Virtualization.com

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

Robin Wauters

Citrix Releases XenApp 5, Will It Prove To Become The Application Virtualization Standard?

by Leave a Comment

Remember when Brian Madden pointed out that Citrix XenApp 5.0 would be delayed for several months? Well, he was right, technically. Anyhow, Citrix today announced the release of Citrix XenApp 5, and claims it “breaks through performance and operating-cost barriers, making application start times up to 10 times faster, dramatically improving end-user experience and lowering application management costs by more than 25 percent over previous versions”.

“XenApp 5 broadens the horizon of the end-user experience and accessibility by delivering an end-to-end virtualization solution that addresses the needs of both local and hosted applications,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “In addition, XenApp 5 is giving new and existing customers a welcome boost in performance at an attractive price-point, two highly sought-after requirements for companies investing in strategic technologies in today’s economy.”

XenApp, in combination with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenServer, creates an end-to-end virtualization solution that spans servers, applications and desktops. The new XenApp 5 release is being featured on September 9, 2008 as part of a global, online launch event, called Citrix Delivery Center Live!

With the release of XenApp 5, Citrix claims it is raising the bar with significant new improvements to performance, user experience and cost savings. In total, XenApp 5 includes more than 50 new major enhancements, according to the official press release.

XenApp 5, which runs on the Microsoft Windows Server platform, leverages all the enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and fully supports Windows Server 2003. This enables existing Windows Server 2003 customers to immediately deploy Windows Server 2008 into their existing XenApp environments in any mix.

XenApp 5 will be available September 10, 2008. For North America, suggested retail pricing is per concurrent user (CCU) and includes one year of Subscription Advantage:

  • Advanced Edition – US $350
  • Enterprise Edition – US $450
  • Platinum Edition – US $600

Standalone pricing for client-side application streaming and virtualization begins as low as $60 per CCU.

Citrix Systems

StoneFly IP SAN Configurations Now Fit For Citrix XenServer

by Leave a Comment

StoneFly, a supplier of integrated IP storage area network (SAN) systems and a wholly owned subsidiary of Dynamic Network Factory, today announced that all of its IP SAN configurations have completed Citrix Ready compatibility verification testing for use with server virtualization solutions from Citrix Systems.

StoneFly’s High-Availability Storage Concentrator (HSC), Integrated Storage Concentrator (ISC) and OptiSAN Storage Concentrator product lines have been optimized for Citrix XenServer server solutions, which are designed for virtualizing application workloads across any number of servers in the datacenter.

The compatibility bolsters StoneFly’s existing support for fast integration of networked storage with virtual servers – available via StoneFusion, the company’s IP-based, block-level provisioning platform. StoneFly pioneered storage virtualization over five years ago with StoneFusion, which centralizes storage management, control and monitoring of logical storage volumes.
XenServer compatibility allows StoneFly to further simplify IP SAN deployment for its customers: StoneFly’s support for network boot technologies (both software and hardware initiator based) in diskless virtual server environments saves IT administration time, and streamlines operations. Customers can also reduce datacenter costs and consolidate resources by using IP SANs to facilitate the use of diskless servers and virtual servers.
StoneFly is planning further enhancements over the coming months to its integration with Xen environments to build upon the seamless storage/server experience that it is providing to customers.

PHD Technologies Officially Announces Funding Round, Fails To Share Any Details

by 1 Comment

Remember last week when we reported on PHD Technologies, provider of the esXPRESS backup and restoration solution for virtualized infrastructures, announcing the appointment of Sridhar Murthy as the company’s CEO?

The press release also mentioned a fresh funding round, but was scarce on details. Today, the company decided to let us in on the questions we all ask when a new investment in a virtualization company is made: who decided to invest, and how much?

Except you won’t find any answers in their newest official press release either, except for the fact that it concerns “an equity investment from a top tier venture capital firm”. The rest of the press release was the usual marketingese, but I really wondered why PHD Technologies decided it was worth sending a press release containing absolutely no new information whatsoever?

Xen 3.3.0 Available For Download

by 1 Comment

A recent post on the Xen blog featured a proposed data sheet (PDF) for the (back then upcoming) Xen 3.3 release, which we said was in final testing stage in the beginning of this month. Now Xen 3.3.0 is here and ready for download, as reported by Heise Online.

The new version is also available as part of a package with a 2.6.18 kernel version of Linux as the host system, also known as Domain 0 (Dom0). According to Xen developers, the number of supported guest operating systems has grown and there are improvements in performance, the ACPI power management modes, and security functions such as using PVGrub instead of PYGrub. Xen 3.3.0 also has fewer limitations on moving running virtual machines from one physical system to another. This function, necessary for redundant fail over configurations and practical for server maintenance, has previously only been usable when the processors (and chipsets) running on the physical machines involved supported very similar hardware virtualization functions.

Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor Sets New Benchmark for Virtualization Performance on the VMware Platform

by Leave a Comment

AMD today announced it has achieved the top spot on the VMware VMmark virtualization benchmark for x86 servers with the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based HP ProLiant DL585 G5. AMD now holds the top three spots on the 16-core VMmark benchmark.

Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) technology is designed to offer near-native performance of virtualized applications while enabling fast switching between virtual machines (VMs.) The VMmark 1.1 consolidation benchmark, released by VMware in May 2008, includes several workloads that take advantage of the benefits of RVI.

VMware VMmark 1.1 benchmark measures application performance in virtualized environments on a wide variety of enterprise workloads running simultaneously in separate virtual machines. Complete results for AMD’s latest VMmark score can be found here (PDF).

Bonus link: Forbes interviews Margaret Lewis, director of commercial solutions and software strategy at AMD.

Advanced Micro Devices

Entisys Solutions Trademarks Virtualization Oriented Architecture Methodology

by Leave a Comment

Founded in 1988 as a computer and software training center, today Entisys Solutions specializes in enterprise virtualization solutions, working in partnership with organizations such as Citrix, Microsoft, NetApp and VMware to provide consulting and engineering services to mid-tier and enterprise organizations and government agencies.

The company announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company a trademark for its Virtualization Oriented Architecture methodology.

Entisys Solutions’ VOA is a holistic approach to virtualization designed to ensure the best possible infrastructure design. Through a process of comprehensive assessments, Entisys’ architects expertly identify the hard-cost indicators and soft-cost processes that can be replaced or enhanced to realize full utilization, empowering the client organization to better manage IT potential and use resources more efficiently by identifying and eliminating idle technology capacity. VOA also provides a holistic technology platform for today’s critical business operations; meeting the objectives of optimum performance, maximum security, greater flexibility, high availability, broad support and improved return in investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO).

As part of its VOA offering, Entisys’ provides its clients with a number of best-of-breed technology solutions designed to further extend their strategies for communicating and provisioning of virtual ‘real estate’ within their enterprise environments, including:

* Data Center Infrastructure Virtualization
* Application Delivery Virtualization
* Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
* Advanced Infrastructure
* Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning