Brian Madden posted a rather intriguing/controversial article titled “Do you think VMware is catching up to Citrix in the desktop space? Balderdash! Citrix needs to catch up to VMware.” In this article, Brian points out 5 main capabilities necessary to have VDI nirvana:

1. A remote display protocol that supports all applications.
2. Offline / client-based capability.
3. Many to one disk image.
4. User environment / workspace management.
5. User installable applications.

According to Brian’s calculations on Citrix’s shipping products, Citrix meets 1 out of 5. According to Brian’s calculations on VMware’s shipping and announced products, VMware meets 2 or 3 out of 5.

So, this article spurred a little controversy from Citrix and VMware. Sumit Dhawan posted a rebuttal on the Citrix Community Blogs. Sumit systematically expounds upon 3 main points:

1. Shipping versus experimental technologies.
2. VDI or Desktop virtualization is not an end all be all.
3. Offline workers.

Mike DiPetrillo from VMware (or at least a user claiming to be Mike) jumps in on the comments section of Sumit’s blog rebuttal as well adding to some of Sumit’s points.

Sources:

Brian Madden - Do you think VMware is catching up to Citrix in the desktop space? Balderdash! Citrix needs to catch up to VMware.
Sumit Dhawan - VDI or Desktop Virtualization - One Size Fits All? NOT TRUE!!!

Do any of you have experiences with VDI? What are you thoughts?

Technorati : Citrix, VDI, VMware, VMware View, XenDesktop
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Back in October, Microsoft released Hyper-V Server 2008 for free. Unlike the Hyper-V role of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is a stand-alone bare metal hypervisor. If you have not had a chance to download and install Hyper-V Server, Tarek Majdalani put together a very nice step-by-step guide (with screen shots) on the installation and configuration of Hyper-V Server. From the screen shots, you can see that Hyper-V Server looks a lot like Windows Server 2008 Server Core:

Continue at source…

Technorati : Hyper-V, Hyper-V Server, Microsoft, Server Core, Windows Server 2008
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Earlier this year, a new Microsoft blog emerged called The Official MDOP Blog. MDOP stands for Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and contains Microsoft App-V (SoftGrid). The MDOP blog posted a couple of entries centered around App-V whitepapers and tools. In these entries, you can find things like:

• App-V ADM Temples - used to manage App-V clients via GPOs
• App-V Security and Configuration Wizard
• App-V Best Practice Analyzer
• App-V Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
• App-V Trial Guide
• App-V and System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• App-V Application Publishing and Client Interaction Whitepaper

These tools and white papers are invaluable resources for getting started or managing an App-V environment. Continue at the sources below:

Tools for deploying and managing App-V…

Whitepapers for deploying and managing App-V…

Technorati : Application Virtualization, MDOP, Microsoft, SoftGrid, Tools
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Have you ever heard of PubForum? PubForum is an independent conference started by Dr. Alex Yushchenko back in 2003. This conference has steadily grown over the years and there is a lot of great information on virtualization from the presentations made. Fortunately, the presentations are made available freely online. The latest PubForum presentations include:

• VMware - latest developments
• Citrix XenApp Server 5 - First Impressions
• Citrix EdgeSite 5.0
• An overview of the Best Freeware tools for your Terminal Server, Citrix and SoftGrid infrastructure
• AppSense Management Suite 8
• Citrix XenDesktop Troubleshooting
• Remote Access -for who?
• Building Change Friendly Delivery Systems
• more…

Continue at source…

Technorati : Application Virtualization, Citrix, SoftGrid, VMware, videos
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Windows Server 2008 introduces a few new virtualization features such as Hyper-V for server virtualization, and Remote Desktop improvements for presentation virtualization. Microsoft is continuing to add more value to their virtualization features in Windows Server 2008 R2. There are improvements to Hyper-V for server virtualization, as well as improvements to Remote Desktop for VDI services. Michael Pietroforte put together a nice list of some of the new features coming out including:

Hyper-V improvements

• Hyper-V live migration (like VMotion or XenMotion)
• Cluster Node Connectivity Fault Tolerance
• Hyper-V now supports up to 32 logical processor cores
• Support for Intel’s Enhances Page Tables and AMD’s Nested Page Tables
• Boot physical machines to a .vhd

