CIO’s Explore Twitter for Business

The CIOs of Sony Pictures and Clorox weren’t sold on Twitter at first, as they explained during a webcast the other day, “CIOs Reveal Why They Tweet”.

Ralph Loura, the CIO of Clorox, made a promise to himself that he would stick with it for a month to see what he got out of it. David Buckholtz, Divisional CIO for Sony Pictures, had established hundreds of LinkedIn connections before sending one tweet. It was using the Twitter search feature to ferret out fellow tweeters for strategic reasons that convinced them of the value of Twitter for business.

In a survey of 75 tweeting CIOs that was discussed during the panel, virtually all of them—92%–agreed that Twitter is an effective business tool. When digging deeper into the data it’s evident why. Most of the CIOs who use Twitter, 70%, have forged new business relationships via the social network. Since connections are the currency of business, Twitter is clearly paying off for CIOs daring enough to jump into the long-tail conversations.

Twitter for business isn’t obvious to everyone, however. Ironically, as a small community of CIOs are busy putting Twitter to work for them, 49% of them cite the perception that Twitter is a waste of time as the biggest barrier to enterprise adoption of Twitter. But even though Twitter has a bad rap for being a time suck, over half of CIOs surveyed said that employees are free to use Twitter as they fit.

Sony Pictures is moving away from social media “lockdown” mode, according to David, and Ralph said that employees at Clorox are increasingly managing and promoting brands on Twitter, which includes Burt’s Bees products.

Kristin Burnham, the Web 2.0 reporter for CIO Magazine, who was also on the panel, predicted that more businesses are going to embrace the notion of enterprise tweeting. She added that the “new Twitter” that was recently announced will have features that will make it easier for newcomers to manage their Twitter streams and to more easily reap the benefits of the real-time platform.

According to the survey, CIOs are also using Twitter to:

• Follow news that impacts their job (92%)
• Learn best practices from other CIOs (75%)
• Position themselves as thought leaders (66%)
• Share news about their company with outsiders (56%)
• Monitor how competitors are using social media (44%)

Interesting, not sure how Social Networking can help you?  Drop us a line to find out how we can help.

vSphere Cost Analysis

At the end of June Microsoft published a new paper against VMware titled: Operational Efficiency – Hyper-V versus VMware ESX & vSphere Operations & Management Cost Analysis.

The 17-pages report, released by a new War on Cost team at Microsoft, includes a research conducted in late 2009 and early 2010 by HANSA/GCR, which delivered a web-based survey to enterprises with 500 PCs or greater and collected the results.

The goal was to determine which platform, between Hyper-V and ESX, is less expensive in IT labour to operate on an on-going basis, and try to understand if the systems management products used to manage the environment impact the cost of managing either or both platforms.

The claimed results are quite interesting:

• the average costs were $10,357 per guest when hosted on Hyper-V versus $13,629 per guest when hosted on VMware, a 24% savings for Hyper-V versus VMware (but Microsoft admits that the IT labour costs varied widely based on the customer maturity)
• the average customer would spend $6,828,142 in IT Labour to run 501 Windows Server guests on VMware versus $5,189,233 in IT labour to run the same 501 guests on Hyper-V, an annual labour savings of $1,638,909 when using Hyper-V

• The average VMware customer would require 83 servers, while the average Hyper-V customer would require only 64 servers to run an average of 501 Windows Server guest OSes
• VMware customers showed very little migration from Windows Server 2003 (75%) vs. Windows Server 2008 (9%) while Hyper-V customers ran Windows Server 2003 (34%) less than Windows Server 2008 (57%) as the guest server operating system
• Across workloads (App, DB, DR, Email, Test & VDI) the Hyper-V costs were less expensive for all workloads except Test
• Customers using Microsoft system management products to manage their hosts had 15.6% lower annual IT labour costs ($9,486) per VM than customers using vCenter ($11,238) and 36.7% lower costs than customers using management products from a mix of vendors ($14,988).

Thanks to HyperVoria for the news.

Baffled by all things Google?

If it seems to you like every day Google releases a new product or feature, well, it seems like that to us too. The central place Google tell you about most of these is through the official Google Blog Network, where you’ll find more than 100 blogs covering all kinds of products, policy issues, technical projects and much more.

But if you want to keep up just with what’s new (or even just what Google does besides search), you’ll want to know about Google New. A few of Google staff had a 20 percent project idea: create a single destination called Google New where people could find the latest product and feature launches from Google. It’s designed to pull in just those posts from various blogs. Quite useful.

How do iPads sneak into the business?

iPad has exploded onto the scene. Who could have imagined that a tablet (a category introduced in 2001) would capture the imagination of employees and IT alike? But it did, and it's kicked off an arms race for smart mobile devices. Every day, a new tablet appears: Cisco Cius, Dell Streak, Samsung Galaxy Tab, RIM PlayBook, HP Windows 7 Tablet, the list goes on. These post-PC devices will find a place in your company, but where?

The interest is incredible in these devices. And IT is ahead of the curve on this one, determined not to be playing catch-up as happened with employee and executive demand for iPhones.

In a new report for Forrester clients, Forrester have categorised the ways in which we see tablets entering the workplace:

• Displace laptops. This is the classic executive and mobile professional scenario. While it will be some time before tablets replace laptops completely, iPads have proven their value in meeting rooms, on the go, and of course as personal devices. But for now, it means tablets are a third device alongside smartphones and laptops.
• Replace clipboards and other paper. This is the scenario for a construction manager using an application by Vela Systems that can now carry an iPad instead of a tube full of construction drawings. It also applies to clinical testing in the pharma industry, facilities inspections by quality assurance pros, and insurance brokers writing business out in the field.
• New place scenarios where there has been no connected solution previously. This includes doctors using iPads to write orders in surgery or access patient records in the examination room. Also retail floor personnel customising an order for a new Mercedes or summer wardrobe.

More detail on Office 365

Microsoft launched its rebrand and refresh of its Business Productivity Online (BPOS), Live@Edu and Office Live Small Business services on October 19 and put them all under the “Office 365″ umbrella.

Microsoft also launched an early beta of the BPOS v2 services today and promised final delivery and more details in 2011.

Here are a few additional tidbits about the coming new services that I’ve found around the Web and obtained from various Microsoft representatives:

1. When do the BPOS v2 services — the new Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online — go live?

A: Microsoft execs are saying 2011. But a Microsoft fact sheet I saw today said “early 2011.” This past  summer, Microsoft execs told partners that the new version of BPOS would be out in the first half of this year. So I’m saying (unless there’s a delay) that “first half of 2011″ is probably a safe bet — even though Lync Server 2010 still has not been released to manufacturing and the Lync Online update of that product won’t be ready until early 2011, at best.

2. What is Office 365, beyond the new release of BPOS, Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite?

A: Office 365 includes a new SMB version of what’s currently called BPOS; an enterprise version of BPOS v2; a new government version of BPOS (which is currently known as BPOS Federal); and a refresh of the student/education-focused Live@Edu offering. All of these are supposed to be out by next year.

