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RingCube Joins VMware Technology Alliance Partner

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RingCube Technologies, provider of managed virtual workspaces, today announced (PDF) it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program. The VMware TAP program helps technology vendors integrate their products with VMware virtualization software and deliver timely, joint solutions to mutual customers. As a member of the program, RingCube will utilize VMware resources and expertise to deliver desktop virtualization solutions that complement the VMware VDI architecture.

RingCube’s virtualization technology separates the user’s desktop environment, including applications, data, settings and system resources from the operating system and encapsulates it into a secure container. Users can run their virtual desktop at the office or on unmanaged PCs — at home, at a client site or in a hotel business center. When users start their RingCube workspace, it transforms any PC into their own familiar, personalized workspace that facilitates access to their files, applications, settings and entire desktop, as if they were on their own PC. RingCube virtual workspaces can be implemented via a variety of deployment options.

With more than 700 members worldwide, the VMware TAP program works with best-of-breed technology partners to provide them a comprehensive set of VMware technical and marketing services, support, tools and expertise to deliver enhanced value to joint customers.

AppSense Teams Up With Enterprise Systems

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AppSense today announced that it is partnering with Enterprise Systems to extend its VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) offerings to customers throughout the U.S. Southwest, particularly those in the healthcare market.

AppSense (previous coverage) is the longstanding policy and personalization management leader in the healthcare market, with customers such as Utah Heartland Health, Wellpoint, Banner Health and Catholic Health Initiatives, among others.

While both AppSense and Enterprise Systems share a strong relationship with Citrix, Rob Piwowarczyk, founder and president of Enterprise Systems, says he wanted to establish a partnership that leverages AppSense’s user environment management expertise for VDI and other delivery mechanisms, as well as its extensive experience with healthcare IT organizations.

AppSense recently reported a 50 percent increase in U.S. revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008 and is aggressively focusing on the U.S. market. AppSense software facilitates enterprise-scale adoption of VDI by enabling organizations to significantly reduce VDI implementation costs and easily personalize standardized virtual desktops. By decoupling both corporate policy and personalization data from the desktop, managing them independently and applying them on-demand, AppSense’s solution lets IT departments use a combination of desktop and application delivery methods, and transparently migrate users from physical to virtual desktops.

TOLIS Group Teams Up With Parallels, Its Backup Solution Gets Certification

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TOLIS Group yesterday announced a partnership with Parallels, as its BRU Server network backup solution has been successfully tested for compatibility with Parallels Server for Mac virtualization software. BRU Server is now listed in the Parallels Certified Products Catalog.

“In virtualized system environments, BRU Server’s advanced architecture simply treats the host and guest systems as networked client systems,” said Tim Jones, president and CTO of TOLIS Group. “Both file by file and disaster recovery compatible image backup and restore of guest systems are supported using normal BRU Server operations – no special treatment is needed. BRU Server and Parallels work together seamlessly.”

BRU Server’s agents provide full backup support for all guest systems including: x86 Windows, Solaris, Open and FreeBSD, Linux, and Mac OS X. Additionally, TOLIS’ OFM module allows the proper management of open file environments such as Exchange, FileMaker and Active Directory running on Windows virtualized machines.

CohesiveFT And FlexiScale Partner Up For On-demand Cloud Computing

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CohesiveFT, providers of the Elastic Server Platform, an on-demand service for dynamic assembly and deployment of virtual machines, and FlexiScale, a provider of on-demand Cloud computing, today announced a technology partnership to enable deployment of CohesiveFT’s Elastic Servers to FlexiScale’s Cloud.

FlexiScale

CohesiveFT

The integration of technologies from CohesiveFT and FlexiScale aim to enable true on-demand application stack assembly and deployment on a pay-as-you-go Cloud. This partnership will also allow ISVs, application developers and QA teams to dramatically increase their productivity throughout the development lifecycle. These teams will not be dependent on resource constrained operations departments to provision development and testing  environments and will be able to change their application stack definitions with the click of a mouse.

Initially, Elastic Server-branded virtual machines will be available from FlexiScale’s Control Panel as templates built in a Xen virtual format for deployment into Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS) in FlexiScale’s Cloud. The Elastic Server templates will feature application stacks as prebuilt virtual machine images of popular components . Users will have access to these custom images on demand, eliminating the typical administrative overhead of assembling virtual machine images “by hand”.

FlexiScale’s and CohesiveFT’s collaboration intends to enable full dynamic connectivity between the Elastic Server platform and FlexiScale’s Cloud in the near future.

Xcedex Agrees To Resell VKernel Suite of Virtual Appliances

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VKernel today announced a partnership with Xcedex, a North American VMware premier partner. Under the agreement, Xcedex becomes a VKernel Gold Partner that will resell VKernel’s Suite of Virtual Appliances for analyzing and monitoring capacity, implementing chargeback, and gaining cost visibility in VMware ESX environments to its growing customer base.

Xcedex

The VKernel Virtual Appliance Suite for Systems Management is a set of “plug-and-play” virtual appliances designed to quickly address real world systems management challenges as organizations migrate to VMware virtual environments.

Xcedex’ X-Factor solution set enables its customers to quickly and cost-effectively take virtualization from concept to production. Based on IT lifecycle principles, X-Factor has been custom developed to accelerate virtualization deployments for Xcedex’ client and ensure the projects are successful. X-Factor consists of four phases (prove, plan, build, and maintain) that include custom services and vendor products.

“We have strategically aligned ourselves with industry innovators specializing in virtual infrastructure solutions. Working very closely with their sales and technical teams, we bring complete, robust solutions to our clients,” said Steve Audette, director of professional services at Xcedex. “VKernel’s products fit perfectly into our X-Factor solution set and enable our customers to experience the benefits of virtualization throughout the deployment lifecycle.”

[Source: Trading Markets]

HP And VMware Tighten Partnership With Deeper Software Integration

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HP today announced it is expanding its strategic collaboration with VMware to introduce new integrated software offerings that help customers seamlessly automate the management of heterogeneous environments.

New integrations of HP business technology optimization (BTO) software for the VMware virtualization platform aims to allow customers to seamlessly manage across both physical and virtual environments.

The offerings include:

  • HP Business Service Management – monitoring of physical and virtual environments. Products include HP Business Availability Center, HP Operations Center and HP Network Management Center.
  • HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping and HP Universal CMDB – discovery of virtualized environments and accurate tracking and reporting of changes.
  • HP Business Service Automation – automation of change processes across virtual and physical environments. Products include HP Server Automation Center, HP Client Automation and HP Operations Orchestration.

In addition, HP has worked with VMware to make software bundles available that combine the VMware Infrastructure 3 software suite and additional automation products with HP Insight Control Environment. These bundles offer customers comprehensive and seamless physical and virtual platform management.

HP also announced that its VMware Authorized Training Center (VATC) is the first to train more than 10,000 students on VMware certifying courses required for the VMware Certified Professional exam. All VATCs offer education programs using VMware-certified instructors and course materials. With the combination of HP’s global presence, remote training delivery infrastructure and expertise with the VMware platform, HP Education Services offers effective education programs for the broad range of VMware products.

“VMware and HP are working together to make virtual environments easier to manage and to get more professionals trained to implement our joint solutions,” said Brian Byun, vice president, Global Partners and Solutions, VMware. “We’re embracing and extending management and automation products from both companies to provide comprehensive solutions for managing the reality of customer environments with a mix of both virtual and physical systems. By collaborating with HP, we hope to bring to market additional management solutions that simplify these environments for our customers.”