Robin Wauters

NComputing Announces Support For Windows MultiPoint Server 2010

February 25, 2010 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

NComputing, the global leader in virtual desktops with over 15 million daily users, today announced that the company’s full product line will support the new Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 operating system from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). NComputing virtual desktop kits are based on the company’s vSpace desktop virtualization software and are available in three product lines which are designed to bring ultra low-cost computing to customers ranging from enterprises to small businesses, as well as schools, NGOs and governments.

Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 works with vSpace as an economical platform to deliver virtual desktops to low-cost thin clients with pricing and performance that will be attractive to a wide range of customers.

California School Sets Up NComputing / Windows MultiPoint Server Lab

Rheem School in Moraga, California set up a lab based on Windows MultiPoint Server with NComputing vSpace software and U170 (U-series) clients to the delight of faculty, staff, administration and teachers.

– The new shared PCs run considerably faster and more reliably in the new lab than the four year old PCs run in the older lab.

– The 30-seat lab was set up in a matter of hours because of the simplicity of installing the Windows MultiPoint Server operating system on 5 shared PCs and the NComputing USB plug-and-play clients.

– The Windows MultiPoint Server and NComputing combination is the most cost-effective way to give Rheem’s students a state-of-the-art Windows 7 user experience.

The NComputing Product Line

NComputing has three product lines, which are based on how the thin clients connect to the PC/server.

– The X-series, which connect through a PCI card, and which deliver superb multimedia at the lowest possible cost.

– The U-series, which is the simplest solution to connect, because they just snap into standard USB ports. They deliver top-notch multimedia at very low prices.

– The L-series, which connect through standard Ethernet networks, and as such deliver the most flexible architectures and configurations.

Quotes

“The strong support we’ve already seen from NComputing will be instrumental to the development of valuable, innovative solutions for the Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 platform,” said Ira Snyder, general manager, Windows MultiPoint Server at Microsoft. “The creation of shared resource computing solutions like NComputing’s using Windows MultiPoint Server will provide even more policymakers, teachers, and students with access to affordable, security-enhanced, and easy-to-use technology.”

“In just three years, NComputing has established itself as the only desktop virtualization company that delivers ultra-low cost, with great performance, and in a variety of models that allow customers to buy the perfect solution,” said Stephen Dukker, CEO and chairman of NComputing. “The new Microsoft and NComputing partnership is helping us deliver even more choices for our customers. This will expand the market even faster than it has been growing.”

“We researched many virtual desktops over the past year,” said Courtney Guinn, Director of Instructional Technology. “We were impressed by the simplicity of the NComputing and Windows MultiPoint Server solution and the fact that it required no new infrastructure.”

“The thing that kills us over time is that PCs have to be replaced every four years or so. So even if we get a good budget one year in ten, it creates an obligation that we can’t afford to keep up with. By sharing PCs with Windows MultiPoint Server and NComputing, we’ve drastically reduced the amount of money we need to keep up,” said Guy Seltzer, district Network Administrator

CA Snaps Up 3Tera

February 25, 2010 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

CA, Inc. (NASDAQ:CA) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held 3Tera®, Inc., a pioneer in cloud computing. 3Tera’s AppLogic® offers an innovative solution for building cloud services and deploying complex enterprise-class applications to public and private clouds using an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

With 3Tera—which follows CA’s recent acquisitions of Cassatt, NetQoS and Oblicore—CA continues to aggressively expand its portfolio of solutions to manage cloud computing as part of an integrated information technology management program.

3Tera enables enterprises and service providers to provision, deploy and scale public and private cloud computing environments while maintaining full control, flexibility and reliability. 3Tera also makes it easy for service providers to offer application stacks on demand by adding applications to the AppLogic catalog, where they can be deployed to a low-cost, shared cloud infrastructure. 3Tera’s customers include more than 80 enterprises and service providers globally, which use the cloud computing technology to provide services to thousands of users.

