Brian Madden has a nice
overview
of Citrix' HDX family of technologies. HDX stands for "high definition
experience," and is part of the XenDesktop 3 release, set for sometime later
this month.
Brian points out that there really isn't anything new in HDX,
but believes it's good marketing for Citrix; nothing wrong with trumpeting what
you've got. As for XenDesktop, our
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Posted by Keith Ward on 02/13/20090 comments
They're baaack...the
rumors
of
Cisco possibly buying VMware and parent company EMC. Virtualization.info has a
good
breakdown
of some signs that point to a possible acquisition.
It's all
speculation, of course, but there's solid fact-reporting behind the theory.
VMware had a very good Q4 in 2008, one of the few companies in the IT industry
to do so. Cisco is primarily a hardware company, but is intensely interested in
virtualization, as the upcoming
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Posted by Keith Ward on 02/12/20092 comments
Virtualization security is in somewhat the same boat as
virtual desktop infrastructure: lots of discussion, but less actual
implementation. It's my belief (unverified and mostly anecdotal) that admins
think their standard security measures will protect their virtual environments.
Or maybe they do, in the dark recesses of their minds, know that they need to
beef up their virtual security, but lack the time or guidance necessary.
I can't help with the time part, but in terms of guidance,
Microsoft is doing its part with the recent release of a
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Posted by Keith Ward on 02/11/20090 comments
Have you ever
wondered which hypervisor is fastest? I'm talking pure, raw speed here. No
management tools, no third-party utilities, nothing that gets in the way of a
sprint to determine which hypervisor can do the most in the least amount of
time.
Well, I've wondered. And decided to do something about it. Rick
Vanover, our new online columnist, put the base hypervisors from the three
leading vendors to the test for the cover story of
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Posted by Keith Ward on 02/10/20091 comments
A new virtualization company opens its doors
today, and is offering something I haven't seen before in the virtualization
world: memory virtualization.
Wait a minute! you shout. Memory
has been virtualized for a long time. VMware's ESX does it; so does Microsoft's
Hyper-V, Citrix' XenServer, Virtual Iron and everyone else. They all
pool server RAM and make it available to virtual machines (VMs) on an
as-needed basis.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 02/02/20092 comments
Blogging, in a way, is the lifeblood of the virtualization
community when it comes to information sharing (other than
Virtualization
Review
in print, of course). More so than any other IT industry, blogging
is the main way readers get informed about what's going on. I think it's because
it's such a new field that the old methods just didn't take root as quickly.
Blogging is one of our key focuses here on the Website, too.
And starting this week, we've got some very cool additions to our blogging
efforts. We've got three new bloggers coming on board, which is going to upgrade
our content substantially.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 02/02/20090 comments
So, Microsoft has finally done it -- announced
layoffs
. I can't ever remember Redmond actually laying off employees for economic reasons (although I'm more than willing to be corrected on this point.) It just goes to show how serious this recession is shaping up to be.
It's not like it's a huge percentage of the workforce; 5,000 total out of 90,000-plus is less than sweeping. But it is an indicator of two things: a) That Microsoft's sales are plunging, and b) That Microsoft expects this trend to continue into at least the immediate future -- meaning, probably, the rest of this year and maybe beyond.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 01/22/20093 comments
Well, this should shake up folks in the virtualization industry. Alessandro Pirilli at virtualization.info has posted the results of a "
Virtualization Industry Survey
" he conducted over a month's time. He says he received 1,050 responses, and those responses are interesting, to say the least.
The finding that made me sit up, and I'm sure everyone else, was Question 6, "What hardware virtualization platform do you implement?" It was a multiple-choice question with eight hypervisor choices, including the Big 3 of Microsoft's Hyper-V, VMware's ESX and Citrix' XenServer.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 01/20/20094 comments
Microsoft is pushing a little further into the desktop virtualization space with the
release
of the first beta of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (
MED-V
).
Quite frankly, I'm not sure what to make of this.
First, it's part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP).
Why Microsoft keeps releasing virtualization technologies (like its application
virtualization tool, App-V) in this restricted way doesn't make sense to me. What if you want MED-V or App-V, but don't need or want Software Assurance? Sorry, you're out of luck, says Microsoft. Either you become part of our revenue stream, or you can't have. This really, really rankles me.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 01/16/20098 comments
If there was any doubt before now, there should be none after today: Microsoft wants to do more than compete in the virtualization arena -- it wants to win.
If you hadn't noticed (and apparently many folks didn't -- it's been almost like a news blackout on this announcement), Windows Server 2008 R2 is available in a public beta. The feature that matters most to readers of this blog is that it includes, for the first time, Live Migration as part of the upgraded Hyper-V.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 01/09/20094 comments
VMware has a new Chief Operating Officer. The company
announced
yesterday that Tod Nielson, a software industry veteran with more than 20 years experience, becomes the new COO.
What happened to the old COO? Nothing -- it's a newly-created position. It seems a little odd to me that a company the size of VMware didn't have a COO before this.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 01/07/20093 comments
Judging from the Christmas music blaring from about 43 boom boxes around my house, it seems the holidays are upon us. I wanted to let our readers know that Executive Editor
Tom Valovic
and I will be out on vacation starting Monday, Dec. 22. Tom is coming back the week after Christmas, while I'll be taking off until Jan. 5, slacker that I am.
You can send us e-mail in the meantime, but don't expect a quick response. In fact, to ensure better response, and lower the chances of your e-mail accidentally getting deleted in a massive spam purge on our first day back, it's probably better to hold off on e-mail until then. I, for one, don't look forward to spending the better part of a day responding to 832 e-mails.
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Posted by Keith Ward on 12/18/20085 comments