Aaron Suzuki, CEO of Prowess is selling SmartDeploy Enterprise, an OS conversion solution that works with Windows 7. What may come as something of a surprise is that 80 percent of his customers are buying it for Windows XP. How could that be, especially since Windows 7 has been so lionized since the day it became available? According to Suzuki, a lot of his customers spent a lot of time and money on their legacy OS environments, and they are not anxious to move off them.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/24/20113 comments
The volume of virtualization and cloud press releases I receive is constant and heavy. I try to do at least a couple of briefings per week, but there is no way I can blog about everybody, even though almost all of them are blog-worthy. That being the case, I am listing a few of the vendors and their products that have gotten my attention in the past few weeks:
Cloud.com is targeting public and private IaaS clouds with CloudStack 2.2, the company's open source cloud computing platform, which expedites cloud deployment, configuration and management. It is available for downloading at the open source cloud computing community.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/22/20112 comments
DR testing is akin to the Doomsday Machine featured in the classic 1964 black comedy film, "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." The Doomsday Machine was a nuclear device built by the Russians that would destroy the world in the event of a nuclear attack, or if someone attempted to deactivate it.
In the film, Peter Sellers plays three roles--all to perfection--but it is as the demented former Nazi and weapons expert, Dr. Strangelove, that he says to the Soviet ambassador, Alexei de Sadiski, "The whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret."
Forty-seven years later, the whole point of having DR systems may also be lost if they are not tested, yet in many cases, that is the case. Jon Toigo, CEO of IT consultancy Toigo Partners International, warns against such omissions, saying, "Testing is the long tail cost of DR planning and not thinking about testing up front, when selecting strategies, will come back to bite you in the butt down the line."
So why the laissez-faire attitude? Here are four primary reasons, and suggested antidotes.
Reason 1: It's a hassle. Many companies don't test their DR systems because it's just too cumbersome in complex IT environments where systems must be up and running 24/7, notes Bob Roudebush, VP of marketing at Neverfail Group. "Of course, the negative ramifications are huge," he adds. "If you don't test your DR, it might not work in a disaster, or you might not know the right steps to take to get your systems back up and running."
Antidote: Roudebush says companies should look to implement solutions that have easy testing capabilities built in. These solutions should minimize the time it takes to test systems, should provide automatic testing functionality and should not cause disruption to running applications and systems.
"IT teams should try to test systems at least twice a year to ensure staff knows how to deal with a disaster, he says. "As is the case with smoke alarms, test when the clocks change for Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time, so it's easy to remember."
Reason 2: Testing is misunderstood. According to Toigo, "People are afraid that they just spent a boatload of money on some data protection scheme, and if they test it, they may fail."
Antidote: In Toigo's opinion, a primary purpose of testing is generating failures so DR systems can be improved. Adds William Hughes, Director, Consulting services BC/DR Center of Excellence at SunGard Availability Services, organizations need to promote the view that a test doesn't need to be passed; it needs to promote improvement. Toigo sums up by declaring: "There are no failed tests."
Reason 3: Resource Restrictions. IT budgets remain tight, and doing more with less is still frequently the corporate mantra. As a result, CIOs or senior IT execs who signed off on purchasing data protection products one day may turn around and say there is no more money to test them the next. "Projects are generally reducing costs or creating opportunities," says Hughes. "It's very hard to impact either one of those areas."
Antidote: Hughes says organizations should re-evaluate their validation and testing processes, and determine ways to minimize the impact on them. That could involve using a third party to conduct the exercise or simply using less constrained resources to participate.
Reason 4: What's it Worth to Me? The lack of perceived value is a major DR testing bugaboo that results when DR testing is viewed as insurance that may never show any kind of ROI.
Antitodote: According to Hughes, "This is an issue that plays with resource constraints, since it's certainly harder to extract resources to support something that's not perceived as having high value." He goes on to note that this can happen because the organization looks at the implementation of the solution as the end point, rather than an inflection point. Or it may be that the organization has validated the solution a number of times and sees it as routine or easy. By using testing to continuously raise expectations, there is an ongoing state of improvement that reflects the increased value of testing.
Concludes Toigo: "A disaster is a messy thing by nature, and you can't anticipate all the messiness, so you do your best to test, test, test, because that is essentially a rehearsal. William Shakespeare said "All things are ready if our minds be so."
