New Citrix XenDesktop Release

Citrix Systems this week announced a new release of Citrix XenDesktop 4 that enhances end user experience, improves scalability, simplifies management. With the new Feature Pack 1 release, XenDesktop 4 offers significant new improvements in user experience, enhancing the company’s high-definition HDX™ technology and allowing users to access their virtual desktops up to 5x faster.

The new release also builds on recently announced XenDesktop scalability enhancements, enabling customers to host an unprecedented 100,000 shared virtual desktops concurrently from a single location, dramatically improving the ROI of desktop virtualisation in large scale enterprise deployments.

Finally, the new release simplifies application management by incorporating all the capabilities of the recently announced Citrix XenApp 6 as an integrated feature, including seamless new integration with Microsoft App-V and support for Windows Server 2008 R2.

Key Facts and Highlights:

• Access Virtual Desktops up to 5x Faster – New streamed user profiles in XenDesktop can shorten virtual desktop and application log-on times up to 5x, dramatically enhancing user experience. The new release also includes a variety of enhancements to the company’s HDX technology, designed to ensure a high definition experience for all users, regardless of where they are or what type of device they are using.
• Unparalleled Scalability – XenDesktop 4, Feature Pack 1 has been verified deliver an unprecedented 100,000 shared virtual desktop sessions concurrently from a single location. The shared hosted model is one of several virtual desktop options included in XenDesktop’s groundbreaking FlexCast™ delivery technology that supports every major desktop virtualisation model in a single, integrated solution – a breakthrough that improves ROI, simplifies management and extends the benefits of virtualisation to every employee in the enterprise.
• Simplified App Management – The new XenDesktop version incorporates all the capabilities of the company’s recent XenApp 6 release, including tight integration with Microsoft App-V. With more than half the ROI of desktop virtualisation coming from centralised app management, these improvements offer significant new simplification and cost savings for IT.
• WAN Optimisation and Secure Remote Access –  As part of XenDesktop, HDX WAN Optimsation optimises performance and network utilisation across a WAN by compressing, accelerating and prioritising traffic, and HDX SmartAccess delivers simple and seamless secure access to users anywhere based on their identity, location and device. Software-based virtual appliances are now available for both Citrix Branch Repeater™ and Citrix Access Gateway™.

Availability:

XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 will be available for download on March 24, 2010 and will be offered as a free upgrade to all XenDesktop customers with current Subscription Advantage agreements. More information on the new capabilities in XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 can be found at www.citrix.com/xendesktop4

Microsoft details Hyper-V Dynamic Memory feature

As if Hyper-V hadn’t attracted enough attention the latest push by Microsoft to gain traction with the hypervisor is through Dynamic Memory, and since the announcement we at dataplex have had a plethora of questions.  This new capability is due to be released into SP1 for Windows 2008 R2 which is rumoured to arrive no earlier than Q4 2010.

For a lot of time Microsoft and Citrix downplayed the VMware’s memory over commitment techniques, and I guess the inclusion of “similar” technology just goes to enforce the need for it, or is it that VMware play on this lack of feature as immaturity in the product? Who knows, but it has made the product feature set.

James O’Neill, IT Pro Evangelist at Microsoft, has shared some information about it, trying to explain why Dynamic Memory is not about over commit memory:

“…CPU is naturally dynamic: the CPU switches workload to another; we can reserve a quantity of CPU for a VM and or cap the amount it gets and if total CPU demand exceeds supply, weightings mean the shares granted to each VM do not need to be equal. Network is the same: packets go in or out – the NIC works for one task at a time but multiple tasks are easily multiplexed through a single physical Network interface. Storage is different – because stuff is stored whether it is actively being processed or not, so commitment of disk space is long term. We don’t have to allocate all the disk a VM might use when we create the VM: instead of a fixed-size disk, dynamic disks can grow as needed – the sum of maximum disk sizes can be greater than disk capacity of the host, but at any given time we can’t use more disk than there is present. Now we’re applying that to memory…

VMs either have fixed size memory or a minimum , maximum and weight. So we don’t need to commit memory based on the peaks in load in the VM – dynamic memory will monitor demand for memory and use the hot-add capabilities of modern OSes to  increase memory. Eventually all the memory will be committed and since you can’t hot unplug memory we have a component to take memory out of use in one VM so that it can be given to another – and Hyper-V will take memory from the VMs which need it least. Dynamic memory won’t be supported on every possible operating system…

By de-allocating memory in VMs Hyper-V ensures the total allocated remains below the total present: when a VM can’t receive any more memory the OS in it will decide which caches should be abandoned, and which pages they should swap to disk. Hyper-V never swaps VM’s memory to disk.  You can have a design which over-allocates, and swaps when over-committed (and uses page sharing to allow some over-allocation before reaching the point of over-committing) or one which doesn’t swap and so doesn’t need page sharing to reduce swapping – but can’t over-allocate either…

So Dynamic Memory uses the memory ballooning technique.

