Archive for category Server Virtualization
VMware View 4.5: Ready for the Large Enterprise
Posted by Chris in Client Virtualization, VMware, vmworld on August 31st, 2010
Today at VMworld North America, VMware announced the availability of VMware View 4.5. The View 4.5 Premier release represents a significant milestone as it places VMware in very select company with Citrix as the only two vendors that offer enterprise-ready server-hosted virtual desktop (SHVD) solutions.
For us to consider View 4.5 enterprise-ready, it had to meet all requirements in the Burton Group Server Hosted Virtual Desktop evaluation criteria.
The evaluation criteria was developed over a five month period. During that time, we worked with numerous early server-hosted virtual desktop (SHVD) adopters, as well as the key vendors in (Read more...)
My VMworld North America Sessions
Posted by Chris in Citrix, Client Virtualization, Cloud, Microsoft, Server Virtualization, VMware, vmworld on August 11th, 2010
I have three sessions at this year’s VMworld North America conference and thought I would post them here in the event you’re interested in attending one of them. Each session will run two times, and the session descriptions, times, and locations are listed below. I hope to see you at the conference. The in-depth discussions I have with fellow attendees has always been one of my favorite parts of the conference.
Server-Hosted Virtual Desktops: What the Vendors Aren’t Telling You (DV8044)
Many organizations are beginning to implement or plan server-hosted virtual desktop solutions. Vendor platform assessments in the emerging client (Read more...)
VM Templates Should Include at Least 2 Virtual Hard Disks
Posted by Chris in Cloud, Hyper-V, Server Virtualization, VMware, Virtualization on August 5th, 2010
Today I was working with a client on their next generation data center architecture. They are building a highly virtualized data center with the goal of offering cloud IaaS to other departments within the organization. While talking about VM templates we discussed a favorite topic of mine – virtual hard disk structure.
For several years, I have recommended to clients that they use at least two virtual hard disk files per VM. One virtual disk file is used for the OS and application files, and a second virtual hard disk is used for paging, swap, and temp files. Alternatively, a (Read more...)
XenDesktop 4 SP1 is the First Enterprise-Ready SHVD Platform
Posted by Chris in Citrix, Client Virtualization, cat10 on July 29th, 2010
With today’s update to the XenDesktop 4 Platinum edition suite, Citrix became the first vendor to meet all requirements in the Burton Group Server Hosted Virtual Desktop evaluation criteria.
The evaluation criteria was developed over a five month period. During that time, we worked with numerous early server-hosted virtual desktop (SHVD) adopters, as well as the key vendors in the space. In the end, vendors were supportive of the criteria in spite of the fact that not one met all of our requirements. The reason for the support was simple – customers were telling vendors they needed the same (Read more...)
VMware vSphere 4.1: Not the Typical .1 Release
Posted by Chris in Cloud, Server Virtualization, VMware, Virtualization on July 16th, 2010
On Monday VMware announced the release of vSphere 4.1. VMware published a document describing the new features, and I also recommend checking out VMware CTO Steve Herrod’s post as well as Eric Siebert’s great vSphere 4.1 links post. I was planning to link to several good perspectives on the vSphere 4.1 release, but Siebert’s “links” post has them all and I suggest you take a look.
Granted, I’m a little late to the vSphere 4.1 discussion, but I thought I’d add my two cents nonetheless.
First, the release doesn’t feel like a ‘”.1” update. The feature additions and (Read more...)
On-Premise Microsoft Azure: An Inevitable Milestone in Azure’s Evolution
Posted by Chris in Client Virtualization, Cloud, Server Virtualization, Virtualization, WPC10 on July 14th, 2010
On Tuesday at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Azure Platform Appliance. Since Azure was first announced, I had been advising clients that an on-premise Azure offering was only a matter of time. With Tuesday’s announcement, Microsoft took a first step toward an Azure platform that is capable of driving internal cloud service delivery.
To be clear, Azure isn’t available to anyone who wants it. Instead, only very large enterprises (i.e., eBay) and providers (e.g., SugarCRM, GXS, and Siemens PLM Software) have access to the “appliance” at this time. The Azure appliance isn’t (Read more...)
Catalyst North America 2010 Server Virtualization Speaker Line-up
Posted by Chris in Client Virtualization, Cloud, Server Virtualization on May 20th, 2010
I recently confirmed all of the speakers for the server virtualization track at Catalyst North America, and am very excited about the participants. The conference runs the week of July 26th, with workshops on Monday and Tuesday and conference breakout sessions from Wednesday to Friday. Wednesday we’ll have a full day of cloud coverage, and I’m chairing the track “Virtualized Data Centers: Servers, Storage, Networks, and Security,” which runs all day on Thursday. The conference concludes on Friday with an outstanding client virtualization track. Speakers in that track include: Harry Labana – CTO – Citrix, Scott Davis – CTO (Read more...)
Citrix Synergy 2010: Cloud and Server Virtualization News and Thoughts
Posted by Chris in Cloud, Server Virtualization, XenServer, citrixsynergy on May 19th, 2010
As a follow-up to my previous post on Synergy 2010, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the cloud and server virtualization announcements. Citrix made the following product announcements at the conference:
- Citrix Unveils Open, Extensible, Turnkey Cloud Solutions
- Citrix Unveils Next XenServer Release as Reports Show Server Virtualization Market Share Growth
- NetScaler Delivers Industry’s First Virtualized Delivery Infrastructure for Microsoft 2010 Apps
- Citrix NetScaler Pay-as-You-Grow “Burst Packs” Make Networking More Elastic
Citrix announced the release of XenServer 5.6, which includes several significant feature improvements:
- Hypervisor-level role-based access controls (RBACs)
- Dynamic memory support
- Dynamic workload balancing
- Automated site (Read more...)
Citrix Synergy 2010: Client Virtualization News and Thoughts
Posted by Chris in Citrix, Client Virtualization, citrixsynergy on May 19th, 2010
As a follow-up to my previous post on Synergy 2010, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the client virtualization-related announcements. Citrix made the following product announcements at the conference:
- Citrix and Wyse Accelerate Mainstream Adoption of Desktop Virtualization with Zero Client Technology
- Citrix XenClient Delivers Virtual Desktops “To Go”for Millions of Mobile Workers
- New Citrix “Safe Zone” Technology Enables Transparent Data Security for the Virtual Workforce
- Citrix HDX Nitro Technologies to Raise the Bar Again on Virtual Desktop Performance
- McAfee and Citrix Partner to Make Virtual Desktop Security Simpler and More Scalable
The most significant first day (Read more...)
Citrix Synergy 2010: Burton Group’s Citrix XenDesktop and VMware View Assessments
Posted by Chris in Citrix, Client Virtualization, citrixsynergy on May 19th, 2010
Last week’s Citrix Synergy conference, Citrix’s largest ever, offered quite a bit of innovation and news. I’d like to start with Burton Group news, and will follow up with posts on client virtualization and cloud.
Last Wednesday at Synergy we unveiled the Burton Group Server-hosted virtual desktop evaluation criteria and presented product scorecards for Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 and VMware View 4.0.1. Our evaluation criteria is frequently used by clients as a starting point for their RFPs; it identifies over 100 features, including 52 that we consider required for enterprise-scale deployments. We also detail preferred (important, but not always essential), and (Read more...)
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