3. What are the system requirements for Office 365?

A: Here’s a list from Microsoft of all of the client-side prerequisites:

Operating System Requirements: XP SP3, XP Home (no federated identity support, however), Windows Media Center (but no federated identity support), Vista SP2, Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Office Client Requirements: Office 2007 SP2 or Office 2010; Office 2008 for Mac & Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition; Office 2011 for Mac and Outlook 2011 for Mac; .NET 2.0 or later; Lync 2010; Communicator for Mac

New Downloads: A service connector application that will replace the Sign in application. The download will be available in the coming months.

Browser Requirements (for Administration Center and My Company Portal): Internet Explorer 7 or above, Firefox 3.x, Safari 4.x

Browser Requirements (for Outlook Web App): Internet Explorer 7 or above; Firefox 3 or higher; Safari 3 or higher on Macintosh OS X 10.5; Chrome 3 and later versions. Note: Outlook Web App also has a light version that supports a reduced set of features across almost any browser

4. What has changed between the current BPOS system requirements and the new system requirements of Office 365?

A: A few things:

* Office 2003 is not supported

* Office Communicator 2007 R2 with Office Communications Online will no longer be supported

* Internet Explorer 6 with the Microsoft Online Administration Center, My Company Portal or Outlook Web App will no longer be supported

5. What’s changing on the pricing front?

A: The lowest-priced option is the basic version of Office 365, which is the new name for the Deskless Worker SKU. It includes e-mail and is priced at $2 per user per month.

For SMBs (primarily 1-25 users), Microsoft is offering a $6 per user per month SKU that was codenamed “BPOS Lite.” The high-end version of Office 365 is the full enterprise SKU, which includes licenses for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online for $10 per user per month. Users can add licenses for their users of Office desktop software, on a subscription basis), raising the price to $24 $27 per user per month. Microsoft has said the Office 365 for Education offering will remain free for students, but will include some (still undisclosed) subscription fee for administrators. Microsoft also is not discussing the price for its planned Dynamics CRM Online add-in, which goes live next year.

Here’s a pricing/feature chart for what’s been announced, plan-wise for Office 365, so far.

6. Are there any transition tools/strategy for existing BPOS users?

A: Customers can transition in two phases:  the pilot phase and the full transition. A pilot phase will be offered where customers can move some user mailboxes to Office 365 as well as view a read-only copy of their SharePoint site collections with Office 365 enabled.  Once the customer is satisfied with the pilot experience they will complete the full transition at their scheduled transition date.

Here’s a link to the Office 365 Transition Centre site.

A special note for current Office Live Small Business users: Office Live Small Business is going away. From Microsoft: “The Office Live Small Business service will continue to run as it does today through at least October 2011. As a valued Office Live Small Business customer, you will be offered 3 months free of the Union (the codename for Office 365)service should you choose to transition your account to Office 365. Nothing will change for Office Live Small Business customers now.”

7. Can users still purchase the Office 365 component services separately?

A: Stand-alone purchase options for SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online will still be available and will be updated with the 2010 versions at launch.

8. What about Live Meeting?

A: Live Meeting, the conferencing component of BPOS, goes away as a standalone product with Office 365. That functionality is going to be part of Lync Online.

9. What happens to the current Standard, Dedicated and Federal distinctions that are part of the current BPOS?

A: Customers can still choose a dedicated infrastructure option with Office 365. There will be an offering that meet the needs of Federal agencies that will be comparable to BPOS Federal today. At launch, Office 365 will be FISMA compliant, and we are working closely with the GSA on this, a Microsoft spokesperson said.

10. Haven’t I heard of Office Professional Plus before?

A: Yes, even though Office Pro Plus is not one of the four Office 2010 SKUs that Microsoft currently offers, there were rumblings about an Office Professional Plus SKU, dating back to June, 2009. Office Pro Plus ended up becoming the subscription-based version of desktop Office that Microsoft will offer to its Office 365 users. This is the same Office Pro Plus SKU available to Microsoft volume licensees only (not retail customers).

Source: ZDNet

Office 365

Microsoft has rechristening its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Live@edu suites as “Office 365″ and is launching a limited beta of the business version of the suite on October 19.

Microsoft chose Office 365 to reflect “dependability every day of the year,” according to officials.

A look at Office 365 (screenshots)

Office 365 is the new name for BPOS, going forward. There will be small-business, mid-size/enterprise, government and educational versions of the product, Microsoft officials said today. Office 365 for Education is the new name for Live@Edu.

Microsoft execs said today that Office 365 will be available starting in 2011. (They won’t say anything more detailed than that.)  Microsoft also is folding Dynamics CRM Online into the Office 365 suite in some way in 2011, officials said today. Microsoft also is allowing users to add Office Professional Plus, an on-premises version of Office 2010, to its Office 365 bundle.

It’s been known for some time that Microsoft was refreshing its BPOS elements with a number of the features it has delivered (or soon will deliver, in the case of its Lync offering) as part of its “Wave 14″ on-premises software releases. Exchange Online in the new version of BPOS will get features from Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1. SharePoint Online will get some of the features — especially the Office Web Apps support — that are part of the SharePoint Server 2010 release. Lync Online will get selected features from the Lync Server 2010 product that Microsoft is expected to release to manufacturing any day now.

On the promised feature list, in addition to updates to the core products in the suite, were also single sign-on with identity federation; a redesigned User Interface (for the console); More administration and access control; support for new markets and languages; and an enhanced Syndication partner interface. (”Syndication” is Microsoft’s program allowing mostly telco companies, but also some other partners to private-label its BPOS services.) Microsoft officials said to expect some of these features to arrive before the end of 2010, but not to expect all of them to show up until the second half of 2011.

Microsoft officials said Office 365 for users with fewer than 25 employees will be available for $6 per user per month. For enterprises and government organisations.  The basic offering is $2 per user per month. Office Professional Plus software may be added on a pay-as-you-go basis. For $24 $27 per user per month, users can get Office Professional Plus, the basic Office 365 cloud services.

Office 365 has arrived

Almost two years after the launch of BPOS Microsoft announced its new version of Online Productivity Tools to be named Office 365. Office 365 can be perceived of being an upgrade or evolution of BPOS. It will contain the same core components but will be enhanced with some new services. Next to this the current services like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Communications Online will be updated to the new 2010 versions. Also functionality of these services will be almost on par with the server products. New for Office 365 is the inclusion of the Office Web Apps and an Office Professional Plus subscription. These applications will enable users to use the productivity savvy applications they are used to but still work online.

Office 365 combines the tools we all know and use with the server side components.

Gartner hangs it hat on HDX over the WAN rather than PCoIP

Almost one year ago VMware launched a software-only version of the remote desktop protocol PC over IP (PCoIP). PCoIP support has been introduced in View 4.0, side by side with support for Microsoft RDP, and it’s obviously still present in the new View 4.5.

Since then, customers interested in VDI have wondered if PCoIP is on par or superior to the Citrix High Definition eXperience (HDX) protocol, an extension of the ICA protocol, introduced with XenDesktop 3.0 in February 2009.

