IBM has released a paper titled: "Implementing Citrix XenDesktop on IBM Flex System". The paper which contains 432 pages covers IBM’s SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure, a solution of running the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) product from Citrix using the VMware vSphere virtualization platform running on top of IBM Flex Systems. The paper provides an overview of the solution, including planning and deployment considerations including step-by-step instructions on how to build the solution.
Year: 2014
Release: VMTurbo Operations Manager 4.5
VMTurbo today announced the release of version 4.5 of its virtualization management platform Operations Manager. Operations Manager continuously analyzes the real-time performance characteristics, resource capacity, system constraints and service level priorities across the virtual data center to determine, implement and adjust resource configurations and workload placement. Operations Manager is provided as an Virtual Appliance which can run on the virtualization platforms of VMware, Citrix, Microsoft or Red Hat.
Citrix announces XenApp 7.5 and XenDesktop 7.5
Citrix today announced version 7.5 of its desktop and application virtualization product XenApp it also announced version 7.5 its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) product XenDesktop.
Both XenApp and XenDesktop will feature a new management console which will also support XenApp and XenDesktop installations running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Apache CloudStack. Support for managing installation running on Windows Azure is still under development.
Citrix expects to release version 7.5 of both XenApp and XenDesktop in March this year.
VMware hires new Chief Technology Officer for Americas
VMware has hired Chris Wolf as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Americas. Wolf comes from Gartner, where he was Research Vice President managing the data center and private cloud research team. He was responsible for the strategic direction and technical accuracy of the team’s collective research.
Wolf has been at Gartner for 4 years, before that he was Senior Analyst for 3 years at the Burton Group. He started his career in 1992 as a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps.
Paper: Virtualizing Active Directory Domain Services on VMware vSphere
VMware has released a paper titled: "Virtualizing Active Directory Domain Services on VMware vSphere". The paper which contains 62 pages provides guidance based on best practices on deploying AD DS on vSphere.
The virtualization of domain controllers allows administrators to take advantage of a new feature set not available to physical domain controllers. Among those features, cloning and snapshots are two powerful tools that enable rapid deployment, testing, and recovery.
Paper: Maximizing Storage Efficiency in Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Storage Server 2012 R2
Microsoft has released a paper titled:"Maximizing Storage Efficiency in Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Storage Server 2012 R2". The paper which contains 18 pages examines features in Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 that can be used to maximize storage efficiency.
Even though the paper has a high-level of marketing speak, it still provides a good overview of the Storage capabilities provided by the Windows platform. It covers Data Deduplication, Storage Spaces, Thin Provisioning and Trim
Microsoft announces Q2 2013 earnings
On January 23 Microsoft announced its financial results for the last quarter of 2013.
Total revenue for the quarter ended December 2013 was $24.52 billion. Looking at the financials details we can see that gross margin was $16.24 billion, operating income $7.97 billion, net income $6.56 billion, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.78 each.
VMware acquires AirWatch
VMware today announced that the company will acquire Mobile Device Managment vendor AirWatch. VMware will acquire AirWatch for approximately $1.175B in cash and approximately $365M of installment payments and assumed unvested equity. AirWatch will be integrated into VMware’s End-User Computing group reporting to CEO John Marshall.
"AirWatch provides best-in-class, secure, enterprise-mobile management to thousands of businesses around the world," said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. "With this acquisition VMware will add a foundational element to our end-user computing portfolio that will enable our customers to turbo-charge their mobile workforce without compromising security."
Survey: State of the VDI and SBC union 2014
Last year, Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) started a survey asking participants to provide more insight in the non-technical issues related to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Server Based Computing (SBC) deployments. The outcome of the survey which was filled-in by over 1000 people was detailed in a paper later on.
For this year, the survey wants to check how the industry has changed compared to last year. The questions of this survey are both functional and technical and range from “What are the most important design goals set for this environment”, to “Which storage is used”, to “How are the VM’s configured”. In comparison to the 2013 VRC survey, questions have been highly optimized and simplified with the help of your feedback. The 2014 VRC survey will only take 10 minutes of your time.