Virtualisation management strategy

This section on virtualisation management and strategy helps you build and manage your virtualized environment. We offer news and technical strategies on P2V, V2V V2P server migration, server consolidation strategies, ways to improve virtual machine performance, methods for preventing virtual server sprawl, desktop virtualisation deployment strategies and more.

News 01 Feb 2023
Cisco fixes two bugs that could have led to supply chain attacks on users

Two vulnerabilities uncovered in Cisco hardware could have opened the door to serious supply chain cyber attacks, according to the Trellix researchers who found them Continue Reading
News 23 Jan 2023
CIO interview: Ed Higgs, group director of IT shared services, Rentokil Initial

The pest control provider has consolidated 77 datacentres globally to just three – but with a corporate culture of acquisitions, there’s still a lot more to do Continue Reading

News 27 Dec 2022

Top 10 ASEAN IT stories of 2022

Despite the challenges over the past year, ASEAN businesses have taken things in stride as they press on with digital transformation, whether it is empowering citizen developers or building cloud-native applications Continue Reading
News 21 Dec 2022

Top 10 ANZ IT stories of 2022

We recap the top 10 stories in Australia and New Zealand, including the opportunities and challenges that organisations in the region have faced over the past year Continue Reading
Blog Post 20 Dec 2022

Dealing with the growing problem of edge and IoT sprawl

Amidst all the hype regarding the massive growth potential for IoT and for edge computing in general, there is an elephant in the room, and that’s edge sprawl. It’s as if the edge evangelists are ... Continue Reading
News 19 Dec 2022

Top 10 end-user computing stories of 2022

We look at the main trends driving desktop computing and end-user computing this year Continue Reading
News 02 Nov 2022

OpenSSL vulnerabilities ‘not as bad as feared’

As previously trailed, OpenSSL patched two buffer overflow vulnerabilities, neither of them as impactful as had been feared Continue Reading
News 31 Oct 2022

Prepare today for potentially high-impact OpenSSL bug

OpenSSL trailed a critical vulnerability patch last week, which will be only the second such flaw ever found in the open source encryption project. Unfortunately, the first was Heartbleed Continue Reading
Opinion 31 Oct 2022

Security Think Tank: Container security: why so different?

Done well, container security can be a model for securing the enterprise, and businesses that focus their teams on solving it can help accelerate positive change in other areas Continue Reading
Opinion 28 Oct 2022

How has container security changed since 2020, and have we taken it too far?

While containers are now one of the most popular ways to deploy applications, it is fair to say that the adoption and implementation of security best practice to govern their use has not kept up Continue Reading
Feature 21 Oct 2022

Cloud bursting: Six key steps in planning and decision-making

We explore the key stages in a cloud bursting project: assessing the data and workflows, variants in the mechanism, application suitability, having the right resources, and planning and testing Continue Reading
News 04 Oct 2022

Red Hat CEO on OpenShift roadmap, competitive play

Red Hat’s newly minted CEO Matt Hicks talks up OpenShift’s roadmap, the competition with VMware and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region Continue Reading
News 14 Sep 2022

VMware Cloud on AWS debuts in Hong Kong

VMware has expanded its VMware Cloud on AWS to Hong Kong, following the launch of the Alibaba Cloud VMware service in Greater China Continue Reading
News 07 Sep 2022

VMware’s vSAN 8 gets a rebuild for the solid-state storage era

At VMware Explore 2022, we interview VMware’s John Gilmartin about the new, faster vSAN, plans to use DPUs, the vSAN+ cloud offering, and VMware Ransomware Recovery Continue Reading
News 05 Sep 2022

VMware doubles down on cloud in ASEAN

Paul Simos, VMware’s managing director and vice-president for Southeast Asia and Korea, dives deeper into the company’s cloud strategy for the region Continue Reading
News 30 Aug 2022

VMware beefs up Tanzu portfolio, adds OpenShift support

The Tanzu Application Platform will include support for Red Hat OpenShift, air-gapped installations and other capabilities to improve developer productivity and code security Continue Reading
Feature 08 Aug 2022

Icelandic datacentres may lead the way to green IT

Iceland may soon become even more attractive to companies wanting to minimise their carbon footprint while using high-performance computing services Continue Reading
News 08 Aug 2022

Internet giants in favour as Ireland tightens rules on datacentres

Irish premier Michael Martin has insisted its temporary squeeze on datacentre construction is not a moratorium on the industry Continue Reading
Podcast 05 Aug 2022