Chris Wolf, Vice President of Research at Gartner, just provided an answer: the two protocols are on par on LAN, while Citrix HDX performs better over WAN links with more than 200ms latency.

Wolf tested both XenDesktop 4.0 Service Pack 1 and VMware View 4.5, through a L2TP/IPsec VPN to connect from Europe to his facility in US.The test itself is relatively simple. I connect to the XenDesktop and View environments one-at-a-time and perform a few basic tasks. After connecting, I open a Word document and add a comment. After that, I open a browser-based Flash application (imaginationcubed), watch the sample drawing, and then use the app to write the word “hello.” Each test lasts from just over one minute to three minutes, depending on the speed of the network I was on at the time.

The tests have been video recorded (part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4) and the verdict is clear:

I found that as latency increased beyond 200 ms, ICA/HDX had a decided advantage over PCoIP. Text entry and menu response with ICA/HDX was still good enough to keep me productive, while the PCoIP response hampered productivity. When latency was relatively low (e.g., under 120 ms) both protocols performed well enough to meet my expectations. At several locations (i.e., Newark Airport, Munich, and Copenhagen) both protocols were able to deliver a good user experience.

Source: virtualisation.info

Veeam Backup & Replication 5

We had the pleasure of taking part at IP Expo this week and had the fortune to be next to the Veeam stand – a key partner for dataplex.  On the first day a rather important announcement was made – the availability of Backup & Replication 5.0

This version includes the SureBackup functionality released earlier this year.

Released as vPower technology the following new functionalities are provided:

• Instant VM Recovery, which lets you run a virtual machine (VM) from a compressed and de-duplicated backup file.

• Universal Application-Item Recovery (U-AIR), provides object-level recovery from any virtualised application or OS.
• SureBackup Recovery Verification, which provides validity verification for all your backups. By creating a VM in an isolated environment and running it directly from the backup file, it will start the VM, boot the OS and verify if everything is running normally
• On-Demand Sandbox, in which you can start VMs from a backup file in a sandboxed environment for testing, training or troubleshooting purposes.
• Instant File-Level Recovery, to recovery an entire VM or individual file from the same image-level backup, by mounting a point in time backup to the VM.

Other enhancements are related to:

• Guest File System indexing
• Engine
• Backup
• Replication
• Application aware image processing
• Restore
• Jobs
• Enterprise Manager
• Setup.

Another nice release by Veeam.

Going Google Apps – How you going to Index that?

In the last year, businesses have started using cloud-based applications from Google and other technology providers at an accelerated rate. While many organisations still have information that resides in on-premise systems, more and more important business information today is living in the cloud, in collaborative tools like Google Apps and services like Twitter. Starting today, Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance lets workers search across both on-premise and cloud-based content from a single search box, delivering more comprehensive results and improving productivity. They have also added a few other handy features that make it easier to collaborate and find information faster.

Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance

Cloud Connect displays relevant, personalised results from Google Docs and Google Sites alongside results from more traditional repositories, like file shares and content management systems. Easier access to collaborative documents, spreadsheets, presentations and sites with Cloud Connect speeds up how quickly coworkers can complete projects. Cloud Connect also lets users search content from Twitter, as well as blogs and industry websites via Google Site Search.

For organisations such as Delta Hotels and Avago that have already deployed both Google Apps and the Google Search Appliance, the new Cloud Connect feature brings “universal search” to another level, with more accessible business systems and content now spanning from cloud to ground.

People Search

This new version also helps foster faster collaboration between employees with the addition of People Search, which makes it easy to find experts and contact coworkers who are related to a search query, right from the search results page. For example, a search for “field marketing” would return a list of field marketing team members alongside other relevant content. Organisations can index personnel information like department, interests, expertise and location, and there’s an LDAP connector to help get People Search up and running quickly.

Dynamic Navigation and more

The new Dynamic Navigation feature allows users to drill down into search results based on search modifiers for their queries, and Active-Active Mirroring improves reliability by spreading search traffic across multiple boxes.  In addition, the Search Appliance now supports Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 content out of the box without the need for additional connectors.

As you move your business to the cloud, the Google Search Appliance’s new features can be an important bridge between on-premise and cloud-based systems, while enhancing employee collaboration.

HP Storage Updates

Following the recent HP event in Barcelona I thought we should share some relevent information.

It’s been about a year since the industry’s first storage Tech Day.  HP talked about how storage would help deliver on their Converged Infrastructure strategy, focusing on three areas:

1. Scale-out storage NAS
2. Deduplication
3. Scale-out SAN

Since last October, HP have done a number of things to improve their hand in those three areas:

1. Last November, they began shipping their X9000 scale-out NAS solution based on IBRIX,  The X9000 has a massive 16PB single namespace, can non-disruptively scale performance and capacity independently, and has unified management for high-performance file workloads and bulk storage
2. At HP Tech Forum in June, HP announced HP StoreOnce.  This is technology developed by HP Labs, and really is the only architecture for client, in-line and array-based storage data deduplication.  It’s 20% faster than competitive solutions and at normal deduplication rates can save 95% on storage capacity costs.
3. The P4000 family (formerly HP LeftHand) has had several announcements over the year.  It’s a scale-out SAN solution that can non-disruptively scale performance and capacity independently.  It has both physical and virtual SAN deployments, and comes complete (meaning you don’t pay extra) with features like replication, thin provisioning, remote replication, and management.  Last quarter, the P4000 had triple digit growth.

Along comes 3PAR

The big news in storage over the last few weeks has been the HP acquisition of 3PAR.  HP have recently spoken about their market position – they are number one or two in every market, including the overall leader in storage.  But there’s one “number 3” on the list and that’s external storage.  Number 3 isn’t good enough. 

According to HP, 3PAR is a storage product for the next 10 years, a next-generation software architecture.  The question that everyone has is where will 3PAR fit.  HP showed a chart that best describes it. 

HPs competitor’s have a product for the mid-range, another for the high-end, and another for service providers.  Instead of having three different products for three different market segments, HP have one product that can scale across all three.  That will make life easier for customers because they can buy fewer products across these different workloads.

HP summarised things by saying that they currently have 11% market share in external storage; with the addition of 3PAR, HP storage just got a whole lot more interesting to the other 89% of the market. 

Interesting times!

Make the most of Gmail

Save time with Priority Inbox

A busy day often affords few email breaks. When you do get a chance to scan your mail, Priority Inbox helps you prioritise by identifying the messages that require your immediate attention. Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most and which messages you open and reply to. The best part is it gets better the more you use it. Turn on and manage Priority Inbox in your mail Settings.
Seamless chat, video and calling

We work with people in multiple ways, and Gmail makes it easy for you to choose the most effective means to communicate: email, chat, text messaging, video chats and phone calls are all available from your inbox. For example, voice and video chat lets you have an actual conversation with someone or meet face-to-face in brilliant resolution.

