At SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando, SAP AG unveiled SAP HANA service pack 6 (SP6). In a key new capability, HANA now enables real-time insights across heterogeneous systems - including Hadoop. In addition, there are new geospatial capabilities, as well as a new open hardware architecture deployment model for tailored integration with customers' existing data centers. The added capabilities are part of a continued expansion of HANA as platform, and will be available by the end of this quarter, David Jonker, senior director of Big Data Marketing, SAP, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

Dell Software has announced the release of Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition (formerly vFoglight Pro). Building on the success of the Quest vFoglight Pro virtualization management solution, Dell has re-branded vFoglight to Foglight for Virtualization to better align the solution as a core component of the Foglight family, and has added performance monitoring support for VMware View to the product.

Confio Software released version 8.3 of its Ignite database performance monitoring software at COLLABORATE 13 this week. Ignite 8.3 enhancements were developed specifically to address the needs of DBAs with very large database deployments spread out geographically as well as enterprise-level requirements for security and compliance, Don Bergal, chief marketing officer of Confio, tells DBTA.

Avaya, a provider of business communications solutions, announced a bundled toolset designed to help deploy real-time virtualized communication and collaboration applications for public and private clouds. The Avaya Collaboration Pod for Avaya Aura Virtualized Environments is intended to provide enterprises and cloud service providers with a full stack, plug-and-play communications and collaboration solution that can be rapidly deployed.

Cisco has announced a range of new joint technologies and integrated solutions targeting data centers that use Microsoft's Cloud OS technologies. The solutions are based on the combination of the CiscoUnifiedDataCenter architecture with Microsoft Fast Track 3.0 architecture solutions.

Confio Software released version 8.3 of its Ignite database performance monitoring software at COLLABORATE 13 this week. Ignite 8.3 enhancements were developed specifically to address the needs of DBAs with very large database deployments spread out geographically as well as enterprise-level requirements for security and compliance, Don Bergal, chief marketing officer of Confio, tells DBTA.

New capabilities have been added in Serengeti 0.8.0, which extend the reach of partner-supported Hadoop versions and capabilities. Project Serengeti is an open source project sponsored by VMware. It provides Hadoop users with easy to use management tools to provision, manage, and monitor Hadoop clusters on VMware vSphere.

Early bird registration is now open for the Big Data Boot Camp, a two-day intensive dive into the world of big data. The conference, produced by Database Trends and Applications, will be held Tuesday, May 21, through Wednesday, May 22, at the Hilton New York. The agenda of the Big Data Boot Camp has been designed to bring together thought leaders and practitioners who will identify emerging technologies and provide case studies and best practices in big data management.

Oracle has announced the general availability of Oracle Database Appliance X3-2, featuring up to twice the performance and supporting over four times the storage as compared to the original Oracle Database Appliance. Oracle Database Appliance is a complete package of software, server, storage and networking designed for simplicity and high availability, helping businesses of all sizes reduce risk and save time and money managing their data and applications.

In a new blog, Kelly Beavers, vice president and business line executive, IBM Systems Software, writes about IBM SmartCloud Entry, which now supports the open source KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor. The result, she explains, is that with just one product, customers can support virtual machines that are running on KVM, VMware, and/or PowerVM: Cloud computing is one of those technologies for which people have differing definitions, but SmartCloud Entry does the most basic things that just about everyone expects from a cloud solution: web-based provisioning for a cloud, and a pay-as-you go model. SmartCloud Entry supports those two critical capabilities with a couple of key attributes that decrease risk to organizations. First, it makes it really simple for a company that is new to the cloud to get started with a private cloud safely and behind their own firewall, and second, it does so with pricing that is completely affordable for the mid-market.

In a new blog, Kelly Beavers, vice president and business line executive, IBM Systems Software, writes about IBM SmartCloud Entry, which now supports the open source KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor. The result, she explains, is that with just one product, customers can support virtual machines that are running on KVM, VMware, and/or PowerVM: Cloud computing is one of those technologies for which people have differing definitions, but SmartCloud Entry does the most basic things that just about everyone expects from a cloud solution: web-based provisioning for a cloud, and a pay-as-you go model. SmartCloud Entry supports those two critical capabilities with a couple of key attributes that decrease risk to organizations. First, it makes it really simple for a company that is new to the cloud to get started with a private cloud safely and behind their own firewall, and second, it does so with pricing that is completely affordable for the mid-market.

DataCore Software, a provider of storage virtualization software, has made enhancements to its SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor. The new capabilities are intended to support customers who are facing high data growth, as well as the need to enable faster response times and provide continuous availability for business-critical applications.

Oracle president Mark Hurd and Oracle executive vice president of product development Thomas Kurian recently hosted a conference call to provide an update on Oracle's cloud strategy and recap of product-related developments. Oracle is trying to do two things for customers - simplify their IT and power their innovation, said Hurd.

Denodo Technologies, a provider of data virtualization software, has unveiled the Denodo Platform 5.0. This latest version of Denodo´s solution enables data virtualization for both agile business intelligence and agile development of connected application and helps organizations access all of their information sources including big data, cloud and unstructured sources. The new release was previewed at the TDWI conference in Las Vegas.

Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) will host a live web event to explore the opportunities enabled by NewSQL in the cloud. Presented by Mark Sarbiewski, CMO at Clustrix, and Matt Aslett, research manager at 451 Research, and moderated by DBTA's Stephen Faig, the webinar will cover how to migrate a SQL database to the cloud; how to get scale from a database in public or private clouds; and how to ensure database availability in the cloud for business-critical applications. The webinar will be presented on Thursday, Feb. 21, at 10 am PT/ 1 pm ET.