Talk to us to understand more; cb@dplex.co.uk

Veeam Transforms VMware Image-Level Backups

Veeam Software, provider of data protection, disaster recovery and systems management solutions for VMware virtual datacenter environments, has developed patent-pending technology that removes the last obstacle to image-level backups: reliability.

Veeam’s expanded SureBackup™ capabilities test and verify the recoverability of every backup of every virtual machine, and set a new standard for data protection and disaster recovery. The new capabilities will be available in version 5.0 of Veeam Backup & Replication™, expected to be released in the third quarter of this year.

While virtualisation and the advent of image-level backups have brought many advantages, one issue remains. Just because a backup job completes successfully does not mean the machine can be recovered and booted. Even if the integrity of the backup file is verified, there is no assurance that the operating system and applications will start without errors or that data will be intact. There are many possible issues, both procedural and configuration related, that can interfere.

The only way to be completely certain is to test and verify the recoverability of every backup. Until now, this was too expensive and time-consuming to be feasible. Veeam SureBackup eliminates these barriers and brings certainty to image-level backups.

Recovery verification is made possible by new patent-pending technology that allows a virtual machine to run directly from a compressed backup. By publishing the content of backup files directly to ESX hosts, Veeam eliminates the need to extract backup files, and the time and storage required to do so. The technology also includes automatic creation of an isolated test environment using available production, disaster recovery (DR) or lab resources. It supports any guest operating system and virtualised application.

In addition to SureBackup testing and verification, the new technology from Veeam enables other key capabilities, such as universal application-item recovery, and provides on-demand production replicas for system testing and troubleshooting.

VMware ThinApp 4.5 Released

VMware has now announced the 4.5 release of Thinapp, just after XenApp 6.0 has been announced.

Version 4.5 released yesterday introduces a number of new features the list includes:

Support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
Existing packages can be upgraded through a new Relink utility. Need to rebuild or repackage applications.

Support for MSI packages larger than 2GB without requiring multiple CAB files

Support for capturing on partially non-clear PCs (experimental)
When installing an MSI based application ThinApp 4.5 can automatically detect files and registry entries that the application requires even if those entries already exists on the capture PC. This results in correct captures even in the case where some libraries are installed on the PC.

Journaling of Virtual file system meta data and virtual registry
Actually introduced in ThinApp 4.0.4, VMware decided to unveil it with 4.5.

The purpose of journaling is to support the ability to recover gracefully in the event disk writes are incomplete or the disk state becomes inconsistent when sets of disk writes are not flushed atomically.

ThinApp 4.5 also introduces a number of improvements in different areas, including:

• I/O performance for VDI
• Memory sharing for suites of applications and Terminal Server
• Startup time
• Application white listing.

Microsoft shakes up VDI Market

Today has been a busy day from Microsoft and Citrix on desktop virtualisation!  Shortly before the webcast between Citrix and Microsoft, Microsoft announced some new initiatives which should help drive the adoption of VDI.

Hosted Desktop Virtualisation

The Windows XP SP3 virtual machine that can be run on Windows 7 Virtual PC, called XP Mode, will no longer require hardware virtualisation to be executed.  The new version will be released today as a hotfix.

Hyper-V

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 will introduce memory overcommit called Dynamic Memory.  Which is a move that Citrix just did in their 5.6 beta release of XenServer.

VDI

The real big announcements came around desktop virtualisation, as we reported earlier in the week the joint focus between Microsoft and Citrix is profound on the desktop space.

The remote desktop accelration technology that Microsoft acquired through Calista in January 2008 is now called RemoteFX and will arrive with Windows 2008 R2 SP1, and will be integrated into Remote Desktop Services (RDS).  RemoteFX is considered an accelerator for RDP over the LAN for Windows 7 SP1 clients.

As of the 1st July 2010 Windows Client Software Assurance (SA) will include the VECD license for free.

Customers that don’t wont to subscribe the SA will be able to buy a new Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) license: $100 /device/year instead of $110 of the VECD.

As of July 1, 2010, Windows Client Software Assurance (SA) and new Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) license customers will have the right to access their virtual desktop and Office applications inside it on secondary, non-corporate network devices, such as home PCs and kiosks.

Microsoft and Citrix signed a new technology agreement to integrate and extend Microsoft RemoteFX with Citrix HDX.

Microsoft and Citrix launched a joint trade-in program dubbed “Rescue for VMware VDI”, offering up to 500 licenses to VMware View customers at no additional cost, and offering to new customers a 70% discount on Microsoft VDI Standard Suite subscription license and a 50% discount on Citrix XenDesktop VDI Edition annual license ($28 per device for up to 250 devices for one year).

Is Microsoft about to announce a new VDI offering with Calista Integrated?

For a long time Microsoft decided to not enter the VDI market, leaving the competition with VMware to its trusted partner Citrix.

This strategy has changed and they are working very closely with Citrix on delivering the enterprise ready desktop virtualisation solution however, in January 2008 the company acquired the startup Calista, and in July 2009 it released its first connection broker as part of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Now several reports this week are saying that Microsoft will make its move, by lowering the VDI cost with a more friendly license and by making VDI more powerful, with the merge of Calista technologies in the RDP code.

And will we also see Citrix in the webinar too, I should think so:

http://www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com/

Citrix XenServer 5.6 Beta Open

Citrix launched today the public beta of XenSevrer 5.6 (open source) and went under the guise of codename Midnight Ride and Essentials for XenServer 5.6

The list of new features includes:

• Dynamic Memory Control (DMC)
  This feature can increase the number of VMs per host by permitting the memory utilisation of existing VMs to be compressed so that additional VMs can boot on the host. 
• Automated Workload Balancing & Power Management
  Workload balancing (WLB) offers the ability to reduce power consumption by consolidating workloads on the smallest number of hosts and powering off unused hosts.
• Granular Role-based Access Controls
  Administrative users can be assigned one of several roles, which govern the actions they are able to complete from XenCenter and the command-line interface (CLI).
• Administrative Logging and Audit
  Administrative changes made from XenCenter or the CLI are logged and available in the Workload Reports in XenCenter.
• StorageLink Site Recovery Enhanced integration with storage-level replication enables recovery of an entire virtual infrastructure at a secondary disaster recovery site.
• Citrix License Server integration.
  Essentials for XenServer features are now activated using a license applied to a Citrix Licensing Server. 
• Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS/Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4
• Support for up to 64 logical processors, 256 GB RAM, and 16 NICs per host
• Support for OVF import/export in XenCenter

Of course the first two features are the most interesting.

Dynamic Memory Control (DMC), a memory overcommit technique, auto-adjust the memory of running virtual machines, but keeps the memory within a range of pre-defined functioning limits (dynamic minimum and dynamic maximum) as specified by the administrator.

Some interesting features in here!

Citrix near to XenClient Launch?

We at Dataplex have been working with desktop virtualisation technologies for many years, and if there is one thing that will make this fundamental shift in desktop architectures happen surely it has to be client side hypervisor. 

Only today did were we requested to meet with a very large financial house to position desktop virtualisation and how this technology will mean they need to shift their current way of funding and under writing solutions for their clients.

AS you will no doubt know both VMware and Citrix are readying their offerings at the moment but both are very sceptical to the general public when XenClient will ship.  However, in the run up to their end user focused event “Synergy” they are running a competition to win a XenClient Dell Latitude E6400 Laptop – one of the first models to be named Xen compatible.

So I am sure they are more close to releasing the product than most people think.

Demonstrated it looks pretty fantastic, it has some very clever technology in it and I wish I could share more but we are under NDA. 

McAfee Scans the Cloud

McAfee announced today a vulnerability-assessment scanning service that's aimed at giving cloud computing service providers a way to provide security assurances to their customers.

Called the McAfee Cloud Secure Program, the daily scanning service is directed from the Internet into the cloud service provider to highlight any weaknesses in the network infrastructure, perimeter, and applications.

The McAfee Cloud Secure Program, which is likely to be expanded to include other security services as well, "is intended to give customers more confidence in their cloud providers”.

The charges for McAfee Cloud Secure are based on number of IP addresses, among other factors, and start at less than $5,000 per month.

Cloud providers are entitled to post the McAfee Cloud Secure mark when they've successfully completed daily vulnerability-assessment scans. The program is modelled to some extent after the McAfee Secure Trustmark program for e-commerce Web sites that undergo security scans.

Citrix shows tight integration with Microsoft App-V in XenApp 6

Following on from our very quick review of XenApp version 6 last week, Citrix have just blogged over on their community site the extent of how integrated XenApp 6 and App-V have become:

Publish App-V packages directly from XenApp as "Dual-mode" applications

Through the new App-V integration, Microsoft App-V sequences can be published using the same workflows and wizards as all other applications managed through XenApp. Admins can leverage native XenApp Application Virtualisation and Session Virtualisation configuration parameters and policies to make Microsoft App-V sequences available for online and offline use.  Dual-mode fallback is also provided, enabling end-points to access App-V applications from a consistent interface, even if the device is incapable of running the application locally, for example when a user needs to access the application from a Mac PowerBook or iPhone.

Manage App-V client plug-in using Citrix Receiver

The Microsoft Application Virtualisation Desktop Client can now be managed and delivered as a plug-in for Citrix Receiver. With XenApp, App-V sequences can now be delivered to lightly-managed endpoint scenarios, even if the end-point is not a member of the Microsoft Active Directory domain.  As a result, new App-V use cases and access scenarios are enabled, including the delivery of applications to a consultant or for companies with "Bring your own computer" (BYOC) initiatives.

Subscribe to App-V packages using Citrix Dazzle

With Citrix Receiver, users gain self-service access to applications through an enterprise app storefront. Admins can advertise App-V packages with all other XenApp published applications and services for easy, on-demand access by users.

Microsoft Opalis to integrate with Virtual Machine Manager in Q3

In December 2009 Microsoft acquired the run-book automation firm Opalis Software.