Get more attached to your email

Attachments in other email systems can be cumbersome; they take up space, can be hard to find and you have to open another program to take action, which slows you down. Gmail has some helpful features that let you quickly view attachments without the need to open or download them on client-side software. The Google Docs Viewer allows you to view .doc, .pdf, .ppt and other attachments in a new browser tab simply by clicking the "View" link at the bottom of a Gmail message. If you decide you want to edit the file, click "Edit online" to open it in Google Docs, or download it to your desktop.

Gmail also includes a Google Docs preview lab that lets you read the entire contents of a Google document, spreadsheet or presentation right in Gmail.

Put email in context

Wouldn’t it be great if you could update a sales lead without leaving your inbox? With contextual gadgets, you can. They display information from social networks, business services, web applications and other systems, and let you interact with that data right within Gmail. Your administrator or any third-party developer can build and distribute Gmail contextual gadgets to the domain with just a few clicks via the Google Apps Marketplace, which Google launched in March.

The keys to productivity

With Gmail, Google built in keyboard shortcuts to help you get through your mail quickly and efficiently. Once you enable this feature in Settings, you can archive (e), reply (r), compose (c), delete (#) or take just about any other action with one key or a short combo. For a handy guide, type “?” while you’re in Gmail – for maximum efficiency, print it out and post it at your desk.

Citrix XenClient to support NVIDIA GPU in H1 2011

Just two weeks ago, Citrix released the first version of its client hypervisor: XenClient.

While Intel vPro technology is not mandatory, it is just highly recommended, it’s still true that XenClient Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) is significantly small. The biggest limitation is the complete lack of support for notebooks powered by the NVIDIA GPUs.

Citrix already stated its commitment to extend the HCL on the stage of the Synergy conference just ten days ago.

The company expects to introduce NVIDIA display cards support within the first half of 2011, according to an official reply published on the XenClient support forum.

On top of that, Citrix is already working with Lenovo to support their laptops and desktops in future builds of the client hypervisor. Specifically, the two companies are developing support for ThinkCentre M Series desktops and ThinkPad X and T Series laptops.

Source: Virtualisation.info

Citrix XenClient enables mobility

First announced more than a year and a half ago, Citrix has finally released a 1.0 version of its client hypervisor. Citrix XenClient 1.0 narrows the gap between offline and online virtual desktops and extends the benefits of desktop virtualisation to mobile platforms by increasing flexibility for users and improving security and control for IT.

The new client hypervisor is offered as a free download, but it also comes packaged into Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Feature Pack 2.

XenClient Express, the free edition, is being made available so individuals and organisations can download and use XenClient on as many as 10 machines. However, Citrix support for Express will be limited and there is no centralised management available with this version. Official support is being offered only when XenClient is used within the Enterprise or Platinum editions of Citrix XenDesktop. In addition to increased support, XenDesktop offers XenClient centralised management, image delivery, and backup, which is performed by a server component called Citrix Synchroniser.

Citrix announced the following new enhancements to XenClient 1.0 and Synchroniser since the last release candidate:

• Integrated Disk Encryption -- VMs that are delivered to XenClient from the Synchroniser can now be protected with AES-XTS disk encryption. This allows sensitive data to be fully protected when deployed on XenClient systems. In the event that a system is lost or stolen, all data can remain protected from unauthorised access.
• External Monitor/Project Support -- The latest generation of Intel Core i5 and i7 vPro systems provide support for external monitors and projectors, which previously required running a VM with 3D graphics support enabled.
• XenClient to Synchroniser Communication Hardening -- XenClient systems will now use client-side digital certificates along with user credentials to authenticate to the Synchroniser. All VHD files are encrypted with AES CBC encryption to allow secure delivery and caching of components over HTTP.
• VM Switching Enhancements -- The in-guest VM switcher bar has been re-skinned with updated graphics and new pull-down behaviour.
• Revamped Synchroniser Web Interface -- The Synchroniser for XenClient has a revamped UI and refreshed graphics showing off the latest Citrix UI standards.

Now that Citrix is offering this new type of client hypervisor, will it make things easier or more difficult for organisations trying to decide their future desktop virtualisation plans?

There are limitations with XenClient, as you might expect with any 1.0 release, and some of these limitations can prove quite frustrating.

The first limitation is the hardware support. Much like VMware ESX back in the early days of server virtualisation, Citrix XenClient has a small number of supported platforms, according to the XenClient hardware compatibility list. There are 23 products officially supported; however, the system model alone does not imply support. There are nine different laptops in that list from Dell, eight from HP, and six from Lenovo. These laptops range from Intel Core 2 Duo to Intel Core i7 -- but the one thing they all have in common is that they must have Intel vPro technology in order to be considered compatible.

In a world where we have contract workers with their own machines and employees operating under "buy your own PC" initiatives, client-side virtualisation could be a great way to isolate and keep the organisation's applications and information separate from users' personal files and apps. But the hardware and support restrictions currently imposed by XenClient 1.0 are probably going to be way too restrictive to generate wide acceptance.

VMware focusing on SaaS control

Source: Infoworld

VMware is working on products that will give enterprises more control over software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, including how users are authenticated, company CTO Steve Herrod, said in an interview on Tuesday.

VMware's acquisition of cloud service vendor TriCipher in August will form the basis of products that should help the IT department get more control. TriCipher manages authentication for SaaS applications, according Herrod, who thinks of TriCipher as a switchboard service in the sky.

TriCipher's technology takes credentials stored in Active Directory or other internal directory services and translates them into a form of authentication that the SaaS applications can understand, according to Herrod. This will allow the IT department to control who gets access, and also easily remove credentials from users that leave the company, he said.

Besides authentication, TriCipher's technology will also allow IT departments to automatically provision SaaS applications to their users, according to Herrod. Users then pick the services they need from a menu in their browser.

The first VMware offering based on TriCipher's will be released during the first half of next year, and will be the first instance of Project Horizon, which aims to allow the delivery and management of cloud-based desktop applications to any sort of user device.

VMware hasn't decided if TriCipher's technology will be integrated into an existing product or be turned into a stand-alone product, or what it will cost.

For VMware, the proliferation of SaaS applications will affect every layer of its software stack, according to Herrod.

For example, many of its service provider partners will end up hosting the services, according to Herrod.

Also, VMware is hoping the applications will be built using its vFabric cloud application platform, he said. vFabric was announced at the end of August, and it combines the Spring Java development framework with a lightweight application server, cloud-ready messaging, load balancing and management, of both data and performance.

Today, VMware has a person who goes out and talks to SaaS vendors to help VMware understand more about the kinds of challenges they are facing when building apps, and then reports to Herrod. It will end up being a win-win situation: VMware can do more business and the SaaS vendors can take advantage of VMware's reputation among enterprises as they try to increase adoption of their services, according to Herrod.

TCO, how do you do yours?

I have been doing a fair amount of work on TCO and ROI recently for some of our clients, I thought that IT had a lot of three letter acronyms!

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis is intended to determine the lifetime costs of acquiring, operating, and changing something. It is primarily used to compare apples to apples in large capital investments, and, if done properly, can bring out hidden costs of ownership.

