VMware View - Levelling the Playing Field with XenDesktop

Back in December VMware released their next version of VMware VDI, now known as VMware View.  Now that the dust has settled its about time we gave you a quick run down of the features included, and whether Citrix has anything to worry about.

View is a complete solution that combines the hypervisor, management tools and connection broker.  Dependant on the version bought (Enterprise or Premier) depends on the included features:

• Enterprise - VI3 Enterprise, vCenter Server, View Manager
  
• Premier - VI3 Enterprise, vCenter Server, View Manager, View Composer, Offline Desktop, ThinApp
  

VMware Views main competition is XenDesktop.

So whats new in View 3

• RDP Enhancements - Multimedia redirection, USB support, ThinPrint technology OEM
• View Composer - This is the biggy!  Using linked clones and diff files allows many users to connect to a single image which is dynamically assembled with a differential file for that user
• ThinApp - Allowing simplified printing, anyone familiar with SBC will understand the concept.
• Desktop Agnostic - Capability is now available to direct users sessions to either a PC, VM, Blade or TS session

Overall the product looks sharp, the interface which is pretty important for acceptance now looks tidy and has come of age.

An area that will continue to be the Achilles heel for now is the reliance on RDP. VMware and is making a big push into the protocol arena and has joined forces with Teradici, HP and Wyse.  OK Citrix has the ICA protocol which performs on the WAN, but currently has limited features of full ICA and is known as PortICA.

So should Citrix be worried?

The majority of Citrix XenDesktop users integrate directly to ESX server for the hypervisor, if this continues to be the case the the pricing of VDI will win hands down.  

VMware View is heavily focused on the desktop and although they have the ability to deliver applications locally through Thinapp the process is not as slick as XenApp.  Citrix are making moves into the offline VDI following an announcement with Intel last week, and this could be a key play for them.  Also Citrix OEM'd the Sepago profile manager software and have yet to release this into the wild, but should be a key area for consideration.

So who do you hedge your bets on?

VMware View is a great product built upon a great foundation but is missing some key functional areas that should make Citrix smile (for now).  Thinapp although good only provides support for local applications and not remote like XenApp, Citrix has a product focus that extends from the Desktop right back the Datacentre no matter where the location is.  

We recommend best of breed and do across all our solutions, so for VDI read that as VMware Sphere as the hypervisor and XenDesktop as the desktop and application delivery solution.

 

Google to Buy Skype???

Rumor has it  that eBay is trying to sell Skype to Google -- even though the service proved to be quite lucrative in 2008. With eBay reporting a downfall in revenue and Google still going strong, this rumor might actually have some substance.

Of course, nothing is official, and this rumor might never materialise. But it's quite interesting to analyze how Google could implement Skype's functionality into its products. The first thing that spring to mind is Google Chat, which is popular -- but mainly with Gmail users.

Then there's Google's Android platform for mobile phones and devices, which could do with some VoIP. And of course, there's Google's GrandCentral service, which could do with some Skype integration as well.

Watch this space......

Google Dominated over 90% of all US Search in 2008

Google ended the year with 63.5 percent market share of all search queries performed in the U.S., estimates comScore. And that market share has inched up steadily from 58.5 percent in January, 2008. But the market share numbers mask the absolute growth in searches and how Google has ben able to Gobble up all of that growth.

The chart above tells a clearer story. It comes out of the comScore 2008 Digital Year In Review, and shows the share of raw number of search queries in the U.S captured by the five major search engines. All the lines are pretty flat, except Google’s (the purple one). Of the 137 billion estimated total searches performed in the U.S. last year, 85 billion were done on Google.

What’s even more impressive is that nearly 90 percent of all the growth in search volume was also captured by Google. Most of that growth came from increasing the number of searches per person, rather than bringing more people to Google.

Virtual Computer - Another Citrix Target???

Citrix is betting on a desktop virtualization start-up called Virtual Computer, which was founded in November 2007, to focus on the provisioning, publishing and patching of desktop and laptop operating systems. Virtual Computer, whose NxTop software is in beta and is based on open source Xen software, announced Citrix as a key investor.

