Partnerships

Wyse Launches New Class of Desktop Appliance Solutions Designed for Citrix XenDesktop

April 15, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Wyse Technology today announced that it will bring to market a new class of appliances, specifically designed for the new Citrix XenDesktop product line (due to be unveiled soon at Citrix Synergy 2008). By combining Wyse’s new appliances with the desktop delivery capabilities found in Citrix XenDesktop, enterprises will “have a comprehensive solution for delivering desktops to office workers with the best user experience, simplest administration and lowest cost of ownership”, according to the press release.

“The Wyse Viance family of devices provide unique features beyond what’s currently available that deliver easy set-up time and management, fast performance, rich multimedia experience, broad USB peripheral compatibility, multi-display support, and quick access to online end-user support. In addition, these appliances only use 13 to 19 watts of power making them a very “green” solution.”

“Wyse has partnered with Citrix in the past to sell thin clients for Terminal Services and Presentation Server, but now a new, bigger opportunity has emerged” said John Abbott, chief analyst of the 451 Group. “Desktop virtualization all but forces an appliance model onto the desktop — users typically aren’t keen to control a virtual PC image with a physical PC. Citrix and Wyse are in a good position to capitalize on the fast-growing VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) sector and push thin clients into the broader marketplace for the first time.”

Entry-level pricing of the new Wyse Viance appliances starts at $399.00 with volume shipments beginning this quarter. Existing Wyse thin clients that support XenDesktop are available today with prices starting at $299.00.

[Source: EarthTimes]

Egenera BladeFrame Systems Now Come With VMware Virtualization

April 14, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

Egenera today announced the general availability of VMware virtualization on Egenera systems with full support from Egenera and its resellers. Under the companies’ original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement announced in 2007, customers can purchase VMware Infrastructure 3 with the Egenera BladeFrame system, a platform designed to support large-scale virtualized deployments of critical applications with high levels of availability and scalability.

The Egenera BladeFrame system combines diskless server blades with PAN Manager software, an infrastructure virtualization product that virtualizes data center infrastructure and delivers a highly available, flexible computing platform. Using VMware virtualization, customers can create and run virtual machines on the BladeFrame system to partition Egenera Processing Blade modules and run multiple OS’s and applications on a single blade.

“VMware and Egenera offer complementary technologies. We’re pleased that customers can now deploy VMware virtualization on the BladeFrame platform with the peace of mind that their investments are fully supported by Egenera,” said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions, VMware, Inc. “As our relationship grows, we see additional areas for collaboration in managing both physical and virtual assets. We hope to further extend the business value of VMware virtualization and continue providing joint solutions that enable customers to reduce operating expenses, improve business continuity, strengthen security and go green.”

Egenera recently inked an OEM deal with Dell. Dell has agreed to resell and ship Egenera’s Processing Area Network (PAN) Manager I/O virtualization software on its PowerEdge servers by June of this year.

[Source: Marketwire]

HP To Support Citrix XenDesktop Across ProLiant Servers And Compaq Thin Clients

April 14, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

HP today announced it plans to support Citrix XenDesktop upon its availability next month across its HP ProLiant server and HP Compaq thin client product lines.

Citrix XenDesktop, currently in beta, is a complete desktop virtualization solution that makes desktop delivery simple, secure and cost-effective. HP, one of the world’s leading thin-client providers, is delivering integrated access to XenDesktop deployments to provide customers with thin clients that enhance the user experience and reduce IT costs through what the company dubs “simplified lifecycle management”.

“HP offers a broad range of desktop solutions that make virtualization a reality for a very wide range of worker and IT infrastructure types,” said Roberto Moctezuma, vice president and general manager, Desktop Solutions Organization, HP. “The combination of HP virtualization and Citrix’s XenDesktop will provide IT departments with an excellent solution for simple and secure management of their desktop base while providing users an optimal computing experience.”

The addition of XenDesktop support also builds on HP’s recent introduction of HP ProLiant iVirtualization powered by Citrix XenServer. This combination allows HP customers to easily take advantage of Citrix’s full application and desktop delivery solutions to help make their IT infrastructures more flexible and dynamic from the desktop to the data center.

[Source: press release]

Trend Micro Enters Growing Market Of VMware Virtualization Security Providers

April 7, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Trend Micro, a global leader in Internet content security, has announced a number of innovations in security solutions for VMware virtualized environments which it will debut at the 2008 RSA Conference in San Francisco.

The prototype technology consists of a virtualization security solution that operates in a VMware ESX 3.5 environment, scans for infected machines and remediates any that are found. With this technology, Trend Micro intends to provide greater protection for VMware virtual machines.