TCO to Support Vendor Claims

Although the concept has been around forever, TCO has become important in IT since the 90s.  In the 90s in an effort to protect its Windows revenue, Microsoft commissioned several TCO white papers and studies (none definitively conclusive) to offset Linux claims of being “free.”  This tactic of using TCO analysis to win favour is being revived by the cloud vendors.

Developing Your Own TCO Methodology

If you use external benchmarks, you know that it can be difficult to map the author’s framework to your own. It is the same with vendor TCO models. So, we recommend that you develop your own or seriously analyse the workings of the authors tools you are working with, so that you know what's in it and that it meets your specific needs. With it as your reference point, you can then map in individual vendors and do custom analysis for yourself.

A typical breakdown of the three buckets of costs that would go into a TCO model are:

The biggest challenge with TCO modelling is the allocation of the operating cost to the asset. .

 

Don’t Forget the Change Costs

Where clients are less consistent in how they account for costs, or where they overlook them altogether, is within the change bucket. The costs needed to make an asset operational continue to be underestimated by 20-30% on average. The costs to enhance or upgrade an asset are often neglected in a TCO analysis.

So, as the cloud debate continues in your organisation, or you just need some solid TCO analysis, be sure you are armed with your own model, not just the one that is provided to you by your possible software vendor.

Master Servers, Media Servers and now...Storage Servers

Every NetBackup user understands the 3-tiered architecture NBU has with a Master Server, Media Servers and Clients. NetBackup 6.5 introduced a new 4th tier called a "storage server" that have been getting a lot of attention as of late since it sits at the centre of NetBackup 7 deduplication, OpenStorage and even the cloud storage options.

Storage servers sit under the control of a media server in the architecture hierarchy and just like how a master server can also be a media server, a storage server can also be a master or media server.  It's a nicely scalable solution since all these tiers can be on one host but as you scale up and out you have the option to start breaking out dedicated media servers and storage servers to load balance or provide multiple points of redundancy.

Where storage servers break entirely new ground though is in the concept that they don't need to be a NetBackup server at all.  This has never been done before with NBU since masters and media servers have always had a software component you install before they became a master or media.  By opening up storage servers to 3rd parties, OpenStorage was born with an API to allow NBU to talk with these servers.

The basic reasoning behind having a storage server as a new 4th tier has to do with the fact that storage servers purpose in life is to manage disk.  And unlike tape, dealing with disk comes with a lot of things like volume managers and file systems that may not work across different operating systems that media servers are running on.  Media servers send data in a generic format and it wouldn't be good if it was stored in a proprietary format that only that media server or operating system could read.  Think about a media server writing to a Windows NTFS file system and your Solaris media servers can't access that data anymore.  NetBackup is used in a lot of large heterogeneous IT shops so not breaking the media server concept was important.  Storage servers abstract the way disk is managed so media servers can continue to write a generic data format and the storage server can figure out how to store the actual data in a way it can be recalled by any other media server regardless of its platform.

For AdvancedDisk the storage server is the media server itself which means the filesystems do have to match across all the media/storage servers accessing those disks.  This is the entry level disk option that lets you use all the storage server benefits of load balancing and redundancy but it comes with the limitation that all the media servers have to match in terms of the operating systems.

For OpenStorage, PureDisk and the NetBackup 5000 the storage server is outside the media server.  The storage server is the DataDomain controller/head, the PureDisk Content Router or the NetBackup 5000 server.  Most all of these storage servers are running a custom build of Linux and therefore handle the disks either using native Linux filesystems (EXT/riser).  NetBackup media servers just send data to the storage server and it deals with all that disk stuff.

So hopefully that clears up the concept of a storage server.  It's not very often that at whole new piece of architecture is added to NBU.  

IDC: Cloud To Create ‘Radical’ Shift For Outsourcers

HP and other 'traditional' outsourcing companies will have to rethink their business models in light of the impact of cloud services, says IDC

Outsourcing giants such as IBM and HP are to be forced to adapt their business models to the expectations of flexibility and performance raised by the boom in cloud-based outsourcing, according to a new study by IDC.

The study, released on Friday, found that access to new delivery models, such as cloud-based services and software-as-a-service (SaaS), is becoming so important that it is set to create radical changes in the way other types of outsourcing operate.

 

Traditional outsourcers hit hardest

Those “radical” changes will particularly affect “traditional” outsourcers, IDC said, specifically citing as examples HP, CSC, Accenture and Wipro

Broadly speaking, the shift will be from services based on human expertise to more automated cloud-based services that can deliver greater performance, IDC said.

“Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Great Recession is the need for companies to be much more adaptable to changes in the market,” said David Tapper, IDC vice president of Outsourcing and Offshore Services Market research, in a statement.

“This fundamental need is a major force driving considerable shifts in the outsourcing industry, shifts that not only involve provisioning more targeted and innovative solutions, but also involve the transformation of the outsourcing industry from a labour-centric model of service delivery to more asset-based services involving cloud-based outsourcing,” Tapper stated.

IDC said the outsourcers in question need to look more closely at how customers are adopting utility-based services, and will need to make “radical adjustments” to their delivery capabilities, partnership ecosystems, business models, and service offerings.

Identity shift

The impact of the cloud will oblige outsourcers to take a broader view of who they are and what they’re doing, IDC said.

“They will… need to extend their view of who they are and who they will be competing with, within and beyond the traditional market of IT and business process services,” IDC stated.

The recession is fuelling a shift in outsourced services toward the cloud, with one-tenth of IT outsourcing spending in 2010 set to have been spent on external cloud services, according to a report released by Gartner last month.

The survey found that 39 percent of respondents worldwide indicated they allocated IT budget to cloud computing as a key initiative for their organisation.

“This is yet another trend that indicates a shift in spending from traditional IT assets such as the data centre assets and a move towards assets that are accessed in the cloud,” stated Gartner research director Bob Igou at the time.

Cloud boom

The continued uptake of cloud computing within the enterprise is driving spending on server hardware, according to a report by research firm IDC. Server hardware revenue for public cloud computing is predicted to grow from $582 million in 2009 to $718 million in 2014, and the private cloud market set to grow from $2.6 billion to $5.7 billion over the same period.

Last month HP released a cloud-based mobile device management system for IT managers, handling smartphones, notebooks and other devices.

Trends for 2011

Its Q4 2010 and the predications for 2011 will start to come through thick and fast, so here are a few things to get the ball rolling:

1. The recession is transformational. Since late 2008, many companies facing reduced top-line growth have eked out profits with deep cuts. In many cases, those savings have been held aside, awaiting the right moment. Odds are, that moment will come in 2011. For IT shops, business growth could require new technology, but additional IT resources may not be added as quickly. Senior IT leaders should be planning now how to meet the demands of anxious CEOs with smaller staffs and shorter timelines.

2. The spotlight remains on cost-saving technologies. Given the recession, it's no surprise that virtualisation, the obvious money-saver that was hot well before the recession, is even hotter now. A year ago, Gartner named it the No. 1 technology for 2010, based on a survey of CIOs. I'd put it there again for 2011, followed by cloud computing , software as a service and, to a lesser degree, business analytics.

3. Mobile is exploding. Everyone can see this. But are IT shops focused on the management, support and security challenges that come with mobile computing? A huge percentage of employees are bringing personal quick-access storage devices to work and putting sensitive documents and e-mails on them. And here come tablets. Over 30 new tablets were announced or delivered in 2010, and they're inexpensive enough that a lot of people are buying them.

4. Software is undergoing rapid change. Take the public-cloud phenomenon and stir in largely Web-based mobile applications, and you'll see the start of a software trend that could transform the way we work. When you connect meaningful enterprise data to tablet computers served via your data center, private cloud or hybrid cloud, you've got a transformational technology. For years we've been trying to unchain knowledge workers from their desks so they can interact with one another and work wherever they go. There is a potential to create near-real-time business communication without us having to work at that full time.

5. Enterprise 2.0 will run its course. Crowd sourcing information (the real value of Web 2.0 for the enterprise) is a powerful tool. It's a simple way to help us avoid starting every new undertaking from scratch. It shapes ideas and provides valuable insights. And it's on its way to becoming pervasive. But it's not a technology; it's more like a business strategy. .

New HP Converged Infrastructure, Security and Scalable computing announcements

Earlier this month in Barcelona, HP’s Converged Infrastructure team announced a new set of solutions in networking, security and scalable computing.

Here is a video of the announcement:

Quick features:

HP Networking Solutions

• The HP Branch Office Networking Solution pre-integrates everything needed for branch office connectivity and high-quality application service delivery in a turnkey offering. It combines the simplicity of a highly integrated solution with the flexibility to deploy 14 best-in-class software applications from 12 HP AllianceONE partners. The new HP solution converges key network infrastructure technologies into a modular platform that accelerates application response times, improves employee communications and strengthens security.  
• The Application Digital Vaccine (AppDV) service, a set of specially designed filters that can control access and usage of applications on the corporate or government network.  AppDV adds easy-to-use application-specific control to the HP TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and provides organisations with an easy to manage, integrated solution that protects the network and applications from security attacks while also controlling usage of applications.

HP ProLiant SL6500 Scalable System

• Latest line of next-generation HP ProLiant servers, provides a common modular architecture to deliver breakthrough scale, energy efficiency and performance featuring common modular architecture that can scale from one to thousands of nodes while increasing scalability and performance.
• As many as eight servers, or up to four servers with 12 graphic processing units (GPGPU) in a single four rack unit enclosure
• New products are the HP ProLiant s6500 chassis, the HP ProLiant SL390s G7 server and the HP ProLiant SL170s G6 server.
• Eight-fold increase in performance, delivering more than one teraflop providing up to one teraflop per unit of rack space to increase compute power for scientific rendering and modelling applications with the HP ProLiant SL390s G7 server.

HP POD-Works, the world’s first assembly line for rapid deployment of the HP Performance Optimised Datacenter (POD)

• With HP POD-Works, PODs can be assembled, tested and shipped in as little as six weeks, compared with one year or longer, to build a traditional brick-and-mortar data center. Available in 20 or 40-foot modules, the HP POD enables service providers and other clients with limited space to quickly expand their data centre capacity. HP PODs deliver 37 percent more efficiency and cost 45 percent less than a traditional brick-and-mortar data centre.
• Reduced data centre implementation time by up to 88 percent when compared to traditional build out processes.
• The HP POD stole centre stage in Barcelona. There was much discussion of customizing skins for your POD.

What to do when introducing a work social platform

Emergent social software platforms — the enabling technologies of the 2.0 Era — are being deployed by enterprises at a rapid rate. Companies as varied as Microsoft, Spigit, Salesforce, Jive, Socialtext, and IBM now all offer enterprise social offerings for customers.

This brings up an important question: what are Enterprise 2.0 best practices for individuals? Should an employee use her company's social networking software just like she uses her Facebook account? Should she microblog the same way she uses Twitter?

I say no. Enterprise 2.0 is not Web 2.0; corporate technologies are different than personal ones, even if they look and feel the same. They're there to support the work of the organisation, not to let individuals do and say whatever they want.

So here are some recommendations about how to use these tools to simultaneously advance your own work, make your existence and expertise better known throughout a digital community, and benefit the organisation as a whole. I'll divide them into three categories: things to do (in other words, positive ways to use Enterprise 2.0 technologies), things not to do, and gray areas — use cases I'm not sure about.

Things To Do

• Narrate your work. Talk both about work in progress (the projects you're in the middle of, how they're coming, what you're learning, and so on), and finished goods (the projects, reports, presentations, etc. you've executed). This lets others discover what you know and what you're good at. It also makes you easier to find, and so increases the chances you can be a helpful colleague to someone. Finally, it builds your personal reputation and 'brand.'
• Point to others' work, and provide commentary on it. When you come across something noteworthy, point to it and discuss why you think it's important. Chances are others would like to know about it. And include a link to the original source; people love links.
• Comment and discuss. Post comments to others' blogs, join the conversations taking place on forums, and keep the social media discussions lively. Doing so will let others hear your voice, and also make them more likely to participate themselves.
• Ask and answer questions. Don't just broadcast what you know; also broadcast your ignorance from time to time. Let the crowd help you if you're stuck. Most people and organisations are very pleasantly surprised by the amount of altruism unlocked by Enterprise 2.0.
• Vote, like, give kudos, etc. Lots of social software platforms these days have tools for voting or signalling that you like something. Use them; they help provide structure to the community as a whole and let people know where the good stuff and real experts are. They also make you more popular.
• Talk about social stuff going on at the company. Give a recap of the football game, talk about plans for the xmas party, show how close the group is to its fundraising goal, and so on. Organisations are social places, and I think it's a short-sighted shame when E2.0 platforms are all business, all the time. However, it's often a good idea to give non-work stuff its own dedicated place on the platform so that people can avoid it if they want to.

Things Not To Do

• Be narcissistic. Don't talk about what you had for lunch or how you're peeved that one more of your flights got delayed. It's selfish clutter, and serves no larger purpose. We all have lunches and delayed flights.
• Gossip. Why on Earth would you want to be publicly identified as a rumourmonger?
• Be unsubstantiated. Your unsupported, shoot-from-the-hip, fact-and-logic free arguments and opinions are really uninteresting and unhelpful. If you're not willing to do the homework necessary to back up your points, don't bother making them.
• Mock others or launch personal attacks. I had a friend who walked out of his performance review and tweeted about his boss's bad cufflinks. I thought this was a deeply bad idea. Debates and disagreements are vital components of E2.0 communities.
• Discuss sex, politics, or religion. We are told that these were the three taboo topics at a dinner party. They seem like good taboos to keep in place with E2.0; it's just too easy to upset people and start nasty, pointless fights on these subjects.

Gray Areas

• Humour. We all like a good laugh, but we also all have different and deeply-held notions about the boundaries among funny, unfunny, and offensive. Sharing humour with colleagues you don't know well is a stroll through a minefield.
• Self-praise. It's great to hear positive things about our own work, and the temptation to pass them on is strong. I've given in to this temptation, but afterward I've felt like I've blown my own horn a little too loud. So these days I'm trying not to retweet compliments.

