performance. The notebooks are the first from Dell to offer mobile processor technologies from AMD.
The Latitude 131L notebook is designed to help small businesses increase productivity, access to data and enhance employee collaboration while on the move. The Latitude notebook is customizable and at first includes a 15.4-inch wide-aspect display, with either AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core mobile technology or a Mobile Sempron processor and 1 Yr Next Business Day On-Site Service2 which you can upgrade up to three-years.
Latitude 131L notebook features also deliver excellent gains in productivity compared to previous models with technology advances including integrated graphics options wide-aspect displays, Windows Vista capabilities and the ability to manage your settings with Dell QuickSet software. The Latitude 131L will be available on Wednesday.
Productivity Suite extends Business Objects products
Business Objects announced BusinessObjects XI Release 2 Productivity Suite, a set of capabilities that will extend and enhance BusinessObjects XI Release 2. Productivity Suite includes enhancements to the entire Business Objects product line including core BI, EIM, and enterprise performance management (EPM).
Business Intelligence Search features enable users to retrieve critical business information from their Business Objects environment including Crystal reports, Web Intelligence, or Dashboard Manager. In addition, users can search data directly, generating completely new Web Intelligence reports. BusinessObjects Voyager – Productivity Suite is a tool designed specifically for business analysts who rely on OLAP data, enabling them to bring together and view OLAP data from multiple sources – all from within the Business Objects platform.
BusinessObjects Live Office allows customers to use BI securely within Microsoft Office applications. An updated version of the solution will deliver BI to users outside the corporate firewall. If Microsoft Office applications are posted on an extranet, authorized users can interact with secure, real-time information from within Microsoft applications. Query as a Web-Service is wizard-driven interface which enables customers to design queries and publish them as Web services without writing any code.
Finally, Operational BI delivers real-time data to users within daily business processes – whether they’re on the phone with a customer or on the road with inventory. The Productivity Suite will be available in the first half of next year.
