News

From the Xen blog:

“The HXEN development team has released a new version of the solution for the 32-bit windows platform.

You can obtain the source code and binary distribution here.  The 64-bit version is close to being release but there are some compiler issues that are being investigated.”

AppSense, provider of User Environment Management solutions for enterprises, today announced full support for Citrix XenDesktop 4, a new Citrix product designed to make virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees for the first time ever.

AppSense, a Citrix partner of over 10 years with some 4000 joint customers around the world, provides technology solutions that enable low-cost, standard desktop images to be delivered to employees as fully personalized desktops. This ensures maximum user adoption from just a few corporate base images, reducing cost, complexity and risk. Their User Environment Management solution is the only technology to provide on-demand desktop personalization across all delivery methods and operating system versions.

Based on this unique level of customer experience, AppSense is well positioned to work in conjunction with Citrix FlexCast™ to provide centralized management of the user personality for task workers, knowledge workers and power users in both server and client-hosted desktop environments.

DeviceVM today introduced Splashtop for Business, its newest product offering for small-medium business and enterprise use.

In addition, the company announced that the product will be available from the world’s three largest PC vendors by the end of 2009. An extension of the award-winning Splashtop product family, Splashtop for Business is the first instant-on solution designed specifically for business use, enabling companies to increase employee productivity by offering fast, secure and reliable access to cloud content and services.

Splashtop for Business is an innovative software solution that enables users to access the corporate network, and public web without requiring full Microsoft Windows boot-up. A traditional operating system can take many minutes to boot up, frustrating employees and impacting productivity. Splashtop for Business instant-on technology brings measurable benefits to organizations of all sizes – enabling mobile employees to:

• Enjoy fast and secure cloud access with the touch of a button.
• Access private corporate and public virtualized cloud resources over LAN, Wi-Fi and 3G – anytime and anywhere.
• Remotely connect to the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) based on technologies from Citrix and VMware.
• Access cached Windows Outlook email, calendar, contacts and task information using the QuickInfo feature
• Access Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, and MSN Hotmail including Microsoft Exchange email via Outlook Web Access.
• View and edit Microsoft Office compatible documents such as Excel, PowerPoint and Word as well as Adobe Acrobat^.
• Text or video chat with colleagues and customers using Skype as well as AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger services

When deployed as the corporate OS using VDI, Splashtop for Business can reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for PCs by eliminating costly OS licensing fees and reducing IT management tasks. When deployed as a companion OS to Windows, it can improve productivity and reduce employee down-time by providing instant access to the corporate cloud as well as acting as a back-up in case of hard disk or windows failure. Splashtop for Business offers companies:

• Increased Productivity: Splashtop offers fast and reliable remote access to web-based content, email and corporate applications. Because Splashtop operates independently of the computer’s primary operating system, employees can still get online in the event of OS or Hard Disk failure, improving uptime. Splashtop also provides convenient access to mission critical applications and communications functions. Support for the latest version of Java virtual machine and Adobe Flash Player 10 is also included.
• Enhanced Security and Compliance: Splashtop is a locked-down environment that is both tamper proof and malware/virus resistant – making every boot clean and secure. By providing Citrix Receiver and VMware View virtual desktop clients in addition to Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), access to sensitive corporate data is kept in the data center, reducing the risk of data breaches due to PC loss and helping companies meet their compliance requirements. Additionally, employees cannot change system settings or install non-corporate approved plug-ins or applications, so companies get all of the VDI hardware device benefits without the additional cost.
• Improved Virtual Desktop Mobility: Splashtop supports the most popular virtual desktop technologies from Citrix and VMware. When deployed as a dedicated corporate OS, a Splashtop for Business laptop offers a cheaper and more flexible alternative to fixed function hardware devices. By offering instant virtual desktop mode in a laptop form factor, employees have greater mobility options at a lower cost.
• Lower TCO: Splashtop comes pre-integrated with the PC platform. This approach results in a high quality product with no additional vendors to call and no new maintenance contracts to buy or renew. Employees can now get online instantly with minimal support. An IT controlled update mechanism ensures that only changes based on IT policies are executed. IT can now conserve resources as they need only be responsible for managing the Splashtop corporate workspace, with Windows available as the user’s personal workspace.
• Greener IT: Because Splashtop turns on in seconds, there’s no need to keep the system always on, or in sleep mode consuming power. Companies will save millions of dollars in energy savings while also protecting the environment.

OpSource today announced that OpSource Cloud, the first Cloud to bring together the availability, flexibility and community of the public Cloud with the security, performance and control the enterprise requires, is now in public Beta and available for on-line purchase.

OpSource Cloud is designed to allow IT departments to manage their security as they would within their internal IT infrastructure. Upon sign-up, each customer receives a Virtual Private Network and sets the degree of public Internet connectivity they wish to grant, from totally private to fully available. OpSource Cloud also provides user customizable security with a compliant, high-performance multi-tier Cloud architecture and full user control over firewall settings. In addition, other enterprise quality controls include user level login and passwords, operational permissions and departmental and sub-department reporting, all backed by a 100% SLA. OpSource Cloud is built on the same standard technology already being employed by enterprise IT. This ensures out-of-the-box trust, compatibility and productivity. With virtualization playing such a key role in Cloud computing, OpSource has selected VMware for virtualization and application portability between the Cloud and Enterprise.

For users weaned on the public Cloud experience, OpSource Cloud offers online sign-up, pay by the hour usage, and rich online communities. And immediate availability and flexibility ensure that developers and enterprise IT alike have access to enterprise quality computing capability when they need it, paying for it only when it is being used. This is the promise of Cloud computing and OpSource Cloud delivers it.

In spite of an ongoing legal dispute with Apple, clone Mac maker Psystar Monday announced plans to license its virtualization tech for Mac OS X to third-party hardware vendors. The new Psystar OEM Licensing Program will allow Intel machines to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The software will allow manufacturers to install Snow Leopard by inserting the disc from Apple — no additional steps would be necessary, the company said. The software supports up to six operating systems on one machine.

Read the rest of the story on AppleInsider

VMware today announced the availability of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4, enabling automated, reliable and affordable disaster recovery.

Part of the VMware vCenter Product Family, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager provides automated disaster recovery for virtual environments. Now, with added support for Network File System (NFS) based storage replication, compatibility with VMware vSphere 4, and simplified “many-to-one” failover using shared recovery sites, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager makes it even easier for customers to confidently protect all of their virtual environments.

Disaster recovery is critical for companies to protect corporate data, but has typically been difficult to achieve due to costs and complexity. Disasters in the datacenter — whether they are caused by hurricanes, earthquakes, power outages, or other unexpected events — can result in downtime for business critical applications. Extended downtime significantly impacts revenues, service level agreements (SLAs) and business operations. Traditional solutions for disaster recovery require complex, manual recovery processes, and can be very difficult to set up, test and keep up-to-date. Regulatory requirements can also present challenges to disaster recovery solutions. As a result, organizations only provide disaster recovery plans for the most critical applications.

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4 now provides:

• VMware vSphere 4 Support. Customers can now take advantage of the capabilities of VMware vSphere 4, including Fault Tolerance, for better performance and protection of applications.
• Expanded Storage Support. Lets users leverage iSCSI, Fiber Channel, and NFS storage and replication solutions.
• Many-to-One Failover. Protects multiple production sites with automated failover into a single, shared recovery site.