Linux magazine has an interesting report (via Gartner) on server consolidation efforts and the effect of virtualization on server sales. Of course, one of our points with Collage is, server consolidation via virtualization results in increased complexity. You have to manage both the physical and virtual environment. That's where Collage's automation comes in, deploying physical and virtual servers for the purpose of running business applications at required service levels.

The folks at Solution Center Ltd., whose job is to help enterprises align their IT infrastructure with their business needs, have a nice write-up on VMware and Cassatt Collage XVM. They do a good job of describing at a high level how Collage XVM works with and how it extends native VMware resource optimization capabilities.

And while I'm in a linking mood, and along the same topic, you might also be interested in Rob Gingell's (Executive VP and CTO of Cassatt) podcast on virtualization in the data center. (You'll have to register with an email address to download the podcast.) While Rob's discussion is broad in scope, you can see how XVM is a piece of the larger solution in which Collage treats VMs as a utility service.

I'm always curious who's reading Info Central. Luckily, we are able to collect some data suggesting where our readership comes from. One of my favorite bits to look at is the Google Analytics Geo Map, which shows the geographic origins of hits on the Info Central site. Here's the map from the last week:

It looks like we're getting a number of page views from our friends in the midwest and eastern U.S. And some people have left the beach at Waikiki to check us out. Not surprisingly, there are a fair number of readers from England, France, Germany, and Canada.

Seeing hits from Caracas, I can't help but wonder if Hugo Chavez in checking us out. And, if you look off the southeastern coast of Africa, it looks like somebody on a sail boat has Internet access. Upon a little investigation, I can see that that is actually the island of Mauritius, and I admit that I'm more than a little curious about that one.

Let us know if you recognize yourself on this map. I'll post these periodically and see what kind of readership trends develop.