Symantec Acquires PGP

Symantec have announced they will acquire encryption specialist PGP and endpoint security vendor GuardianEdge Technologies for US$300 million and $70 million respectively, the company said on Thursday.

Both are privately held companies. Symantec said the deals are subject to regulatory approval but are expected to close by June.

Symantec said the companies' combined specialties in standards-based encryption for e-mail, file systems, removable media and smartphones will complement its security offerings, such as its gateway, endpoint security and data-loss prevention software.

Encrypting information offers a higher level of security in case data is lost or stolen. Earlier this month, the U.K. increased the fine under the Data Protection Act for organisations that lose data to a maximum of £500,000.

Symantec said it will standardise its products on PGP's key management platform, which allows administrators to centrally manage encryption tasks. That platform will be integrated into the Symantec Protection Center, a management console for its products.

GuardianEdge, which specialises in security for laptops, portable storage devices and smartphones, is already a partner of Symantec for its Endpoint Encryption product. The company has particular strength in the government market, Symantec said.

The two companies will become part of Symantec's Enterprise Security Group.

HP to Acquire Palm

HP yesterday announced that it will acquire Palm in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. The deal brings Palm, struggling to reinvent itself as a smartphone company after being a major player in the PDA market, into the fold with HP.

HP and Palm today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

The press release notes that Palm's chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein, who previously served as a key Apple executive and is credited as being one of the primary minds behind the iPod, is expected to remain with the company.

News that Palm was looking to place itself up for sale surfaced earlier this month as the company's stock dropped on poor earnings results and analyst price target cuts to as low as zero.

Palm recruited a number of Apple executives and engineers in an attempt to reinvent itself under its new webOS operating system.

The start of a new Integrity Era

This is the first time in around 10 years that HP Business Critical servers have brought a new Integrity server product line to market. This is not unusual in this complex mission-critical environment, especially where stability and “always on data” is a prerequisite. Mission-critical datacenters servers and applications cannot go down and because of that, the accumulation of legacy infrastructure increases, so making it harder and harder to maintain over time.

One of the key principles that HP is now starting to deliver upon is a consolidated view of how to improve datacenter management and how to better tackle the problems around applications, servers, storage, networks.  This principle of converging all datacenter elements together became the core around how the messages were crafted for the new HP Integrity blades.

The launch of the new mission-critical Integrity server’s marks one of the first chapters in the Converged Infrastructure story. The Integrity servers are a great example where HP brings a wide variety of common elements together into 4 distinct Converged Infrastructure areas:

• A common modular Infrastructure
• A common network fabric
• Comprehensive cross-domain control
• Comprehensive power and cooling management

There is now a common network fabric where you can wire systems once, and all subsequent rewiring can be accomplished virtually. Always-on resiliency provides a secure, optimised environment that mitigates risk.

Next iPhone to Debut on 7th June?

Apple just put up details about its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on its site. Given the recent iPhone 4G leak and Apple’s usual timing when it comes to iPhone announcements, it’s very likely that Apple will officially announce the next version of iPhone at the conference, which is being held from June 7-11 in San Francisco.

Since the leaked prototype that ended up in the hands of tech blog Gizmodo is obviously very real, we don’t expect too many surprises.

We expect the iPhone 4G (as it will likely be called) to feature a front camera, an upgraded back camera, improved display, microSIM support and metal details on the case.

Go back in time!

Just a bit of light hearted fun, for all of you who remember the web in 1998!

Geocities might be no more, but thanks to the Geocities-izer, you can give any site on the web that straight-out-of-1998 look and feel.

The site –- complete with a Netscape Now button, an odometer-like traffic counter and plenty of animated GIFs — lets you enter in a URL and have it instantly transformed into something that would’ve made many a Geocities user swoon back in the day.

Above, you can see Geocities-ized dataplex site, which also included a MIDI of the 1990s hit by the Elton John “Candle in the Wind” when I gave this nostalgia-soaked tool a spin.

Nextgen HP Integrity Blades

Today we started with the HP Integrity Blades breakout session.  The BL890c i2 blade is the first 8 socket UNIX blade server in the industry.

The new BL8x0c i2 blade family uses the Boxboro chipset from Intel. It is a common chipset that HP uses for both Xeon and Itanium servers. For the Itanium processor, Intel has included memory double chip spare as part of the on processor memory controller, instead of on a separate memory controller as  done in the past. The memory controller now offers 8 memory busses at 800 Mhz per core, or 32 memory busses per socket. In addition, HP still provides 3 DIMM slots per processor core, or 24 memory slots on a two socket blade.

HP spent some time discussing the new Blade Link that connects blades to each other.  The BladeLink uses QPI to link up to 4 blades. It uses 5 links per socket, so no processor is more than 1 hop away, even when you have 8 sockets. The memory bandwidth is about one order of magnitude greater than on previous generation servers.

HP also highlighted the I/O capabilities of the BL8x0c i2 family. Each blade has 4 x Flex-10 links. Each Flex-10 link can be separated into 4 FlexNics.

All in all, the new HP Integrity BL8x0c i2 servers offer a lot of CPU, memory, and I/O bandwidth, in a very flexible environment. As I've mentioned before, not only are these very capable servers, but their flexibility allows people to select a server that fits their needs today, and know that they can easily grow the system as needed in the future.

HP EVA to become P6000 SAN

HP will be rebranding their EVA range storage appliances to the P6000 series range within their Converged Infrastructure capability.

Converged Infrastructure is a set of integrated stacks of server, storage and networking with a common management layer.

Converged Infrastructure will have a common set of storage arrays consisting of a standard 3U mount unit holding the drives, basic controller pair and network ports.

Examples of this are the P4000 (LeftHand) iSCSI block storage arrays and X9000 (Ibrix) scale-out file storage arrays.

The block-focused mid-range EVA arrays will also have their XCS controller software ported to Converged Infrastructure's storage processor blades.

In line with HP's developing unified storage branding the EVA will become the P6000, joining the P2000 (ex-MSA), P4000 and X9000 in HP's storage brand line-up.

It is understood that thin provisioning, replication, snapshots, and deduplication are functions layered on top of the storage personalities.

It is possible that deduplication and disk-2-disk backup will be a fourth storage personality inside the storage element of Converged Infrastructure.

HP's Storage Essentials will not be a direct part of the storage aspect of Converged Infrastructure. As far as the EVA is concerned Storage Essentials currently talks to Command View to get EVA information. In Converged Infrastructure it will get information from the low-level storage hardware, and from the storage management SW executing in the storage processor blades.

Converged Infrastructure is becoming one of the most, if not the most, integrated IT stacks in the industry. This is a shrewd move HP to ensure that migration to a converged infrastructure is available for existing EVA customers.

Microsoft RemoteFX

Last month Microsoft created quite a storm with their announcement of RemoteFX included within Windows 2008 R2 SP, which is a technology designed to deliver media-rich applications being run in the datacenter to remote users and still get a local-like experience.

So why is Microsoft RemoteFX important? Because its support for full-fidelity video as well as rich media and 3D graphics helps close the gap between the user experience of a local user sitting at their physical desktop and that of a remote user connected to a virtual desktop.

Customers looking to deploy a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) expect their users to be able to plug any peripheral device into their client device and have it "just work" within a virtual desktop as if it was a physical desktop.

The situation today is that the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) only provides certain kinds of high-level redirection (such as printer redirection, disk drive redirection, PnP device redirection, etc). However, due to the wide variety of device types and variances in the quality and availability of drivers, it is impossible to provide a consistent high-level device redirection solution for every device across every platform used with RDP. As a result, device-specific solutions for each type of device are necessary.

A much better solution is to redirect devices at the USB level. With that type of solution, which Microsoft have chosen for VDI desktops, no device drivers are needed on the client device, and we can provide a universal interface that works with any USB device on any of our supported platforms. This solution is able to successfully redirect most of the devices users wish to use, including audio in/out devices, storage devices, HID devices (tablets, keyboards, etc.), and printers and scanners.

This is an interesting time for Microsoft based VDI technology, that coupled with the announcement of VECD licensing last month, makes Microsoft a very interesting option for VDI.

HP Superdome 2 - Technical Overview

Ok so we thought it would be useful to highlight some of the technical announcements on the Superdome2 architecture announced here in Frankfurt.

It is based on an 18U enclosure that goes into a standard HP rack. This enclosure takes 2s Cell blades each with 2 sockets (8 cores) and 512GB RAM each. Each blades has 3 Mezzanine cards. The 18U enclosure shares common components with the C7000 such  as power supplies, fans, power inputs and insight display.

Common Converged Platform:

• Common management across ProLiant and Integrity including BladeSystem Matrix/Insight Dynamics, Onboard Administrator, and iLO3
• Common enclosures and spares, which I've already mentioned a few times. It will be a common theme this week

• Fault Tolerant crossb ar fabrix with end-to-end retry – all transactions are tracked to successful completion

• Allows independent scaling of IO and CPU.

SD2 analysis engine

• Consistent monitoring and analysis of system fault data
• Self heals by driving response to failures.

Online Serviceability

• Tool free HP components
• Single click online firmware upgrades (that will not bring down the enclosure)
• Firmware inventory control.

Power-on-once Technology

• Fault tolerant fabric with end-to-end retry for all transactions in the chipset. Every transaction is tracked to completion, rerouted through a secondary path if needed, and allows independent scaling of I/O and CPU. This allows customers to optimize Superdome 2 for their specific workload - whether it is CPU intensive or an I/O intensive workload.
• Superdome 2 Analysis Engine provides constant monitoring and analysis of system fault data. The server also self heals by driving responses to failure - in other words, instead of a simple error message, it also suggests how to fix it. If the first fix doesn't work, it knows that to try next. It is kind of like adding an HP service engineer with every system.
• Online Serviceability with tool free hot pluggable components. While we didn't have systems in this session, I will say that the tool free demo was impressive during Martin Fink's keynote and server tear down demo.

Longevity and investment protection for the next decade

• Superdome was available for 10 years. This platform will take us through quite a few years more. There is a stable and committed roadmap for 3 Itanium processor generations. It runs HP-UX 11i v3, so applications don't need to be re-certified.

Offline VMs – Are you securing them?

I am off to Infosec this week to deliver a joint presentation with McAfee, I have a session focused on securing your virtual environment.  The session is typically brief as they tend to be at Expo’s but the subject is massive.

The session is going to cover VMSafe, the opportunities afforded by VMware and how the security vendors are leveraging this framework albeit slower than envisaged.

We all know the security issues on virtualisation platforms such as VM Sprawl, Management, Performance of multiple scans and the inefficient manner of patching and maintaining all these consolidated machines.  This is before we even touch on virtual desktops and linked clones and the issues they bring with reboots.

I think as an industry we have to go further and extend this vision of intelligent hybrid security controls to offline VMs as well.

All of these functions (and more) need to be seamlessly performed on offline VMs:

• AV scanning
• Patching
• Software distribution
• Configuration management / changes
• AV signature updates
• Host firewall and host-based IPS rule updates
• Dynamic White listing.

While it might be possible to batch up all of this and apply these when the VM is mounted, this could potentially result in hours of processing before an offline VM could be put into production.

The best-designed security (and management) products will handle offline VMs as easily as online VMs (and without requiring a separate product to do this).

If you want to know how McAfee can help you start to achieve the above and more then please contact us on 0845 260 575 and ask for Charles, or pop along to the McAfee stand on Thursday for a chat.

HP Mission Critical Solutions Update

As you know dataplex are at HP Technology @ Work (#HPTAW) this week, and one of the key announcements is around integrity and super dome architectures.  We have just sat through the keynote session on Mission Critical Solutions.

HP discussed how they are now working mission critical into the converged infrastructure. HP then covered the fact that all of their new hardware runs HP-UX 11i v3 - in other words, it doesn't require a new operating system version, with all the testing and certification that requires.

HP then gave an overview of their new offerings. We start with Superdome 2. HP then spoke about their new Integrity blades, including the first 8 socket blade in the industry, the BL890c i2. HP mentioned their new entry class rack mount server, the rx2800. Finally, BladeSystem Matrix has been available for HP BladeSystem for a while now. HP have now brought out BladeSystem Matrix for Integrity (a.k.a. Matrix operating environment).