Virtual Computer has snagged $15 million in a funding round led by Highland Capital Partners and Flybridge Capital Partners. Citrix continued an undisclosed but "significant" portion of the $15 million, says Virtual Computer CEO and co-founder Dan McCall.

"This is an interesting and exciting young company and we have a shared vision abut what's going on in the space," says Andy Cohen, Citrix's senior director of strategic development. "We think it's important to help support people who are coalescing around Xen-based technologies."

When asked if this might be the first step toward acquiring Virtual Computer, Cohen said, "We own a small percentage of them now. Because of the shared vision ... that's certainly a possibility."

Virtual Computer's NxTop software is a bare metal, or "Type 1" hypervisor, whereas most desktop virtualization products are "Type 2" and thus run on top of an operating system, McCall says. Type 2 hypervisors are sometimes vulnerable to various security, management and performance problems, according to McCall.

When asked if Citrix and Virtual Computer might forge a go-to-market partnership, Cohen said the relationship is still in its "early stages." Citrix made the investment in Virtual Computer this month after being impressed by the company at last September's VMworld conference.  

Does it work with Citrix?

For many years this has been a reoccurring question from many clients, and the majority of the time the answer is yes for the mainstream applications, but what about the niche applications.  Citrix have been working on this website for a long time and not many people know about it yet, so if you don't here it is 

This is a community focused website that is fully searchable for applications and installation tips, and should be your point of reference for application installs.

Dataplex Events Update

As you will be aware Dataplex throughout 2008 ran a number of successful events from seminars, to breakfast briefings and webinars, and you will be pleased to know that this will be continuing throughout 2009 with a series of pertinent, informative and exciting events.

You can find more about Dataplex events here

But to give you a heads-up, this is what we have confirmed for the next few months:

January 28th - Business Continuity with VMware

February 5th - Virtualiastion the Microsoft Way

February 24th - Virtualising the workplace with HP and Microsoft

March 5th - Couldn't get to VMworld let VMworld come to you

March 19th - Couldn't get to VMworld let VMworld come to you

April 23rd - Microsoft Collaboration and the benefit for businesses

June 2nd - Couldn't get to Citrix Synergy let Synergy come to you

June 11th - Microsoft Systems Centre unleashed.

Windows 2008 R2 Beta is here

Hyper-V virtualises the system resources of a physical computer. Computer virtualization allows you to provide a virtualised environment for operating systems and applications. When used alone, Hyper-V™ is typically used for server computer virtualisation. When Hyper-V is used in conjunction with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Hyper-V is used for client computer virtualisation.

Windows Server 2008 server virtualisation using Hyper-V technology has been an integral part of the operating system. Windows Server 2008 R2 introduces a new version of Hyper-V. Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes three core areas of improvement for creating dynamic virtual data centers:

Live Migration:

Live Migration uses the new Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) feature within Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2. The CSV volumes enable multiple nodes in the same failover cluster to concurrently access the same Logical Unit Number (LUN). From a VM’s perspective, each VM appears to actually own a LUN; however, the .vhd files for each VM are stored on the same CSV volume.

Improved Cluster Node Connectivity Fault Tolerance:

Because of the architecture of CSV, there is improved cluster node connectivity fault tolerance that directly affects VMs running on the cluster. The CSV architecture implements a mechanism, known as dynamic I/O redirection, where I/O can be rerouted within the failover cluster based on connection availability.

Enhanced Cluster Validation Tool:

Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) for all major server roles, including Failover Clustering. This analyzer examines the best practices configuration settings for a cluster and cluster nodes.

Will Microsoft turn the hypervisor market upside down in 2009?

Microsoft is working on version 2 product (Currently in Beta here) and will likely address the most critical shortcomings, and with the next release (targeted for 2010) should get the product to the classic Microsoft design point.

In the interim, we can still expect that the number of footprints that Hyper-V makes (despite the product’s current maturity level) will be staggering and will turn the volume metrics of the market upside down.

These footprints are likely to penetrate all size class customers. Within the largest customers, many of which have already committed a substantial amount of their infrastructure to VMware solutions, expect use of Hyper-V to be within test, development, and noncritical and lower priority workloads at first.

