Virsto's all-software, VM-centric storage hypervisor got a shot in the arm with the introduction of Virsto for vSphere 2.0, which expands Virsto's vision by adding support for Citrix XenDesktop VDI, upgrading the performance of Tier 1 apps, and improving integration with existing workflows. In addition, version 2.0 offers integrated wizard-based provisioning that the company says provides a 50 percent cut in the cost of storage per VM.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/13/20123 comments
Working on the premise that a PaaS-centric approach to cloud application and development based on external services is superior to a monolithic, IaaS approach. Cloud Elements, a consultancy and application integrator, announced that it has picked VMware and its open-source Cloud Foundry as the basis for its cloud application development offerings.
Cloud Elements, a seven-month-old company with 20 employees and 12 clients, currently offers its clients pre-built elements that integrate common services, reducing the time and expense required to build highly functional cloud apps by 50 percent over traditional, infrastructure-based approaches. Twenty-five services that can be integrated into cloud apps range from e-mail to payments, and include Twilio for text messaging apps, PayPal for payments, Xendesk for customer service and management, and Box.net for file-sharing.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/12/20120 comments
ScaleIO has $12 million in venture backing and a master plan for success in the emerging, software-defined storage market. According to CEO Boaz Palgi, his company's ScaleIO ECS 1.1 aggregates all the free capacity of grossly underused internal disks located in application servers and creates a more-for-less SAN that does not require any additional hardware, power, cooling, space, ports host bus adapter cards or dedicated storage resources.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/10/20120 comments
During these cloudy days, it is more important than ever to be able to transmit data across multiple domains. Ipswitch File Transfer, which has been around for over 20 years, is looking to enhance its position in this market segment by announcing the general availability of MOVEit Cloud and MOVEit AD Hoc Transfer products.
MOVEit Cloud is the high-end version of these two products, as it offers enterprise-class, cloud-based, Managed File Transfer capabilities that enable file transfer with partners, customers, and employees. Ipswitch File Transfer is positioning the product as a response to the burgeoning demand for SaaS capabilities.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/10/20120 comments
iWave Software offers an alternative to users who want to develop their own cloud-based storage services as opposed to hiring a service provider for the task. In addition to giving companies the comfort of knowing they have architected their own, on-demand, cloud storage solutions, iWave Storage Director 1.5 adheres to the immutable rule that states "Thou shalt not displace legacy storage infrastructures."
Storage Director 1.5 caters to budget-sensitive customers by automating the tasks associated with provisioning , reclamation and remediation for storage. In addition, it enables storage admins to push the self-service button, which enables them to automate storage services in private storage cloud environments that are available to storage consumers. In this way, admins are able to cost-efficiently leverage unified workflows across vendor products and within organizationally defined policies for regulatory compliance. Bottom line: fewer admins are required, and those who remain can focus on other, more core-competancy-related tasks.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/06/20122 comments
NComputing goes right after two of the same bugaboos as everyone else in the desktop computing market place: reducing costs and simplifying management, and they say they are doing just that with vSpace, which they have repositioned as a fully integrated, end-to-end virtualization platform that supports the expected list of technologies: mobility, BYOD and migrations to Windows 7 and 8.
The company, which says it has four million vSpace seats in production supporting 20 million users in 140 countries, has taken a step up from its comfy mid-market, thin client confines to join the chaos of the enterprise desktop fray via its collaboration with Citrix, which includes the development of NComputing's high-performance HDX thin clients for Citrix. In this enterprise space, the company is targeting potential customers in the healthcare, manufacturing and financial services markets.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/05/20120 comments
Mobile network providers who have been aggressively building out their networks and hawking low-priced data plans would be better served by strengthening their security infrastructures and offering value-added security services along with extra protection to end users and their multiplicity of devices. This finding came from a survey of over 1,000 adult smartphone users sponsored by security vendor Crossbeam Systems, and conducted by the firm Opinion Matters in the U.S., U.K. and Germany.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/03/20122 comments
Asigra took the wraps off its Asigra Cloud Backup 12, which it says is the first and only backup solution that backs up all enterprise data in a single, consolidated repository. The new version offers cloud application support for SaaS and PaaS, as well as mobile endpoint support, virtual disaster recovery for VMware environments, and the seemingly mandatory anytime/anywhere enterprise-wide data recovery capability.
