On May 15th NVIDIA unveiled the NVIDIA® VGX™ platform that will be available later this year through NVIDIA’s hardware OEM and VDI partners.

This new platform promises to deliver a desktop experience  comparable to a local PC, up to 100 VDI users for each single server equipped with a VGX board.

NVIDIA VGX represents a new era in desktop virtualization. It delivers an experience nearly indistinguishable from a full desktop while substantially lowering the cost of a virtualized PC.

said Jeff Brown, general manager of the Professional Solutions Group at NVIDIA.

This product is intended for those kind of users who work with 3D design softwares and simulation tools and is designed to be integrated into enterprise IT departments providing an integration layer for commercial hypervisors (the news only talks about Citrix XenServer) and a level of manageability that allows to configure the graphics capabilities delivered to individual users in the network, based on their demands.

NVIDIA describes as follows the three key technologies of this solution:

NVIDIA VGX Boards
NVIDIA VGX boards are the world’s first GPU boards designed for data centers. The initial NVIDIA VGX board features four GPUs, each with 192 NVIDIA CUDA® architecture cores and 4 GB of frame buffer. Designed to be passively cooled, the board fits within existing server-based platforms.

The boards benefit from a range of advancements, including hardware virtualization, which enables many users who are running hosted virtual desktops to share a single GPU and enjoy a rich, interactive graphics experience; support for low-latency remote display, which greatly reduces the lag currently experienced by users; and, redesigned shader technology to deliver higher power efficiency.

NVIDIA VGX GPU Hypervisor
The NVIDIA VGX GPU Hypervisor is a software layer that integrates into a commercial hypervisor, enabling access to virtualized GPU resources. This allows multiple users to share common hardware and ensure virtual machines running on a single server have protected access to critical resources. As a result, a single server can now economically support a higher density of users, while providing native graphics and GPU computing performance.

This new technology is being integrated by leading virtualization companies, such as Citrix, to add full hardware graphics acceleration to their full range of VDI products.

NVIDIA User Selectable Machines
NVIDIA USMs allow the NVIDIA VGX platform to deliver the advanced experience of professional GPUs to those requiring them across an enterprise. This enables IT departments to easily support multiple types of users from a single server.

USMs allow better utilization of hardware resources, with the flexibility to configure and deploy new users’ desktops based on changing enterprise needs. This is particularly valuable for companies providing infrastructure as a service, as they can repurpose GPU-accelerated servers to meet changing demand throughout the day, week or season.

Labels: NVIDIA, VDI

Microsoft announced this week the new Beta version of its capacity planning tool Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) 7.0 Beta.

The Beta program opened on May 15th and the review period will run through July 5th.

To download the beta materials on Connect follow this link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=219165

To join the beta review program follow this link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=171065

The new features introduced in version 7.0 include Windows Server 2012 Beta readiness assessment, VDI readiness assessment and the ability to plan for virtualization assessment of Linux server.

MAP 7.0 supports SQL Server 2012 discovery and migration planning and, along with Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter, simplifies the migration of VMware virtual machine to Hyper-V.

Key features and benefits of MAP 7.0 Beta help you:

• Understand your readiness to deploy Windows in your environment with hardware and device readiness assessments
• Determine Windows Server 2012 Beta readiness
• Investigate how Windows Server and System Center can manage your heterogeneous environment through VMware migration and Linux server virtualization assessments
• Size your desktop virtualization needs for both Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and session-based virtualization using Remote Desktop Services
• Ready your information platform for the cloud with the SQL Server 2012 discovery and migration assessment
• Evaluate your licensing needs with usage tracking for Lync 2010, active users and devices, SQL Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 Beta

Labels: Capacity Planning, Microsoft, Release

Today VMware announced VMware vFabric Suite 5.1, expected to be generally available in Q2 2012.

vFabric Suite 5.1 includes vFabric Application Director, to automate the deployment and management of vFabric applications on VMware cloud infrastructure and SQLFire Enterprise Edition, an in-memory distributed SQL database that will enable application data to meet cloud scale with the needed performances.

vFabric Suite leverages Spring development framework, inherited from SpringSource acquisition in 2009, vFabric application services and a per-VM licensing model to provide a comprehensive infrastructure oriented to the deployment of cloud-ready applications.