HP covered a number of key topics around the servers - their Unified Blade Architecture, the Flex Fabric, the Power On Once capabilities, and the Matrix Operating Environment.

Finally, HP finished off with a demo of the Superdome 2 enclosure, which was sitting at the side of the stage. The top of the enclosure had a standard c7000 chassis, with 8 socket BL890c i2 server. In between, it had an rx2800 server. At the bottom, it had a Superdome 2 with 2 I/O expansion chassis.

HP demonstrated the common components of the servers by pulling a fan out of the c7000 chassis, and swapping it with a fan out of the Superdome 2 chassis. The then swapped a power supply from the rx2800 i2 and the Superdome 2 I/O expansion. HP also swapped power supplies from the c7000 and Superdome 2 chassis.

We have some pictures for you on the new superdome:

There were tear downs of a BL860c i2 and Superdome 2 blade. HP explained that the big difference between the two types of blade: more physical memory slots and the crossbar fabric are that are in the Superdome 2 blades physically take more space. Hence, a chassis that is 18U high for Superdome 2 versus the 10 U for the c7000 chassis.

The key element that struck us in this sessions was how simple it is to service these systems. Everything plugs in, pulls out, and is easy to change - CPUs, memory, fans, I/O cards, etc.

The session finished with a quick update on the Itanium business from Intel and reminder that we are moving from one-of-everything IT to one infrastructure that does everything.

HP Integrity and Converged Infrastructure

dataplex have been following the whole concept and marketing momentum around Converged Infrastructure within HP.  When I first started looking at this initiative, like many people I was waiting to see how it would come out.  We have been very pleased with what I have seen and in fact believe that HP Integrity servers operating in a converged infrastructure will have enhanced performance. 

Most customers don't really care what hardware they're running the application on as long it runs well.  But they really care if they see response times creep up, lagging processing time, or any of the other myriad of problems that occur if a system infrastructure is operating sub-optimally.  Poor performance is NOT due to the fact that your server runs a benchmark 10% lower than someone elses - it will typically be because there are more deep set issues - lack of I/O, not enough memory, poor virtualisation and workload management implementation, application-to-server sizing problems.   With real workloads in real-world situations, HP Integrity is a good platform.  Operating in a Converged Infrastructure with external bottlenecks removed, it will be a great platform.

One of the really fascinating things is how server performance would be impacted by a Converged Infrastructure. With all resources balanced, all bottlenecks should be removed or more limited, optimizing effective performance. 

Witness: The New HP Integrity Servers

Well the day has arrived, the Itanium 9300 processor was announced in February, and today, HP is announcing the new HP Integrity servers.

HP could have just thrown a faster processor, DDR 3 memory, and a new I/O into our existing rack mount servers. But HP has decided to do something just a little different.

HP has decided to bring mission critical systems to a bladed environment, providing customers with a modular, flexible server. Utilising the c3000 and c7000 chassis, HP can provide 2, 4, and 8 socket blades. These blades are modular. The base unit is a 2 socket, BL860c i2. Two of them linked together with our scalable BladeLink, becomes a 4 socket, BL870c i2. Four BL860c i2 linked together becomes an 8 socket BL890c i2. This not only provides linear socket growth, but linear, memory growth, linear hard drive growth, and linear I/O growth.

dataplex are very excited about these blades, since they provide modularity and flexibility without requiring an investment in a fairly large system. And yet, they still provide scaling. For instance, you can put 2 BL890c i2 servers in a single 10 U, c7000 chassis. This provides 64 cores, 768 Gb of memory in 192 DIMM slots, 16 hard drives, and 32 Virtual Connect Flex-10 connections.

Finally, HP has also announced a small rack mount server for those customers who don't need larger, more flexible servers - the rx2800 i2.

Some pictures straight from HP Technology @ Work:

 

dataplex at the HP Frankfurt event, where HP announced it is moving High-end Superdome to Blade Platforms

OK so dataplex are currently in Frankfurt at the HP European event; HP Technology @ work and already there are some fantastic announcements coming out, and more to come today. So far the information we have is as follows.

HP has unveiled some major updates to its Integrity line of Itanium-based servers, including a new edition of its top-end Superdome system based on HP's blade server architecture.

The new systems, which also include three Integrity blades and a rackmount server, are all based on Intel's quad-core Itanium 9300 series processors, known as Tukwila. They are being introduced Tuesday morning at the event.

Superdome 2 is the first big upgrade to the Superdome system since it was launched a decade ago. While the original has its own cabinet enclosure, Superdome 2 is moving to a new Blade Scale architecture that allows it be housed in a standard server rack using HP's 7000-series blade chassis. Customers will be able to manage the servers with the same tools they use for HP's other blade systems, including Onboard Administrator and Virtual Connect.

The move to a more standard blade design is a big theme for the Integrity launch, and something HP says will reduce ownership costs for customers. The three new Integrity blades are also based on HP's BladeSystem architecture, and customers will now be able to manage Integrity, ProLiant and StorageWorks blades side by side in the same enclosure, HP said.

"We're bringing the mission critical capabilities of the Integrity portfolio into our converged infrastructure environment," said Lorraine Bartlett, vice president of marketing for HP's mission-critical systems.

Moving to a common blade design should also help reduce HP's development costs, because it will be able to use technologies built for higher volume platforms. Intel has taken a similar route with some of its Itanium components.

Superdome 2 won't be available until the second half of the year, and HP isn't saying much about pricing or configurations yet. It says it will be sold in eight- and 16-socket building blocks, and that the blade design will allow it to offer a starting price 40 percent lower than that of the original Superdome.

The system has a new CrossBar Fabric that HP says improves resiliency by routing data intelligently between the servers and system I/O with redundancy. The fabric also lets customers scale CPUs and memory independent of I/O for applications that need it, according to HP.

Superdome 2 has a new "analysis engine" that looks out for errors and tries to act before they occur. "It looks for any soft failures that might be indicative of a larger system failure and provides alerts before you get to that point. It can also monitor the system and determine how it should be configured for the highest performance," Bartlett said.