At that time the company anticipated that Opalis technology would be integrated in the System Center product family and that it would become the automation layer for Hyper-V and Azure virtualisation.

This week Microsoft offered additional details about when the integration with happen: integrations packs for UNIX, Red Hat RHEL and Novell SLES Linux will be released in Q2 2010, while integration packs for Service Manager 2010, Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 R2, Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2 and Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 will appear in Q3 2010.

A tighter integration anyway can’t be expected before 2011 when Microsoft plans to release the next major version of Opalis.

The automation platform has been included in the Microsoft Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) and Datacenter (SMSD) licenses which will cost more starting July 1.

Good Enough Cloud

Almost all enterprises are virtualising. Based on surveys, the majority of large companies consider building a private cloud a core strategy. While the direction makes sense, be careful about getting too caught up in the hype of building a perfect private cloud. A cloud service requires a self-service (or non-manual) interface, and some form of usage metering, or even chargeback.

Not every IT organisation needs a fully self-service cloud experience, and many SMB organistions see little value in usage metering. They simply want to deliver services faster. For them, a 70% private cloud is absolutely good enough (ahh the old 70/30 rule!)

There is still exceptional value in virtualising your resources, automating how the resources are allocated to meet demand, automating provisioning based on standard service offerings in a published service catalog. But you may want a person in the middle of the process. Or you may want to route the pure self-service requirements to your favorite external cloud provider rather than build your own.

How you carve it up is fine, it all comes down to business requirements, return on investment, and future strategy (including the potential to evolve to external cloud providers in the future). How far you go is your decision.

So while most enterprises may consider private cloud their goal, and vendor hype is going to skyrocket on how to reach that goal, I think that organisations will be more than happy with a less than perfect cloud.

XenApp6 Announced and Impressive

Well at long last XenApp 6 was officially announced this week, and hot on the heals of the announcement came the Citrix Partner Accelerator in the UK with lots of strong messaging coming from Citrix on XenApp 6 and the integration with Windows 2008 R2.

A clear move for them is the ability to deliver applications to any device, anyone who is familiar with Citrix will know this was a strong message with them years ago, and now it has come back full circle since the proliferation of smart phones and the demand placed on business by consumers.  So Citrix now support a multitude of end points including Android, Blackberry soon and of course the world dominating Apple devices…..

The receiver client is what makes this all so easy to work and integrate which was launched last year.  Its uses a number of plug-ins to support different features including online and offline application usage, password management and WAN acceleration.

Also, Macs can now be used with Citrix's Dazzle, a self-service "enterprise application storefront" that is controlled by the IT department and lets users pick the applications they want access.  The concept is fantastic, the reality is just as good if you are familiar with iTunes you will understand Dazzle straight away and enjoy what it has to offer.

Citrix has expanded the number of USB devices it supports when attached to the local device and ported through to a XenApp session, including cameras, scanners and webcams.

At long last there is no Java based management console, everything is through a single management console (AppCenter) with a single policy engine that will ultimately transcend both XenApp and XenDesktop worlds, the policy engine is one of the areas that has had a big makeover.

There is exceptionally tight integration into other Microsoft technologies such as App-V and SCCM.

And if you think that is good, wait until you see XenClient – now that is impressive!

Want to see the official Citrix site:

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=1854257

EMC Provides dedupe and thin provisioning for VMware on Celerra

EMC today announced an upgrade to the management software on its Celerra network-attached storage (NAS) arrays that will allow administrators to apply deduplication, thin provisioning and business continuity tools to data stored in VMware environments.

EMC's new Celerra Plug-Ins for VMware Environments adds several new capabilities, including an automated failback process for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager software. When one offsite Celerra array fails, it automatically fails over to another Celerra array -- either at the same site or in the primary data center.

EMC had previously been offering the upgrades for Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area networks (SANs), but it is now offering those capabilities for NFS [Network File System protocol] environments, too.

The new plug-ins also allow for thin provisioning -- the ability to add storage capacity as an application requires it -- as well as data cloning, or data snap shots of virtual data stores on Celerra.

The plug-ins also automate the failback process for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager software in NFS environments, which is unique to the industry.

The EMC Celerra Plug-Ins for VMware Environments are available for download to EMC Celerra customers with current maintenance arrangements. All enhancements are available from EMC, Dell and its authorised partners.

Google Coming to a TV near you soon

Google is testing a new television programming search service in conjunction with Dish Network, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The service, which appears to be very much in a limited testing phase, runs on a special set-top box and apparently searches content from both the Dish programming guide, as well as web video services like YouTube.

The most interesting aspect of The Wall Street Journal’s report dealt less with the service itself and more with the technology that powers the set-top box. Apparently, portions of Google’s Android OS power the Google-enabled device. While Android has been spotted on other devices like tablets and netbooks (or, so-called smartbooks), a move to the embedded device space could be huge.

Of course, this isn’t Google’s first foray into television. Back in 2008, Google AdWords launched Google TV Ads as a platform for companies to buy airtime in various markets. That project hasn’t been as successful as other Google ventures, but perhaps a more direct way of tying search to television would have better results.

Bing takes on Google

It’s a bit funny to hear Microsoft referring to any other company as the “Goliath,” but when it comes to the business of search, there’s no doubt that Google has managed to overshadow Microsoft’s efforts.

It’s therefore no surprise to hear Managing Director and Vice President of Consumer and Online at Microsoft UK Ashley Highfield readily admit Microsoft is the underdog in this battle.

The moment is big, indeed, as Microsoft plans to spend millions of pounds on promoting its search engine, starting with a series of TV ads in the UK next week. According to the Guardian, the ads will emphasise Bing as a decision engine that simplifies information overload and gives users simple, straight answers.

Will it be enough to capture some of Google’s enormous market share? In the UK, it’s a frightening 90%, while Bing is at 3%. In the U.S., however, Bing fares much better, which was probably (at least partly) the result of a strong advertising campaign.

We’ll see if Microsoft can repeat the same success in the UK.

VMware Labs

VMware just launched a new online facility called Labs.

This is similar to what companies like Microsoft and Google do.

At the moment Labs hosts ten projects, all released as Technology Previews, under open source licenses, without any support and without any indication about future inclusion in the VMware product portfolio.  The ones listed at present are:

• Apache Pivot
• Dynamo RIO
• esxplot
• Onyx
• SVGA Sonar
• vApprun
• vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA)
• VMware Guest Console (VGC)
• VI Java
• Virtual USB Analyzer.

Whether any of these will make it into full products is anyone’s guess, but it is an interesting move to drive adoption and interest. 

Desktop Optimisation – Which technologies, for which users?

The desktop space has never been so busy with vendors jostling to offer better ways of delivering desktop services to their end users, and with all this jostling there is massive amounts of confusion generated also!  Any our friend over at Microsoft has provided us with a plethora of information on the Microsoft way to do things.

The Vision of the Optimised Desktop

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/default.aspx

People are the most important resource in any organisation. The role of technology is to unlock their potential. The Optimised Desktop is about empowering your people to be more productive with a flexible technology infrastructure, while providing the IT department the needed level of control, manageability, and security. Learn more about five scenarios for enabling workers to be successful in their jobs with Microsoft desktop solutions, or read the Optimised Desktop eBook

Balancing the Needs of End Users and IT

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/desktop/default.aspx

Organisations look to their people to drive business success, and to the information technology (IT) department to build and manage an infrastructure that supports and enables people to be successful in their jobs. Often, these expectations create a natural tension between end users, who want the flexibility to support a dynamic work environment, and an IT department that needs greater control and manageability.

The solution to this challenge is an "Optimised Desktop" infrastructure. An Optimized Desktop describes a state in which your organisation has attained the right balance in its desktop infrastructure - empowering employees with the flexibility they need to be productive, while providing IT the necessary level of control, manageability, and security

Ease Desktop Management with Microsoft Solutions

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/management/default.aspx

Managing desktops across an enterprise is often time-consuming, complex, and costly. IT organizations face difficult PC manageability tasks on a daily basis. The Windows 7 operating system, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), and System Center provide you with the infrastructure to enable business agility for end users in addition to increased control, streamlined management, and cost reduction for IT.

How Desktop Virtualisation Transforms your Business

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/virtualization/default.aspx

Now more than ever, organisations are looking to increase business flexibility while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for their desktop infrastructure. Microsoft Desktop Virtualisation solutions provide IT managers with flexible desktop management options, from deploying virtual applications to gaining efficiencies with centralised and diskless PCs.

So, some great resources there, however, if I had to choose one, above all the others, based on my experience, I would point you to the Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios.  In a nutshell, Microsoft has identified 5 common scenarios, or, types of users, that exist within organisations.  These are, Office, Mobile, Task, Contract and Home.  Each have their own methods of working effectively, and require different tools based on their scenario.  Each also require a different level of user experience.  Some may require a rich, graphical OS environment, with local access to data, whereas others may require a very traditional, locked down, low-graphics type environment, for entering customer related information into a CRM system for example.  Taking these scenarios, you can start to map these scenarios, on to the most optimal (in most cases) technologies that would meet their requirements.  Take me for example.  I’m a mobile worker, on the road a great deal.  I can’t always guarantee an internet connection, and if I could, I couldn’t guarantee the quality of that connection.  Would a remote working environment be ideal for me?  No chance.  That would actually have a detrimental effect on my working capabilities.  A Windows 7 laptop, with locally installed apps, or App-V delivered apps, combined with some of the inbox features like DirectAccess and BitLocker, would give me a greater level of productivity.  Once you’ve watched the videos, Microsoft also provide a tool, in the form of the Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios, on which to work with a customer, or your business teams internally, to help define the different types of users in the environment.  You can read more about WODS here.

And if you are still confused, talk to Dataplex (0845 260 5757) to see how you can stitch it all together.

Thanks Matt for the information.

