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desktop virtualization

VirtualBox 2.0 Hits The Wire

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Sun just announced the availability of Sun xVM Virtual Box 2.0.

The biggest change in xVM VirtualBox 2.0 is the new support for 64-bit versions of operating systems like Windows Vista and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in addition to all other major host operating systems. VirtualBox also offers a new user interface for the Mac platform, improved networking for the Mac OS X and Solaris OS, as well as improved performance, especially on AMD chips.

Customers who purchase an enterprise subscription will also receive a Right-to-Use License, allowing them to deploy the xVM VirtualBox platform using their own software deployment tools.

The following major new features were added:

* 64 bits guest support (64 bits host only)
* New native Leopard user interface on Mac OS X hosts
* The GUI was converted from Qt3 to Qt4 with many visual improvements
* New-version notifier
* Guest property information interface
* Host Interface Networking on Mac OS X hosts
* New Host Interface Networking on Solaris hosts
* Support for Nested Paging on modern AMD CPUs (major performance gain)
* Framework for collecting performance and resource usage data (metrics)
* Added SATA asynchronous IO (NCQ: Native Command Queuing) when accessing raw disks/partitions (major performance gain)
* Clipboard integration for OS/2 Guests
* Created separate SDK component featuring a new Python programming interface on Linux and Solaris hosts
* Support for VHD disk images

VDIworks Virtual Desktop Platform 1.2 To Support HP RGS Protocol

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VDIworks today announced that the latest release of VDIworks’ Virtual Desktop Platform (VDP), version 1.2, will provide connection brokering and management for the HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) protocol. This integrated offering will allow customers to leverage VDIworks’ virtual desktop management capabilities and HP’s RGS protocol to enable the highest grade visual experience possible in a virtualized environment.

While desktop virtualization solutions have focused primarily on the hypervisor back-end, the end-user experience has not achieved parity with what most users expect from a PC. HP’s RGS protocol provides extremely high-speed transmission of multimedia content from a virtual machine to a remote thin client. VDIworks’ VDP will now be able to discover RGS-enabled devices and provide connection brokering as well as additional management services for HP hardware running RGS. VDP supports all popular hypervisors, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtual Server, Xen and VMware ESX. HP and VDIworks will continue to work together to improve the performance and feature-set of the newly announced solution.
VDIworks

What’s “Persystent Virtualization”?

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Persystent Technologies today introduced Persystent Virtualization, a new solution that eases deployment, maintenance and control over virtual desktop environments, while providing end users with greater personalization of their virtual desktops.

Persystent Virtualization automatically protects and enforces the desired state of every virtual desktop in an organization, eliminating the need for IT to continually reconfigure desktops. End users can customize their virtual desktop within enforced corporate configuration standards. This gives them the look and feel of having their own personal computer, a first for virtual desktop users. By enabling personalized virtual desktops, including address books, desktop short cuts, wallpaper and other custom settings, Persystent eases the transition from traditional to virtualized computing.
Persystent Virtualization automatically restores any corrupted operating system, registry, application or setting to ensure compliance with corporate policy guidelines and governance requirements for improved service levels and business continuity. Persystent also eases the process of software patches by capturing the updated image and deploying it to every desktop. In the case of defective patches, Persystent can redeploy a previous configuration within 30 seconds.

Will Unidesk Bring Anything New to the VDI Table?

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VMBlog is reporting that a new desktop virtualization management startup called Unidesk is about to break out of stealth mode. (note: the Unidesk website is still under construction as some titles and text snippets appear to be missing)

Founded in December of last year, Unidesk raised a total of $8.1 million this year from Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. It has a strong management team, and recently opened up a second office in India next to their existing Marlborough offices. Their core offers are named “Composite Virtualization“ and “Desktop Management 2.0” and they claim it will dramatically simplify desktop management for enterprise IT organizations.

“Building on a core invention called Composite Virtualization™, Unidesk will offer IT organizations the desktop control they’ve been seeking to reduce costs, improve service levels, and tighten security, while, at the same time, give lines of business the desktop freedom they require to maximize knowledge worker innovation and productivity. Unidesk’s family of “Desktop Management 2.0™” solutions will provide the highly efficient image management, application delivery, and personalization capabilities that are currently missing from Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products from VMware and Citrix, and extend these same capabilities to non-VDI-based laptops and thick desktops so IT can easily support off-network computing. By eliminating the barriers to VDI adoption and enabling all desktops to be virtualized under a common management platform, Unidesk’s game-changing technology will accelerate the multi-billion dollar desktop virtualization market, and deliver significant returns to employees, investors, customers, and business partners.”

There’s not much else we can gather from the website, apart from the fact that the company is planning a free trial version, and that they’re hiring a bunch of people who will get – at least- a free mug (see here).

Unidesk

Symbio Adds Ericom’s Virtualization Solution To Boot Appliance and Boot Stick

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Symbio Technologies, provider of what they call “green” stateless computing, announced today that it has added Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect client to its Symbiont Boot Appliance and Symbiont Boot Stick after signing technology licensing and reseller agreements with Ericom Software.

Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect provides secure local and remote access to enterprise mission-critical applications running on a broad range of Microsoft Windows Terminal Servers, Virtual Desktops (VDI), Blade PCs, and legacy hosts. PowerTerm WebConnect is a platform and hypervisor agnostic solution that enables organizations to standardize on one solution for the management and delivery of server-based applications and virtual desktops.

Symbiont Boot Appliance and Symbiont Boot Stick users can deploy Ericom – or any other software loaded on their server. The Symbiont boot products, which are available from Symbio Technologies’ global network of value-added resellers, support virtually any type of computer, using their own operating system to power the hardware and connect users to terminal servers.

Symbio Technologies

Ericom Software

Sun Microsystems Inks Bunch Of New OEM Agreements To Expand xVM VirtualBox Reach

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Sun Microsystems today announced new multi-year OEM agreements with Avanquest Software, Q-layer and Zenith InfoTech to expand the reach of Sun xVM VirtualBox.

Sun xVM VirtualBox is available via the OEM program or in a free, open source version here. Since its release in January 2007, Sun xVM (VirtualBox) has surpassed 5 million downloads, and the company boasts about it being the first free hypervisor to support all major host operating systems, including Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Solaris and OpenSolaris.

Sun xVM VirtualBox software, which it acquired through its maker innotek earlier this year, is a key component of Sun’s broader xVM virtualization and management software portfolio, which includes Sun xVM Ops Center, Sun xVM Server and the Sun VDI Software.

Avanquest will produce and publish Sun xVM VirtualBox bundled with OpenSolaris and sell it via retail outlets in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France. Beginning this fall, Avanquest will provide Mac users with a solution to run the Windows operating system through Sun xVM VirtualBox.

Q-layer is leveraging Sun xVM VirtualBox to deliver complete datacenter virtualization capabilities for its customers.

Zenith InfoTech has built its network attached storage appliance for small and medium-sized businesses using Sun xVM VirtualBox.