Part of this broader shift in application infrastructure was the move to cloud and application deployment on virtual infrastructure. Traditional application servers simply weren’t designed, optimized or licensed for this new world. These legacy systems are too cumbersome, too costly, and definitely not cloud-ready. We saw the need for a new breed of application infrastructure to support this new world of applications.

said Jerry Chen, vice president, Cloud and Application Services, VMware.

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Labels: vFabric, VMware

On April 4 Stephen Herrod, VMware’s CTO, has attended, as guest speaker, at a VMUG meeting in Italy.

One of the key point of the speech, documented in one hour-long seven-part video series, was the need to increase the automation and integration between VMware’s various products, topic about which Herrod reassured those present confirming VMware’s awareness of the problem.

Of this long speech the statement that has inflamed internet is

VMware Cloud Infrastructure Suite is really more of a marketing term. Those of you know our products deeply know that they don’t fit this well together as they need to. Some of them have multiple databases, some don’t look the same, some install differently, and what I can’t stand that is Site Recovery Manager doesn’t currently work with vCloud Director. So, what we are basically able to say is that we created and acquired companies that led to a lot of individual products that don’t work well enough together yet.

as reported by Dave Northey on Microsoft’s TechNet blog.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Re-inserted in the context and completed with the last assertion

So a huge focus for the company is really how we make it become a suite.

as cleverly noted David Marshall in his article, this confirm the awareness of VMware and the will to solve the problem, as mentioned before.

What Herrod said simply describes the reality of a company that has acquired a variety of technologies from different companies and now is struggling to reunite them together in one or more suites, what we can certainly say is that the new position of prominence of vCOPS and the new integrations provided by VMware’s partners are a signal of a new path towards the light.

Labels: VMware

Last week Citrix announced a new tech preview for Hosted Server VDI technology that allows cloud providers to leverage Microsoft SPLA to host VDI-style desktops obtaining a pay-as-you-go monthly subscription licensing to offer costumers the ability to install applications and usb peripherals.

As discussed before for other companies, service providers are unable to cost-effectively offer these virtual desktop capabilities, to multiple costumers, with VDI based on Windows 7 because client operating systems are not covered by Microsoft SPLA program, Hosted Server VDI Tech Preview, targeted at nearly 2.000 Citrix Service Providers, bypass the problem using Windows Server 2008 R2 instead of Windows 7 making the solution fully enabled for multi-tenenacy in the Microsoft program.

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Labels: Citrix, Microsoft

On May 7 Atlantis Computing announced the general availability of its Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI 3.2, this product, tailored in particular for VMware View 5.1, enables virtual desktops deployment with no storage.

Atlantis claims to lower the cost of virtual desktops below $200 per desktop with its product that performs IO traffic processing and inline duplication of images to run all desktops from local server memory.

In particular release 3.2 includes advanced compression and Fast Cloning technologies for VMware View 5.1 and seems to be able to reduce the size of VMware View linked-clones to around 500MB per desktop using a combination of inline reduplication and compression technologies.

Atlantis Computing says that its Fast Cloning technology, integrated with Diskless VDI, is able to clone virtual desktop images in five seconds per desktop enabling the deployment of 100 VMware View 5.1 virtual desktops per server in 8.5 minutes.

Atlantis ILIO has been tested with VMware View, VMware ThinApp® Linked-Clones and Persona as part of the “VMware View, Atlantis ILIO and Trend Micro Reference Architecture”. To read the document, visit
https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/7611/files/2489

Atlantis ILIO is certified as VMware Ready and can be found within the VMware Solution Exchange at
https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/7611

What’s New in Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI 3.2?

• Advanced Image Compression – Reduces the amount of memory needed per virtual desktop image.
• Fast Cloning for Diskless VDI – Atlantis ILIO Fast Cloning can clone virtual desktop images in 5 seconds, making it possible to deploy 100 VMware View 5.1 virtual desktops in less than 8 1/2 minutes.

Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI Benefits Include:

• Unmatched Performance – Dramatically improves all aspects of desktop performance including boot, login, application launches, patching and anti-virus scanning.
• Lower Cost – Atlantis ILIO reduces the cost per desktop from both a CAPEX and OPEX perspective: - CAPEX – The upfront cost per desktop can be decreased to under $200 per desktop including the server hardware, Atlantis ILIO license and storage. - OPEX – Diskless VDI architectures mean that IT organizations can lower operating expenses by eliminating rack space for SAN/NAS storage, lower power consumption and cooling costs, and eliminate the operational expenses of maintaining disk-based storage including replacing failed disks.
• Increased Lifespan – Memory does not suffer from the lifespan issues SSDs have when dealing with write-intensive VDI workloads. Diskless VDI architectures have lower operational costs as disk failure and replacement have been completely eliminated.

Labels: Atlantis Computing, Release, VDI, VMware View

On May 7 Citrix announced a technology preview of Project Aruba that extends Citrix VDI all-in-one proposal for the SMB market, VDI-in-a-Box, with personal vDisk technology.

VDI-in-a-Box, inherited from Kaviza acquisition in May 2011, already eliminates  much of the traditional VDI infrastructure, including shared storage and dedicated load balanced connection brokers, with a simple deployment of the virtual appliance on the hypervisor of choice.

Project Aruba uses vDisks layering technology, obtained with Ringcube acquisition, to manage end-user applications and preferences allowing Virtual Desktops personalization and flexibility.

Project Aruba provides the following key features:

• Personalized virtual desktops: You no longer have to choose between consolidating management using desktop pools versus delivering end-users the flexibility to install their own applications and data.  Project Aruba eliminates the need to create separate static desktops to carry forward end-user customization by coupling single-instance management with the ability to have individual user workspaces for their applications and data.
• Single instance management: Rather than juggling many persistent desktops, IT can maintain one master copy of desktop images while preserving the personalization of user applications and data. This dramatically reduces maintenance efforts and cuts datacenter storage costs up to 90 percent.
• Support for Windows 2008 R2: Project Aruba manages Windows 2008 R2, Windows 7 and Windows XP –based virtual desktops – enabling customers to select the ideal virtual desktop environment based on compatibility and costs.
• Cost-effective Windows-as-a-Service with VDI: Project Aruba extends the Citrix vision of enabling Windows-as-a-Service and adds a simple yet highly cost-effective VDI option based on Citrix VDI-in-a-Box to the already successful Citrix Service Provider (CSP) portfolio of hosted-shared desktops with XenApp, and enterprise-class desktop virtualization with XenDesktop.  The newly released reference architecture for Desktops-as-a-Service provides a validated blueprint for service providers looking to deliver VDI-based Desktops-as-a-Service at a fraction of the costs of other alternatives while complying with Microsoft licensing.
• Windows 8 support (Beta): Project Aruba runs Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8 virtual desktops.  All features of Windows 8 including the new Metro interface are fully supported.  Since Windows 8 is not yet generally available, this feature is currently in Beta.
• Simpler, more flexible: Project Aruba makes management even simpler and more efficient with added features such as access to multiple data stores for optimizing storage, and a touchless DTAgent that updates the desktop agent on all golden images and their desktop instances  automatically when the VDI-in-a-Box software is upgraded.

Labels: Citrix, Release, VDI

VMware customers hope that vSphere virtualization products will soon have more automation and integration.

On May 7 Cloud Sidekick announced the Early Access Program release of Cato Enterprise Edition (EE) which extends the Community Edition (CE) with Storm Deployment Automation and support for High Availability management server configurations.

With these new features Cato further abstracts AWS API providing the ability to write automation workflows for both AWS public cloud service and private clouds based on Eucalyptus.

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Labels: Cloud Sidekick, Eucalyptus Systems

On April 26 VMware announced the general availability of VMware vCenter Infrastructure Navigator (VIN) 1.1, previously introduced as a part of vCenter Operations Management Suite.

VIN automatically detects, discovers and maps all the applications virtualized on vSphere reporting all the characteristics and dependencies through vSphere Web Client, visual maps and searchable tables.

