Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

Robin Wauters

Teradici Raises $17 Million Series C Financing Round

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Teradici Corporation today announced completion of a US $17 million series C funding round for its PC-over-IP network-delivered computing technology. With network-delivered computing, users can work at inexpensive computer stations at any site, with all operating systems, applications, and data residing in central datacenters.

Teradici will use the new funds to continue to market its ground-breaking enterprise PC-over-IP technology around the world and to develop a new offering for consumers and small businesses. Customers of the future service would be able to sit at any workspace in the office, remote office, or user’s home, log in to access their system and files from the central datacenter. Customers would have the option of using their own equipment or receiving terminals as part of their contracted service. They receive exceptional graphics, multimedia, audio and USB connectivity without having to purchase, manage or maintain a PC.

Investors in the over-subscribed funding round include TELUS Ventures, the venture arm of TELUS, as well as Alloy Ventures, GrowthWorks Capital, Skypoint Capital, BDC Venture Capital, and Alta Berkeley Venture Partners.

Teradici also announced that Kevin Salvadori, Executive Vice President of Business Transformation & Technology Operations at TELUS, will assume a seat on its board of directors. Mr. Salvadori brings to the board extensive strategic and operational experience in Information Technology systems architecture, application development and maintenance, technology operations, and physical and technology security.

The investment by TELUS supports the organization’s efforts to partner with high-potential companies that offer unique technologies and innovative products that will accelerate growth initiatives within TELUS.

Sun Releases VirtualBox 2.2, Comes With OVF Support

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Sun Microsystems today announced the availability of Sun VirtualBox 2.2, the latest release of its free and open source virtualization software. VirtualBox 2.2 introduces support for the new Open Virtualization Format (OVF) standard, as well as significant performance enhancements and updates.

OVF is a Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) standard that enables virtual machines or appliances to be imported and exported. Virtual appliances are one or more virtual machines that are pre-installed and configured so they can be shared, published and distributed. VirtualBox 2.2 software enables users to build virtual machines or appliances and effortlessly export them from a development environment and import them into a production environment. Support for OVF also helps to ensure VirtualBox 2.2 software is interoperable with other technologies that follow the standard.

A key component of Sun’s industry-leading desktop-to-datacenter virtualization portfolio, VirtualBox software has been rapidly growing in popularity, surpassing 11 million downloads worldwide, 3.5 million registrations since October 2007, with in excess of 25,000 downloads a day. A mere 50 megabyte download, VirtualBox software is incredibly compact and efficient and installs in less than five minutes.

Additional features of VirtualBox 2.2 software include:

  • Hypervisor optimizations to make this the fastest VirtualBox release available to date
  • 3D graphics acceleration for Linux and Solaris applications using OpenGL, allowing a whole new class of applications to run in a virtual machine
  • Support for Snow Leopard, Apple’s forthcoming 64 bit platform
  • Increased maximum memory size of guests to 16Gb RAM
  • New host-interface networking mode, which makes it easier than ever before to run server applications in virtual machines

VirtualBox software is free of charge for personal use. For wider deployments within an organisation Enterprise subscriptions are also available, starting at $30 (USD) per user per year, which includes 24/7 premium support from Sun’s technical team. Discounts are available based on volume.

Citrix Systems Newest Member Of The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Board

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The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) today announced that it has elected Citrix Systems to its board of directors. In addition, CA, which was appointed to the Board last year, was elected to a full term and joins Advanced Micro Devices, CA, EMC, Fujitsu, IBM, and Microsoft Corporation who were re-elected to the board. These seven companies join Broadcom, Dell, HP, Hitachi, Intel Corporation, Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and VMware to drive the development of DMTF standards and initiatives in 2009.

The DMTF board of directors works together to set cross-industry priorities, promote interoperability for enterprise and Internet environments, foster alliance partnerships and lead the organization’s committee work. DMTF technologies are designed to address the industry’s requirements for interoperable distributed management, providing valuable tools for managing multiple platforms.

“Citrix looks forward to sharing our considerable expertise in the enterprise to alleviate the challenges of managing complex IT environments,” said Abolfazl Sirjani, CTO Office and senior director of advanced products at Citrix. “Over the past 20 years, we have had the privilege of being part of the fabric of many blue-chip companies, in 100 million corporate desktops and 1 million datacenter servers. Our solutions, best practices and ongoing research and development should be of great benefit both to DMTF and to the industry as a whole.”

Sirjani will represent Citrix on the board. Other individuals representing the board member companies include:

  • Valerie Kane, AMD
  • Uri Elzur, Broadcom
  • Paul Lipton, CA
  • Jon Hass, Dell
  • Wayne Adams, EMC
  • Hiro Kishimoto, Fujitsu
  • Jishnu Mukerji, HP
  • Nobutoshi Sagawa, Hitachi, Ltd.
  • Mike Baskey, IBM
  • Kevin Cline, Intel Corporation
  • Josh Cohen, Microsoft Corporation
  • Robert Wipfell, Novell
  • Tony DiCenzo, Oracle
  • Mark Carlson, Sun Microsystems
  • Winston Bumpus, VMware

ICC Global Hosting Joins VMware Service Provider Program

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ICC Global Hosting today announced its membership in the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) to extend its relationship with VMware in delivering hosted virtual desktops in the Cloud.