Microsoft BPOS

There has been a lot of talk at Dataplex, and the wider IT community about BPOS. I thought I would get some information together in quite a non-technical way which shows some of the financial and functional basics of BPOS, and also try to show what all the buzz is about.

For a start: BPOS stands for Business Productivity Online Suite. In real terms what this means is that a customer pays £6.71 per month for each user to access services which are actually hosted at Microsoft’s data centres. This means customers no longer have to have their own Exchange, SharePoint servers, OCS, or ISA servers, which saves considerable money when you factor in the ongoing support costs for looking after all the hardware and infrastructure even if they are all virtualised. The services supplied out of the box are:

• Exchange Online Provide employees access to email, calendar, and contacts from virtually anywhere, at anytime, on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices—while helping to protect against malware and spam. Exchange Online can be rapidly deployed, flexibly expanded, and is designed to be securely administered using a powerful yet easy-to-use Web-based console. A big plus for BPOS is on premise and hosted architectures and how the two can be mixed to make a hybrid solution – there are some great benefits to this approach.
• SharePoint Online Share documents, contacts, calendars, and tasks in a single location. Based on Microsoft Office SharePoint_® Server 2007, SharePoint Online delivers rich collaboration capabilities that enable team members to flexibly and efficiently collaborate, find organisational resources, search your intranet site, and manage content and workflow.
• Office Live Meeting Connect with colleagues and customers through real-time meetings, training sessions, and events using only a PC with an Internet connection. Hosted Web conferencing services from Microsoft Office Live Meeting give your employees the power to collaborate wherever they are, to set up project meetings, brainstorm ideas, and collaborate on whiteboards without the cost and hassle of travel!
• Office Communications Online Enable users to find and rapidly connect with the right person from the applications they use most. Office Communications Online provides streamlined access to rich presence and instant messaging capabilities that are centrally managed by IT and work seamlessly with a range of Microsoft Office system programs.

The diagram below to shows how a customer’s data centre could look before and after implementing BPOS to detail all the costs associated with hosting these services and where savings might be made:

Need help in planning your move to a SaaS architecture, the contact charles.barratt@Dataplex-systems.com

Unrealised advantages of Boot from SAN

One of the ways a SAN can add value is by hosting your boot disks externally from your servers.  To do this you need a remote boot technology for host operating systems known as Boot from SAN (BFS).  There are three necessary ingredients to a BFS configuration:

• A boot disk image located on shared storage accessible via a SAN
• A server connected to a SAN through a host bus adapter (HBA)
• An HBA with BIOS contains instructions that enable the server to boot from SAN.

There are many benefits to doing this:

• Severs can be replaced, re-purposed, and added more quickly with boot disks hosted on SAN
• For BladeSystems, taking the boot disks out of the enclosure reduces power and cooling requirements
• Boot disks can be consolidated on an storage array for easier management, improved security, and higher availability.
• BFS minimises server maintenance and reduces backup time

Even with all these benefits, BFS is rarely deployed today due to the complexity of setting up the arrays, servers, and HBAs involved.

Since Dataplex are an HP Gold partner with a plethora of history in SAN design and deployment we can guide you through the issues and help you realise greater value from your data consolidation projects.

Need some further information then contact us on 0845 260 5757.

HP to develop cloud services platform

Hewlett-Packard has opened a research lab in Singapore where it will work on a software platform for delivering cloud-based computing services to enterprises, the company said Wednesday.

The platform, called Cirious, will provide a way for service providers such as Vodafone and Verizon Business to offer hosted computing services that are secure and scalable enough for large corporate customers.

Cirious will include the ability for customers to move workloads outside their corporate firewalls and into a service provider's data center when the customer needs additional computing capacity.

Like other cloud platforms, Cirious will use virtualisation extensively so that applications are untied from physical hardware and can be moved between servers -- and between data centers -- more freely.

Cirious will allow service providers to offer infrastructure services, akin to Amazon.com's EC2, and on-demand applications, like those from Salesforce.com.

Several questions remain, such as when Cirious will be ready for market, and to what extent it will use existing management and virtualisation software from HP and other vendors.

Cirious may compete with products from VMware, which has been pitching its new vSphere software as a way to link public and private data centers, and which says it has already signed up more than 1,000 service providers.

The Xen.org project announced a similar service-provider initiative last August, and HP was listed as one of its supporters.

Cirious will be developed in conjunction with HP's Service Automation and Integration Lab in Palo Alto, Calif., and the Automated Infrastructure Lab in Bristol. Testing will be done via a network of data centers known as Open Cirrus, which was set up last year by HP, Intel and Yahoo to test cloud technologies.

App-V 4.6 launches with a wealth of resources

App-V 4.6 has now officially been released as part of the MDOP 2010 suite.

App-V 4.6 can be accessed immediately via MDOP 2010. Existing MDOP customers can download MDOP 2010 at the Microsoft Volume Licensing Site (MVLS).  For evaluation, MDOP 2010 can be downloaded from MSDN and TechNet.