HP also announced new software. It developed an HP-UX version of BladeSystem Matrix, its software for automatically provisioning servers, storage and networking, so that it can be used with the Integrity blades. It also announced an update to HP-UX that includes Insight Dynamics, a component required for BladeSystem Matrix, as well as better virtualisation and power management features.

HP hasn't released performance data yet to show how Superdome 2 stacks up against IBM's Power7 servers.

While Superdome 2 might not ship for six months or more, the three new Integrity blades are available now. HP's new Blade Link technology, based on Tukwila's high-speed QuickPath Interconnect, allows four blades to be snapped together in what HP considers a single, eight-socket system. That server, the BL890c i2, starts at US$30,935. There is also a four-socket system that starts at $13,970 and a two-socket system for $6,490, HP said.

We will let you know more today as and when we get it.

Citrix Receiver for Windows Mobile now on market place

Welcome to the rich user experience with Citrix Receiver on a Windows Phone

Good news is that you don't have to wait for Windows Phone 7. This is right away available on your Windows Mobile 6.5.

The new receiver exploits the gesture support on Windows Mobile 6.5. You can scroll up/down your favourite remote word application or move around the same with a touch of finger. To send left click you tap on the screen, to send a double click tap twice.. Life is never so easy on a windows phone. You can change the resolution of the remote Windows application if it is too small to see. Or if you want to see a particular content larger you can use the zoom feature. The key board has been extended to provide additional control keys to be send to the remote application.

Application screen would switch from portrait to landscape mode automatically as your rotate the phone. A manual option to rotate is also provided for other phones which does not have the feature.

Thanks for this information from Citrix over at the community site.

What's new in the latest HP P4000 SAN Software?

Network RAID 5 and 6

Network RAID, a key feature of all P4000 SANs, has been enhanced to add two new network RAID levels. Both Network RAID 5 and 6 provide better capacity utilisation while still providing high availability and redundancy beyond simple disk RAID. With the addition new network RAID levels, all protection levels have been renamed to describe their data layout as it relates to disk RAID levels. All Network RAID levels continue to be set on a per volume basis and can be easily changed without interrupting data access.

 

Data Protection Level	Previous Name	Data layout across all nodes in a cluster
Network RAID-0	None	Stripe
Network RAID-5	NA	Stripe and single parity protection
Network RAID-6	NA	Stripe and dual parity protection
Network RAID-10	2-Way	Stripe and mirrored protection
Network RAID-10+1	3-Way	Stripe and triple mirrored protection
Network RAID-10+2	4-Way	Stripe and quadruple mirrored protection

Here's the Network RAID selections in the CMC:

Application Integration

Application managed snapshots are integrated directly into the centralised management console and support all SAN/iQ features, including snapshot and remote copy schedules. Requesting VSS integrated snapshots, manually or scheduled, is a simple option available in the CMC. Snapshot sets are also now managed through the CMC with easy options for recovery or deletion of sets containing multiple volumes.

Again, here's what the screen looks like:

Best Practices Analyser

The centralised management console now includes a best practices summary which automatically identifies important best practices that are not currently being followed. For each management group, it identifies specific configurations and advises on best practices that should be implemented. Following the guidelines the best practices analyser suggests can increase the performance and reliability of the SAN.

Here's a screen-shot of that:

HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM) monitoring

SAN/iQ 8.5 enables HP P4000 SANs to support HP SIM discovery and status monitoring. HP SIM support for P4000 SNMP traps requires a future update to HP SIM. This also enables a new release of HP Remote Support Tools coming in 2010 to integrate with all HP P4000 SANs running SAN/iQ 8.5 or higher.

Microsoft System Center DPM 2010

Along with the announcement of DPM 2010, Microsoft also announced the release of System Center DPM 2010, and this couldn’t come soon enough for us Hyper-V R2 advocates!

System Center Data Protection (DPM) 2010, delivers unified data protection for Windows servers such as SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, Virtualisation and file servers -- as well as Windows desktops and laptops. Microsoft has re-engineered DPM 2010 to be more scalable so that both midsize and enterprise-class organisations can take advantage of it.

Key additions in DPM 2010 include:

• The ability for roaming laptops to get centrally managed policies around desktop protection, so that your laptop data is protected, whether you are connected to the corporate network or remote
• Enhanced virtualisation protection, including Hyper-V R2 LiveMigration scenarios running on clustered shared volumes and the ability to recover single-files from within host-based backups
• Additional protection and recovery capabilities for Windows application servers like SQL Server, Exchange or SharePoint
• Native site-to-site replication for disaster recovery to either another DPM server or an off-site cloud provider
• Significant enterprise-scalability increases for deploying DPM in large environments
• Centrally managed System State and Bare Metal Recovery

Microsoft System Center Essentials 2010

This week Microsoft announced the release of System Center Essentials 2010 and System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) 2010.

System Center Essentials 2010 (SCE 2010) provides IT professionals in mid-sized organisations with a unified physical and virtual management experience. It enables you to better secure, update, monitor, and troubleshoot from a single console, so you can efficiently and proactively manage your IT environment.

The main addition to this second System Center Essentials release is the seamless integration of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 technology, making it quick and easy for midsize business to begin realising the cost-cutting benefits of server consolidation using virtualisation. SCE 2010 will enable you to rapidly move from a physical to virtual server environment while maintaining the control and simple management you have come to expect from the product

Additionally, the maximum number of Windows Server devices that SCE can manage has been raised from 30 to 50.

Microsoft is Intune with PC Management

Microsoft is beta testing a PC management service aimed at supporting midsized businesses, the company announced on Monday.

The service, called Intune, will be available to 1,000 users in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

The service streamlines administrative functions by moving common administrative tasks to a hosted environment, eliminating the need to set up and manage in-house software for these tasks, said Microsoft group product marketing manager Sandrine Skinner.

From a browser console, an administrator can manage all the Windows 7 PCs in the organisation. "You can update any PC, no matter where it is located," Skinner said.

The service includes features such as the ability to manage Windows updates, to install and manage malware and virus protection measures, to set security policies, and to assemble an inventory of PCs and their configurations.