Need help on your social road?  Call us we’re here to help.

VDI – Don’t forget the user persona!

When we at dataplex talk to clients about desktop virtualisation an element that many forget about is the user experience and their personalisation – amazingly true!  And this comes under a virtualisation banner all of its own – User Virtualisation;  the collection of files and settings unique to an individual user, such as the Windows user profile, desktop settings, shortcuts and images etc….

Get it wrong and your project will fall at the first hurdle.

When considering the ways to manage the persona, this can be done through the following ways:

1. Local user
This is how Windows deals with profiles now: All user data and profile information is kept locally on the Windows C:\ drive in the Users folder.  This is not good in desktop virtualisation as the image is often read only and all user specific settings are lost on logoff.  Not a great experience for end user.

2. Roaming profiles and folder redirection
In this configuration, the user profile is synced between a network location and the local desktop. If folder redirection is enabled, then the local copy is also kept on the network file share. This fix can work in a VDI environment, but are not the greatest way to cater for user experiences – how are you going to differentiate between a local copy of XP and that running over VDI if your deployment is hybrid – it could get messy!

4. Profile migration, caching and streaming engines
An entire industry has developed around profile management. The majority of players in this market have developed products that cache a copy of the profile on a central file share and copy or stream it back and forth as needed or scheduled. Vendors like AppSense can cater for this amongst many others. 

5. Layered persona
The layering or container concept is the newest design type on the list, and it applies to profile management as well as image management. These tools basically create layers of the operating system, application, patches and personality, and they handle the user profile and data by making each user a container/layer that appears to be on the C:\ but is actually a separate folder.

VDI breaks typical local user persona management because a virtual desktop based on the Microsoft, Citrix and VMware model should be flexible and easy to manage. But once a desktop's user profile is on the local C:\, that desktop is tied directly to an end user.  The best way to fix this is to move to a more robust profile management solution such as AppSense Environment Manager.

Citrix XenDesktop 5.0 – Looking Good

Citrix recently announced XenDesktop 4 FP2 which included the eagerly anticipated XenClient, and not to slow the momentum that desktop virtualisation is creating they have now announced XenDesktop 5.0 at Citrix Synergy Berlin with an anticipated release date of Q4 2010.

XenDesktop 5 is currently available as part of a private beta program only, and as such the public information about what will make the final cut should be treated with care.

Stability and Availability

Citrix’s initial focus on XenDesktop has been to deliver the appropriate level of functionality necessary to meet enterprise adoption criteria. Having now achieved this goal, Citrix is changing priorities and focusing its efforts on ensuring system stability and resiliency. The most significant change here is that Citrix has broken away from the independent management architecture (IMA) system.  IMA management architecture is better suited to hundreds or low thousands of XenApp servers rather than tens of thousands of virtual desktops.  As part of the transition away from IMA, Citrix has also made a fundamental change to the implementation of XenDesktop’s configuration management database.  XenDesktop 5 will use a standard SQL Server database configuration which will go a long way to simplifying support.

The desktop delivery controllers are now fully stateless in the operation, which will significantly improve reliability during failure.  Citrix XenApp has had stateless operation of XML brokers ever since they were first introduced, and it is difficult to understand why this model was not adopted from the start with XenDesktop. 

Simplified Installation

The biggest criticism of XenDesktop 4.0 (and rightly so) has always been its administrative complexity. Setting up XenDesktop can be a daunting experience; certainly not a task for the inexperienced or fainthearted and something that Citrix’s competition have been quick to take advantage of.  Now with XenDesktop 5, much of the previous installation complexity is hidden behind a simple wizard driven interface. 

 

Simplified Management

XenDesktop has also received criticism for its administrative complexity.  This has been due in large part to the number of separate management consoles available and the need to access multiple management consoles to perform individual administrative tasks.  Citrix’s solution to this complaint is the introduction of two more management consoles; the Desktop Studio Console, and the Desktop Director Console.  This time though it looks like Citrix have got it right, although it should be noted that these improvements do not go so far as to integrate XenApp delivered applications directly into XenDesktop’s management structure.

Desktop Studio

Desktop Studio is XenDesktop 5′s  primary administrative console where administrators will build, test and deploy virtual desktops. providing seamless integration with all supported virtual infrastructure (vSphere, Hyper-V and XenServer) and storage management systems.

Desktop Director

Where the Desktop Studio supports administrative activities, the Desktop Director is designed to support day-to-day activities of the data center operations and help desk teams. The web based dashboard provides  an overview of the  operational health of the XenDesktop environment and it’s supporting virtual infrastructure. The dashboard provides a single pane of glass view displaying system alerts, charts and statistics, with the ability to drill down into individual sessions to diagnose and resolve end-user issues.  Users requiring direct assistance with individual applications or their virtual desktop can be supported from the console by shadowing the user session (via Microsoft Remote Assistance).  In addition to supporting reactive help desk activity, Desktop Director also functions as the primary console for proactive operational management, for example placing virtual desktops into maintenance mode to prevent sessions from being used, or creating them so that once an active user logs off for the session is no longer available for reuse. Finally Desktop Director has full power control over virtual machines allowing an operator to start stop suspend resume or restart virtual desktops on demand. All of the capabilities of Desktop Director are available through the console, and via a new PowerShell SDK enabling scripted automation, integration with third-party management systems, and custom application development.

Desktop Director appears to be targeted purely at operational activities,  offering retention of operational data for a 24-hour period only. Leaving room for a XenDesktop specific version of Citrix EdgeSight for subsequent release.

 

HDX Enhancements

Citrix is making major claims as to improvements in HDX in XenDesktop 5.  Printing bandwidth requirements for graphical print jobs have been reduced by as much as 90%, although it should be noted that the number of situations where print performance will see this degree of improvement will be limited.  Plug and play print performance has been improved with automatic discovery of wirelessly connected printers and real-time mapping of printers to reflect changes in printer configuration as virtual desktops roam between endpoints.  Also new is a native XPS print consumer for Windows 7 clients.  XenDesktop 5 includes support for 32-bit colour over ICA for the first time – previously 32-bit colour was only available for XenDesktop when using an RDP connection. Outside of printing,  XenDesktop 5 includes a new video codec that is claimed to reduce bandwidth requirements for high-definition video by as much as 80% and HDX Dynamic Colour Compression which will modify how graphical images are compressed based on network conditions.

Expectations are that these new HDX enhancements will appear as part of an update to XenApp sometime in early 2011, most probably in the form of a Feature Pack rather than a full release.

 

Citrix Receiver Enhancements

Corresponding upgrades have been made to the Citrix Receiver to support new features within HDX. Beyond this, Citrix is continuing to refine its vision for the endpoint by transforming the Citrix Receiver from an ICA\HDX remote presentation client into a single point of access to Citrix’s user-centric computing vision. Improvements to the Citrix Receiver will be covered in depth in a subsequent post as these apply not just to XenDesktop 5.