Podcast: How storage AIOps is revolutionising hybrid cloud ops

We talk to Tintri about storage and AIOps, which is the application of AI and machine learning-based software to monitor storage infrastructure to be able to detect patterns and predict failure, the need to upgrade, and so on Continue Reading
News 02 Aug 2022

VMware CEO defends Broadcom deal

Raghu Raghuram is confident that Broadcom will invest in growing VMware through a broad portfolio of assets that will serve its entire customer base, not just its biggest customers Continue Reading
News 11 Jul 2022

NetApp Ontap to be sole vSAN storage alternative in the cloud

NetApp Ontap storage will provide file access capacity to extend VMware data stores in AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google clouds as a cheaper alternative to VMware vSAN Continue Reading
News 24 Jun 2022

US cyber agency in fresh warning over Log4Shell risk to VMware

Many VMware Horizon and UAG servers remain defenceless against Log4Shell, and organisations continue to fall victim to the vulnerability Continue Reading
News 30 May 2022

Analysts weigh in on Broadcom-VMware deal

VMware customers in APAC will need to assess their exposure amid uncertainty over the impact of the mega deal on the market Continue Reading
News 24 May 2022

Durham University upgrades cosmology supercomputer to switchless architecture with Rockport Networks

Researchers working within the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University are set to reap the benefits of a network upgrade in one of its core supercomputers Continue Reading
Feature 25 Apr 2022

Growing prospects for edge datacentres

Although the value that edge datacentres provide is not in question, for many companies, the journey to adoption is far from fixed Continue Reading
News 21 Apr 2022

Alibaba Cloud eyes VMware workloads with new cloud service

The Alibaba Cloud VMware Service is aimed at Chinese enterprises that are looking to move their VMware workloads to public cloud, perform disaster recovery and reduce their on-premise datacentre footprint Continue Reading
News 06 Apr 2022

Denonia malware may be first to target AWS Lambda

The newly discovered Denonia malware appears to be custom designed to target AWS Lambda environments, and may be the first of its kind Continue Reading
News 04 Apr 2022

Environmental campaigners halt Meta datacentre construction in the Netherlands

Datacentre being built to serve ‘metaverse’ worlds would consume nearly half as much energy as all other datacentres in the country Continue Reading
News 29 Mar 2022

Rising energy costs blamed as UK arm of colocation firm Sungard AS enters administration

Financial difficulties caused by downturn in demand for its services during the pandemic, coupled with ‘unprecedented’ energy price rises, force Sungard AS into administration in the UK Continue Reading
Opinion 17 Mar 2022

Monitoring performance in a hybrid cloud world

The growing use of cloud demands a new breed of monitoring and observability tools to keep track of how cloud-native applications and services perform Continue Reading
Feature 16 Mar 2022

A waste of energy: Dealing with idle servers in the datacentre

Servers can be the slackers of the datacentre, consuming power without doing much work. Why not whip them into shape? Continue Reading
News 09 Mar 2022

Public sector warned about ‘environmentally unsustainable’ SSD disposal processes

Research from data sanitisation firm Blancco shines a light on the costly and contradictory stance that government IT managers have when it comes to disposing of old solid state drives Continue Reading
Feature 01 Mar 2022

Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged

Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too Continue Reading
Opinion 25 Feb 2022

Server virtualisation is far from dead

Server virtualisation must be looked upon with an expanded and fresh perspective amid the growing adoption of containers and Kubernetes. Here are seven server virtualisation trends to watch Continue Reading
News 18 Feb 2022

CIO interview: Adam Miller, group head of IT, Markerstudy Group

The insurer and Auto Windscreens owner is using cloud-based virtual desktops to ease acquisitions and support home working during the pandemic – and its IT chief has a growing range of projects on the go Continue Reading
News 16 Feb 2022

Cloud Security Alliance publishes guidelines to bridge compliance and DevOps

The Cloud Security Alliance has published a report detailing practices that organisations can adopt to bridge the gap between compliance and software development and operations Continue Reading
News 15 Feb 2022

The Citrix deal and what it means for Tibco

The investment firm behind Tibco has been on a spending spree, bolstering its product portfolio and offering new ways to access and connect to data Continue Reading
News 09 Feb 2022

Linux-based clouds an open door for attackers, says VMware

Its prevalence as a cloud operating system means Linux is becoming a meal ticket for malicious actors, but the security industry does not seem to have cottoned on to this yet, says VMware Continue Reading
Feature 07 Jan 2022

Sharp end of the edge: Managing micro-datacentres in a shared environment

Ongoing diversification in datacentre types gives rise to management challenges for operators, prompting a rethink about how they run their sites Continue Reading
Opinion 01 Dec 2021

Security Think Tank: In the cloud, anti-human approaches set us up to fail

Security learning is a career-long process, so as 2021 draws to a close, participants in the Computer Weekly Security Think Tank sum up the most important cyber lessons they’ve taken away from the past 12 months Continue Reading
Feature 29 Oct 2021

Five ways the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing

We look at changes in the hyper-converged infrastructure market as suppliers go cool, go soft, disaggregate HCI nodes, provide as-a-service options and look to containers Continue Reading
Feature 29 Sep 2021

Could Iceland be the best place in the world for high-performance computing?

