Cashing in on the continuing popularity of Windows 7, and the need to deploy it across enterprise IT infrastructures, VMware took the wraps off ThinApp 4.5, saying it ensures compatibility for legacy and custom apps across Windows desktop OS environments.
According to VMware, "ThinApp 4.5 enables enterprises to quickly migrate existing applications to new operating systems such as Microsoft Windows 7, eliminating conflicts between environments, and extending the life of application investments."
Not surprisingly, VMware was able to come up with research from Enterprise Strategy Group asserting that more than 75 percent of all enterprises refreshing their desktops (and that is a lot, considering the long refresh times forced on users by the flameout of Vista) will migrate to Windows 7 in the next 24 months.
On the reduced costs front, VMware says users deploying ThinApp 4.5 for application virtualization can slash migration costs by up to 60 percent, and migrate their systems up to 27 percent faster by "accelerating the application compatibility, testing and deployment processes required for application migration."
ThinApp 4.5 is available immediately, and pricing for the VMware ThinApp suite is $5,500. ThinApp is also available as part of View Premier for $250 per concurrent user.
Have you heard any interesting Windows 7 migration stories? If so, please share them with me at [email protected].
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/17/2010 at 12:48 PM2 comments
As a run-up to its Gartner Security Summits conferences, Gartner is setting off alarms by claiming that 60 percent of virtualized servers will be less secure than the physical servers they supplant. But fear not, they add, because that gory figure will drop to 30 percent by year-end 2015. Between now and then, however, there will be an assortment of problems because "many virtualization deployment projects are being undertaken without involving the information security team in the initial architecture and planning stages."
More good news: Gartner VP Neil McDonald says "Virtualization is not inherently insecure." More bad news: The people in charge of deploying virtualized workloads are doing it insecurely because they lack the mature tools and processes, as well as the experienced personnel -- staff, resellers, consultants -- required to get the job done right.
The bottom line: The virtualization proliferation and workloads of different trust levels combined with more mobile workloads all add up to more and more demanding challenges for implementers.
It all looks pretty grim, so you may want to save the day for your company by attending the Gartner Security Summits June 21-23 in Washington D.C., and Sept. 22-23 in London.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/16/2010 at 12:48 PM5 comments
It's not all that often that the fresh rev of a true cash cow hits the market, so Citrix's unveiling of XenApp 6 definitely packs new product punch. The former Citrix MetaFrame Server and Citrix Presentation Server has come a long way from its days as an application hosting solution, and is now a well-honed engine that drives application centralization in the data center, and serves those apps up to both physical and virtual desktops.
Just how big a cash cow is XenApp for Citrix? In order to get a more meaningful perspective, first understand the fact that Citrix made a profitable $1.16 billion in 2009. Then consider the quote that president and CEO Mark Templeton gave me recently when I interviewed him for a Citrix profile to appear in the upcoming April-May issue of Virtualization Review: "We can tell you that of the one-point-six billion, about one-point-one billion was XenApp-related, which means licenses, license updates, and technical services that are associated with it, so it's a huge product line."
Now that's a cash cow.
In addition to offering seamless integration with Microsoft technologies such as App-V and Windows Server 2008 R2, XenApp6 also shares technology with, and is available as part of, a suite with XenDesktop 4, Citrix's up-and-coming virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) product. For example, the two products share the company's enhanced HDX adaptive technology, which includes the Citrix ICA protocol, and drives real time media applications such as voice and CD-quality audio.
Citrix is so eager to offer the combined clout of XenDesktop and XenApp in the increasingly lucrative desktop virtualization market that it is running a promotion wherein XenApp customers can trade up their existing licenses for twice the number of XenDesktop 4 user licenses. It looks like the plan is to go head-hunting for VMware's VDI competitor, View 4, in a big way.
Other new XenApp 6 capabilities include AppCenter, a new management console designed to make it easy for IT to centrally manage all applications enterprise-wide from a single source, and enhanced enterprise scalability, which Citrix says "has been verified to scale up to more than 100,000 concurrent users in a single farm, giving customers unprecedented levels of cost savings and data center efficiency."