 

Conclusion

Citrix XenDesktop 5 looks as though it represents a significant improvement on XenDesktop 4.0 from the perspective of addressing XenDesktop 4.0 ‘s shortcomings as an enterprise application platform. The enhancements to HDX while worthwhile are unlikely to be sufficient to warrant accelerated migration to XenDesktop 5 by themselves. However when looked at in conjunction with recently announced improvements to Citrix Receiver especially on tablet devices such as the Apple iPad, the usability improvements are such that some user communities may encourage rapid adoption.

Microsoft Med-V 2.0 Beta is available for download

Microsoft have announced the availability of the MED-V 2.0 public beta, which you can download now from Microsoft Connect. So what’s in the latest release?

• No dedicated MED-V infrastructure to deploy - MED-V 2.0 workspaces are deployed and managed using existing electronic software distribution (ESD) systems, including System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 R2 or higher.
• Streamlined sign-on to the MED-V workspace - Users can save their passwords for seamless sign-on to the MED-V workspace.
• Automatic application publishing – New applications deployed to MED-V workspaces, including App-V virtual applications, are available to the Windows 7 host automatically.
• My Documents and Desktop redirection - Legacy applications work just like locally installed applications when it comes to opening, saving and printing documents.
• USB device/SmartCard support - USB devices, including thumb drives and Smartcard readers can be shared between the host and applications running in the MED-V workspace.
• New Internet Explorer redirection options - IT administrators can redirect legacy web applications using wildcards (http://*.example.com), sites (http://www.example.com/hr), at the page-level (http://www.example.com/hr/benefits.asp) or by specifying a port (http://vpn.example.com:1234)
• Automated guest hibernation at shutdown – The MED-V workspace is seamlessly suspended when the user logs off or shuts down the Windows 7 host.

If you have legacy Windows XP or Internet Explorer 6/7 applications that are slowing down your Windows 7 deployment plans, don’t let them stand in your way. The MED-V team has worked hard to ensure MED-V 2.0 is easy for IT professionals to deploy and manage and seamless for end-users to use.

Citrix & Microsoft Share feedback from VMworld Keynote

Source: Technet Blog

VMworld Europe is in full swing, Paul Maritz and Steve Herrod had some subtle shifts in positioning since San Francisco  [e.g., now the OS will only "fade away" as opposed to go completely away compared to app frameworks, according to Maritz] and said they announced deals with Colt and CSC. T

Like they did in San Francisco, MSFT & CTS have recorded a brief video post VMworld keynote to share some thoughts on what they heard. The video shows Lucas Searle, virtualization product manager at Microsoft-UK, and Dave Austin, director of product marketing for Citrix-EMEA. Enjoy.

Citrix Unveils XenDesktop 5

Today at Citrix Synergy, Citrix unveiled a major new release of Citrix XenDesktop, the company’s market-leading solution for desktop virtualisation. The new XenDesktop 5 brings unprecedented levels of simplicity and power to virtual desktops for both users and IT. It supports a wide range of new consumer devices, thousands of new third-party products and an entirely new generation of web and software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps. XenDesktop 5 also extends the benefits of desktop virtualisation to millions of laptop users for the first time ever, giving them virtual desktops “to go” with the new Citrix XenClient hypervisor. To support the new XenDesktop 5 release, Citrix also unveiled an extensive new initiative to help customers move from the “wow” of desktop virtualisation to the “how” of successful implementation, leveraging the collective wisdom of thousands of customers who have already successfully transformed their enterprise desktop strategies by “going virtual.”

Key Facts and Highlights:

• Faster, Simpler, More Powerful – XenDesktop 5 makes it easier than ever to get started with desktop virtualisation. Customers can now achieve “10 minutes to Xen”, completing a new installation in just 10 minutes. Once up and running, managing virtual desktops with XenDesktop 5 also becomes faster and simpler than ever before with new role-based features. The new Desktop Studio™ console makes it easy for administrators to centrally design and manage virtual desktops, setting up new employees in seconds. XenDesktop 5 customers can also take advantage of the new Desktop Director™ console, giving helpdesk administrators a powerful way to monitor, troubleshoot and support virtual desktops for thousands of users across a large, distributed enterprise, with real-time information on usage, status and service levels. XenDesktop 5 also supports Microsoft System Center, making it easy for customers to manage applications on physical and virtual desktops with a familiar set of tools and processes.
• Taking User Experience to a New Level – XenDesktop 5 adds powerful new HDX enhancements that dramatically improve performance for resource intensive tasks like audio and video collaboration and large-file printing, even over low bandwidth connections. XenDesktop 5 also features a captivating new end user experience. From new welcome screens inviting first-time users to their new virtual desktop, to an entirely redesigned virtual desktop viewer, every detail of the XenDesktop 5 user interface is designed to make each user’s workspace feel familiar and inviting.
• Touch-Enabled Support for New Consumer Devices – By leveraging the Citrix Receiver universal software client, XenDesktop 5 makes it easy to deliver business desktops and apps to the rapidly growing number of new devices flooding the workforce, including PCs, Macs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. XenDesktop 5 adds support for a long list of new devices, along with extensive user experience enhancements such as the ability to instantly “touch-enable” existing enterprise apps that were never designed to run on new touch-screen tablets such as the Apple iPad or BlackBerry PlayBook.
• Connecting Virtual Desktops to a New Generation of Apps – By leveraging the new Citrix Receiver, XenDesktop 5 changes the game, making it easy to deliver one-click, single sign-on access to an entirely new generation of applications, including externally-hosted web, cloud and SaaS apps. This integration makes it easy for IT to deliver a rich array of Windows, web and SaaS apps to each user with a simple, unified experience, regardless of what type of app it is, or where it is actually running.
• Beyond VDI with Virtual Desktops “To Go” – Last year, XenDesktop 4 introduced a new technology called FlexCast that gave customers the flexibility to deliver a range of virtual desktop technologies from a single product – from personalised VDI-based desktops ideal for office workers, to shared desktops optimized for task workers. XenDesktop 5 takes the FlexCast technology one step further, enabling IT to deliver virtual desktops “to go” that run directly on each user’s PC or laptop. This approach, which leverages the new XenClient hypervisor, is ideal for millions of corporate laptop users, providing IT with all the central management and security benefits of hosted virtual desktops, while giving mobile workers the flexibility to work connected or disconnected.
• Secure BYOC with Citrix XenVault – An increasing number of users are bringing their own devices to work as outside contractors or via employee bring your own computer (BYOC) programs. In these scenarios, IT needs to provide access to corporate applications and secure any confidential data, but does not want the hassles of installing applications or managing personal laptops. XenDesktop 5 addresses this scenario in the simplest way possible by delivering corporate apps as an on-demand service, then automatically encrypting any documents created by those apps and saving them transparently in an encrypted folder on the user’s laptop. In addition to ensuring corporate data is secure at all times on non-corporate owned devices, XenVault also enables IT to securely wipe any corporate data remotely when a contract is over, an employee terminates, or the laptop is lost or stolen.