Most of Iceland’s cheap, sustainable energy is currently used by aluminium smelters, but recognising the need to diversify, the Landsvirkjun power company now promotes other uses Continue Reading
News 27 Sep 2021

Private equity cash fuels Nordic datacentre growth

Private equity companies are betting on the Nordic datacentre sector as demand for services in the region accelerates Continue Reading
News 23 Sep 2021

Threat actors target VMware vCenter Server users

Users of VMware vCenter Server are advised to patch a series of vulnerabilities post haste Continue Reading
News 31 Aug 2021

The Raxio Group sets out Pan-African colocation datacentre expansion plans

Pan-African datacentre developer The Raxio Group has embarked on a collaboration that will pave the way for it to increase its colocation footprint within the continent Continue Reading
Feature 06 Aug 2021

Hybrid IT: Making datacentre and cloud work better together in the enterprise

Enterprises are increasingly trying to balance and manage IT assets in a variety of environments, but there are plenty of tools and technologies out there to make the job a lot easier Continue Reading
News 27 Jul 2021

Standard Life Assurance uses IGEL to support home workers

Insurance company repurposed office-based PCs with IGEL OS to provide 4,500 users with remote desktop access Continue Reading
Feature 09 Jun 2021

Private cloud deployments: Beating the blind spots and bottlenecks

Private cloud can be challenging to manage while meeting the ramped-up demands of data-driven enterprises Continue Reading
News 27 May 2021

Veeam bolsters portfolio to cover emerging workloads

The groundswell in containerisation and open-source hypervisors is behind Veeam’s recent move to enable backup and recovery of emerging workloads Continue Reading
News 13 May 2021

VMware names Raghu Raghuram as CEO to guide company through Dell Technologies spin-off

Several months on from the departure of ex-VMware chief Pat Gelsinger, the virtualisation giant names Raghu Raghuram as his permanent successor Continue Reading
News 15 Apr 2021

Dell spins off VMware to fuel post-pandemic PC growth opportunities

Five years after completing the purchase of EMC and gaining a software-defined powerhouse, Dell is now offloading VMware Continue Reading
News 07 Apr 2021

VMware to ease hybrid cloud deployments

VMware is combining VMware Cloud Foundation and its Tanzu portfolio into a single software stack to simplify hybrid and multicloud deployment and management Continue Reading
Feature 29 Mar 2021

Preparing for enterprise-class containerisation

As more workloads are deployed in containers, IT teams will need to assess how to manage container sprawl, reduce cloud bills and support databases Continue Reading
Opinion 23 Mar 2021

Moving from VMs to a container-based enterprise architecture

As organisations move to a cloud-native architecture, they will need to consider what to do with their existing virtual server estate Continue Reading
News 19 Mar 2021

Coronavirus leads to legacy modernisation cloud boost

Organisations are making the move to migrate legacy IT to the cloud, and the right skills and sufficient time and budget are the key to success Continue Reading
News 15 Mar 2021

Research: Continuous upgrades to datacentre virtualisation setups key to curbing carbon emissions

A VMware-commissioned report by Aurora Energy Research highlights environmental benefits that can be attained by operators taking steps to continually improve their datacentre virtualisation setups Continue Reading
Feature 15 Mar 2021

Containers for a post-pandemic IT architecture

One of the positive effects of Covid-19 is that it has put IT at the top of the business agenda – and containerisation is part of that strategy Continue Reading
Feature 04 Mar 2021

Hyper-converged infrastructure: Why software-defined everything might not work for all datacentres

Choosing the right converged infrastructure in the first instance can pivot on a trade-off between security and agility requirements Continue Reading
Feature 04 Mar 2021

Prioritising workloads in a hyper-converged infrastructure migration

A cost-effective approach to combining virtualisation and unified management probably means deploying it workload by workload, experts suggest Continue Reading
News 26 Feb 2021

Dell bets on continued home working to drive PC demand

The pandemic has led to an increase in PC sales, Dell reports, adding that it expects home working to continue as and when coronavirus restrictions are lifted Continue Reading
News 26 Feb 2021

Amsterdam to open environmental talks with datacentres

City authorities and datacentre operators will open dialogue about sustainable datacentre industry expansion in the Dutch capital Continue Reading
News 03 Feb 2021

Google grows cloud sales as parent’s profits top $40bn

Alphabet announces massive overall profits and increased Google cloud sales Continue Reading
Feature 28 Jan 2021

Five key questions about Kubernetes backup answered

We look at when to back up containers, what to protect, the main methods of backup for Kubernetes and the main Kubernetes backup products available in the market Continue Reading
Feature 27 Jan 2021

How long until cloud becomes the preferred environment to run HPC workloads?

