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.
However, he thinks that attitude may be changing as more and more companies are freeing up IT budget dollars for long-overdue hardware and OS refreshes. "There's a lot of growth happening now in Windows 7," he notes, adding, "We see a window of opportunity to grow and win market share."
Specifically, Suzuki is targeting SmartDeploy Enterprise at companies with 2,000 to 5,000 seats that are trying to support "exotic" solutions, but lack the IT resources to do so, and will benefit from a Win 7 conversion. Many of these companies have had to build images for each of their hardware environments, which everyone knows by now is time-consuming and costly. Not to mention complex. Suzuki also speaks of customers who have encountered up to 76 scripts they have to work within their convoluted environments. And then there are all the problems they've had finding and managing the right drivers.
Prowess is touting SmartDeploy Enterprise for its upgrade to Windows PE 3.0, which is used for the deployment of workstations and servers. The company claims this upgrade gives customers "greater flexibility, easier integration with more IT management solutions, and more robust customization capabilities."
Two more technical highlights are a wizard-driven interface that guides users through the conversion process, and the inclusion of driver packages for business-class computers that can be created by request if they are not previously available.
SmartDeploy Enterprise supports all Windows OSes from Windows 2000 SP4 forward, and is available in the form of a free, fully functional trial and related product resources at www.smartdeploy.com.
Pricing starts at $2,295 per-technician for unlimited deployment and includes one year of basic support.
[Editor's note: This story was updated 4/6 with a correction to Windows 2000 SP4.]
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/24/2011 at 12:48 PM3 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.
CloudStack Community Edition is an open source (GPLv3) product and is free to download and use. CloudStack Enterprise and Service Provider editions cost $10,000 per year on a subscription basis for the management server license and five nodes (storage or compute) to be put under management. Additional nodes cost $1,000 per year.
Gale Technologies Looking to convert your existing IT infrastructure into a private or hybrid cloud in just two steps taking two weeks or less? Gale Technologies claims they have the package for you. The company says GaleForce Turnkey Cloud is the one and only product to offer "composite automation and orchestration that allows provisioning of bare metal as well as virtual resources, enabling organizations to run all their applications, virtualized or not, in the cloud." Starting price: $50,000, which includes the GaleForce 5.3 Server, support for up to 15 physical resources, and up to 60 VMs.
Microsoft App-V 4.6 SP1 enhances and expedites the virtualization of applications and features package accelerators that make it easier for customers to virtualize their apps and enable app delivery. MED-V 2.0 breaks down legacy application obstacles, enabling IT staff to expedite their Windows 7 migrations. It also offers integration features between System Center Configuration Manager and third-party solutions.
VMTurbo VMTurbo Virtualization ManagementSuite joins the growing number of management software products that helps users detect problems, analyze their potential impacts, and suggest automated actions to forestall any damage. The suite is based on its abilities to combine real-time operational performance metrics and analytics, deliver cost-efficient infrastructure performance, provide ongoing pro-active management, and support systemic lifecycle data center management. It is available for VMware ESX Server or vSphere 3.5u2 or later, and VMware vCenter 2.5 or later, and costs $399 per socket.
Gluster At at time when storage is being targeted as a major impediment to VM and cloud environments, Gluster's Virtual Storage Appliances "integrate GlusterFS into a virtual machine for deployment on any VMware-certified hardware or cloud platform. For Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gluster FS is packaged in an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for deployment on the AWS public cloud." Pricing is approximately $4,000-$5,000 per year, with monthly pricing and professional services options available.
VKernel The words "monitor, diagnose, and resolve performance issues" are becoming more and more commonplace as users increasingly virtualize their IT infrastructures, and VKernel is using them to describe its new VKernel Performance Analyzer, which works with VMware vCenter to provide real-time analysis of system metrics and alerts that determine aberrant trends, root causes, impacts and resolutions of VMware performance issues. Pricing starts at $299 per socket, per application.
InMage The nascent Recovery as a Service market (RaaS) expanded by one product with the introduction of InMage ScoutCloud, which combines best-of-breed data protection; a P2V and V2V engine that supports failover/failback capabilities for applications; automated provisioning of VMs and associated storage; and a "full-fledged" multi-tenant portal for deployment and management. InMage ScoutCloud was designed to allow managed service and cloud providers to expedite time to market while providing "near-zero" RPO and RTO-capable RaaS.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/22/2011 at 12:48 PM2 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 03/16/2011 at 12:48 PM1 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.
Templeton is human. He couldn't help but speculate about what is going on with his chief competitor, and I'm sure plenty of his lieutenants have engaged him in conversation, but in my opinion, he's not the kind of guy who is just dying to know what's going on with Maritz. What good would it really do him? I don't see him playing on Maritz's mysterious status in an effort to pry customers away from VMware, or prevent new customers from signing up with them. He'd rather win points against VMware in the marketplace than in the rumor mill.
So why do presidents become ex-presidents? Financial performance is high on the list of things that come to mind, and if you based Maritz's performance on financial results, he seems to be doing pretty well. Fourth quarter 2010 revenues were $836 million, a healthy increase of 37 percent over the same period in 2009. Over all, in 2010, VMware had revenues of $2.9 billion, which represented a whopping 41 percent increase over 2009. The company's stock price has been up and down, with a 52-week low of $51.23, and a 52-week high of $97.61, and as of this morning, it was at $79.22. However, VMware certainly hasn't been the only company to experience those kinds of bumps in this fragile economy.
When I asked VMware for an update on the situation, they sent me the original reference to the early February SEC filing dryly detailing the changes, and also included a brief statement saying, "After completing an outstanding year in 2010, and with the need to drive even greater focus across the three layers of VMware's strategy, key leaders are stepping up to make further contributions. These organizational changes are in response to the tremendous opportunities before us to help our customers navigate the journey to cloud computing."