“CIOs can use cloud computing to build and manage a new type of IT ‘supply chain’ across today’s virtualized internal and external technology infrastructure,” said Chris O’Malley, executive vice president of CA’s Cloud Products & Solutions Business Line. “3Tera technology is a powerful addition to the total solution CA provides for optimizing these high-value supply chains—from the mainframe to the cloud.”

Rapid, Simplified Cloud Enablement

Using the intuitive GUI and drawing from a catalog of pre-configured virtual server and software components, AppLogic simplifies the design and deployment of composite applications as a single logical entity in the cloud. By unifying application configuration, application deployment, and a virtual server fabric—functions that are otherwise typically performed in a fragmented manner—AppLogic helps reduce costs, improve productivity and increase service quality.

“3Tera eliminates the manual, error-prone tasks that have historically hampered an organization’s ability to deploy IT services to the cloud,” said Barry X Lynn, CEO of 3Tera. “As part of CA, we can bring rapid and simple cloud enablement to a dramatically larger group of customers, leveraging the thousands of CA sales, services and support professionals.”

In addition to AppLogic, 3Tera provides a cloud computing marketplace that allows software vendors to provide developers with production-ready cloud components and full applications that are available on a pay-as-you-go basis. This greatly facilitates exchanges of value between developers, service providers and customers.

Integration with Virtual and Physical Management Technologies

By streamlining cloud-based deployment of composite applications, 3Tera adds significant new capabilities alongside CA’s existing virtual and physical infrastructure management functionality—including that provided by CA Spectrum Automation Manager, the CA Service Assurance line of products, and the recently acquired assets of Cassatt and Oblicore.

CA plans to integrate AppLogic with these and other key technologies to provide customers with a comprehensive set of tools for delivering, managing and optimizing cloud computing as part of overall enterprise IT environment. CA also plans to extend support of 3Tera, which currently operates on the Xen virtualization platform, to include both VMware ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V™.

“AppLogic is a software platform that helps IT departments and service providers rapidly create and deploy cloud applications,” said Rachel Chalmers, research director at The 451 Group. “By adding this technology to its own strengths in IT management, CA is offering an intriguing value proposition to customers who want to both take advantage of the cloud’s adaptability and maintain rigorous control of the their virtual service delivery infrastructure.”

To learn more about CA and cloud computing, visit http://www.ca.com/cloud.

CA today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held 3Tera. With 3Tera—which follows CA’s recent acquisitions of Cassatt, NetQoS and Oblicore—CA continues to aggressively expand its portfolio of solutions to manage cloud computing as part of an integrated information technology management program.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

3Tera’s AppLogic offers an innovative solution for building cloud services and deploying complex enterprise-class applications to public and private clouds using an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI).

Former VMware Exec Jim Gannon Joins HyTrust as VP of Sales

February 24, 2010 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Former VMware Executive Joins HyTrust as Vice President of Sales

Mountain View, CA – February 23, 2010 – HyTrust (www.hytrust.com) today announced the appointment of Jim Gannon as vice president of Sales. Gannon is a seasoned executive with over 19 years of tenure at category-leading organizations such as VMware, EMC and General Electric (GE). He will leverage his experience in building high-performance sales teams to accelerate HyTrust’s penetration into the high-growth production virtualization market and extend the company’s leadership position.

“Jim is a proven industry veteran with an exceptional track record of shaping sales strategy and scaling top-performing sales teams,” said Eric Chiu, president and CEO of HyTrust. “His experience acquiring and developing strategic accounts will bring the benefits of HyTrust solutions to more customers striving to virtualize their production infrastructure.”

Gannon brings a background rich in sales, global account management and enterprise sales management, with the last thirteen years in information technology. He joins HyTrust from VMware, the world’s leading provider of virtualization solutions. As director of Global Accounts for VMware, he built a team that delivered 20 percent average annual revenue growth, and forged strong relationships with Fortune 50 companies in the financial services, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, information technology, and oil and gas industries. Prior to VMware, Gannon spent three years in Tokyo as director of EMC Japan in addition to other sales management positions there and at GE.