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/16/20111 comments
In the course of interviewing Citrix president and CEO Mark Templeton yesterday for a profile I am writing on Citrix, I asked him what his reaction was to Paul Maritz's presidental title being divided among four new co-presidents, while Maritz retained his CEO job. As I expected, Templeton was circumspect and largely unwilling to speculate on what was going on behind the scenes, because he said he just didn't know. He did compliment Maritz as a competitor and a person, saying that he thought the VMware CEO was involved in the formulation of the plans that called for his title change.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/15/20117 comments
With this week's introduction of vCenter Operations, VMware is making available a new set of algorithms and health models optimized for the VMware environment. These capabilities provide the market leader with previously missing monitoring, analysis, and correlation capabilities that leverage metrics and data collected by vCenter and vSphere.
Couching the new product in cloud terms, as VMware typically does, the company says vCenter Operations is able to match the velocity of emerging intelligent virtual environments via enhanced management tools and processes specifically designed to handle the unique, dynamic properties of cloud computing. For example, this means replacing the very slow provisioning that has traditionally bogged down management, with self-service provisioning based on real time decisions.
According to VMware, its management strategy is to "further simplify IT by integrating performance, capacity and configuration management, and applying analytics to help customers achieve the degree of automation required to operate a cloud environment."
In the view of IDC Research VP Mary Johnston Turner, vCenter Operations represents a "major expansion" in both the scope and sophistication of VMware's management portfolio. "Until this announcement, the vCenter and vCloud Director product families have delivered most of their value in the areas of VM configuration, self-service and automation," Johnston Turner notes, adding "vCenter Operations adds tight integration across performance, capacity and configuration management disciplines, starting with existing performance and capacity planning products and including the advanced analytics and dashboards provided by a significantly enhanced implementation of the Alive product, which was recently acquired via the Integrien acquisition."
Rob Smoot, VMware Director of Product Marketing for Management, says the company's strategy calls for a new console that is tightly integrated with vSphere, and understands all of the underlying systems supported by that flagship platform, including servers, storage, networks and other aspects of the underlying infrastructure. He also cites the Integrien acquisition, which allows VMware to offer advanced analytics that aggregate data into a view of the performance, capacity and health of the environment. Once the data is aggregated, the system then provides smart alerts that "cut through the noise" in IT operations centers where customers are frequently inundated with alerts that are tied to specific infrastructure components.
In summing up the high-level capabilities of vCenter Operations, VMware says it provides infrastructure and operations teams with the intelligence they need to proactively ensure service levels in dynamic cloud environments, get to the root cause of performance problems faster, optimize deployments in real-time to enable self-service provisioning, and maintain compliance in highly changeable environments.
vCenter Operations will be available in three editions for managing both virtualized and physical environments. vCenter Operations Standard offers performance management with capacity and change awareness for vSphere-virtualized and cloud environments; vCenter Operations Advanced adds more advanced capacity analytics and planning to vCenter Operations Standard's performance management for VMware vSphere-virtualized and cloud environments; and vCenter Operations Enterprise offers performance, capacity and configuration management capabilities for both virtual and physical environments and includes customizable dashboards, smart alerting and application awareness.
Initial versions of the three editions are expected to be available by the end of March, with prices beginning at $50 per virtual machine. vCenter Operations will be available via VMware sales and through the company's 25,000 channel partners.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/08/20110 comments
Lately, I've been seeing some high-level similarities between the housing market at its height in 2005-2006 and the desktop virtualization/cloud markets of today. Like the housing market, desktop virtualization--which includes VDI--and cloud computing have been expanding rapidly with seemingly no end in sight. The big difference, of course, is that these two high-flying IT markets have been proliferating in the face of our worst recession since 1929, which makes their growth even more impressive. Still, it's hard not to wonder when the bubble will burst.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/03/20110 comments
For all its technological worth, storage remains a major pain in the neck to implementers of desktop virtualization. It's too complex, too expensive, and too inflexible--for starters. In its latest free report, entitled "Building the Virtual Infrastructure with DataCore SANsymphony-V," the Taneja Group takes on the storage challenge by providing extensive background on the topic, and reviewing in detail how SANsymphony applies to Windows Server Hyper-V environments.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/02/20116 comments
Saying it wants to reboot IT by creating a "just-add-water-and-stir solution," Shavlik Technologies is trying to streamline the manageability and security of IT infrastructures by taking control of all network-based physical and virtual machines. Toward that end, Shavlik is taking the wraps off its newly released NetChk 7.8 Protect and NetChk vProtect versions of the NetChk Protect product line.
