News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing
VMware has (quitely) released the first version of VMware Studio.
VMware Studio 1.0 enables software developers and hardware appliance vendors to build customized virtual appliances that can be shipped in industry standard Open Virtualization Format (OVF).
The OVF specification was originally co-authored by Citrix and VMware, with contributions from Dell, HP, IBM and Microsoft. With this release, VMware beat Citrix to the punch.
VMware Studio is available as a free download here.
After announcing support for Oracle VM last May, Ericom has now added VDI support for with its Parallels Virtuozzo with its PowerTerm WebConnect software solution.
Parallels Virtuozzo Containers is an OS-level server virtualization technology that partitions the underlying operating system into multiple isolated containers, so that many workloads or virtual desktops can be run simultaneously on the same physical box.
Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect enables organizations to centrally manage and deploy virtual desktops based on Parallels Virtuozzo Containers from within the datacenter and hosting facilities – reducing the cost and complexity of traditional desktop PC management. As a comprehensive solution for virtualized desktop environments, Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect increases security and desktop manageability, enables business continuity implementations, and provides a superior, customizable desktop experience.
For PowerTerm WebConnect licensing, Ericom offers both perpetual licensing for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers on-premise implementations and subscription licensing for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers based hosting environments.
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Tarry is hinting at a “big” announcement that Citrix will make on september 15th. He reveals nothing, apparently having signed an NDA, but hints that the news concerns his topic of focus of lately.
Tarry’s blog recently shifted from pure virtualization news to reports on virtualization and cloud computing. So our bet is that Citrix will be jumping on the “Cloud Wagon”, or should we say “Cloud Hype” somewhere next week. And why shouldn’t they?
(Update: one of our commenters suspects an acquisition of some sorts, and that’s not unlikely.)
Citrix has been in the business of remotely accessing applications and managing such environments since they started out, so it makes perfect sense for them to actually tebrand their whole product line from Citrix to Xen … and then to “XenCloud”.
Oh, and Intel obviously will announce a new chip, called the CloudCore, no more need to buy an octocore CPU, Intel will instead host them for you. 🙂
On the other hand: given next week’s VMWorld event, Citrix and Intel might also be announcing some real news to steal some of VMware’s thunder.
What’s your guess?
RingCube Technologies today announced vDesk, a high-performance enterprise desktop virtualization solution that delivers employees, contractors and customers anytime, anywhere access to a personalized desktop environment complete with applications, data and settings.
RingCube Technologies delivers enterprise desktop virtualization solutions that can be used to increase user productivity, lower desktop management costs, and eliminate the performance and resource overhead commonly found in legacy virtualization technologies. With the vDesk solution, RingCube now enables customers to rapidly deliver lightweight, high-performance virtual desktops to PCs and portable drives, directly from the network, and from virtualization desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments.
vDesk’s virtualization technology, with 23 virtualization patents pending, separates the user’s desktop environment, including applications, data, settings and system resources from the operating system and encapsulates it into a secure container. vDesk virtualizes components of the host Windows operating system without the need to carry a second operating system inside the virtual workspace. IT organizations use the vDesk Administration Server to create and deploy vDesk workspaces, assign security and isolation policies and provision updates to existing workspaces. vDesk provides users with a list of available workspace masters from which users can create their own personalized workspace instances.
vDesk is available immediately through RingCube. Pricing starts at $200 per user.
Reporting on 
the recent removal of Diane Greene as president, CEO and board member of VMware, we wrote:
“We’re wondering how the VMware troops will react on the news, and what will happen with Mendel Rosenblum, Chief Scientist at VMware and Greene’s husband.”
Now IHT / The New York Times has received confirmation that Rosenblum, co-founder and top executive at the company as well as husband to Greene, has resigned from his position (hat tip to Tarry). He announced his resignation and return to Stanford as a full-time professor in a companywide message on Monday night.
The NY Times also offers some insight about the removal of Greene:
On July 7, she found out just how cold it had become. After Greene made a special presentation to VMware’s board, Tucci, who heads VMware’s parent company, EMC, pulled her aside, according to people familiar with the events, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal company decisions.
Inviting Mendel Rosenblum, Greene’s husband and the co-founder of VMware, into the room, Tucci told Greene she was fired, effective immediately. And he said the board wanted Rosenblum, VMware’s chief scientist, to take her seat on the board. Rosenblum declined the offer.
The news comes after the surprising move of Richard Sarwal, former executive VP of research and development at VMware, who returned to Oracle after a brief stint at the company. Another executive to jump ship is Paul Chan, Vice President of Product Development at VMware until recently.
Who’s next?
We’ll update the post should new information come to light.
BlueStripe Software, provider of Application Service Management (ASM) solutions for virtualized data center environments, today announced (PDF) the availability of its flagship product, FactFinder. FactFinder enables enterprises to stage, deploy, and manage business?critical applications in virtual data center environments with the same degree of confidence and control as traditional environments.
FactFinder delivers three critical elements of application service management for virtual environments:
• Application Discovery & Mapping – FactFinder offers automatic discovery and topology mapping of
the application connections, processes, and interdependencies allowing for unmatched visibility into
both physical and virtual environments.
• Application?level Health Measurement – By enabling simple drill down into performance indicators
of connections, usage, and application access times, FactFinder depicts the relative health of a
business’ critical applications.
• Automatic Triage of Application & Server Problems – FactFinder’s easy to understand performance
indicators highlight areas of concern, showing where to focus efforts to solve problems and optimize
the supporting IT environment.
FactFinder is the only application management solution that enables enterprises to confidently deploy business-critical applications in virtualized environments. This makes it easy for infrastructure groups to gain visibility into application management and performance in virtual data center environments, including service response times, virtual machine utilization, and cross?server dependencies.
Unlike OS?based or network?based monitoring products, FactFinder measures performance across multi?tier and service?oriented architecture applications regardless of whether they are distributed across clusters of ESX hypervisors or a mix of physical and virtual environments. This allows enterprises to measure the impact of P2V conversions on business success and make decisions based on intelligent, accurate, and timely information.