Users of the service will also get enterprise upgrade rights to Windows 7, as well as a package of additional administration tools, such as the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset.

Setting up the service requires installing client software on each of the PCs, which must be running a professional or enterprise version of Windows, either of the Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 variety. No changes will be required of the network.

It uses standard Microsoft software, such as Forefront, Windows Server Update Services, and from the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack, but the company hosts the software and provides a unified administrative interface.

Microsoft Office 2010 RTM

Last week Microsoft Office 2010 reached the release to manufacturing (RTM) stage, marking the end of development for the popular office software. Now the software will be distributed to manufacturers, followed by businesses, retailers, and customers.

Microsoft manufacturing partners and computer makers will get the software first, followed by businesses and then finally general customers. Product downloads for Volume License Partners begin on April 27th, while general customers can expect to see Office 2010 on shelves starting in June.

“RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone,” said Microsoft Corporate Vice-President Takeshi Numoto in a blog post last week. “It is also an appropriate time to re-emphasize our sincere gratitude to the more than 5,000 organisations and partners who have worked with us on rapid deployment and testing of the products. Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version – that’s more than 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads.”

Microsoft Office 2010 had one of the largest software beta tests ever; it’s the same approach the company took with building Windows 7, a tactic seems to have paid off for the technology giant.

We have been using it in beta since last October, and have to say we have been very impressed this when coupled with Exchange 2010 really is a fantastic business productivity solution, when run across Windows 7 it flies, well done Microsoft.

Google highlights cloud printing plan for Chrome OS

Google is unveiling designs and documentation of a project whose goal is to let users of the company's Chrome OS print documents to any printer from any application.

Called Google Cloud Print, the technology would dispense with the need to install printer drivers by routing print jobs from Web, desktop, and mobile applications via a Chrome OS Web-hosted broker.

"Rather than rely on the local operating system -- or drivers -- to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app," wrote Google Product Manager Mike Jazayeri in an official blog post.

While Google Cloud Print is still in its "early days," the company wants to engage interested developers and vendors in the process of developing this technology, according to Google.

"That's particularly key for netbooks and tablets that don't have printer ports or room for printer connectors," Howe said via e-mail. "It's just another example of how the new world of 'anywhere' computing is rapidly jettisoning our PC-conceived notions of how to do things."

The first netbooks that run the OS are expected to hit the market late this year.

Chrome OS has been designed from the ground up for cloud computing, so it will only run Web-hosted applications. A big question has been how Chrome OS will interact with peripherals such as printers.

Google Adds Calendar Invitations to Gmail Messages

If you’re a Gmail user, you may have noticed a surprising new feature in your e-mail account this morning: There’s now an “Insert: Invitation” link adjacent to the “Attach a file” link in each new message you compose.

The invitation addition makes scheduling meetings and setting up appointments via Gmail much easier. It also completes the circle between Gmail and Google Calendar’s Smart Rescheduler. You can now schedule an event and verify attendee availability right from the Compose Mail window.

Inserting a calendar invitation in a Gmail message is as simple as clicking on the “Insert: Invitation” link. A new window automatically appears showing your availability and the availability of the parties included in the e-mail. You can then adjust the time, add a place and description, and specify which calendar to add the event to. Once you send the e-mail, the event is automatically added to everyone’s calendar.

For users of more robust business e-mail programs, today’s Gmail update probably seems minor. But for those of us who use e-mail and calendar services in the cloud, it’s an important and time-saving update that ties together two key Google services.

FCoE and HP Converged Networks

A common switch architecture in most data centres goes something like this…  LAN and SAN switch devices used to connect to host servers are typically smaller pizza box access/edge switches and are physically located at the "top of the rack" of servers to provide connectivity. These top-of-rack switches typically have a series of uplinks to larger chassis-based or director-class aggregation or core switches that provide communication across all of the rack of servers in one or more data centres

As you're looking around your data centre today where is the complexity in your communications infrastructure? It's not at the storage edge. It's actually at the server-to-network infrastructure connection point. It's all of the cables, NICs, HBAs and switches required to gain connectivity to the plethora of servers in the data centre. Look at the quantity of switch ports and cables-all right there at the server-to-network edge.

The goal of converged networks is to take a look at how you can reduce the complexity and the size of this infrastructure to really optimize and reduce the cost of both the acquisition and the operational expenses of this infrastructure.   

You may have a rack of servers that could have 2, 4, 6 or 8 NIC adapters with 2, 3 or 4 fibre channel adapters in each. That's a large set of both copper and optical cables. If you multiple this by hundreds if not thousands of servers in your data centre, it all adds up to be quite a daunting management task to manage this infrastructure.

As an alternative, a converged network and FCoE technology like the HP StorageWorks Converged Network Switches allows you to replace your HBAs and NICs with Converged Network Adapters that support higher speed 10Gb technology.  So now the number of slots used in your servers gets reduced-and the number of cables, switches and switch ports required are dramatically reduced as well. This means you can get equal or more work out of fewer components in your infrastructure. And guess what? Your operational costs from power, cooling and management overhead are going to be reduced, too.

Sounds interesting yes?  Want to know more, then contact us on 0845 260 5757.

If you're looking for more information on HP's converged network switch offerings, this data sheet provides a good product overview.

Google Docs Adds Major New Features

Google has rebuilt Google Docs from the ground-up. The result is a massive overhaul of Google Docs, including completely redesigned spreadsheet, document, and drawing editors, group chat functionality, and the ability to collaborate with real-time character-by-character mark-up, much like Google Wave. You can preview the new changes now!

Collaboration is the one word that would describe the update.  Google believes that “collaboration is broken”: People make revisions to the same document, but one bad save by a late person can ruin the whole document. Thus Google’s belief is that creating a browser version of collaboration software that bridges the gap between the desktop and the web is key to better collaboration and quicker innovation.

The rebuilt Google Docs focuses on addressing those issues, starting with the document editor. One of the biggest changes is that collaborators can now see what others are typing character-by-character. In addition, up to 50 people can now collaborate on one document. The company has also added a chat feature that allows collaborators to discuss a document in a popup that appears on the right-hand side.

