Scalent Systems wins best virtualization solution at Linuxworld

I just heard the news that Scalent Systems was awarded "Best Virtualization Solution" at LinuxWorld in San Francisco. Since quite a number of virtualization technology providers or technology projects were at the event; such as FastScale, OpenVZ, SteelEye, SWsoft, VirtualLogix and 3Leaf Systems; that's quite a complement.

For those of you who haven't read Conversation with Kevin Epstein, VP Marketing, Scalent or haven't otherwise come across the Scalent Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE). Here's a quick overview.

As described on Scalent System's Website: Scalent V/OE software is deployed in three parts:

• Controller -server software that manages the physical and virtual hardware, software, and network configurations in the Scalent environment in the organization's data center. Typically customers will deploy two Controllers per Scalent managed environment: the primary Controller, which actively manages the environment, and a secondary Controller, which is an optional hot standby kept current by the primary Controller. Each Controller installs on a standard Linux distribution, on a dedicated x86 physical server machine (tower, blade, etc) of the end user's choice. (This machine must have layer 2 access to the switches and networks of machines to be managed by Scalent). The Controller also hosts the Scalent Console.

• Console -the interface to the Controller. Users can use the Scalent Console to configure and monitor the physical and virtual elements in their Scalent managed environment (data center). The Console provides various graphical topological views, as well as a command line interface, Java, and web services interfaces, enabling users to manage and monitor the whole environment via customizable algorithms or simple drag-and-drop movement of entire server farms and associated networks. The graphical portion of the Console will operate in any web browser that supports Flash, so environments can be monitored and manipulated remotely, securely, from any web-accessible location.

• Agent Software -is automatically installed on every server image to be managed. The Agent Software communicates with the Controller to obtain configuration information and provide status information. A heartbeat is maintained between the Controller and the Agent Software. If the heartbeat to a server fails, the Controller will select another suitable physical or virtual machine to run that server. Notably, the agent is not in the server's data path -- it is present purely for management reasons -- so unlike any other solutions, there's effectively no added overhead, nor additional risk imposed by the possibility of agent failure.

More information about Scalent Systems' V/OE here.