The company also says it is now offering an easy migration path to VMware as the market leader moves its OS and application patching out of vCenter. Put it all together, says president and CEO Mark Shavlik, and his company claims to be the first to offer SMBs a complete solution for managing physical and virtual machines whether they are online or offline.
The company, which Shavlik calls "private and very profitable," is reportedly the only virtualization vendor that can replace the VMware Update Manager (VUM) functionality for VMware users. It accomplishes this through Net Chk vProtect.
NetChk vProtect comes with one free CPU license of 10 seats. Additional licenses start at $450 for a 3-CPU license per year, and the product is available in March.
NetChk Protect 7.8 was created to prevent CIOs and technical managers at SMBs from falling prey to VM sprawl and losing track of their VMs in the process. Through the use of agentless technology, NetChk Protect 7.8 discovers and patches these would-be rogue VMs online or offline or via templates, bringing them back into the virtualization fold, and increasing network security. Shavlik is especially high on its ability to manage VMs offline, which boosts the company's image as a one-stop shop.
NetChk Protect 7.8 starts at $27 per machine per year and will be available in March. With 4,000 customers and a 92 percent retention rate, Shavlik thinks its strategy of making life easier for users will continue to pay off.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/01/20110 comments
2X Software VirtualDesktopServer 9 was created to integrate the rapidly expanding and dynamic world of client devices with traditional IT environments. It does this by providing application and virtual desktop delivery to a wide range of machines, ranging from PCs and workstations to mobile up-and-comers like iPhone, iPad and Android.
2X, which says it is adding 200-250 new customers each month, is also using the new release to enhance the implementation and management of tried-and-true virtualized IT infrastructures such as Microsoft Terminal, Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, VMware vSphere, ESX and ESXi, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, Oracle VirtualBox, and Windows Remote Desktop Services/Windows Terminal Services, to name but a few.
According to 2X CEO Nikolaos Makris, VirtualDesktopServer 9 enables users to pool their desktops for purposes such as accounting and support and then publish applications from these environments. In addition, Templates enable admins to ease the burden of distributing desktops to users by creating desktops from a single template. V9 also provides Wyse Desktop Broker support.
Makris emphasizes 2X's role as a connection broker that delivers many different technologies, saying. "We don't care if it's Terminal Server or VMware, we're very, very flexible. We connect you from any technology you have." That means Android co-exists with old PCs in IT harmony.
The CEO says 2X Software is private, profitable and has no long-term debt.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/24/20113 comments
Re: Responses to my “Why Bother with Cheap Shots?” blog:
My blog was not about rehashing whether or not VMware View is a server-based computing solution. The not-so-fine points of that dispute were already beaten to death.
What I addressed was the issue of civil discourse, which earned me a dressing down from some of our opinionated -- and anonymous -- readers (see the comments to that blog). I don't think it's too much to ask that competitors disagree without calling each other liars and making the strongest possible defamatory comments they can about each other. If this allowed to go on, where do you draw the line? At what point do you demand that people make their points without lacing them with a lot of extraneous and vindictive commentary that does nothing to advance anybody's position?
My position is, I want our readers to get the best, most helpful information they can find anywhere without having to wade through childish rants and cheap shots. If you want to pillory me for that, be my guest.
I'm not trying to police anybody here; I'm just trying to do my job, which is to serve our readers in the best way I can. I want vendors to vigorously disagree with each other in the strongest -- but still civil -- terms they can muster. I love a good food fight as much as the next editor, but I refuse to condone, or provide space for, pointless tirades that waste everybody's time.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/22/201112 comments
It's dog-eat-dog out there in the highly competitive realm of desktop virtualization/VDI, and competitors are not pulling their punches, nor should they. Each company in this increasingly crowded space is selling a different product vision, and it's in the best interest of buyers if these competitors wooing their dollars compare and contrast themselves as clearly as possible. That's just good business.
What's not good business is accusing competitors of being "caught in a lie again" and asserting that with them, "Integrity and ethics are optional." That's where I think Citrix CTO Harry Labana has crossed the line in his current spat with VMware over whether or not VMware View is a server-based computing solution.
The thing that surprises me about this--and maybe I'm just naïve--is that it seems very un-Citrix-like. Don't get me wrong; I've seen Simon Crosby go after VMware with a vengeance, but I have not heard of him calling them, in effect congenital liars who only employ integrity and ethics when it serves their hypocritical needs.
In fact, when I interviewed Simon for a Citrix profile I was working on last year, I gave him every opportunity to get in some good shots at VMware, but he refused to denigrate them (maybe that's what blogs are for). The same was true for president and CEO Mark Templeton, whom I also interviewed, and who would only praise VMware for their accomplishments.
