Redmondmag.com

Internet Explorer gets lots of knocks for vulnerabilities, but its main rival, Firefox, isn't perfect, either. The most recent rev, Firefox 3.0, has a hole that could let a hacker run code on your computer. Details haven't been released, as the Mozilla Project hasn't finished its patch yet.

Redmond Report reader David pointed out that while Firefox may have fewer flaws, he finds them harder to fix. Here's what Dave had to say:

"I don't care how many patches are released for IE, or how few for Firefox. I patch Microsoft products with WSUS, which automatically approves critical and security patches so they install on all the client PCs without admin or user involvement. Even if the PC is sitting at a log-in prompt, IE will be patched automatically. And I have an e-mail waiting for me each morning to notify me of errors or problems.

With Firefox, I'm relying on an update mechanism that cannot be monitored, and requires user intervention to initiate updates. It's the most administrator-unfriendly program I've allowed on my network.

I don't have any unpatched instances of IE on my business LAN. I hope that's true of Firefox, as well, but I have no easy way of knowing. It only takes one unpatched vulnerability, so unless Firefox can assure me that it'll never require even a single security patch, I'm at much greater risk from Firefox than I ever will be from IE. As a user, I'd probably prefer Firefox, but not from the admin standpoint."

Posted by Doug Barney on 06/23/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments

Mailbag: Hyper-V Doubts

Doug wrote yesterday about Microsoft's much-touted Hyper-V. But a few of you aren't buying into the hype:

Hyper-V is still in beta, has no live migration, has no farm concept with automatic load balancing and HA, no over-committing of resources, requires an installation of at least Server 2008 Core Edition, has restricted x86/x64 OSes, is dependent on specific CPUs, is unable to throttle or isolate the root domain from VMs, and -- to top it off -- it's basically a Xen knock-off. In fact, it is so similar to Xen (down to the problems), that I wonder how much open source code crept into this closed-source product.

It amazes me, the giddiness with which people are approaching this pre-1.0 product and clearly inferior technology. The Microsoft Machine with its adherents are at work here, but it's certainly not amazing technology. Maybe one day, a few years from now.
-Anonymous

"Hyper-V Poised for Greatness"? Rhetoric. Don't get taken by the Microsoft advertising juggernaut. It will stop at nothing to make us all think the Hyper-V will challenge VMware ESX or even Citrix Xen in the short-term. It will be a challenger in the long-term, but is definitely not enterprise-ready in its current form.
-David

Got something to add? Let us have it! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 06/17/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments

Virtualization Review Mag Rolling Along

The second issue of Virtualization Review, our newest magazine, is now out. Our first issue walked through the major platforms, VMware, Microsoft and Citrix/Xen.

We even had a killer preview of Hyper-V written by virtualization star Chris Wolf. This puppy is going to change the virtualization market forever once it ships this summer.

Our second issue was even better. Here we focused on the major hardware players -- IBM (which invented virtualization in the '60s), HP, Sun and Dell.

Here's the quick-and-dirty: IBM has the most complex strategy. It has hypervisors -- either home-grown or third-party -- for everything from mainframes, to the Power6-based System p, to industry-standard rack and blade servers. On top of all that, it has a wealth of proprietary management and storage tools.

HP is similar to IBM in that is has proprietary management and storage tools. But it doesn't make its own hypervisor.

Sun has been doing virtualization in one form or another for many, many years. Now it's pushing its own hypervisor and a new virtualization management platform. Both of these are open source, as Sun will tell you again and again (and again).

Dell is the simplest of the four. It sells industry-standard hardware equipped with third-party software. 'Nuff said!

Posted by Doug Barney on 06/16/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments

Hyper-V Poised for Greatness

At last week's Tech-Ed, Microsoft VP Bob Muglia crowed about Hyper-V. You can test him at his word, as the hypervisor is nearly here; beta testers can get the latest release candidate, meaning it's almost all set to go.

Topping the list of new features are better management of Linux VMs, fewer bugs and snappier performance. You can get the software through Windows Update.

Are you jonesin' for Hyper-V? Share your thoughts by writing [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 06/16/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments

Yoogle AdWords

Google is pretty darn impressive. It has no huge staff of well-paid journalists, yet it makes millions selling ads that surround today's media. As a journalist, I think Google is parasitic -- the tape worm of the media world.

Given all the free cash involved, it's no wonder Microsoft wanted in on this kind of action. But Microsoft last week decided it no longer wanted to pay $40 billion-plus for Yahoo just so it could copy Google.

Now that Microsoft has given up on Yahoo, Yahoo is moving closer to Google with an agreement that would put Google AdWords on Yahoo sites.

Is this innovation or more of the same? Let us know by writing [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 06/16/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments

VM Wary

Microsoft isn't the only vendor with security issues (but I'll argue that it's the most upfront about them). VMware, which is as much an OS as it is a virtualization layer, recently plugged two hypervisor holes.

Unlike Microsoft, these vulnerabilities were reported by an outside company. The remote code injection flaws are in two VMware Linux tools, and the patches are fortunately now available.

Get the deets here.