You might notice that Google Docs feels more like a word processor like Microsoft Word. This is no accident: Google deliberately added features such as rulers, tab stops, spell-check as you type and floating images.

Spreadsheets have also gotten a hefty upgrade: new features include auto-complete, the ability to drag-and-drop columns and faster load times, which was always an issue with previous releases.

Google’s very proud of the newest version of Google Docs; it compares it very favourably against Microsoft Office.

Interested in trialling it?  Contact us to find out how we can help you.

Citrix releases Xen 4.0 with fault tolerance support

Citrix has released version 4.0 of its Xen hypervisor, adding significant memory and security enhancements, and support for live synchronisation of virtual machines for fault tolerance.

Xen 4.0 adds a number of improvements to the open-source hypervisor, the most important is support for live transactional synchronisation of virtual machine states across separate physical servers.

This feature enables two virtual machines to operate in lock-step, providing a way to guarantee high service reliability without requiring additional software, according to Citrix.

"The new advancements in Xen 4.0 will bring cloud and virtualisation to new levels, and Citrix is dedicated to applying them across our entire stack, from desktop virtualisation to cloud computing," said Simon Crosby, chief technology officer at Citrix.

Xen 4.0 also adds a feature called Netchannel2 that makes better use of modern network adapter hardware. These typically offer capabilities such as multiple queues and single root I/O virtualisation, whereby a single NIC can present itself as a separate network adapter to each virtual machine.

Other features include support for the reliability, availability and serviceability features in newer Intel and AMD server chips, and support for transcendent memory, a method for making available underutilised areas of memory.

Citrix, which acquired Xen creator XenSource in 2007, said that Xen 4.0 makes virtualisation suitable for all workloads, even network-intensive and high-performance applications that would previously have experienced compromised performance

Configuration Manager 2007 Dashboard - Now Available

The dashboard for System Center Configuration Manager has now been released.

The Dashboard, a free Solution Accelerator, lets customers keep track of application and operating system deployments, security updates, the health status of computers, and IT compliance with key regulations - with an easy to use, customizable dashboard.

What about the benefits?

• Actionable information out of the box: the Dashboard lets customers easily stay on top of deployments, security updates, client health, and compliance status.  Six default datasets provide customers with valuable information “out of the box”. 
• Near-real-time access to key information: the graphical Dashboard lets customers view configuration manager metrics in near-real time.
• Easy to build and configure: wizard-based tools let customers easily create new Dashboards in minutes.
• Easy to customize: the Dashboard can easily be customized to meet the needs of different departments and other groups.  Any dataset in the Configuration Manager database can be presented on the Dashboard, in chart, gauge, and table formats.
• Flexible & interactive: users can easily filter data and create ad hoc, custom views. Filters allow users to quickly drill down from high-level to more specific data.

Thanks to Matt @ Microsoft for the heads up here.

Google is developing a tablet to challenge iPAD

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has confirmed that his company is developing a tablet device based on the Android operating system. The New York Times reports that Google has “been working with several hardware manufacturers,” and “hopes to make its own apps marketplace available for new slate-like devices.”

Although Google is yet to publicly announce such a device, many signs point to its likely launch. For starters, Google has been rumoured to be developing a slate device with HTC – the same company it brought Nexus One to market with – since January.

It’s also clear that Google has plans for Android that go way beyond phones. There’s already an Android-powered car on the way, as well as plans for what’s being called “Google TV.” While Chrome OS for netbooks is also expected by year-end (and there are rumoured Chrome tablets too), an Android tablet now seems imminent.

Google considers site speed in search ranking

Back in November, rumours surfaced that Google was considering whether or not to factor site speed into its search ranking algorithm. In a blog post last week, the search giant confirms it is now adding site speed to its list of criteria that could affect your Google ranking.

It’s another step on Google’s long road toward achieving maximum speed and efficiency. The company even launched a Site Performance tool as part of its Webmaster Tools suite to help assess site performance statistics and make changes accordingly. Today’s blog post recommends a few other tools for evaluating your site’s speed as well, including the Firefox Add-on Page Speed.

The new site speed criterion isn’t weighted as heavily as something like page relevance, however. Google says less than 1% of actual search queries performed are being affected by the site speed dimension in the current implementation.

Apple Starts to think Enterprise with 4.0

Apple last week announced OS 4.0, it's latest iPhone and iPad operating system. This release looks like Apple is starting to appreciate the Enterprise and not just the consumer markets.

Since the release of Apple OS 1.0 in July 2007 there have been 4 (including the 4.0 release) releases of the operating system, all heavily focused on the consumer market, but the latter one looking like it has matured to the enterprise market.

So what are the important new enterprise features and what do they mean?

• Wireless application distribution. That means no more iTunes on corporate PCs. That's good news.
• Exchange 2010 support. Important for shops moving to the latest Microsoft products.
• Application data encryption. This is a big deal when putting corporate data, including attachments, on personal devices.
• SSL VPN support for Cisco and Juniper routers. This upgrade makes it easier to open up the corporate network to these devices.

What's still missing?

1. There's no Flash support. This is a drag, and Apple seems determined to avoid support this popular media format in favour of HTML5
2. No policy or software push. This is one of RIM's biggest benefits and differentiators. Apple needs to solve this problem and doesn't yet appear to have done so.
3. Network bandwidth management tools. Another of RIM's big differentiators and something Apple appears to be ignoring.

From what I've seen so far, it looks like software and policy push are the only things still missing from the list in most regulated firms and governments. In other words, employees will still have to click the update button to get the latest policies and application versions. But they will no longer have to sync with iTunes.

dataplex have gone Apple, and I have to say it was a great move.

Microsoft's Cloud enabled Office 2010 due for battle next month

Next month, Microsoft will release Office 2010.

With the release of Office 2010 on May 12, Microsoft will complete an effort to move its long portfolio of applications to the Cloud, offering its business and government customers a new way to deliver services to users.

But while Microsoft dominate the office productivity suite on the desktop, its mindshare is clearly under siege because of Google Apps.