This shameful, boring brouhaha has now entered its second round of strident claims and counterclaims, and guess who's winning? No one. Guess who cares? No one. Guess who looks bad? Everyone.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/17/20116 comments
The data protection people at Quest are energized and on the move with a new version of vRanger Pro, which it calls the first comprehensive data protection suite for VMware; and the acquisition of Bakbone Software and its NetVault brand. Calling data protection a "strategic force," Quest also formed a business unit around that technology.
Looking at the bigger picture, Quest also announced favorable fourth quarter financial results, with revenues of $216.8, representing 11.5 percent growth in license revenues; and fiscal year 2010 revenues of $761.1 million, which represents a 14.8 percent growth of license revenues.
The new version of vRanger Pro features integrated backup and replication, with one console for flexible deployment and licensing. It also provides native cataloging with integrated restore to locate and restore individual files. A third new feature is Fibre Restore, which expedites recovery and eliminates LAN traffic by using Fibre Channel Infrastructure.
Quest also streamlined its data protection offerings by including all the capabilities of Quest Software vReplicator in vRanger pro, providing organizations with VWware protection in a single console. "With the vRanger and vReplicator product family, Quest allows customers to license and deploy the exact level of protection they need: low impact application and Web servers may need backup-only licensing while mission-critical servers receive a combination of backup and replication coverage," the company said.
The BakBone acquisition gives Quest a real shot in the arm and a more impressive product arsenal via the inclusion of four products under the NetVault brand that provide continuous data protection, deduplication, replication and disk-based and tape backup. NetVault solutions will be available as both a suite and individually.
Anxious to share its enhanced data protection environment with an industry audience, Quest says it will take the wraps off its strategic roadmap for the future of its Bakbone products and compatible data protection solutions by the end of Q1.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/15/201111 comments
When I spoke with the Netuitive people at VMWorld last summer, they were very happy about what they had accomplished with their technology, which is based on the company’s patented Behavior Learning Engine, and replaces manual, rules-based approaches with statistical analysis that automatically correlates and self-learns the operational behavior of IT systems and applications. It then forecasts problems before they can impact performance, and isolates root cause wherever a problem occurs.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/10/20116 comments
Igor Papirov is a cofounder of Paraleap Technologies, which he started in 2010 to market AzureWatch, a product that dynamically adjusts the number of compute instances dedicated to Azure users based on real-time demand. In other words, it scales Azure up and down as needed.
Paraleap has no venture funding, no debt and a very nontraditional sales channel consisting of social media, blogs, Internet feeds and presumably, people wearing sandwich boards and shouting through megaphones.
As for competing with Amazon's EC2 product, Papirov says AzureWatch has the edge, because its platform-as-a-service (PaaS) technology abstracts users further away from the complexities of Azure than does EC2's Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) approach. "EC2 does not entirely abstract users from dealing with issues relating to the OS, configuration and management," he states.
The company, which turned between 60 and 70 of its beta testers into full-fledged customers, also has something of an angel investor in Microsoft, which has not directly invested in Paraleap, but has developed a very friendly relationship that includes joint presentations, promotions, key referrals and a keen interest in the start-up's technology. "Microsoft has taken a great interest in our company," Papirov declares. "We've been in contact with them since the early days of beta."
AzureWatch installs out of the box in 10 minutes without a single line of code, spins compute instances up or down in compliance with custom rules, and has a powerful monitoring capability that watches any number of queues while tracking any number of performance metrics across all compute instances. And it does all this automatically via its self-provisioning capability that eliminates over-provisoning and the need for human monitoring.
The product employs the popular pay-for-what-you-use approach based on five plans corresponding to Azure instance sizes.
This is a product that just seems to make sense, but the question is, how far is it ahead of its time? Papirov admits that Azure is a year away from widespread corporate acceptance, and by then, I'd say the chances are pretty good that Redmond will have made him a deal he couldn't refuse for his interesting and innovative company.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/08/20111 comments
Wyse Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Jeff McNaught is not the kind of guy who holds much back when it comes to pitching new products, and Wyse is more than happy to have an enthusiastic, articulate guy like him out on the road, proselytizing to the press corps, pundits, bloggers, et al. Therefore, I tend to be somewhat skeptical when I talk to him, but after hearing his spiel about the new Wyse Z90 thin client, it's hard not to be impressed.
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Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/03/20119 comments