XenApp 6 will be available for download March 24 as a free upgrade to all XenApp customers with current Subscription Advantage agreements. Pricing for new XenApp 6 licenses starts at $350 per concurrent user. Pricing for XenDesktop 4, which now includes XenApp 6, is $225 per user, or per device.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/16/2010 at 12:48 PM0 comments
I've received a couple of e-mails lately in response to my "
Bogus Claims?" post asking for follow-up information on the Project VRC phase 2 test analyzing Terminal Services workloads running VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1, Citrix XenServer 5.5 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V 2.0 on HP ProLiant DL380G6 servers with Intel Nehalem processors.
The good news is that everything you need to know can now be found on the new VRC Web site (it's the one with the surprisingly sultry young lady at the top of the home page), which is located at www.virtualrealitycheck.net.
In addition to the VRC phase 2 white paper, the VRC site also has an Excel-based overview of the phase two results. Bon appetit!
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/11/2010 at 12:48 PM5 comments
LineSider Technologies, which debuted its network services virtualization (NSV) platform last October, has jumped on the busting-out cloud bandwagon, taking the wraps off its private cloud automation package, OverDrive Virtual Cloud Orchestration Manager (vCom).
According to LineSider, vCom allows IT organizations using OverDrive to "rapidly build, deploy and manage private cloud infrastructures that can be tailored specifically to the unique needs of individual end users and delivered on-demand with complete automation, security and control using an easy-to-use GUI."
The privately funded LineSider says that OverDrive is the first NSV platform for both enterprises and cloud service providers that "integrates and automates the network services necessary to build and deploy cloud services. The OverDrive NSV platform transitions traditionally static network and computing infrastructures into dynamic, fluid and secure delivery infrastructures that respond automatically to demand-driven cloud activities."
LineSider has offices in Massachusetts, New York and London.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/10/2010 at 12:48 PM1 comments
In a move that combines generosity with business savvy, Starwind Software -- which focuses on storage virtualization and iSCSI storage for SMBs -- has announced it will give its Starwind 5.0 High Availability SAN software free to any VMware vExpert, VCB or VCI for non-production use, including course training, development and testing, and various demo purposes. The normal cost of the software is $6,000.
According to Starwind, VMware certified pros will receive a "scalable storage platform for VMware vSphere environments with advanced features at absolutely no cost." The company goes on to say that the iSCSI SAN's "true active-active high availability storage architecture" offers continuous, non-disruptive access to storage in the event of failure by synchronously mirroring data between two active storage appliances in real time with automatic failover and failback. To get a copy of the key, send an e-mail to [email protected].
Question to readers: What are the biggest problems you face in the area of storage security, and how are you dealing with them? Comment here or send me an e-mail.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/09/2010 at 12:48 PM3 comments
Have you ever wondered why vendors are so quick to set up trendy business units, whether they be for virtualization, client/server computing, Linux or some other happening-now technology?
Dan Kusnetzky of Virtually Speaking was taking note of Red Hat's new cloud business unit. It got him thinking and he came up with four good reasons for this latest outbreak of me-too-itis:
Some of these firms do it for appearances. They want the world to think they are staying on the cutting edge, being very innovative, etc. "In truth," Kusnetzky, opines, "many are really just renaming something to use the current catch phrase or buzzword."
Other vendors just want to bring together a bunch of smart people with advanced technical knowledge in a single area in the hope that they will do good stuff, like devising better products, services and go-to-market strategies. Kusnetzky says of this clustering approach, "There are cases, however, in which this appears to be merely an attempt to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than truly innovative thinking."
Then there are those lightweight suppliers that simply want to be seen as part of the scene. Kusnetzky says this see-through strategy "allows them to say 'me too!' and be believed for a time."
Concluding, he proffers the following description of his final category, saying of their reason for creating a new business unit: "It gives them an attachment point or pressure-equalizing docking bay so that when they purchase smaller suppliers the employees don't jump ship due to vast cultural differences that may exist between the acquired company or companies and the 'mothership.'"
You have no doubt run across more than one company that fits one of these four descriptions. My question is, why do they bother? Let me know by sending me an e-mail.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/08/2010 at 12:48 PM2 comments
A Microsoft employee asked me for more information on the recent Virtual Reality Check performance analysis comparing VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1, Citrix XenServer 5.5 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V running against the new workload simulator, Virtual Session Indexer. VSI is provided by Ruben Spruijt and Jeroen van de Kamp, who originated VRC a year ago.
The comparison was designed to measure how the three hypervisors performed when running Windows XP and Vista virtual machines for Terminal Services and VDI environments.
