We’ve come to give an answer to that oftentimes perplexing question: how often should you shut down your Parallels Desktop virtual machine? The answer: it depends. Just like the debate on whether or not you should shut down your computer every day, it really depends on your needs. Think of your VM like your computer. […]
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Guest blog by Nikhil Palathingal, Parallels Support Team Many Mac users who still need access Windows programs use Boot Camp. While Boot Camp is a useful feature, it has one major downside: you have to restart your Mac to boot into Windows and vice versa. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably using Parallels Desktop or are […]
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It’s the end of the day. Sighing, you start your daily ritual of closing any programs or tabs on your computer. Finally, you go to shut down your Windows virtual machine on Parallels Desktop—you’ll see the happy little Windows flag again in the morning—when the worst happens: The dreaded Windows updates have struck once again! […]
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Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere allows users to meter resource consumption in any VMware vSphere 4.1 or 5.0 environment providing insight into resource consumption – for free right from the VMware console. In addition, new functionality was added to the latest version of Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere based on feedback from beta customers, including:
Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere joins the existing family of 6fusion Cloud Resource Meter products, including Cloud Resource Meter for Linux and Cloud Resource Meter for Windows. You can see a demo of Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere at 1PM ET on Wednesday, August 1st – register here.
“Cloud Resource Meter provides us a powerful and simple way to centralize and aggregate our customers usage information for billing and reporting of our Cloud Continuity services,” said Omar Torres, Director of Virtualization & Cloud Solutions at Veristor. “Through the secure, web-based console we are able to accurately track our customers usage without having to invest in and run our own metering infrastructure. This brings us a number of valuable efficiencies to how we operate and service our cloud customers.”
“6fusion believes metering IT consumption across heterogeneous environments is fundamental to optimizing any IT infrastructure,” said John Cowan, Co-Founder and CEO of 6fusion. “Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere gives organizations unprecedented insights into how their IT resources are actually being used, who is using those resources, and they can improve the business value they are delivering.”
Cloud Resource Meter is available in two models – Free and Pro. Cloud Resource Meter Free provides the ability to meter and view the last 28 days of data directly in the vSphere interface or in the 6fusion UC6 Console. The Pro version provides the full capabilities of the tool, including unlimited metering, expanded reporting capabilities, technical support as well as the ability to access 6fusion’s enhanced analytics tools.
Hosting.com, a leading provider of enterprise-class, cloud-based application availability and recovery solutions, today extended the security options for cloud customers with the announcement of their Cloud Firewall service. Leveraging Juniper Networks vGW Series Virtual Gateway, a comprehensive virtualization security platform, Cloud Firewall is a hypervisor-based, VMsafe-certified stateful virtual firewall with more than ten times the throughput of firewalls typically deployed in cloud environments. Cloud Firewall meets the needs of cloud customers looking for an easy, affordable way to comply with major regulatory and industry security standards and to lock down their virtual environments.
“Cloud Firewall expands protection for cloud customers who want higher levels of security and VM workload access control. We already provide the highest level of physical firewall protection and now, another option is available at a granular, VM level. This furthers our commitment to enterprise-class, Always Secure cloud solutions,” said Jim Potter, Vice President of Products at Hosting.com.
Cloud Firewall satisfies the dynamic security and compliance needs of IT managers by offering a self-managed firewall that can be deployed in minutes. Managed through rich instrumentation in the Hosting.com Customer Portal, customers view and administer their complete VM and VM group inventory, including virtual network settings, and intra/inter-network traffic monitoring and access controls. Modifications to security rules can be made quickly and enforced nearly instantaneously through the Portal.
Companies with strict compliance mandates get granular control of VM traffic, without impacting the throughput of high-performance applications. Enterprise businesses with hybrid data solutions – those running on dedicated hardware servers in conjunction with workloads on cloud-based VMs – can add granular control and scalability to their virtual environment with Cloud Firewall, extending traditional perimeter-based security to the virtualized realm.
“The vGW platform that powers Cloud Firewall delivers layers of protection without the performance tradeoffs that users typically experience when implementing sophisticated security,” said Johnnie Konstantas, director of product marketing at Juniper Networks. “The innovations inherent in the hypervisor-based Cloud Firewall offer very compelling value to cloud service providers because they are able to maximize security and cloud VM capacity.”