As both a VSPP and VMware VIP Partner Program member, ICC Global Hosting augments its relationship with VMware and supports the VMware vCloud and VMware vClient Initiatives with ICC Global Hosting’s desktop-as-a-service offering.

ICC Global Hosting’s proven methodology teamed with VMware’s leadership in desktop virtualization delivers a robust virtual desktop as a service that reduces cost and management associated with desktop support.  These hosted desktops help assure a consistent end user experience with the most current software and patches while increasing the client’s data security.  Desktops as a service allows customers to move their desktop expense from a CapEx to OpEx expenditure which more accurately reflects desktop support as an expense.

“VMware is helping our service provider partners build the eco-structure to host customers in the Cloud by leveraging our industry-leading virtualization platform,” said Geoffrey Waters, director, VMware Service Provider Program, VMware. “For those enterprises considering desktop virtualization, ICC Global Hosting can provide all the benefits of virtual desktops combined with the benefits of cloud computing.”

The 451 Group Snaps Up Research Firm Moss Creek Capital

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The 451 Group has acquired independent equity-research firm Moss Creek Capital in order to expand its services for the professional investment community. Dallas-based Moss Creek provides investment research on publicly traded software companies, offering actionable insight gleaned from conversations with end users, key players in the software distribution channel and company executives. Moss Creek principal Gregg Speicher will remain with the acquired firm.

The acquisition expands the coverage and financial expertise of The 451 Group, an independent analyst firm that covers emerging technologies within the enterprise IT industry.

“The addition of Moss Creek will accelerate our efforts to explain to investors how disruptive technologies will affect large and small public companies,” said Martin V. McCarthy, CEO of The 451 Group. “With major forces such as cloud computing gathering on the horizon, we believe that investors are hungry for deep insight into which companies are going to be winners and losers in the resulting market. We will continue to look for opportunities to expand our firm, and we expect to complete additional acquisitions this year.”

Pano Logic Releases Remote, Upgrades Pano System 2.6

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Pano Logic today announced the newest addition to their product line, Pano Remote, as well as a new version of their flagship product, Pano System 2.6. With the easy to carry Pano Remote USB key, users can now access their Pano managed virtual desktops conveniently and securely when working out of the office away from their Pano devices—without requiring a costly or complex VPN solution. New features of Pano System 2.6 include integration with Pano Remote, easier installation of the Pano Manager virtual appliance using the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), a new interface called the Collection Creation Wizard for easier configuration of policies for provisioning and managing desktop virtual machines, the ability for administrators to control virtual desktop power state directly from the Pano Manager administrator console, graphic identification and authorization (GINA) application interoperability and standalone VMware ESXi support for small single-server deployments.

Pano Remote allows users of Pano System 2.6 to access their Pano desktop virtual machine from a remote location over the Internet. Delivered as a USB key with embedded software, Pano Remote will run on any Windows XP or Vista computer and does not require the use of VPN software or hardware. Instead, it relies on a communication mechanism bundled with Pano Remote called Pano Gateway. The Pano session may use local printers, local storage drives and a shared clipboard between the local Windows system and the remote virtual desktop. In addition, the administrator can set policies within the Pano Manager that centrally control which capabilities are enabled.

Pano System 2.6 includes a number of new features to improve ease of deployment and interoperability:

  • Pano Collection Creation Wizard – allowing administrators to more easily configure desktop virtual machines by including context sensitive help topics for administrators to find relevant information easily and quickly, and offering administrators more flexibility in defining how automatically provisioned desktop virtual machines are named by Pano Manager.
  • Streamlined Installation of Pano Manager – delivering Pano Manager as a virtual appliance in the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), enabling it to easily be imported into VMware Infrastructure in a one-click operation. Additionally, the Pano Manager virtual machine has been optimized for size, speed of download and simplicity of configuration, making the solution the easiest way to get started with desktop virtualization.
  • Standalone VMware ESXi support – providing easy installation of Pano System 2.6 for small deployments, enabling configuration with a single instance of ESXi without requiring VMware vCenter. This option provides an easy entry level solution for small businesses with a convenient upgrade path as needs grow.
  • GINA module interoperability – interoperating with specific applications that install their own GINA modules. Such interoperability simplifies installation and upgrade of Pano Desktop Services on systems that also have authentication solutions such as Imprivata OneSign and Ensure Technologies XyLoc installed.

Additional features include administrative control over the desktop virtual machine power state, device-based control over display and mouse/keyboard settings, tighter integration with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Active Directory Group Policy Objects when installing updates, and improved responsiveness.

Pano System 2.6 is now available with pricing starting at $329 for a single Pano desktop and $35 per USB key for Pano Remote.