App-V 4.6 for RDS (formerly App-V for Terminal Services) can be downloaded immediately here.

So, what’s new in 4.6?

• x64 Support: Both x64 Client and Server OS’s can now have App-V applications streamed to them.  This is particularly important for Remote Desktop Services environments, as this platform is x64 only.
• Increased Language Support: Currently available in 13 languages, with an additional 11 coming in April.
• Better Integration with SCCM R2 SP2: Deliver applications faster, without having to wait for policy refresh
• Reduced SAN Storage in VDI: Shared Cache of App-V Applications means a reduced footprint of apps within the VDI environment
• Office 2010 Optimisation: Deliver Office 2010 out to users faster than traditional methods, plus run versions side by side to ease learning and adoption

Integrate with Windows 7 Features: Integrates seamlessly with BranchCache, AppLocker and BitLockerToGo.

Some fantastic enhancements, well done Microsoft.

VMware Acquires Software from Parent EMC

VMware will be taking over a line of data-center management software from parent company EMC, the companies announced Thursday this week.

For $200 million, VMware will be acquiring products and expertise in EMC's Ionix line of IT management software, which can be used to manage servers and applications in a data center. It will be packaged to complement VMware's vCenter and vSphere lines of virtualisation software.

Specifically, VMware will acquire the FastScale, Application Discovery Manager, Server Configuration Manager and Service Manager programs. The company will oversee operations and personnel for the Ionix product line.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2010. EMC will continue to offer Ionix as a reselle

Agility or Responsiveness, you choose!

One of the most over used but clearly relevant words in IT is agility, and virtualisation surely has to be the main culprit for this.

Technologists often see agility as the ability to move in any direction with equal ease.  An agile organisation with agile technology does not limit their strategy as they can change direction based on investments to support flexibility.

The demand for technical agility is a hope that technology will not get in the way or limit strategic options.    The desire to be agile drives investments in modular technologies and architectures. 

Agility is not as important as being responsive.  Responsiveness recognises that value comes from actions that create results.  Rather than hedging bets with offsetting options, responsive leaders recognise the need to do the first things first and fast.

Enterprises need to be more responsive, than agile.    A responsive organisation knows how to executive its strategy and day-to-day options, make the constant adjustments to customer, market and internal changes and thrive in an environment of dynamic competition.

It is more common for leaders to recognise and leverage their path-dependencies – which can also be called core competencies, to compete in a changing market.  That is how Amazon can move from being an online retailer to offering cloud services. 

If I had the choice of being agile or being responsive I would choose responsive every time for two reasons.   Being responsive means I have the focus needed to execute my plans effectively and drive enterprise performance.  Second, I know that I can always gain access to my needed capabilities from suppliers whose strength is my weakness.  That gives me the ability to act with the ability to partner to be agile.

VMware announces VCB end of life

With an email to its VI and vSphere customers last week VMware announced the end of life for its Consolidated Backup (VCB) framework.

VMware has announced that the next version of vSphere, due later this year, will not support VCB and will solely rely on the new vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) introduced with vSphere 4.0.

VCB binaries will be still available and supported on VI 3.x and vSphere 4.0 according to the support policy, but they will not be included in the new platform.

VMware is saying its Data Recovery product already supports VADP, and that most partners focused on backup/restore already support it too.

VMware also promises that more vendors will offer VADP-based solutions in time for the next vSphere release.

VMware acquired RTO Software

After much speculation VMware has acquired RTO Software,  one of the few companies in the presentation virtualisation market that are focused on the so called persona management.

Quite an interesting move considering some of the technology is OEM’d to Citrix through the TScale product set.

Both VMware and Symantec OEM’ed the RTO Software flagship product, Virtual Profiles.

Now VMware has confirmed the acquisition of most RTO Software assets, which will become part of the company Desktop Business Unit.

So what does the software do?

It seamlessly virtualises, caches and synchronizes a desktop user's roaming profile, while improving both the performance and data integrity of the profile. When a user logs on, instead of monolithically delivering the entire user profile and making the user wait for all of it, Virtual Profiles performs a "just-in-time" delivery. Windows thinks the entire profile is present, however the contents of each segment or file is brought down and subsequently cached when accessed.  When files are updated and closed, Virtual Profiles automatically synchronizes the files  with the profile server, maintaining data integrity across user sessions in real-time and speeding up logoffs. 

This was really missing from View and is a shred move by VMware to deliver an end to end desktop solution.

Microsoft App-V 4.6

Almost seven months after the launch of a public beta program, Microsoft finally released App-V 4.6 as part of the Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2010.

The new application virtualisation platform introduces support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 (including 64bit editions), as well as the upcoming Office 2010.

The last point is particularly important because the new virtualized version of Office 2010, dubbed Click-To-Run, depends on this version of App-V.

App-V 4.6 also introduces a new feature called Read-Only Cache Mode, which is particularly useful in VDI environments.

Microsoft has updated its Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide to include information about App-V 4.6 new features.