DataCore Software, a provider of storage virtualization software, has made enhancements to its SANsymphony-V Storage Hypervisor. The new capabilities are intended to support customers who are facing high data growth, as well as the need to enable faster response times and provide continuous availability for business-critical applications.

INNOVATION Data Processing is teaming with storage infrastructure vendor EMC to support customers installing or migrating to the EMC Disk Library for mainframe (Dlm) virtual tape libraries. As part of this arrangement, EMC will offer INNOVATION's FATSCOPY Tape Migration Utility.

Open-E, a data storage provider, announced that its Open-E Data Storage Software Version 7 (DSS V7) has achieved "VMware Ready" status. This means that after a detailed validation process, DSS V7 has achieved VMware's "highest level of endorsement," the vendor says, and is available through the VMware Solution Exchange.

Oracle has introduced Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Oracle VM Templates for several Oracle applications. The Oracle applications have been packaged as ready-to-run virtual machines for deployment in Oracle's Exalogic Elastic Cloud environment, explains Adam Hawley, senior director of desktop and server virtualization product management at Oracle. The templates are now available for the Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3, Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1, Oracle's PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.52 and Oracle's Siebel CRM 8.1.1.8 and 8.2.2. These are the first Oracle VM templates built for Oracle Exalogic.

Veeam Software Group, a provider of backup, replication and virtualization management solutions for VMware vSphere and Windows Sever Hyper-V, has released Veeam Backup & Replication Cloud Edition. According to the vendor, the solution turns public storage cloud into a data repository for backups, enabling an alternative to tape and traditional offsite backup storage.

Oracle president Mark Hurd and Oracle executive vice president of product development Thomas Kurian recently hosted a conference call to provide an update on Oracle's cloud strategy and recap of product-related developments. Oracle is trying to do two things for customers - simplify their IT and power their innovation, said Hurd.

Oracle VM Release 3.2, a key component in Oracle's desktop to data center virtualization portfolio, is now available. There are two main themes to the new release, Adam Hawley, senior director of desktop and server virtualization product management at Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing. One main area of emphasis is to provide a richer, more diverse set of deployment options for customers. The second major collection of enhancements is around allowing users to more easily and efficiently manage larger environments.

Oracle VM Release 3.2, a key component in Oracle's desktop to data center virtualization portfolio, is now available. There are two main themes to the new release, Adam Hawley, senior director of desktop and server virtualization product management at Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing. One main area of emphasis is to provide a richer, more diverse set of deployment options for customers. The second major collection of enhancements is around allowing users to more easily and efficiently manage larger environments.

In a new blog, Kelly Beavers, vice president and business line executive, IBM Systems Software, writes about IBM SmartCloud Entry, which now supports the open source KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor. The result, she explains, is that with just one product, customers can support virtual machines that are running on KVM, VMware, and/or PowerVM: Cloud computing is one of those technologies for which people have differing definitions, but SmartCloud Entry does the most basic things that just about everyone expects from a cloud solution: web-based provisioning for a cloud, and a pay-as-you go model. SmartCloud Entry supports those two critical capabilities with a couple of key attributes that decrease risk to organizations. First, it makes it really simple for a company that is new to the cloud to get started with a private cloud safely and behind their own firewall, and second, it does so with pricing that is completely affordable for the mid-market.

In a new blog, Kelly Beavers, vice president and business line executive, IBM Systems Software, writes about IBM SmartCloud Entry, which now supports the open source KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor. The result, she explains, is that with just one product, customers can support virtual machines that are running on KVM, VMware, and/or PowerVM: Cloud computing is one of those technologies for which people have differing definitions, but SmartCloud Entry does the most basic things that just about everyone expects from a cloud solution: web-based provisioning for a cloud, and a pay-as-you go model. SmartCloud Entry supports those two critical capabilities with a couple of key attributes that decrease risk to organizations. First, it makes it really simple for a company that is new to the cloud to get started with a private cloud safely and behind their own firewall, and second, it does so with pricing that is completely affordable for the mid-market.

Server virtualization will remain a top priority for many IT organizations and vendor go-to-market strategies 2013, writes senior analyst Mark Bowker in a blog on the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) website. However, organizations will not be relying on a single hypervisor, says Bowker, who points to an ESG research brief, Multiple Hypervisor Usage Trends, in which nearly-two thirds (65%) of respondent organizations report using more than one hypervisor,

Server virtualization will remain a top priority for many IT organizations and vendor go-to-market strategies 2013, writes senior analyst Mark Bowker in a blog on the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) website. However, organizations will not be relying on a single hypervisor, says Bowker, who points to an ESG research brief, Multiple Hypervisor Usage Trends, in which nearly-two thirds (65%) of respondent organizations report using more than one hypervisor,

The call for papers is now open for the first-ever Big Data Boot Camp produced by Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) magazine and www.dbta.com. The event, which will take place May 21-22 at the New York Hilton, will provide the opportunity for speakers to share their knowledge and experience in the emerging big data arena.

The call for papers is now open for the first-ever Big Data Boot Camp produced by Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) magazine and www.dbta.com. The event, which will take place May 21-22 at the New York Hilton, will provide the opportunity for speakers to share their knowledge and experience in the emerging big data arena.