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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) –- Email collaboration hosted solutions provider SherWeb (www.sherweb.com) announced Monday t qr hosted email provider DNAmail (www.dnamail.com). T terms f t transaction wr t .

DNAmail a a division f DSL Extreme (www.dslextreme.com), a privately held retail brand f IKANO Communications.

Headquartered California, DNAmail b providing hosted Microsoft Exchange services t small- medium-sized businesses organizations, well private b resellers.Web Hosting Talk News

Web Host SherWeb Acquires Hosted Exchange Firm DNAmail | Cent OS …

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<a href="http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/2240024243/Microsoft-smoothes-path-to-Azure-for-Windows-shopstag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/2240024243/Microsoft-smoothes-path-to-Azure-for-Windows-shopsMon, 01 Nov 2010 15:18:30 GMT 00:00″>Microsoft smoothes path to Azure for Windows shops

Novell needs all the help it can get in its seven-year battle to get its SUSE Linux business growing and profitable. The landmark deal with Microsoft that has brought the company $340m in dough for SUSE Linux coupons that Big bill distributes at Windows shops (475 so far, according to this Microsoft blog) has clearly run out of gas and Novell has been looking for another partner to help peddle its products. Enter server virtualization juggernaut VMware.

While Novell is a competitor of sorts with VMware when it comes to server virtualization, pitting its implementations of the Xen and now KVM hypervisors inside of SUSE Linux 11 against VMware’s ESX Server stack, Novell has not been afraid to partner with competitors since Ray Noorda left the company and in fact seems to prefer so-called “co-opetition” to cut-throat competition. Just like Citrix Systems, which competes with and partners with Microsoft to the point where it may as well be a division of Microsoft.

The details of the OEM agreement inked between Novell and VMware were a bit sketchy, and Novell was not making executives available to talk to the press. But what is clear is that operating system providers and hypervisor providers have to partner, regardless of whether or not they compete, because interoperability is important to all customers and everyone wants the finger pointing at the source of the problem when something does go wrong.

Hence Red Hat partners with Microsoft even as it competes in both the operating system and hypervisor racket, as does Novell. VMware and Citrix line up their partners as well. (Oracle is more interested in its own stack of wares, including its clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and a free-standing Xen hypervisor goosed with the guts of Virtual Iron, at this point.)

VMware is not giving up on its neutrality when it comes to operating systems, so don’t get the wrong idea that VMware is saying customers should deploy SUSE Linux atop ESX Server as their hypervisor-operating system combo. Rather, VMware is able to distribute SUSE Linux software inside appliances or as part of vSphere deals. if you buy vSphere 4.0, you get support for patch and security updates for SUSE Linux support as part of the vSphere product. You can optionally choose to have VMware give you the full-tilt-boogie support like Novell itself sells (and with Novell providing the level three emergency support to backup the VMware team) for an additional fee.

This is how server OEMs that resell support for Linuxes from either Red Hat or Novell structure their deals, and it makes sense that a maker of virtual servers would have a similar kind of deal as those who make physical servers. Either way, Novell wants more of its revenues to be driven by channel partners, as does Red Hat, and hence they cut these sort of deals.

Novell and VMware did not disclose how much money is changing hands as part of this OEM agreement, nor did they say what the terms of the deal were. vSphere prices are not changing as part of the deal, VMware has confirmed. Novell will get paid if customers opt for the additional SUSE Linux support services from VMware. The companies did not say how much would pass through and how this pricing will compare to buying SUSE Linux support contracts directly from Novell.

In addition to the OEM deal for SUSE Linux support, VMware also said that it was tapping SUSE Linux to be the distro of choice for Linux-based appliances that the company and its partners create as part of the VMware Appliance Marketplace. The marketplace, which has over 1,000 appliances in it running everything from raw operating system images to content management systems to full ERP suites, already has a bunch of appliances running on various openSUSE releases.

Companies no doubt would prefer to have the commercially supported and hardened SUSE Linux 11 operating system over openSUSE. It’s a question of whether they want SUSE Linux over Red Hat, Ubuntu, CentOS, or even Windows. there is a Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition image from Microsoft on the VMware Appliance Marketplace, but there is not an appliance for Windows Server 2008, R2 or otherwise, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. maybe VMware will cut some more appliance deals.

Novell, of course, is trying to build its own appliance business, with SUSE Linux and its integrated Xen hypervisor as the platform, using its online SUSE Studio tools and the related SUSE Appliance Toolkit, which went into production in January. ®

VMware inks OEM deal with Novell for SUSE Linux

Playing on strengths

Microsoft is an entrenched name in the industry with hordes of developers flocking to its banner. Easing the way for developers to bring their applications to the cloud is the essence of Azure.

Microsoft will have to fight less than other providers to lure developers to its platform, because of the very large number of existing Microsoft developers who will want to use the platform to move their products into the cloud.

“If you think of it with the functionality of .NET, the 50,000 or so developers that exist in Australia who are .NET developers automatically become cloud developers overnight,” Microsoft developer and platform evangelism director Gianpaolo Carraro says.

