MS discusses cloud toolkit plans

Microsoft Australia has met with systems integrators, Web hosts and customers to bring them up to speed on its dynamic data centre toolkit due for release next year, says CRN.

The Redmond giant's director of virtualisation, Zane Adams, says: ”My discussion has been on what their next deployment is and on giving them information on the dynamic data centre toolkit for enterprises to deploy a private cloud for their data centres."

Adams also used his visit in Australia to update the market on the vendor's server virtualisation plans.

IBM has unveiled IBM Virtual Server Security for VMware vSphere, reports Financial Times.

The software product aims to make virtualised computing infrastructures as secure as traditional data centres. IBM says that automatic protection features in the new offering also help clients more easily meet compliance standards and regulatory requirements.

It is only for data centres running VMware vSphere and integrates with VMware's VMsafe technology.

Red Hat has released to the open source community its 'simple protocol for independent computing environment' (Spice) protocol for virtual desktops, states InformationWeek.

Spice is a core component in the Linux distributor's Enterprise Virtualisation for Desktops product, which is currently in beta and is scheduled for general availability next year.

Red Hat took possession of Spice in the September 2008 acquisition of Qumranet. The technology is designed for desktops which use remote servers for data processing. Spice improves the user experience when rendering bandwidth-intensive applications, such as video or voice over IP.