“Organizations have accelerated their virtualization efforts due to an increasing array of business drivers—capital and operating expense reduction, business agility, data center constraints, power exhaustion and, most notably, the advent of cloud computing—yet they have not implemented the appropriate controls to manage risk and meet compliance and/or corporate governance requirements,” said Gannon. “HyTrust is uniquely positioned to help organizations continue the journey to virtualize more, with its end-to-end security and compliance solution for virtual infrastructure. I am proud to be part of the team that will lead this emerging market.”

About HyTrust (www.hytrust.com)

HyTrust™ delivers Virtualization Under Control™. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, HyTrust is the leader in policy management and access control for virtual infrastructure. HyTrust Appliance empowers organizations to virtualize more–including servers that may be subject to compliance–by delivering enterprise-class controls for access and accountability, and visibility over the entire virtualization infrastructure. The Company is backed by top tier investors Trident Capital and Epic Ventures; its partners also include VMware, Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC), Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) and RSA (NYSE: EMC).

HyTrust today announced the appointment of Jim Gannon as vice president of Sales.

Gannon is a seasoned executive with over 19 years of tenure at organizations such as VMware, EMC and General Electric (GE). He will leverage his experience in building high-performance sales teams to accelerate HyTrust’s penetration into the high-growth production virtualization market and extend the company’s leadership position.

Stealthy Nicira Raises Funding From Former VMware CEO Diane Greene, Others

February 23, 2010 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Stealthy start-up Nicira got some backing from VMware founder Diane Greene and is developing a network operating system designed to virtualize networks and create networks ideal for cloud deployments. Nicira’s founding team comes out of Stanford University, where Greene’s husband and VMware co-founder, Mendel Rosenblum, is a professor in computer science.

he start-up’s CEO is Steve Mullaney, who has held executive positions at Palo Alto Networks, Blue Coat, Cisco and other companies. Nicira’s co-founders also include Scott Shenker and Nick McKeown, who are computer science professors at Stanford University.

Nicira investors also include the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz formed by two ex-Netscape execs, and Andy Rachleff, a partner at Benchmark Capital.

Nicira raised one equity round of $9 million and another of $4 million, according to a VentureBeat article.

Founded in 2007, the company is based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Lanamark, Oracle Partner to Accelerate Delivery of Virtualization Solutions Based on Oracle VM

February 23, 2010 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Lanamark Inc., a global provider of virtualization and capacity management services platform to the IT channel delivering desktop, server and storage optimization solutions, today announced that they are working with Oracle to enable partners to use Lanamark Suite to perform capacity planning and deliver enterprise-class desktop and server virtualization solutions based on Oracle VM across x86/x64 and SPARC architectures. As part of this effort, Lanamark has joined the Oracle PartnerNetwork as a Gold level partner. To learn more, please visit www.lanamark.com/oracle.

“Partners play a key role in delivering integrated IT solutions that enable customers to reduce IT costs and focus on their core business,” said Jeff Doolan, Director of Virtualization and Linux Channels at Oracle. “Lanamark’s solution accelerates our partners’ ability to plan and design complete virtualization solutions with Oracle VM across x86/x64 and SPARC systems.”

“Lanamark has a strategically important toolset which will enable Avnet’s Oracle channel partners to engage in early conversations with enterprises around desktop and server virtualization initiatives,” said Mickey Bharat, Director Oracle and Sun, Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA. “By working with Avnet and Lanamark, our partners can design end-to-end virtual infrastructure solutions that leverage the strength of complementary software and hardware products. These complete virtualization solutions create significant opportunities and business differentiators for Avnet’s Oracle partners.”

Lanamark Suite enables Oracle partners to accelerate design and delivery of Oracle VM virtualization solutions. Solution providers can gather vital information about x86/x64 and SPARC environments, identify most suitable candidates for virtualization, and then design complete, high-performance virtualization solutions with Oracle VM. Lanamark Suite supports application, middleware, database, operating system, server, storage and thin client components from Oracle and Oracle alliance partners. To learn more, including Lanamark’s participation in upcoming Oracle VM boot camps, please visit www.lanamark.com/oracle/bootcamps.