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) improvements:

• Support for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 as virtualized OS
• Broker Support

RemoteApp & Desktop Connections:

• Single Sign-on
• PowerShell support

Continue at source…

Technorati : Cluster, Hyper-V, Live Migration, Microsoft, Terminal Services, VDI
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Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired a company called Calista Technologies. Calista is supposed to be a set of 3D and multimedia remoting technologies for mainly VDI deployments. The reason I say “supposed to be” is because these technologies have not shipped or made a public debut in Microsoft products. However, more details are starting to emerge about Microsoft’s developments/intentions about Calista. Brian Madden has a few bullet points available about Calasita including:

• Calista leverages the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) running on a host and a client.
• Calista was demoed at WinHEC on Windows 7 preview code running Hyper-V preview code.
• Again, at WinHEC, Calista was shown running on a prototype thin device.

Continue at source…

Technorati : Calista, GPU, Graphics Remoting, Microsoft, VDI
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So, Microsoft Hyper-V has been out for a few months now and is attracting a lot of attention. There is a lot of information about Hyper-V on VirtualizationAdmin.com as well. If you are just getting started with Hyper-V, it would be nice to have a consolidated list of piratical information. And, since everyone tends to like top 10 lists, Debra Littlejohn Shinder from TechRepublic put together a nice list of the “10 things you should know about Hyper-V”. The list includes items such as:

• System Requirements
• Licensing Requirements
• .VHD compatibility
• Management
• Device Drivers
• Virtual Networks
• and many more

Debra did a good job with this list with injecting tidbits of more information about the features via “Note” sections.

Continue at source…

Technorati : Hyeprvisor, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Virtualization
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Hypervisor manufacturers are starting to team up with mobile phone manufacturers to put hypervisors on mobile phones. Earlier this year, virtualization.info reported that Xen is being ported to the ARM architecture by Samsung. VMware is also working in the arena as well with their acquisition of Trango. There is even a Wiki on the “XenARM” project. So, what is the motivation behind all this? There is a cool white paper put out by Samsung that explains some of the motivation as well as give a more in-depth architectural overview of the components. Some of the motivations are:

• Many downloadable services under beyond 3G mobile environments will be increased.
• • This requires an open mobile platform.
• Open platform will face problems with malware and bugs similar to PC.
• • Secure Xen can help an open mobile platform secure against malware.
  • However, bugs in device drivers may cause Dom 0 to stop working and the applications to have to restart.
  • • Relatively short life cycle of peripheral chips in consumer electronics products.
    • Can test cases be updated quickly and be used to detect every bug during development ? Patch is likely.
• Device driver domain to be separated from Dom 0 (security applications running on Dom 0 in secure Xen on ARM) kernel.

Technorati : Citrix, Hypervisor, Samsung, VDI, VMware, Xen
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One of the infrastructure requirements for Microsoft App-V (SoftGrid) is SQL Server. So, during the setup of Microsoft App-V, you are given the option to install MSDE (Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine or Microsoft Data Engine). So, this would lead one to conclude that App-V is supported on MSDE or SQL Express - right? As it turns out, the answer is no - you must use Microsoft SQL 2000 or SQL 2005. So basically the install program will install a non supported production setup. You can still get away with MSDE or SQL Express for a Proof of Concept or a demo environment, but the only supported SQL versions are SQL 2000 or SQL 2005. The main reason you need these versions is because they are the only ones that have the SQL Server Agent. The App-V Team Blog has a writeup explaining more of this reliance on the SQL Server Agent.

Continue at source…

Technorati : App-V, Application Virtualization, MSDE, Microsoft, SQL
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Citrix is putting on a virtual trade show of sorts. Citrix did this type of event when they launched XenApp 5. It is a pretty cool format with the ability to attend breakout sessions, talk with experts, browse a trade show floor, and more — all virtually over the Internet. This event is happening on December 4th, 2008. In this event, you will have the chance to learn about:

• XenServer 5
• Virtualizing XenApp (Presentation Server) with XenServer
• NetScaler 9
• XenDesktop
• VDI Best Practices
• Turbocharging Secure Access

Register here…

Technorati : Citrix, Presentation Virtualization, VDI, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer
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