That is not exactly what I would call a ringing endorsement for the leader who played such a key role in making VMware the powerhouse it has become.
It's interesting that VMware is staying so quiet about the situation, which is only made worse by all the negative speculation it has spawned. One way or the other, this co-president things sounds weird, kludgy, and not likely to last very long to me. Does Maritz still have the final say on all important, company-wide decisions? Are the co-presidents really presidential when it comes to who rules the roost? Two years from now, will this whole situation be remembered as nothing more than an awkward shifting of the corporate gears?
What do you think? Is more presidential power at the top good for VMware and its customers? Chime in here.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/15/2011 at 12:48 PM7 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 03/08/2011 at 12:48 PM0 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.
The only things bursting at AppSense and DynamicOps are champagne corks, as both companies received venture-backed financial shots in the arm during the past 10 days. First, AppSense reported a $70 million infusion from Goldman Sachs, and then DynamicOps followed with news of an $11 million boost from Sierra Ventures.
AppSense has hung its hat on "user virtualization," in which personalization is managed independently of the desktop and applied on demand to personalize desktops. The company closed out 2010 with record revenues, a slew of high-profile customers such as ESPN, JPMorgan Chase and United Airlines, and announced a new distribution agreement with Ingram Micro. AppSense is one of those companies that gets other larger companies, such as VMware, talking about them.
DynamicOps has been cashing in on the lucrative private cloud market with its DynamicOps Cloud Automation Center, which enables enterprise orchestration of service delivery in private and public clouds by providing automated delivery and management of on-demand IT services. Despite competition from Quest's Surgient subsidiary and a raft of automation software start-ups, DynamicOps reported 200 percent year-over-year revenue growth from '10 to '11.
Shakeout? What shakeout? An optimist would say that the success of these two companies only lends credence to claims that the virtualization and cloud markets are recession-proof and that unbounded riches await the companies who stick it out through the hard times.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/03/2011 at 12:48 PM0 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.
I think you will be impressed by the meticulous, objective quality of this report. In order to access it, go to http://tanejagroup.com, and click on "Free Reports" under "Profiles/Reports."
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 03/02/2011 at 12:48 PM6 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 03/01/2011 at 12:48 PM0 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 02/24/2011 at 12:48 PM3 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 02/22/2011 at 12:48 PM12 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 02/17/2011 at 12:48 PM6 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 02/15/2011 at 12:48 PM11 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.
Now the company, whose technology is in use at eight of the world’s 10 largest banks in terms of asset size, is taking the next step by announcing plans for what it calls “the industry’s first predictive IT analytics platform for end-to-end analysis of performance and capacity management in the cloud.”
As part of that platform, during Q4 of this year, Netuitive will introduce Integration Studio, which the company describes as an open development environment that enables customers to plug in data streams from any monitoring source In this environment. As the company puts it, “Data is collected and normalized in Netuitive’s integration hub, analyzed by Netuitive’s predictive IT analytics software powered by behavior learning technology, with actionable outputs delivered based on the analysis.”
Due out in Q3 is a “Trusted Triggers” feature that includes proactive capabilities relating to resource provisioning and infrastructure right-sizing. According to Netuitive VP Daniel Heimlich, Trusted Triggers can automatically and simultaneously correlate thousands of metrics, and send a trigger to orchestration software that provides the right-sizing provisioning.
Heimlich said that at some point, Netuitive software may be fine-tuned to the point where it can detect the impact of ambient temperature or even weather patterns on server performance. That’s wild stuff, but it will only be hot until something cooler comes along.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/10/2011 at 12:48 PM6 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 02/08/2011 at 12:48 PM1 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.
The Z90, which is based on Windows Embedded Standard 7, employs AMD G-series processors, and according to McNaught, blows the doors off its nearest competitor, HP's t5740, in both low gear (the single core version) and high gear (the dual core version). Specifically, he says the single core model is 23 percent faster than the t5740, while the dual core offering is 187 percent faster "in its most aggressive configuration." Throw in support for 5 gigabit/sec USB ports, available integrated A/B/G/N dual band Wi-Fi or FibreNIC and the "very fast" claims made by McNaught ring anything but hollow. There's also plenty of headroom for video-based apps such as the high-res displays used for health care.
All this while consuming a stingy, ENERGY STAR-compliant 12.9 watts of power.
The Z90 shines even more when it is paired with Wyse's new "hugely intelligent" software technology, Project Pyramid, which auto-configures the Z90 in two minutes once you take it out of the box, plug it into the network, and hit the power button. McNaught says this capability makes the Z90 the first, self-configuring client product line in the desktop virtualization industry, and also makes it the equal of a PC. You know Wyse put a lot of work into Project Pyramid, when he says, "We filed eight patents on this technology."
"Ninety percent of desktops now are PCs, but that number will change to ten percent in 10 years. I am convinced now that that is really going to happen," he adds.
The Z90 is not cheap, and it is anything but a zero client, but it secures Wyse's status as a VDI player to watch.
Wyse also announced a joint agreement with Kaviza, which offers the VDI In-a-Box desktop virtualization product, to offer Wyse-Kaviza for SMB, which Wyse calls "a low-cost yet complete virtual desktop solution designed to help small and medium-sized businesses realize the key benefits of desktop virtualization with minimum complexity."
Project Pyramid will be available during Q1 2011 for Windows Embedded Standard 7, and in Q2 for Windows Embedded Standard 2009.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/03/2011 at 12:48 PM9 comments