Vizioncore tools to support Hyper-V and Xen

Vizioncore is planning to release a version of its vFoglight management tool to operate with Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualisation platform by the middle of 2010.  And then, the company plans to add in support for managing Citrix XenServer by the end of the year. 

This news comes from NetworkWorld magazine while at the Cebit conference. 

The article states:

At last year's Cebit, attendees only wanted to talk about VMware's products, but that has changed this year, according to Lothar Esser, channel manager at Vizioncore. That means there is also more demand for management tools for Hyper-V and Xen, he said.

...

Management has become more important as companies virtualize more of their systems, Esser said. One challenge is to track the movement of virtual machines. Features such as VMware's VMotion have made it easy to move virtual machines, but if they can't be located quickly, that can affect uptime negatively, Esser said.

At long last the VMware focused partners are starting to make their tools available cross hypervisor, this is a great announcement, and long overdue.  Lets hope the other key players follow suit!

Google Acquires Microsoft Office Collaboration Tool DocVerse

Google has just announced the acquisition of DocVerse, a startup that adds Google Docs-like functionality to Microsoft Office.

In a blog post, Google explains “we recognise that many people are still accustomed to desktop software. So as we continue to improve Google Docs and Google Sites as rich collaboration tools, we’re also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office.” That’s exactly what DocVerse will help them do.

“You can invite friends and colleagues to collaborate on any documents. As you and others make edits, those changes are synced to the cloud. In addition to a hard copy, the plug-in automatically saves a web-based version of the doc that others can see to make collaboration easy.

It’s not just the instant collaboration though – there are also some great discussion and tracking features via the DocVerse sidebar. One allows you to IM anybody collaborating on the document in question. Another lets you track the most recent changes and by whom they were made. Finally, the version history tab lets you see a larger overview of the history of the document.”

In other words, DocVerse brings much of the functionality that Google Docs users are accustomed to into the desktop world of Microsoft Office, which still holds the vast majority of the market.

Microsoft offers its own features for pushing Office data to the cloud – Live Office Workspaces – and is soon to launch a complete web-based version of the Office suite with Microsoft Office 2010.

Currently, DocVerse isn’t free. It will be interesting to see if one of Google’s first moves is to make it so (or just make it an included part of Google Apps).

How Google Keeps Your Data Safe in their cloud

In a blog post this week, Google reminds its enterprise customers that Google Apps provides an alternative to expensive, complex solutions as far as data disaster recovery goes.

Synchronous replication is a system that Google Apps uses to store customer’s info in two data centres at once, so that if one data centre fails, Google says it nearly instantly transfers data over to the other one that’s also been reflecting the actions taken by the customer all along.

This synchronous replication is applied to the entire Apps suite as well as Gmail (Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites), with the sales angle being enterprise-class back-up for all at a much lower cost than if companies were to provide or contract separately for their own data redundancy systems.

Google, ever keen to push its Apps suite to new corporate clients of all sizes, estimates that this kind of backup could cost up to $500 for 25GB of data from other providers, but says it can bundle it in because it’s already running large, fast data centres.

This is essentially Google reminding enterprise customers (and potential customers) about one of the significant benefits of cloud computing over traditional in-house server farm data storage. How does your business handle data backup and redundancy issues? Do you think cloud computing is the ideal solution to hardware failure?

VMware looking to control guest OS applications with new Guest Console

Rumour has it that VMware is about to release a solution to control guest O/S applications, there are some video links below.

Guest Console, currently in Technology Preview phase, is a new management console able to independently monitor and manipulate files and processes inside any guest operating system.

It can connect to any guest OS, it doesn’t matter if the VM is hosted on ESX, Server and Workstation.

Once connected to the host, VGC provides a task manager, a file system explorer, a snapshot manager and a virtual machine manager that work with Windows and Linux guests.

With these tools an administrator can perform simple tasks like ending a running process or start a new program, as well as more complex things like copying the same file to multiple guest OSes at the same time.

In similar fashion, it can manipulate snapshots of multiple virtual machines at the same time or store the information coming from multiple guest OSes for inventory purposes.

Here’s the videos:

 

VMware vCenter 4.0.1.1

Firstly apologies for not being active on providing information over the last couple of weeks, it has been manic! Anyway we are back in business and have a plethora of information coming your way, first off the blocks....

Last week VMware updated its disaster recovery solution Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to version 4.0.1.1 (build 236215).

The new version is primarily for bug fixing and features enhancements. There are no new capabilities.

This version of SRM supports storage replication adapters from:

• 3PAR
• Compellent
• Dell | EqualLogic
• EMC (for CLARiiON, Symmetrix, Celerra and RecoverPoint)
• FalconStor
• Fujitsu
• Hitachi
• HP (for EVA, LeftHand and XP)
• IBM (for DS, SVC ad XIV)
• LSI
• NEC
• NetApp (both NAS and SAN products)
• Sun (acquired by Oracle)

Still a fantastic solution for dr, interested? You need to us at charles.barratt@dataplex-systems.com