“Oracle enables its partners to deliver a complete stack with enterprise-class software and hardware components that can be deployed, managed and supported together,” said Mark Angelo, CEO of Lanamark. “Using Lanamark Suite, Oracle partners can analyze existing x86/x64 and SPARC environments, perform capacity planning and design end-to-end IT systems with highly available, scalable and cost-effective virtualization delivered by Oracle VM.”

Lanamark today announced that they are working with Oracle to enable partners to use Lanamark Suite to perform capacity planning and deliver enterprise-class desktop and server virtualization solutions based on Oracle VM across x86/x64 and SPARC architectures.

As part of this effort, Lanamark has joined the Oracle PartnerNetwork as a Gold level partner.

TippingPoint Introduces New Products to Secure Virtualized Data Centers

February 23, 2010 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

TippingPoint, a leading provider of network security and a division of 3Com, and Reflex Systems, a pioneer in virtualization systems management solutions, today announced a partnership that will enable organizations to secure virtual networks with the same technology used for physical networks. The partnership integrates Reflex’s Virtualization Management Center (VMC) solution with TippingPoint’s industry-leading Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to provide customers with comprehensive security, visibility and performance across both physical and virtual network infrastructures.

Companies are adopting virtualization at a rapid pace for cost, energy, and speed of deployment benefits. As they move mission critical data to virtual environments, they find themselves requiring the same enterprise-class security in their virtual networks as they do across their physical networks. Securing and managing the virtual environment requires a different approach and a new set of technologies that are purpose-built for the virtual environment.

As part of its recently launched TippingPoint Virtual Controller (vController), TippingPoint will use Reflex Systems’ vTrust™ technology to enable more sophisticated segmentation (virtual trust zones), policy enforcement, as well as monitoring, filtering and control of VM-to-VM traffic. vTrust also takes advantage of VMware’s VMsafe API to deliver a more granular level of visibility and control into communication within the VMware virtual environment.

“Virtualization delivers on the promise of an agile, more cost-effective IT infrastructure. However, it also makes it easier than ever to introduce risk into the enterprise,” said Pete Privateer, president and CEO, Reflex Systems. “Fortunately, by leveraging advancements in security and management technologies, organizations can minimize their risk and realize the benefits of virtualization. We are pleased to partner with TippingPoint, the industry’s leading IPS vendor, to provide a high level of visibility and control across the entire network.”

Security and Management of Virtual Environments

Reflex’s award-winning Virtualization Management Center (VMC) manages and protects virtual servers, desktops, and networks providing a management for security and compliance that correlates infrastructure configuration changes with network services and security events. This integrated approach enables enterprise organizations to improve performance while increasing business efficiency and business continuity in the virtual data center.

Reflex VMC is designed to provide customers with the essential capabilities needed to effectively manage and secure complex, dynamic virtual environments, capitalize on their existing virtualization investment, reduce cost through efficient management, minimize downtime, and maintain a reliable virtualized infrastructure running critical applications. VMC integrates security, compliance, audit and management of the virtual environment by providing visibility, correlation, control and automation through a single pane of glass.

By integrating Reflex’s VMC with the TippingPoint IPS, customers will be able to gain control and protect physical and virtual environments saving time and money while providing a more comprehensive view of the environment for security and compliance purposes.

“As organizations move toward virtualization they are looking to extend enterprise-class network security into the virtual environment,” said Alan Kessler, president of TippingPoint. “By tapping into Reflex’s virtualization expertise, we can provide our customers an effective solution for improving security, achieving regulatory compliance, and reducing total cost of ownership across their entire infrastructure, whether it’s physical or virtual.”

For more information or to purchase, please visit http://www.tippingpoint.com/products_virtualization.html

TippingPoint, a provider of network security and a division of 3Com, and Reflex Systems, recently announced a partnership that will enable organizations to secure virtual networks with the same technology used for physical networks.

The partnership integrates Reflex’s Virtualization Management Center (VMC) solution with TippingPoint’s industry-leading Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to provide customers with comprehensive security, visibility and performance across both physical and virtual network infrastructures.

For more information or to purchase, please visit http://www.tippingpoint.com/products_virtualization.html