Trend Micro is also announcing that its enterprise security products for the endpoint, gateway and server are supported in VMware environments. This enables joint customers to gain the same level of support for Trend Micro products running in VMware virtualized environments as they would on physical hardware.

From the press release:

Trend Micro is integrating the recently announced VMware VMsafeTM APIs into its security technology in an effort to enable channel partners and customers to enhance the security of their VMware environments. VMsafe technology protects applications running on virtual machines in ways previously not possible in physical environments. The VMsafe APIs allow vendors to develop advanced security products that combat the latest generation of malware. VMsafe technology integrates into the VMware hypervisor and provides the transparency to prevent threats and attacks such as viruses, Trojans and keyloggers from ever reaching a virtual machine. The Trend Micro brand of security software will have the ability to run isolated from, and at a higher level of privilege than, the target malware. This will allow offline VMware virtual machines to be scanned and remediated prior to being reactivated.

“While organizations frequently use virtualization to help save energy costs and lower administrative IT expenses, they also have an opportunity to leverage this technology for improved security,” said Punit Minocha, vice president of business development for Trend Micro. “Most security solutions in the market underperform in virtual environments so, together with VMware, we want to help our customers to take advantage of the cost benefits of virtualization and to improve their organization’s security profile at the same time.”

VMware-support for existing Trend Micro products is effective immediately. For a complete list of these products, please visit www.trendmicro.com/go/virtualization. Current VMware-supported products use the existing licensing model. Trend Micro customers who purchase these versions and switch their deployments to VMware can do so at no extra cost or software. This provides customers a choice of running the applications on standalone hardware or on virtual environments, depending on their IT needs. Certain exceptions may apply.

The new Trend Micro technology securing virtualized environments is expected to be available in the second half of 2008.

[Source: SYS-CON]

Scalent And Enigmatec Team Up

April 6, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Enigmatec, provider of run book automation (RBA) software, and Scalent Systems, provider of infrastructure virtualization software for large data centers, today announced an integration partnership to enable policy driven automation of server repurposing in the data center.

The partnership reportedly combines policy-based IT process automation from Enigmatec and server repurposing from Scalent to deliver an integrated software solution to dynamically place compute resources where and when they are needed in the data center. This implementation of real-time infrastructure should dramatically lower data center management operations costs while increasing flexibility in the face of business need change.

The Enigmatec Management System (EMS) continually monitors all levels of a multi-tier application stack for changes in availability or demand. When EMS detects a failure or load spike, the system orchestrates the reallocation of resources to the appropriate users and applications, leveraging Server Automation software to ensure that all resources are maintained at required release, patch and configuration levels. EMS also provides full lifecycle management of shared virtual resources including decommissioning, archiving and returning resources back to a server pool.

Scalent allows data center operators to rapidly change entire systems and associated topologies, including which servers are running, what software is running on them, and how they’re connected to network and storage. Scalent does this in real-time without requiring physical changes to the infrastructure. Scalent V/OE software enables customers to take their data centers from “dead bare metal” (powered off hardware with no software installed) to live (newly deployed or restored), connected (to network and storage) servers, in five minutes or less.

“Scalent’s server repurposing solution gives IT operations the ability to dynamically change their server environment,” said Duncan Johnston-Watt, Chief Technology Officer, Enigmatec. “Integrating Scalent with Enigmatec takes this to its logical conclusion – using run book automation to orchestrate their data center virtualization solution delivers a policy-driven infrastructure which automatically adapts to meet changing business requirements.”

VKernel Partners With Prosper Intelligence And The Virtualization Consolidation Academy

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

VKernel, a Portsmouth-based provider of virtual appliances for managing virtual server environments, announced today a partnership with Prosper Intelligence and its Virtualization Consolidation Academy. Under the agreement, Prosper Intelligence will distribute VKernel’s Suite of Virtual Appliances for managing VMware ESX environments to its network of partners and solution providers throughout Eastern and Central Europe.

From the press release:

“The VKernel Virtual Appliance Suite for Systems Management is a set of “plug-and-play” virtual appliances designed to quickly solve real world systems management challenges as organizations migrate to VMware virtual environments. VKernel products enable IT groups to immediately address today’s critical pain points by providing visibility into the capacity and resource consumption of each virtual machine. VKernel is currently offering a Chargeback Virtual Appliance for gaining cost visibility and a Capacity Analyzer Virtual Appliance for eliminating capacity bottlenecks.”

[Source: BusinessWire]