The high-performance computing market is growing, but enterprises that have already made large investments in on-premise HPC will need to weigh up whether a move to the cloud would be worth their while Continue Reading
News 14 Jan 2021

VVOLs and Pure win VM storage beauty parade for French chain

VMware Virtual Volumes and a move from NetApp to Pure Storage saw cosmetics retailer Beauty Success make performance gains and eliminate bottlenecks in ordering and logistics Continue Reading
News 14 Jan 2021

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to step down and take over as Intel chief

Pat Gelsinger is calling time on his tenure as CEO at VMware to return to take over the leadership reins at ex-employer Intel Continue Reading
Feature 12 Jan 2021

Cloud DR from the Big Three: Who’s best at what?

We look at cloud disaster recovery from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google to see which is best for provision of turnkey solutions, breadth of portfolio and modular building blocks Continue Reading
Feature 14 Dec 2020

Five hyper-converged infrastructure use cases to watch

We look at workloads ripe for hyper-converged infrastructure deployment. These include virtual servers and desktops, SMEs/remote offices, Kubernetes, and analytics and machine learning Continue Reading
News 11 Dec 2020

Agility key to pandemic recovery, say APAC CFOs

Chief financial officers in the Asia-Pacific region call for financial transformation to bring about the agility that their organisations need to tide over the pandemic Continue Reading
Blog Post 10 Dec 2020

Throwback Thursday: x86 Server virtualisation check point

As our contribution to the bit of fun that is Throwback Thursday, we're taking a weekly stroll in the Freeform Dynamics archives. To say that server – and indeed data centre – virtualisation has ... Continue Reading
Feature 10 Nov 2020

Intel Optane Persistent Memory aims to fill the gap DRAM can’t

We look at Optane and its PMem product that Intel believes will fill a big gap between memory and storage that DRAM technology just cannot deal with Continue Reading
News 05 Nov 2020

Multi-year migration of BBC Online to the cloud 'nearing completion', broadcaster confirms

The BBC's head of architecture within its Design and Engineering team lifts the lid on the work the broadcaster has done to migrate its BBC Online infrastructure assets to the cloud Continue Reading
Feature 26 Oct 2020

Forrester: Why tagging should be used to manage hybrid assets

With complex hybrid environments, there is a need to apply IT asset management best practices across cloud and on-premise systems Continue Reading
News 19 Oct 2020

BCS swaps out VMware for Nutanix AHV

Certified training and migration tools simplify IT industry body’s migration to the Nutanix hyper-converged environment Continue Reading
Feature 19 Oct 2020

How intelligent workload management tools can help IT admins cut through cloud complexity

IT administrators have to manage an increasingly complex and varied range of application types and IT environments, and intelligent workload management tools offer a helping hand with that Continue Reading
News 13 Oct 2020

Suppliers neglecting virtual appliance security, putting users at risk

Software suppliers are often distributing their products on virtual appliances that contain known vulnerabilities or are running outdated or unsupported operating systems, according to a report Continue Reading
News 09 Oct 2020

Inside VMware’s Kubernetes playbook

Kubernetes co-creator Joe Beda talks up the evolution of the container orchestration platform and efforts by VMware to help enterprises get the most out of the technology Continue Reading
News 29 Sep 2020

Red Hat rivals VMware and Nutanix with hyper-converged OCS 4.5

Red Hat’s OpenShift 4.5 extended container orchestration to virtual machines. The arrival of OCS 4.5 moves the solution into the realm of hyper-converged systems Continue Reading
News 16 Sep 2020

Pure flashes the cash, paying $370m for Portworx

Flash storage pioneer believes container storage is the next frontier and pays big money for container persistent storage software provider Portworx in deal set to close this month Continue Reading
News 16 Sep 2020

Deutsche Bӧrse tackles VMware application migration with Google Cloud

German financial exchange firm provides an update on its progress in its move to embrace a hybrid IT and multicloud future Continue Reading
Feature 13 Aug 2020

Aerospace and satellite comms: The next growth frontier for cloud service providers?