Citrix Workflow Studio 1.0

Last week Citrix released its much awaited orchestration framework: Workflow Studio.

The product has been widely hyped for over a year now.

Workflow Studio is key piece in the Citrix virtual infrastructure vision as it delivers the mandatory automation layer that makes smart any cloud computing or dynamic data center environment.

The onyl real competition to this is from VMware through the soon to be released vCenter Orchestrator through the acquistion of Dunes,

At its first version the product, built on Microsoft PowerShell, is able to automate a number of tasks in XenServer/XenCenter, XenDesktop, XenApp and NetScaler, through an intuitive GUI.

Additionally, any Citrix partner can further extend the platform providing its own automation script (as Workflow Templates and Tasks Libraries).

The product is available for any Citrix customer that has a Subscription Advantage.

Citrix releases a web version of XenCenter

Last week Citrix released a web version of its virtualisation management console XenCenter.

"XenCentreWeb" has limited functionality at present and can only View/Power Off/Power On/Restart them.

Rather than selling the product, Citrix is currently offering it as a Resource Kit component that any partner and customer can download free of charge.

Virtual Centre for Linux, vSphere Updates.

VMware Infrastructure 4.0, or vSphere as the company decided to call the platform now, will finally feature a version of vCenter Server (formerly VirtualCenter) for Linux.

This major new capability was not part of the features that virtualization.info published in September 2008 about the upcoming ESX 4.0. But the abstract of a VMworld Europe 2009 session (DC08 here) confirms:

Customer demand for vCenter Server running on Linux has been astounding. While the majority of the Code is inherently cross platform, getting vCenter Server to run on Linux in a manner compatible with the current set of features has its own set of challenges. This presentation will discuss the issues of cross platform development for vCenter, including issues regarding internationalization support, database support, multi-vCenter support, and image customization. The talk will conclude with a live demonstration of the latest development version of vCenter Server running on Linux.

Citrix Project Independence - Offline VDI?

Citrix made several announcements on 21st January around desktop computing.

• First, they're announcing, with Intel, that they're working on a Xen-based bare-metal client hypervisor.
• Second, they're announcing something called "Project Independence,"
  
• Third, they're announcing five predictions for how they see desktop computing evolving over the next three years.

The announcement of Project Independence strengthens Citrix’s vision for local desktop virtualisation and is a complementary solution to Citrix’s hosted desktop virtualisation solution (XenDesktop). With the recent Intel announcement, Project Independence will be a Type I hypervisor technology and delivers key benefits to mobile/offline users including:

• High definition user experience (graphics, video, audio)with bare-metal performance
• Open architecture allowing for open collaboration on the hypervisor
• Dynamic desktop assembly
• Secure by design
• Service-level assurance.

Project Independence Overview

For more information click here to see the official Independence Website

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation (MED-V) Version 1 BETA has been released!

Microsoft have finally launched the long awaited Med-V, this is through the acqistion of kidaro and is in Beta release at present.

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization is one of the six technologies in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. MED-V 1.0 provides deployment, management and user experience capabilities for Virtual PC images in a corporate environment, and the beta can be downloaded here. A short survey will need to be answered before downloading the software.

By delivering applications in a Virtual PC that runs a previous version of the OS (e.g., Windows XP or Windows 2000), administrators can remove the barriers to OS upgrades, and deal with testing and migration of incompatible applications after the OS upgrade.

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization: Advantages

• Accelerate the upgrade path to new Desktop OS - legacy applications continue to run in a virtual environment with a previous OS version

• Simplify IT integration of new subsidiaries by running two IT environments concurrently—i.e. the corporate one and the acquired company's one

• Drive business continuity by rapid reconstitution of corporate desktops

• Speed user adoption of desktop virtualisation by making Virtual PCs "invisible" to users

• Centrally create, manage and deploy virtual PC images throughout the enterprise

• Provision and control user policies according to business affiliation and requirements.

Dataplex Systems Blog

Welcome to the Dataplex Systems Blog.

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