Developers scale the amounts of computer storage they need for their applications by entering a ratio by which they want to change their uptake. Microsoft also aims to make it even easier by offering a cloud-based pay-per-use SQL database, connectivity between Azure and on-premise applications, as well as single sign-on functionality.

Of course, anyone using an infrastructure-as-a-service cloud product from a cloud competitor will be able to install their own SQL database on virtual machines, or write their own single sign-on and app connectivity. However, with Azure, Microsoft has done the leg work for developers, exacting a price for that higher level of support. the idea is that developers can stop wasting time on lower level issues and spend more time on their apps.

“Development houses try to spend most of their time developing the features of their software product themselves, not the infrastructure in terms of the connectivity, the web hosting, the databases,” Carraro says.

One such developer is catering specialist CaterXpress. Director Anthony Super says that CaterXpress is currently in the process of moving all its clients using its apps from on-premise servers to Azure, which will mean being hosted on Microsoft’s servers in Singapore.

According to Super, this means a 60 per cent saving in costs for the company. “You’re looking at the monthly expenditure on running our own equipment at the moment, not even to mention the labour costs on top of that versus a fully managed version of Windows Azure,” he says.

CaterXpress has had to ask its clients if they were willing to have the app hosted overseas, but Super says there has as yet been “no hesitation” because of the more rigorous redundancy and back-up Azure offers. Geography isn’t relevant, he believes. “I guess because we deal with small-to-medium-sized businesses those sort of questions just aren’t asked.”

If some of the customers don’t agree, CaterXpress will simply keep them running on the in-house servers, but those customers won’t be receiving the cost savings that CaterXpress will pass onto the others.

Azure in Australia: is Microsoft too late?

Say you have just installed your new Visual Studio 2010 and you’re looking through the “New Project” dialog. Hmmm … What’s this? “ASP.NET MVC 2″ Gee! I never knew there was an MVC 1.

If your day (and more) is fully consumed trying to hit the production deadlines of a job, you might be forgiven for failing to notice that Microsoft has been pumping a whole new, new way of programming ASP.NET, like, for-ever. the second “new” is because they switched to a completely new way once already with ASP.NET Version 2 using code-behind and partial classes. And “forever” is … ummmm … since last April, in practical terms. Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie first said the word “MVC” in public in October 2007. Things move fast in software.

You could use MVC 1.0 with VB.NET 2008 and Framework 3.5 for most of last year, but you had to download it. Visual Studio 2010 made MVC a first class technology at Microsoft for the first time. if you have already created MVC 1.0 applications, they’re automatically upgraded to MVC 2 in VS 2010 with an upgrade wizard. And you can start learning and using it absolutely free! look for MVC 2 in Visual Web Developer 2010 Express.

Never doubt that MVC – which stands for “Model View Controller” is a whole new way of creating ASP.NET web pages, at least for Microsoft. Gone is the concept of “event subroutine”. an MVC URL doesn’t even point to a “.aspx”file. in MVC, a “controller” refreshes “views” whenever the “model”, which has all the data, changes “state”. the classic example is the number of items in a shopping cart. the model is the shopping cart. it might be updated when a customer adds an item or when some process at the server determines that an item is not in inventory. the controller notifies all the views and they refresh themselves.

Microsoft didn’t invent MVC. it actually goes back to the 1970’s and Xerox Parc. (Doesn’t everything? the world hasn’t seen such a massive missed opportunity since Portugal sent Columbus packing to Spain.) a Norwegian named Trygve Reenskaug invented it. Wikipedia lists 18 different implementations, including .NET. Possibly the one that has received the most rave notices is “Ruby on Rails”. There’s nothing like the hot breath of competition to catch the undivided attention of Microsoft.

Possibly the best introduction to MVC can be found in Steven Sanderson’s Apress book, Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework. (ISBN-13: 978-1430210078). Chapter 1 has an excellent discussion of just why MVC is a better idea. It’s a much more convincing and readable than the marketing/techno/legalese found on Microsoft’s pages. since ASP.NET MVC 2 is now standard in Visual Studio 2010, look for new books to justpour off the presses. within a couple of months of April last year, about half a dozen were published. Sanderson’s new version is due out around the first of June.

And finally, for everybody groaning about another forced conversion to a whole new way of writing code, MVC and WebForms run side by side, even in the same application. So do MVC 1 and MVC 2 applications. So you can mix and match if you decide to. (Although that might not be the best development strategy.) Microsoft VP Scott Guthrie is the guiding light at Redmond for MVC and this is what he says about it:

“If you don’t like the MVC model or don’t find it natural to your style of development, you definitely don’t have to use it. it is a totally optional offering – and does not replace the existing WebForms model. both WebForms and MVC will be fully supported and enhanced going forward.”

One of Microsoft’s great strengths is that when they decide to go in a new direction, they can accelerate out of the turn better than anybody. if you want to learn more, there’s a ton of information and instruction at Microsoft’s MVC site:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/

Sorting Through the New Toys – MVC – About