Robin Wauters

Citrix Systems has announced new enhancements to XenApp 5 that add the ability to deliver on-demand applications from virtual machines (VMs) running desktop operating systems such as Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP.

The new VM-based model complements delivery methods already included in XenApp, including the ability to host shared applications centrally via Windows Terminal Services or stream them to a PC or laptop to run locally. With the addition of VM hosted applications, XenApp 5 now offers 100 percent application compatibility with minimal testing and validation requirements – making XenApp the fastest, simplest and most cost-effective way to deliver Windows applications to any user in any location. In addition to VM hosted applications, XenApp 5 also features new capabilities for power and capacity management as well as Citrix® HDX Technology enhancements, such as HDX MediaStream for Flash, that deliver a high-definition experience for even the most intensive multimedia applications.

XenApp 5 now also provides policy-based power management capabilities to optimize server farm performance and reduce power consumption without disrupting user access to applications. By consolidating user sessions on fewer servers, capacity is managed to lessen uneven or low server utilization and prevent session sprawl. In addition, new enhancements to load testing capabilities enable customers to create intelligent testing scenarios to analyze server performance, determine the best ratio of physical and virtual servers for any environment and eliminate the need to over-provision server capacity.

Citrix continues to build upon the breadth of HDX technologies that deliver a powerful user experience in its desktop and application virtualization products. HDX MediaStream for Flash is now built in to XenApp 5, ensuring a high-definition experience for users accessing Flash applications and video content. HDX MediaStream accelerates performance and utilizes client-side resources to process Flash content to reduce bandwidth consumption. XenApp 5 also now includes HDX Plug-n-Play to provide instantaneous user access to USB devices. Devices can be mapped in real-time before or during a session. In addition, enhancements in HDX IntelliCache for MAPI protocol accelerate performance of Microsoft Exchange email for branch and mobile users by up to 50X while reducing bandwidth consumption. By eliminating protocol “chattiness” and automatically compressing and de-duplicating email attachments, Outlook and Exchange response times are faster over high latency connections.

While some vendors focus exclusively on their own proprietary virtualization platforms, Citrix continues to drive a more open approach to its desktop and application virtualization infrastructure. A broad range of Citrix Ready products have been tested and integrated with Citrix solutions – and more are being added all the time. Earlier this year Citrix and Microsoft also announced a broad-reaching agreement to integrate Citrix’s desktop and app virtualization solutions with Microsoft’s desktop management infrastructure. As a result, enterprise IT organizations will be able to manage both distributed and centrally hosted applications using Citrix XenApp and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. Citrix XenApp will also embrace Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) and extend its capabilities by enabling self-service delivery of applications on any device using Citrix Receiver and CitrixDazzle. This open infrastructure approach ensures that customers can integrate technology into their Citrix environment that best meets their needs regardless of the vendor.

The new features in XenApp 5 will be available for download on September 29, 2009.

NextIO, a premier provider of next-generation I/O solutions, today announced that the company has named DaWane Wanek as vice president of world wide sales. Wanek will lead NextIO’s global sales activity and will report directly to the company’s president and CEO, K.C. Murphy.

Prior to joining NextIO, Wanek served as a member of the executive team at Dell, Inc., where he was a director of the Advanced Systems Group, a division responsible for technical sales. Wanek has also held senior sales leadership positions with companies such as RLX Technologies, Scalable Software, Inc., BMC Software and Data General Corporation.

App-DNA has today introduced AppTitude 4.0, the latest release of the company’s application compatibility testing solution that helps organizations learn where is the best place to run an application and why. AppTitude 4.0 adds over 15 new and updated features, including a new reporting capability for Windows 7 application compatibility, extended support for Microsoft .NET Framework-based applications and new support for using VMware to capture installation snapshots. AppTitude assists organizations by eliminating much of the manual testing involved in application assessments and OS migrations, such as Windows 7, and gaining faster and better testing and conversion of applications to virtualization formats.

AppTitude 4.0 includes enhancements to several existing features plus newly-added functionality, including:

• A new Windows 7 Report for AppTitude’s Desktop Compatibility Manager module;
• Extension of AppTitude’s Production Manager to now support VMWare images. This means users can capture install snapshots using VMWare, in addition to the previously supported Virtual Server 2005.
• Integration of AppTitude with the Windows PCA internal database that ships with Windows 7 and Windows Vista for improved reporting accuracy. AppTitude 4.0 recognizes the three PCA states within the OS: “automatic shim,” in which the OS automatically configures the application to run; “soft block,” in which the OS warns that the application may have minor problems but allows it to run; and “hard block,” in which the OS prevents the application from running under it at all.
• Newly-improved manifestations and remediations across all reports provide better documentation and detail on algorithms, offering improved usability;
• New extended attribute import for .NET Framework-based applications provides the ability to determine .NET Framework dependencies in much greater detail. Now .NET Framework-based applications receive the same low-level analysis in AppTitude reports as Win32 apps. This improves overall accuracy and supports the assessment of a wider range of applications.