Space projects of the near future are less sci-fi and more about driving efficiencies through business intelligence, edge analytics and cloud technologies Continue Reading
Feature 12 Aug 2020

A Dell of a deal: What a VMware spin-off could mean for datacentre operators

Analysts doubt that Dell would be fool enough to entirely divest itself of VMware, which continues to offer massive value to the enterprise. And how would a change affect the datacentre? Continue Reading
News 05 Aug 2020

Egypt’s datacentre plans take key step forward

Government lays the foundations for a datacentre industry with its new data protection law Continue Reading
News 05 Aug 2020

Inside Juniper’s radical IT transformation

Western Australia’s aged care provider Juniper embarked on an aggressive strategy to completely transform its IT operations in just two years Continue Reading
Feature 14 Jul 2020

APAC hybrid cloud adoption still cloudy

Although there are clear benefits of hybrid cloud, enterprises in Asia-Pacific aren’t making the most of them due to a lack of holistic understanding, strategic frameworks and skillsets Continue Reading
News 13 Jul 2020

Gartner: Remote working shifts CIO priorities

Business recovery from the coronavirus pandemic will lead to changes in the projects IT leaders focus on Continue Reading
Opinion 24 Jun 2020

Security Think Tank: Securing containers needn’t be taxing

Adopting containers promises great organisational efficiency advantages, but the fast-evolving technology can be problematic for security teams. What do CISOs need to know to safeguard containers? Continue Reading
Feature 23 Jun 2020

How to apply zero-trust models to container security

Containers have become a common fixture in software development, but they have resulted in new concerns for security teams. Is zero-trust the answer to tackling them? Continue Reading
News 18 Jun 2020

Datacentre investment boost as Norway’s government reinstates tax relief

Government reinstates datacentre energy tax relief for cryptocurrency mining organisations after investments in the country’s datacentres drops Continue Reading
Opinion 11 Jun 2020

Security Think Tank: Container security starts with good DevOps practice

Adopting containers promises great organisational efficiency advantages, but the fast-evolving technology can be problematic for security teams. What do CISOs need to know to safeguard containers? Continue Reading
News 10 Jun 2020

IBM Cloud users demand further clarity over cause of global outage

Multi-hour cloud outage leaves IBM users calling on Big Blue for further information on what caused it Continue Reading
News 09 Jun 2020

Netherlands digital sector yearns for government recognition

The sector building and supporting the Netherlands’ digital infrastructure wants to be valued as highly as Schiphol airport and the port of Rotterdam are for the Dutch economy Continue Reading
Opinion 04 Jun 2020

Security Think Tank: Four steps to container security best practice

Adopting containers promises great organisational efficiency advantages, but the fast-evolving technology can be problematic for security teams. What do CISOs need to know to safeguard containers? Continue Reading
News 02 Jun 2020

VMware vulnerability leaves private clouds open to takeover

Ethical hackers from Citadelo uncovered a vulnerability in VMware Cloud Director that left private cloud owners open to takeover Continue Reading
News 14 May 2020

Venafi buys cloud protection service Jetstack

Jetstack specialises in open source machine identity protection software for Kubernetes and cloud native ecosystems Continue Reading
News 04 May 2020

Xen Orchestra latest victim of Salt cryptojackers

More victims of cyber criminals exploiting two critical Salt vulnerabilities are coming forward Continue Reading
News 04 May 2020

StorageOS v2 puts ‘mini brains’ in Kubernetes storage volumes

StorageOS persistent software-defined storage for Kubernetes distributes control plane decisions to volumes in a cluster and takes away the impact on centralised scheduler Continue Reading
News 30 Apr 2020

Red Hat-VMware rivalry intensifies with OpenShift virtualisation

New virtualisation features in OpenShift point to an emerging Kubernetes platform war between Red Hat and VMware Continue Reading
Feature 28 Apr 2020

Snapshots 101: Array vs backup software

We run the rule over snapshots in storage arrays and backup software and find a range of capabilities that go from mere support to fully snapshot-centric approaches Continue Reading
News 22 Apr 2020

How DBS is reaping the dividends of digital transformation

At DBS Bank, the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated the value of technology and the investments it made over the past decade to modernise its technology stack Continue Reading
News 15 Apr 2020

Centrica deploys Citrix Cloud services on Azure to manage demand

Utility firm Centrica turns to Citrix on the Azure cloud to deal with its seasonal peak in call centre usage, which affects its virtual desktop environment Continue Reading
News 14 Apr 2020

Three changes to office work post-coronavirus

While it’s early days, experts believe the coronavirus pandemic could change working practices. We investigate Continue Reading