IEEE standards to streamline data centres

Cisco, HP and others are joining forces to push through new Ethernet standards designed to ease management of increasingly virtualised IT centres, reports Computerworld.

The IEEE 802.1Qbg and 802.1Qbh specifications are designed to address management issues raised by the explosion of virtual machines in data centres that traditionally have been the domain of physical servers and switches.

The IEEE draft standards boast a feature called Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation, an extension to physical and virtual switching designed to eliminate the large number of switching elements that need to be managed in a data centre. Adoption of the specification would make management easier for server and network administrators by requiring fewer elements to manage.

Zimbra customers have welcomed VMware's plans to buy the open source e-mail, calendar and collaboration software vendor, states PC World.

With VMware's agreement to buy Zimbra, customers feel their investment in the Zimbra suite will be more secure with a parent company that is an enterprise software vendor and views Zimbra as a key part of its portfolio.

"With VMware buying Zimbra I feel much more confident," says Cedric Halbach, CTO at The Metropolitan Companies, which has used Zimbra successfully for company-wide e-mail.

Compellent has introduced Storage Center 5, incorporating several new features aimed at simplifying data replication and improving virtualisation, reports Good Gear Guide.

This version of the Storage Center SAN employs Compellent's Dynamic Block architecture, as in previous versions, but also offers users the company's Portable Volume data replication. Other features include scalable SAS storage, automated tiered storage with Raid 6 protection.

Bob Fine, Compellent's director of marketing, says the move addressed a prime customer concern. "A lot of our customers need to do data replication but it's always been a difficult endeavour. Because it's crucial, network administrators don't want to make a mistake, so therefore to simplify the process as much as possible really helps the customer."