The city of Los Angeles, which may be Google's marquee government user, has been frank in disclosing details of its agreement. By the end of June, Los Angeles expects to complete a transition of some 30,000 employees to Google Apps.

Los Angeles has been frank about the contract, which includes unlimited damages for a data breach, the right to audit, guarantees that the data remain in the contiguous 48 states, and penalties if Google's services are unavailable for anytime longer than five minutes a month.

Microsoft are however confident entering into this space due to their experience in the enterprise, Microsoft have quoted"We know a lot more than potentially any vendor in the industry about the types of questions (business customers) have because we have been through the enterprise software discussion before," O'Brien said in an interview here.

O'Brien argues that Microsoft's 15-years of experience with cloud-based services, which began with its acquisition of Hotmail in 1998, gives it particular strength in this environment.

A major issue in cloud services is having the ability to avoid vendor lock-in by having application and data portability.

Moving to Windows 7?

If you missed Vista and are still on Windows XP or earlier the move to Windows 7 is not only a end user enhancement and supportable product.  The migration itself can be troublesome!  So how can you make the transition easier, simple; MDOP.

An inventory is the foundation on which you build a successful rollout plan. Not only does it describe where you’re going but also from where you’re starting. If you’re business is like many, though, you haven’t inventoried your computers in years. And if you haven’t got this information how can you plan for device and application compatibility?

How much easier would your Windows 7 refresh be if you could easily identify and eliminate duplicate, unnecessary, and undesirable applications?

MDOP includes a feature to help you complete this all important first planning step: The Microsoft Asset Inventory Service (AIS). Using AIS can give you a comprehensive view of the applications and devices on your desktop computers. In addition to the basic inventory, AIS can help you understand the usage patterns of those applications.  AIS can help you translate your inventory in to useful, actionable information.

The time to deploy MDOP is when you begin planning your move to Windows 7.

If you have SA on your desktop licenses, you already have it.  Want to know more about MDOP, then click here.  Want help in understanding the other great technologies in MDOP, then you need to contact us, email me

Citrix now officially recommends Novell PlateSpin Recon

At the beginning of March, Citrix and Novell started a new partnership on virtualisation.

Both offer commercial grade hypervisors based on Xen, but Novell is extending its interest to KVM, following the rival Red Hat.

Despite the evident competition to win Linux shops, Novell agreed to provide joint technical support for customers running SLES on XenServer, and Citrix agreed to use PlateSpin Recon internally and across its Solutions Advisors partner network.

The deal works for Citrix which lacks capacity planning tools as part of its virtual infrastructure and may be not ready to acquire a startup in this space.

It works less well for Novell, which is certainly interested in pushing the PlateSpin business, but continues to give confusing messages about its hypervisor strategy.

If the effort generates a concrete interest, it may help Citrix to reconsider an acquisition, and the company may go for something more VDI and application oriented, like Lanamark or Liquidware Labs solutions.

Naturally, as dataplex have been a Novell/Platespin partner for 5 years we are pretty confident in the tool set and its ability to to define a virtual architecture with very granular detail. Need help on your scoping exercise? Please contact us to find out how, 0845 260 5757.

Thanks to our friends over at Virtualization.info for the heads up on this.

Microsoft System Center Suite 2010

Firstly, excuse the spelling of center – annoying to me as it probably is to you in the UK this is the official spelling of Microsofts management toolset.

A few years ago Microsoft launched System Center Essentials 2007. With this product they gave mid-sized businesses access to the same management tools as enterprises but in a more affordable and usable format.

Pro’s for System Center Essentials

• Unified management experience
• Virtualization creation & management
• Simple setup
• Comprehensive monitoring
• Update management
• Software and hardware inventory
• Monitor workgroup machines
• Monitor machines in same forest
• Software deployment
• Integrated reporting
• Low entry price

Con’s for System Center Essentials

• Limited to one Essentials server per domain
• No option for gateway servers

Where to position Essentials?

At the moment System Center Essentials 2010 is probably the best IT management solution for a majority of midsize businesses; as long as they are within the scale limits (max 50 servers and 500 Workstations). Nevertheless determining the right IT management solution for your company is dependent by the maturity and complexity of the IT environment and business needs.

Getting started

The new version of SCE 2010 can manage up to 500 workstations and 50 servers. The SCE 2010 bundles System Center management products with a core version: Operations Manager, Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager. Furthermore there is support for automatic updates, based on the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) technology. Everything is displayed in a proper integrated console.

Conclusion
Microsoft did a good job integrating OpsMgr, SCCM and WSUS into one product. The console is very good and the limitations are minimal.

Building a Private Cloud – Some pointers for you

The patterns of success are emerging around the use of private cloud computing within the enterprise, and it's time to begin sharing what's working and what's not working.

Do make sure to leverage SOA. While many look at private clouds as simple virtualised resources, those building successful private clouds are working from the business requirements, to the architecture, and then to the solution. Without good architectural context, you don't know how and when you're successful with your private cloud efforts.

Do consider performance. I've seen many cases where the use of private clouds has killed application performance. In many instances, applications are not designed to live in multitenant and virtualised environments, and many applications need to be re-architected to operate effectively.

Do consider security and governance. Security and governance are systemic to the architecture.

Don't preselect private cloud software based on what's popular. There are a few camps out there, the EMC VMware camp and the open source camp (Xen, Eucalyptus, and so on), whose members will use only VMware or open source products, respectively. There's no middle ground as far as these camps are concerned.

Don't call it "elastic scalability." You're only scaling out to the limits of the hardware in the rack, which is typically a handful of servers within most enterprises.

Don't let the vendor drive your solution. Not that many private clouds exist, so it's tempting to ask your vendor, including those from "big software," to come in and build your private cloud for you, from the architecture to the solution. If you do that, don't be surprised that everything the vendor sells not only fits in their proposed solution but is required by it.

The vendor has a conflict of interest, so leaving the decision in its hands usually results in a solution that fits its sales needs, not your business needs.

Naturally dataplex can provide strategic and technical advisory services to help you establish your cloud requirements and how they match up with the business requirements.

Google upgrades email management hosted service

Google is adding two features to its Google Message Security, a hosted service for monitoring and managing email systems that filters message content based on pre-established policies and protects against spam, viruses, and other threats.

