Year: 2012

Comparison VMware Fusion 5 vs Parallels Desktop 8

by
VMware Fusion 5 and Parallels Desktop 8 are both desktop virtualization platforms that allow to run Windows applications on Mac and both have been released recently, yesterday CNET published an article comparing the two products.
According to CNET both programs are able to launch rapidly the guest operating systems and the access to Windows program without difficulty.

Release: Pano System for Cloud/Terminal Services 2.0

by
This solution would enable an easy migration to the cloud, allowing the support of major computing platforms, using a zero endpoint with no processor, no operating system or moving parts.
The technology developed by Pano Logic would permit an accesible migration between server-hosted desktop to Microsoft and Citrix terminal services, from virtualized desktops to browser based cloud desktop.

Dell, EMC and Cisco view on BYOD with VDI and Desktop Virtualization

by
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a business policy of employees bringing personally owned mobile devices to their place of work and using those devices to access privileged company resources such as email, file servers and databases as well as their personal applications and data.
BYOD offers an alternative with smartphone and tablets technologies, for small customers to manage business without infrastructure collapse. Now the main technology providers are opting for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and desktop virtualization.
According to what we saw at the VMworld 2012, desktop virtualization is the latest trend, the join initiative between CISCO, EMC and VMware known as the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) is seen as an opportunity for an interesting growth market. This partnership allowed to create an unique virtual solution where EMC developed storage products together with Cisco’s servers.
Dell instead prefers an end-to-end approach of acquisitions and developed a layered solution focused at a corporate level to the midmarket, taking advantages in its end-to-end coverage and midmarket focus.

Broadcom announces New Server Network Virtualization Acceleration Technology

by
Broadcom Corporation, the fabless semiconductor company for wired and wireless communications, announced last August 28 at VMworld the new NetXtreme® II server network virtualization (NV) acceleration technology for VXLAN implementations.
The new server platform with Smart NV tech developped by Broadcom in collaboration with VMware, should improve server performance by 55 percent, it also should have the ability to scale multi-tenant networks with VXLAN, enabling logical, software-based networks that can be created on demand and increase the scale of virtual machines on the physical server while maintaining Quality of Service.

Cisco and VMware consolidate their partnership

by

Last week Cisco and VMware announced their intention to consolidate their partnership with the common objective of develop integrated product and solutions designed for software defined datacenters.

Both companies will seal the partnership investing in dedicated engineering teams that will collaborate on deeper integrations across VMware cloud solutions and Cisco’s Data Center Networking and Fabric Computing platforms.

The annoucement comes about to calm the voices, spread around after Nicira acquisition, about a possibile impasse in the relationship between the two companies.

From the original press release:

Read more

Release: Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac

by

On August 22, Parallels has announced Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac and today the upgrade has been made available for current users and it will be possible for new users to purchase next tuesday, September 4.

Parallels Desktop 8 is a desktop virtualization platform that allows to run both Windows 8 and Mac OS X Mountain Lion applications together, this integration benefits of Mountain Lion’s new features and implements them to Windows programs, such as support for Launchpad, Dictation, Notification Center and Mission Control.
This release follows the recently introduced Fusion 5 from VMware, which improved considerably overall performance for both Mountain Lion and Windows 8 virtualization on Macs.

Liquidware Labs: two new offerings of Stratusphere Product Line

by

liquidwarelabs logo

Liquidware Labs, the company founded in 2008 by David Bieneman, announced yesterday August 28, at VMworld 2012 two new offerings of its VDI assessment tool Stratusphere IXD and Stratusphere Adapter.

Liquid Stratusphere IXD is a solution that would enable VDI administrators to  automate the design of corporate desktop gold master images, and size hosts and storage architecture.

Stratusphere Adapter allows an integration feed for Stratusphere FIT desktop assessment metrics and Stratusphere UX user experience metrics into VMware vCenter Operations. IT Administrators can achieve a granular view of users’ desktop experience in a single “pane of glass” delivered from custom dashboards.

Jason Mattox, CTO of Liquidware Labs, comments about Stratusphere IXD:

Stratusphere IXD automates the process of designing key virtual desktop environment components with a very high level of accuracy. Designs are based on actual observed usage patterns which are then applied to the best ‘one-to-many’ shared-image pooled strategy, using precise image, host and storage designs right at the start prevents the cost overruns, poor performance and capacity constraints that can stall View desktop projects and have negative impacts on end users.

Release: AMD new FirePro S9000 and S7000 and Opteron

by

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD, launched on August 27 FirePro S9000 and S7000 Graphics Processors.

The American company officially presented at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco its latest versions for its line of graphics cards processors, created with the scope of speeding up the delivery of virtual desktops through servers.

S9000 and S7000 would allow IT administrator to reduce server power consumption, with a cost reduction, for a better management of workloads of CAD and media applications.  The new chips would work efficiently with usually graphic intensive software, as well on smartphones and tablets. AMD also realesed a new version of its processor-based server ADM Opteron, designed for virtualization environments.

Read more

Release: Trend Micro Deep Security 9.0

by

Yesterday,  Japanese security software company, Trend Micro announced at VMworld the new version of its server security platform: Deep Security 9.0

Deep Security platform allows to manage server security for both physical, virtual and cloud servers. The platform is composed by integrated modules that allows to enlarge the server security platform in order to guarantee a better security of data protection.

The new release offers:

  • Integration into vCloud Director and Amazon Web Services;
  • Support for latest VMware releases – vSphere 5.1 and vCloud Networking and Security 5.1;
  • Enhancements to Deep Security Agentless Platform;
  • Hypervisor integrity monitoring;
  • Multi-tenant architecture for software-defined data centers

Read more