I filled in the Microsoft employee on the news that performance almost doubled on both XenServer and vSphere, while it went up 154 percent for Hyper-V. Then I asked him if those results were in line with what he expected, and he said that they were, adding that VMware had been telling some of his customers "something completely different," and he just wanted to have his facts straight.
When I asked him if he would anonymously tell me what VMware was telling his customers, he said that they were claiming that Hyper-V does not scale as well as VMware, so users will need many more physical servers to do the same workload. If this is true, the Microsoft employee said, it is a valid point since doubling the number of servers increases acquisition costs, physical/environment costs -- meaning, space -- and power cooling costs. However, he said, VMware's claims did not appear to be true based on any objective benchmarks/data he had seen.
Closing with, "I am not sure if this is a loose cannon" or "company-wide FUD," he said he just wanted to be sure that he was being accurate.
These are the kinds of claims that are swapped back and forth by competitors all the time, so they come as no surprise. What would be interesting to know is, if any of you readers have heard the same claims. So, have you? Comment here or send me e-mail.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/05/2010 at 12:48 PM2 comments
Parallels, a company that has done well by thinking out of the box, is further embracing Apple with what it calls the world's first bare-metal hypervisor for Apple Xserve: Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition. The words "standardize" and "cloud services providers" stand out here.
"Standardize" means enabling businesses to standardize on the Apple platform, which is good for Apple virtualization users who will now be able to run Windows and Linux apps on the Apple system they want. As Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov puts it, the new product "provides a high performance solution that enables IT professionals and developers to capitalize on the power of Mac OS X Server while having the flexibility to run Windows and Linux workloads both on-premise and through the cloud."
"Cloud Services providers" are viewed as a prime target for many would-be cloud suppliers, and Parallels now has even a better shot with them. Just to keep things under control, the company is also unveiling Parallels Virtual Automation, which provides customers with the management tools they need to monitor and maintain their virtual environments.
What do you think of the bare-metal solution offered by Parallels here? Do you think it will make the difference for companies that have been on the fence about switching to Mac? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/02/2010 at 12:48 PM2 comments
These are heady days at VDI zero-client device maker Pano Logic, which has just landed $20 million in a Series C round of financing led by VC firm Mayfield Fund. Flush with money, Pano Logic openly published their hardware specs, and perhaps reeling just a bid with hubris, dared other vendors to remove the kimonos from their own alleged zero client solutions. Shockingly, none did, the cowards.
I like Pano Logic. They're cheeky, and even though they are still not showing up everywhere, it's certainly not because they haven't been out on the stump, shamelessly shilling for themselves.
Understand that we editors face a constant deluge of similar-sounding press releases, so when one from Pano Logic arrives on your electronic desk, you can look forward to rhetoric like "transformed the landscape of endpoint computing" and "demand for desktop virtualization is exploding and Pano Logic will become the chief beneficiary." One more: "Pano Logic joins a long list of groundbreaking technologies such as Compaq, SGI and Citrix that have revolutionized computing."
And, by the way, they claim to have tripled sales in 2009.
Are you buying or selling the Pano Logic story? Could their zero clients help your company? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/01/2010 at 12:48 PM3 comments
A year ago, Ruben Spruijt and Jeroen van de Kamp started Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) and released their independent, non-sponsored performance analysis that compared VMware ESX 3.5, Citrix XenServer 5.0 and Microsoft Hyper-V 2008. That comparison was designed to measure how the three hypervisors performed when running Windows XP and Vista virtual machines for Terminal Services and VDI environments.
According to Alessandro Perili of virtualization.info, the test was so valid that Citrix adopted the VRC methodology for measuring its XenDesktop 4 performance.
Spruijt is a Solution Architect and CTO at PQR, and van de Kamp is an Enterprise Architect and CTO at Login Consultants.
Now, the two are back, comparing VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1, Citrix XenServer 5.5 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V against their new workload simulator Virtual Session Indexer (VSI) 2.0.
"The most interesting thing is that all tests were performed on HP hardware equipped with the new Intel Xeon 5500 Series CPUs (codename Nehalem), and compared to Virtual Reality Check 1.0 results obtained on previous generation processors," Perili writes, adding that "Performance is almost doubled with both XenServer and vSphere, and with Hyper-V R2, performance is up 154 percent."
