virtualization.info

Almost one month ago a new startup called Liquidware Labs entered the VDI space. 
Behind it there are the founder and former CEO of Vizioncore (acquired by Quest in January 2008) and the founder of Foedus (acquired by VMware in January 2008).

At the foundation of Liquidware Labs there’s the technology of another startup called vmSight, which has been acquired while in stealth mode and that is now rebranded as Stratusphere.

The new company continues from where vmSight left, using the same Connector ID technology to rate the physical desktop candidates for VDI environments or to identify poor user experience in an existing VDI environment.

On top of that Stratusphere 4.2 introduces the following major features:

• New VDI Assessment Module
  Stratusphere 4.2 add an entire new module for VDI Assessment. This includes new capabilities to deploy dissolvable Connector ID Keys to physical desktops to gather extensive real-world data on existing configurations and application usage patterns, as well as baseline performance and resource utilization, and a complete set of reports and analysis tools to assess the environment and plan for a migration to VDI. Analysis tools include the Inspector workbench with Machine Configuration, Resource Utilization and Configuration Cluster analysis, along with a complete set of VDI Assessment reports.
• VDI Fit and VDI UX Breakthrough Metrics for VDI
  Stratusphere 4.2 introduces two key new metrics, VDI Fit used in assessments to rate the fitness for a target VDI environment, and VDI UX used in diagnostics to rate the user experience of existing VDI deployments. Each metric relies on multi-variate analysis profile, and puts the tools to adjust the profile and rating system in the hands of the practitioner. The metrics can be adjusted and analyzed, and in the end provide a Red, Yellow, Green rating on all machines, users and applications. Analysis plot graphs are also provided so administrators can quickly identify the groupings and problems in their environments

Brian Madden published additional insights about the company roadmap:

Ultimately Liquidware Labs plans to have five products, although only the first two are available today. From a functionality standpoint, their products will include:

• Assessment module (available now) Gathers configuration details of physical desktops and measures actual workloads, establishing the baseline for the VDI environment. Creates VDI “fitness” reports and identifies clusters of desktops, resource requirements, etc. (more on this later)
• Diagnostics module (available now) Builds upon assessment data to collect detailed usage information about apps, networks, storage, etc.
• Capacity planning module (not yet available) This is the “what if” engine… What if I decided to go win7, or switched hardware, or let people use hulu? You could even stand up and pilot and then model it to scale.
• Migration module (not yet available) This is a component that can automate some of the actual migration work, like maybe tying into app compatibility lists and packagers, making sure that the right people have the right apps available (based on the assessment data)
• Support Center module (not yet available) This is a tool for Level 1 and Level 2 support personnel, with potential for user self-service. It will hook into the VDI environment and pull data from the other modules.