Google has upgraded its Message Security by making it possible for a copy of a message to be delivered to two different email hosts and by simplifying the calibration of spam and virus protection parameters, the company said.

The new Dual Delivery feature will come in handy when organisations are migrating from one email platform to another, as well as when they want to set up a secondary email repository for backup purposes, according to Google.

Meanwhile, Health Check introduces a new reporting capability to assist email system administrators in establishing the right level of virus and spam detection, so that it's enough to protect the platform without being excessive and disrupting users' workflow.

Google Message Security, which is based on technology Google acquired with its purchase of Postini, is included at no extra charge with the Premier edition of the Google Apps collaboration and communication suite.

However, organisations that don't use Google Apps Premier can still sign up for Google Message Security, which costs $12 per user, per year when purchased as a stand-alone service.

Google acquired Postini in July 2007 for $625 million in cash, a move directed at boosting Google's enterprise software unit and making Google Apps a more viable product for large organisations that have sophisticated email compliance, management and security requirements.

Windows 7 – A Catalyst for VDI?

The growing maturity of virtual desktop technologies and customer interest in Windows 7 has VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) vendors expecting big adoption numbers in 2010.

But while most CIOs are at least thinking about desktop virtualisation, this year's projects may be limited to pilots and small deployments because of up-front costs and technology challenges that hamper user experience.

An recent survey of more than 800 businesses worldwide shows that 31 percent of respondents plan to implement VDI this year, more than double the previous year.

A related technology, application virtualisation, is also on the upswing with 37 percent of respondents planning implementations, an increase from 15 percent the previous year.

Some early adopters say they have saved money by prolonging the life of PCs or using less expensive thin clients, and that hosting desktop images in the datacenter improves manageability and makes it easier to restore an employee's desktop in case of device failure.

But moving desktop images and applications from the user's hands to the datacenter requires a major shift in both IT infrastructure and mindset.

But with many businesses planning to upgrade to Windows 7, IT departments are taking a closer look at virtual desktop models.

Windows 7 and the impending EOL for XP is refocusing IT departments to think long and hard about how they want to manage and deploy a major upgrade to the desktop estate, and this is where VDI is looking promising.

There are numerous models for enterprises to consider within the desktop virtualisation realm. There's presentation virtualisation, which executes applications on a server and remotely presents the application interface to a user's endpoint device.

Other forms of desktop virtualisation include blade PCs and client-hosted virtual desktops. A blade PC runs in the datacenter and can be accessed remotely by client devices, but each blade PC can only serve one user at a time. Client-hosted virtualisation, on the other hand, puts the desktop hypervisor on the desktop machine itself, requiring a more robust client device but also providing better options for offline access. .

VMware recently upgraded its ThinApp application virtualisation software to improve migration of applications from older versions of Windows to Windows 7. Microsoft, meanwhile, has lowered the price of licensing the Windows operating system in virtual desktop deployments, and announced new bundles with Citrix designed to lure customers away from VMware.

Specifically, Microsoft and Citrix are offering a year's worth of free desktop virtualisation for as many as 500 users for companies that switch from VMware View to Citrix's XenDesktop VDI and Microsoft VDI.

Lets face it get VDI wrong and everybody knows about it, get server virtualisation wrong and you can contain that easier.

Microsoft to Unveil Social Networking Phones April 12

The rumour mill has churned on a Microsoft mobile initiative dubbed Project Pink for some time now, and according to the Wall Street Journal we’ll finally see the official results of that unveiled at a press event this coming Monday, April 12.

Project Pink is reportedly releasing a line of mobile phones featuring social networking integrations aimed at a young demographic. The “Pink” line will reflect Microsoft’s taking a more hands-on role in developing the hardware side of the mobile spectrum, as opposed to their more typical strategy of handling the software operating system and letting partners design the phones themselves. They’ve also designed some un-detailed “online services” for Pink phones in addition to the software and hardware, while Japan’s Sharp Corp. will handle the actual manufacturing.

According to the WSJ’s sources, some of the new phones will be available already later in April on Verizon. Until we have more details it’s hard to speculate on how the Pink line might impact Microsoft’s overall lacklustre showing in the mobile realm, although it and the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series seem to be signs that Redmond is doing their best to put up a fight.

Kaviza partners with Citrix on desktop virtualisation

Stressing desktop virtualisation as a cost-saver for smaller enterprises, Kaviza is partnering with Citrix to boost Kaviza's VDI-in-a-box (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) technology.

Citrix has invested an unspecified amount of money in Kaviza, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

VDI-in-a-box features a turnkey solution enabling deployment of Windows desktop images across multiple systems and management from central servers. Desktops can be accessed from such locations as home PCs, airport terminals, repurposed PCs, or thin clients. Benefits are offered in security, desktop management, troubleshooting , disaster recovery, and power consumption, according to Kaviza. Fast log-in also is enabled.

Kaviza VDI differs from traditional VDI in that it utilises a consolidated virtual software appliance and direct-attached storage as opposed to requiring connection brokers, load balancers, management and compute servers, and expensive shared storage,  according to the company.

Citrix is investing in Kaviza because it sees Kaviza as a way to access the  more affordable virtualisation market.

"With an increasing focus on desktop virtualisation, Citrix's investment in Kaviza is to support the startup's efforts in building a VDI solution for the SME market," said Andrew Cohen, Citrix senior director of strategic development. "We are closely watching the growing need for virtual desktops for the SME market, and the early success for Kaviza suggests that the SME market could be well served by their solution. Citrix is very impressed with the simplicity of the Kaviza solution and believe that it could serve certain segments of the market very well."

VDI-in-a-box leverages commodity servers at $100 per desktop, hypervisors including VMware ESXi at $50 per desktop and the Kaviza kManager software-based virtual appliance. Total cost of VDI-in-a-desktop is less than $500 per desktop, Kaviza officials said. Windows 7 and XP can be virtualised via Kaviza, with Microsoft software licenses required.

The currently shipping version of VDI-in-a-box is version 2.2. Due at mid-year, version 3.0 will add support for hypervisors, including Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V.