There is no need to install additional agents because VIN leverages VMware tools.

An interesting features is the ability to map discovered serves and apps into Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Protection Groups highlighting the impact of all the VM dependencies and the risks associated.

In this new release is introduced the ability to name undiscovered application services that are not present in the knowledge base or are custom applications, and now VIN, as a part of the vCenter Operations Management Enterprise & Enterprise + Suites, provides an additional level of application visibility useful in performance and uptime management procedures.

Labels: management, VMware, vSphere

On May 3 VMware released a security update, that the company itself define as “accelerated“, with the purpose to patch five “critical” security issues across VMware ESX and ESXi hypervisor version 3.5, 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0 and also two of the client products, VMware Workstation and Player.

As reported in the Security Note, this update is connected to the source code leak announced on April 24.

Albeit VMware didn’t release any detail about the leak so far, ThreatPost, run by Kaspersky Lab, indicates “Hardcore Charlie” as the hacker claiming to have stolen 300 Megabytes of VMware source code from the military contractor China National Import & Export Corp (CEIEC).

Despite VMware quotes the event in the note, doesn’t evidence any link between the discovered vulnerabilities and the stolen code, merely suggesting the update as a normal security procedure.

1. Are these software patches related to source code associated with the April 23rd incident?

VMware has consistently provided software updates and patches to help customers maintain the most reliable and secure environment. In light of the current circumstances, we have accelerated our most recent security patches and applied them to all affected currently supported products.

Labels: Leaks, Security, VMware

On May 3 VMware announced it has joined the Facebook Open Compute Project, an initiative launched in 2011, with the objective of increase technology efficiencies and reduce the environmental impact of data centers.

VMware vSphere 5 is now certified to run on open AMD and Intel-based hardware following the project’s specifications enabling Open Compute users to virtualize production workloads and business-critical applications.

VMware is committed to delivering innovative technology that transforms and redefines how businesses function and operate in the cloud era. VMware vSphere® 5 is now certified to run on Open Compute AMD-and Intel-based v2.0 server platforms. With VMware vSphere 5 now expanding to cover a wide range of embedded processors, I/O devices and servers, customers are offered a greater choice in IT solutions.

said Richard A. Brunner, chief platform architect, VMware.

Labels: Open Compute Project, VMware, VMware View

On April 24 VMware published a technical paper titled: The VMware Reference Architecture for Stateless Virtual Desktops on Local Solid-State Storage with VMware View 5 which introduce the use of local solid-state drives (SSDs) within a physical host to offload the majority of desktop virtualization IOPS needed.

The objective of this model is to significantly reduce the hardware infrastructure costs of desktop virtualization environments while providing an highly scalable architecture.

Labels: Paper, VDI, VMware, VMware View

On May 2 Liquidware Lab, the company founded in 2008 by David Bieneman, announced a new product called FlexApp and version 5.0 of its Stratusphere FIT, Stratusphere UX and ProfileUnity which will integrate VMware’s end-user computing (EUC) strategy following the release of VMware View 5.1.

Stratusphere FIT, that rates the physical desktop candidates for VMware View environments, and Stratusphere UX, able to identify poor user experience in an existing VDI environment allowing optimization, both deriving from vmSight acquisition, will be integrated into VMware vCenter Operations Manager for View using a plugin to provide various end-user indicators and an overall “Health Index Score“.

ProfileUnity 5.0 extends VMware View Persona Management with advanced profile and data management options, context-aware filters to optimize users and applications migration and a couple of additional management capabilities.

In the end working with ProfileUnity we’ve FlexApp, generally available on May 16, allows applications to be stored separately from Windows operation system and pushed in only at login.
It works simply virtualizing the install of the application and keeping it on a separated storage.

Labels: LiquidWare Labs, Releases

VMware users say their organizations are beginning to push past server virtualization toward private clouds, but the jury?s still out on exactly which tools and processes will take them there.

Teradici, the developer of the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) remote desktop protocol, which is leveraged in software (by VMware view) and provided with Teradici hardware solutions which are OEM’ed by several vendors, announced the compatibility of APEX 2800 server offload card with the latest release of VMware View 5.1, maintaining full compatibility with all current VMware View and VMware vSphere releases.

The Teradici PCoIP server offload card is an hardware add-on available as a standard PCIe expansion card that monitors the graphical demands and dynamically offloads the most active 64 displays on the server.

Labels: Teradici, VMware View

Catbird, the company providing security and compliance solutions with a focus on the virtualization market, yesterday announced that Catbird vSecurity, its product that proactively secures the virtual network and guest operating systems by analyzing and responding to network events and attack, and enforcing correct VM configuration, now integrates the support for static and dynamically provisioned virtual desktops.

Catbird amplifies the VMware View native security controls to enable our customers to enforce security and demonstrate compliance easily. Catbird makes it simple for our customers to achieve continuous monitoring and to dynamically protect their critical and sensitive desktop environments.

said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End-User Computing, VMware.

The following functionality will be now provided for VMware View 5.1

• Template driven deployment of virtual desktops.
• Catbird’s TrustZones policy automation, which includes firewall controls, to allow comprehensive security management
• Catbird’s Intra-Zone Isolation for sensitive virtual desktops isolation
• Catbird’s vCompliance to  measure virtual desktop events and configurations for compliance with PCI 2.0, HIPAA (NIST SP 800-66), FISMA (NIST SP 800-53), DIA

Labels: Catbird, VMware

On May 2 Desktone, Inc., a US company founded in 2006 and based in MA, announced Desktone 5.0 Platform, the new release of its DaaS platform for service providers and telecommunication companies.

Desktone 5.0 Platform can deliver three sperate types of hosted virtual desktop to end users:

• Hosted Full-Featured VDI: Delivering end users a full-featured desktop that replicates the exact experience of a physical Windows desktop.
• Hosted Shared Leveraging Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH): An ideal option for users such as task workers that don’t require a full-featured desktop.
• Hosted Personal Windows Server: A comparable Windows experience at a more affordable price, often utilized by small to mid-sized companies.

providing multi-tenancy and granting the compliance with Microsoft licensing terms.

Release 5.0 includes DaaS Automation Engine, an OEM oriented feature that automate provisioning  and sizing of full tenant environments enabling service providers to offer free “try and buy” deployments.

Another new feature is the multi-data center management capability, that allows dynamic provisioning of hosted desktop, ensuring the shortest path but maintaining centralized administration.

Gabe Knuth, in his article on brianmadden.com, talks about the new change in strategy of Desktone that focuses again towards service providers instead of businesses.

My initial thought on this is that it’s a good move, although I’m left trying to figure out how this is different from the last time they re-tooled. Desktone clearly does DaaS well, and they’ve been solely focused on developing and delivering their DaaS solution for over five years. It stands to reason that service providers would be interested in OEMing a solution from them rather than trying to build on in-house that supports all the use cases and requirements of the Desktone solution. To develop as flexible a solution as they have from the ground up would take forever and be very costly, so in my mind Desktone is doing the right thing by making the technology available to service providers and taking a cut of the action.

Regarding their current enterprise customers, Desktone will continue to support them on the previous platform, but they won’t receive any of the features of 5.0 and subsequent releases. Desktone does use their DaaS systems to test out certain features before implementing them on the released 5.0 product, though. To be clear, they’re not testing on unwitting clients, they’re just using their in-house architecture to vet new features before turning them loose. Existing customers remain on the 4.x product. Of course, there are now plenty of other service providers using the Desktone platform, so they could switch providers and still get the same functionality as they had, plus the new features.

Labels: Desktone, VDI

Yesterday Convirture announced the update of its virtualization and cloud management software ConVirt Enterprise Cloud to include support for the latest version of OpenStack (Essex) and the certification for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

The company also announced that CloudStack support will be available in a future update planned for the third quarter of this year.

At the same time, Convirture, released ConVirt 2.1 Open Source (formerly XenMan), ts open source management console for multiple hypervisors, including Xen and KVM.

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Labels: Convirture, OpenStack, Platform Management

While the extent of the VMware source code is still in question, that hasn?t stopped IT shops from wondering about the potential fallout.