Burton Group Senior Analyst Chris Wolf supports VRC, saying "I'm a big fan of Ruben's work. I haven't seen any major objections to the way he went about assessing the workloads, and I think he's been pretty fair. To me, if you were to pick a standard for benchmarking those workloads, Project VRC is it."
Is Project VRC a threat to virtualization vendors? Send your comments to me at [email protected].
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/25/2010 at 12:48 PM6 comments
It was with a certain measure of dismay that I viewed Gartner's January acquisition of The Burton Group. Non-GAAP financial measures aside, I felt like Burton was being marginalized just a little bit because -- even though I'm sure Gartner stressed the importance of Burton remaining objective and independent in its views -- now there is just a slight possibility that Gartner might want to stick its hands in Burton's cookie jar. Sooner or later, it's bound to happen, and when it does, maybe a Burton analyst will quit, followed by a big brouhaha, followed by a return to normalcy, until it happens again. At that point, it won't seem like quite such a big deal, and nobody will get all that exercised. Why bother?
Let's face it: Gartner paid for the Burton Group, and they can do anything they want with it.
It's fashionable to trash Gartner in some industry quarters. Some people think they're too big, too old-school, too inbred to keep a careful watch over what's happening out there -- especially if it involves their clients. These critics don't think Gartner still has the fire in their bellies, or the will to take on the big boys out there in conflict-of-interest land. In the course of my many dealings with them, I have found that they tended to tell it like it is -- or at least how they think it is -- without any obvious taint. I know they get real cranky real quick if you doubt their integrity, and I also know they are more likely to risk upsetting a client than are some other firms I could mention.
This situation is a little like what happens when a two-newspaper town suddenly becomes a one-newspaper town -- you feel a little less informed, a little less looked-after, a little less safe. Here's hoping Gartner lets The Burton Group make or break their own future.
Do you think the big analyst firms get it right more often than not? Do you trust their research? Let me know at [email protected] or comment here.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/18/2010 at 12:48 PM7 comments
Thanks to my colleague Jeff Schwartz for sending me the following interesting and unique VDI item.
A Canadian company named Userful Corporation says that since 2002, it has been offering a Linux desktop virtualization product called User Multiplier, that allows one PC to support up to 10 independent users simultaneously. All the users need are their own monitors, keyboards and mice. The product features automatic configuration and offers multimedia capabilities such as full-screen/full-motion video.
Multiplier is most popular in government, educational and SMB organizations that are running on tight budgets.
Userful touts Multiplier by saying it "turns one PC into 10," and creates "$69 virtual desktops." Multiplier 3.7, the most recent version of the product, expands on the multilingual capabilities of its predecessors by adding new "internationalizations" that make the product useful in more than 100 countries around the world.
Userful tells a very happy, it's-all-good, Multiplier story, declaring, "By using Userful Multiplier in the K-12 classrooms, our customers have reported saving over 50% on their desktop hardware costs, an average of 62% on electricity costs, and additional savings on costly Internet drops, switches, network wiring and other infrastructure and support costs. The multi-seat Linux desktops allow our customers to stretch their limited IT budgets, and use those savings to provide better computer access for all students in their region."
So what's not to like? So little that Userful claims Multiplier has "paved the way" for Microsoft's new Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, which provides the proverbial rich Windows PC experience to students who combine the same hardware devices used by Multiplier with Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services).
According to a recent blog by Microsoft's Director of Environmental Technology Strategy, Mark Aggar, the likes of Multiplier and MultiPoint Server 2010 are especially appropriate for school districts that have a limited number of laptops for their students, as well as for Internet cafes and libraries.
Aggar describes a demo in which 16 monitors simultaneously play 720P HP video using the processing power of a single PC powered by an Intel Core i7 system, noting "This particular feat was aided by a new feature available in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that allows for full screen video rendering within a remote Terminal Services session. If you have two Windows 7 PCs, you can try this for yourself -- just open up a WMV file from within a remote desktop session on another W7 PC and prepare to be amazed."
Then, of course, there are the green ramifications, which Aggar lists, starting with the reduction of waste due to the presence of far fewer processors, disks, RAM, and additional electronic components. Beyond that, he cites reduced power requirements and says "Not only is there less e-waste to deal with at the end of the day, but it makes it far more feasible (financially and practically) to upgrade the central PC's components (e.g. bigger disks, more RAM) than it would for multiple PCs -- quite often, it's just easier and ultimately cheaper to replace the PCs altogether."