Highlights include enterprise-class support for cloud application data, which the company says it employs to protect "the complete" Salesforce.com database, including accounts, contracts, leads, campaigns, and custom objects. An Asigra press release says ,"When recovery is required, users have the option of recovering just the data, or can recover both the schema and data. Users retain control of their Salesforce.com backup data and maintain security with AES 256 encryption in flight and at rest."
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 11/30/20124 comments
Citrix has looked into its crystal ball and come up with some predictions for the coming year, starting with software networking and how it's outpacing physical networking. After establishing that virtualization has had a big impact on datacenter infrastructures, and how this development has been "magnified" by cloud computing, the company gets down with some virtual networking comments i.e. dynamic networks are the way to go as we constantly redefine traffic flow for individual users and VMs. As Citrix puts it, "The stage will be set in 2013 for SDN to become the dominant form of networking."
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 11/29/20120 comments
With its recent introduction of Splashtop for Business, Splashtop has completed its transition from the instant-on movement it championed when it was still called DeviceVM to a global, enterprise-ready purveyor of management and remote access solutions for mobile devices and BYOD environments. As CEO and co-founder Mark Lee puts it, "We're looking at a consumerization play."
Based on customer reaction to date, it looks like Splashtop has hit a nerve. Since the beginning of August, the company has provided prospective users with preview versions of Splashtop for Business via its Early Access program, and according to a release, in just a few months, an "astounding" 10,000 businesses joined the program.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 11/27/20120 comments
Microsoft is in full gloat mode after running across VMware's cost per application calculator and using it to prove that vSphere 5.1 is more expensive than Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 combined. In its Nov. 15 Server & Cloud Blog, Redmond was quick to point out that this is not just about the cost of license acquisition, but also the CAPEX costs for items such as power, space and server hardware.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 11/16/20123 comments
As an early Christmas card to its many and valued service provider partners, VMware did a survey that started out by assessing the pervasiveness of public cloud, moved to addressing the adaptation of IaaS (it's going well), and finally wound its way to updating the challenges facing those valued service providers.
Starting with the pervasiveness of public cloud adoption, VMware didn't really need a survey to tell them that it has moved beyond test and development in many companies. More specifically, the study says that 67 percent of the mid-market and enterprise companies surveyed have implemented what they refer to as mission-critical workloads based on IaaS, and 80 percent of IaaS customers surveyed are running production workloads.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 11/14/20120 comments
The future of software-defined datacenters is still hazy, but NexGen Storage sees an opportunity to capitalize on this enticing phenomenon and challenge VMware for a piece of the action. ioControl 2.1 is the key, which enables users to provision and guarantee VMware datastore performance within vCenter.
NexGen describes ioControl 2.1 as the basis for Storage Quality of Service (QoS), a key enabler that delivers intelligence about system performance and enables users to act on and manage that information without the need for storage performance monitoring software. Storage QoS also enables users to set guaranteed minimum levels of storage system performance directly on a VMware datastore. Users can change the priority and storage performance of any datastore on the fly, in real time, with no downtime.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 11/10/20120 comments
With iWave Storage Automator v6.5, iWave Software is out to save users money by lowering storage administration costs and enabling users to provision, extend and reclaim enterprise storage. The company is in a potentially lucrative market niche with its storage and cloud automation solutions for enterprises, and v6.5 solidifies its standing.
The beneficiaries of the new product's benefits include VMware and Linux admins, and Windows users who are provided with a comprehensive catalog of automated storage services accessible via an intuitive, Web-based, self-service portal.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 10/31/20122 comments
Beleagured network network operations teams who are the first to hear about bad news from aggrieved users when communications links under-perform, got some help from Riverbed Technology when the company introduced Cascade 10.0. This new product addresses network and application performance issues across three levels of virtualization, including VDI, server virtualization and fully virtualized data centers that employ VXLAN software defined networks.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 10/29/20127 comments