App-DNA’s AppTitude is the industry’s first application compatibility testing solution that can help organizations to determine the optimal method of application delivery – providing a rapid assessment of 100 percent of an organization’s applications. Using AppTitude helps organizations avoid the expense and delay of manual testing and provides business benefits that include vastly reducing the time, cost and risks associated with deployment of OS migrations, software upgrades, virtualization and other changes. Only AppTitude provides comprehensive and quick insight into an entire application portfolio of hundreds or even thousands of applications, including custom and internally developed applications.

Marathon Technologies has announced that Jim Welch has joined the company as its new president and chief executive officer. With more than 25 years of experience and expertise in developing high growth, sustainable software companies, Welch will propel Marathon’s next phase of growth by leading the strategic direction and operations of the company.

Welch has many years of executive leadership experience in high growth software companies and brings a wealth of enterprise software expertise to Marathon. He was one of the original founders of Intellution, a PC-based automation and internet software company. Before Intellution was purchased by Emerson in 1995, Welch had advanced in the organization to the role of Executive Vice President of Strategy, Planning and Development.

Following Intellution, Welch joined Ascential Software, the market leader in Enterprise Data Integration. As Vice President of Product Operations, he helped shape a new business strategy that tripled revenue growth in three years and resulted in the acquisition of Ascential by IBM in 2005. Welch remained at Ascential to ensure the company’s effective integration into IBM and was subsequently promoted to Vice President and General Manager of the InfoSphere Software business of IBM. The $600 million division is a high growth business for IBM that has been recognized by Gartner and Forrester Research as the execution and vision leader in master data management, enterprise data integration and data quality.

CA yesterday announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held NetQoS a leading provider of network performance management and service delivery solutions, for $200 million.

CA is a recognized leader in the management of networks, systems, application performance, and cloud computing. NetQoS’ solutions will extend CA’s capabilities in each of these areas:

Network and Systems Management

The combination of CA eHealth Network Performance Manager, CA Spectrum Infrastructure Manager and the NetQoS Performance Center will give CIOs and network engineers and operations managers better visibility and control of critical services in their physical and virtual network and systems environments. This will enable customers to flexibly and efficiently deliver high-quality services such as unified communications.

Application Performance Management

By linking transaction views to the infrastructure, CA Wily Application Performance Management and the NetQoS Performance Center will enable a new level of quality of experience, in which the infrastructure is application-aware. This 360-degree view of applications will provide customers both an outside-in and inside-out perspective of their business and IT services, something no other single vendor can provide.

Cloud Management

CA’s acquisition of NetQoS builds on the assets CA acquired from Cassatt earlier this year, as well as CA’s organically developed CA Spectrum Automation Manager for dynamic performance-based automation of physical, virtual and cloud computing environments. As enterprises and service providers become increasingly reliant on the shared infrastructure of private and public computing clouds, CA and NetQoS will provide a robust level of network and systems traffic management that will be critical to successfully delivering cloud-based services.

Founded ten years ago, NetQoS has more than 1,000 active customers worldwide, including many in the Fortune 100. With annual revenue of $56 million in 2008, NetQoS’ revenues have experienced a 58 percent CAGR over the past five fiscal years.

At the close of the transaction, Joel Trammell will join CA as senior vice president and general manager, and Dr. Cathy Fulton, NetQoS chief technology officer and executive vice president of Products, will join CA as senior vice president, Software Engineering. Initially, NetQoS will operate as an independent entity within CA’s Infrastructure Management and Automation business unit and will report to Ajei Gopal. It is anticipated that a majority of NetQoS’ 250 employees will remain with CA.

The all-cash transaction is expected to be slightly dilutive in fiscal 2010 on CA’s non-GAAP and GAAP earnings per share. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of the calendar year, pending regulatory approvals.

Citrix Systems recently announced it is working with SignaCert, a provider of IT compliance solutions based on whitelisting methods, to include Citrix Systems software measurements in the SignaCert Global Trust Repository (GTR).

This collaboration will provide objective, third-party validation of Citrix-built software for IT security, compliance and systems management of virtual infrastructures, enabling Citrix customers and partners to explore innovative uses for Citrix desktop and server virtualization products such as XenDesktop, XenApp and XenServer, including dynamically managing applications and packages in workloads. Additionally, SignaCert will license the Data Exchange Format (DEF) to customers at no charge to help them leverage the whitelist data method for custom uses in their Citrix environments.

The SignaCert Global Trust Repository uses known-provenance and vendor-independent software measurements, or whitelists, to enable new enterprise IT security methods. These whitelists provide a standardized way to enforce security and compliance of third-party software for enterprise computing environments, as well as more advanced uses such as software attestation in high-assurance platforms. The technology permits virtual machines (VM) and their applications to be securely authenticated, so that when a VM is moved – between the enterprise data center and a cloud, for example – the user can be confident that the workload originated with their enterprise customer and it has not been altered outside of policy in any way, and that there have been no file and structure changes, additions or deletions to the application stack.