In the end, happy, engaged students meet eco-friendly computing products, and increase their learning power, while grateful school administrators save big bucks and please demanding parents.
Userful can be reached at www.userful.com, or toll-free across North America at 866-873-9008.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/16/2010 at 12:48 PM0 comments
In a new study of 1,500 IT executives and virtualization gurus scheduled to be released this week, VDI is all about a positive user experience, reducing TCO, and finding management products that can look into what's going on with VDI networks. And oh, by the way, most survey respondents agreed that 2010 will be a "watershed year" for VDI. The survey was done by Xangati, which specializes in providing visibility into physical and virtual infrastructures.
The first question to invoke the user experience was "What factors were/will be evaluated to determine success of the VDI pilot?" "End-user experience/satisfaction" topped this list of answers, with an 83 percent response rate among the IT execs. Finishing second at 71.6 percent was "Critical business apps worked as expected."
In response to a query asking "Please rank these network considerations for VDI in order of importance," an overwhelming 67.8 percent selected as their answer "Latency/user experience." The next most popular response "Implementation and support costs," was registered by 28.7 percent of respondents.
When asked "Which of these functions do you expect a management solution to provide in your VDI deployments," 62.7 percent replied "Assess what is adversely affecting end-user experience," followed by 54 percent, who said "Tell me what isn't working." For more on VDI management, check out the Desktop Virtualization category in the 2010 Virtualization Review Buyer's Guide (registration required). Some products to consider there include SysTrack Virtual Machine Planner from Lakeside Software, and Thin Desktop from ThinLaunch Software.
With so many responses targeting a positive user experience, it seemed somewhat ironic that when this group responded to a question asking "What do you see as likely obstacles to a full scale VDI deployment?," the most common answer was "Business/end-user resistance to giving up existing desktops." Which provokes me to ask, "What else is new?" End users have fought every major change that has ever come down the new technology pike, only to end up praising the new products they previously rejected.
That attitude ties in with another survey question that asked "Which parts of your organization are actively involved in the VDI implementation?" Not too many people would be surprised to learn that even though the focus of so many survey responses was on the VDI user experience, the least popular answer here was "Line of business." It's all about aligning business requirements with technology resources, right?
Finally, 65.7 percent of survey respondents agreed that 2010 is the "watershed year" for VDI. I can think of a few vendors who would like that to be the case.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/11/2010 at 12:48 PM3 comments
Nobody can say that Leostream isn't aggressive when it comes to marketing its Connection Broker product, the latest version of which, 6.3, has just been released. CEO Michael Palin likes to paint his company as the champion of desktop virtualization users at large customer companies.
"It's all heterogeneity," Palin declares. "It's all about the maximum use of existing physical infrastructures to make projects less risky and expensive. We're doing this with very complicated environments."
What they're doing is selling a product that offers what Palin calls "a software management layer that ties desktop images in the data center to the appropriate end-user devices -- thin clients, laptops, workstations or web pages -- delivering an end-user experience as good or superior to that of a conventional desktop."
What's interesting is to hear Palin discuss his company's "technical alliance partnerships" with VMware and Citrix, two companies that he told me a few months back basically put up with Leostream, but are not big fans. For example, in discussing VMware, he declares "VMware says, 'We want to rule the world,'" and when it comes to VMware and Citrix selling to the low end, he states, "The channels aren't up to speed on this technology. VMware and Citrix continue to over-promise and under-deliver to the mid market." Which is actually fine with Leostream, because they are looking for companies with 1,000 users or more, anyway.
At any rate, the company bills Connection Broker as a vendor-neutral product that "provides greater flexibility, simpler deployment and more efficient management of hosted virtual desktop infrastructures."
I know there are some people who take a dim view of the entire connection broker concept because it only solves one part of the VDI puzzle, but Leostream seems to be making a buck, so more power to them.
Some highlights of v 6.3 include a new Web client (user access to desktops and apps), increased platform flexibility (support for Xen.org centers), enhanced remote access support for Sun (tight integration with Sun Secure Global Desktop Software), expanded support for Hardware PCoIP (enabling quad-monitor layouts for hardware PCoIP), and an optimized end-user experience (protocol plans to make the hosted VDI "protocol-aware," and registry plans, enabling the setting of registry keys on remote desktops "based on the client device the user logs in from, providing location-based tuning of the end user's experience."
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/09/2010 at 12:48 PM1 comments