Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

VBridges

Virtual Bridges Appoints CFO; Iser Cukierman Joins Executive Team

by Leave a Comment

Virtual Bridges today announced the appointment of Iser Cukierman to the company’s executive leadership team.

Cukierman will serve as chief financial officer where he will oversee all finance and accounting operations and provide strategic and operational leadership for the company.

Cukierman most recently he served as general manager and chief financial officer at Fiserv where he was responsible for developing and implementing the company’s strategic plan related to revenues, profitability and growth.

Before joining Fiserv, he served as CFO of Strategic Forecasting, a geopolitical analysis and professional services company. Cukierman has also held strategic finance and consulting roles at VirtualCFO, Softbank, Accenture and Ernst & Young.

Cukierman has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Texas in Austin and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Virtual Bridges Launches Teacher’s Pet Program, A Free Virtual Desktop Offering

by Leave a Comment

Virtual Bridges has announced the launch of the Teacher’s Pet Program, an exclusive opportunity for K-12 school districts to receive complimentary desktop virtualization licenses.

The program is designed to support educators facing severely reduced budgets by providing technology that eases desktop management, reduces labor costs, extends PC lifecycles and reduces security risks.

The Teacher’s Pet Program is open to K-12 organizations at accredited institutions in the United States. In addition to 50 free licenses of VERDE VDI Gen2, the program offers:

– Single server deployment
– Remote install and troubleshooting
– E-mail support 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday
– Annual maintenance of only $2,000 for all 50 seats
– A 50 percent discount on additional licenses purchased within 60 days

VERDE eliminates the need to track, maintain, upgrade, repair and keep virus-free all desktop and notebook computers scattered across the district. Additionally, VERDE provides flexibility, allowing teachers and students to securely access desktops regardless of whether they are in the class room, working from home or studying in the library.

The Teacher’s Pet program is running through June 30, 2011.

IBM, Virtual Bridges and Canonical Introduce New Linux-server Based Virtual Desktop

by Leave a Comment

Virtual Bridges, IBM and Canonical announced today the immediate availability of the newest version of a Linux-server based virtual desktop with the release of Virtual Bridges’ VERDE 2.0 software.

The Open Virtual Client desktop is a combination of IBM’s Smart Client desktop software, Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux servers and Linux desktop, and Virtual Bridges’ VERDE Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI )offering.

VERDE 2.0 delivers several industry firsts, including:

· Addresses both private cloud and  public cloud requirements.

· Meets both the needs of the connected user and the disconnected user.

· Simultaneously and seamlessly manages both Windows and Linux desktop sessions.

With today’s announcement, VERDE 2.0 goes beyond virtualizing the desktop to give users significant new functionality: providing them software access when the users are disconnected from the Internet. VERDE 2.0accomplishes this by integrating a lightweight, client-side hypervisor based on a new Self-Managing Auto Replicating Technology (SMART) protocol. The SMART protocol synchronizes a replicated cache running on the client-side hypervisor with the managed image on the server, the same image that is used to populate VDI sessions.

The Open Virtual Client desktop offers users of private or public clouds the ability to lower costs by deploying a Microsoft-alternative in either the whole organization or for particular user segments, and this can be done smoothly over time. Because VERDE supports both Linux and Microsoft Windows guest sessions, organizations can broadly realize the benefits of VDI , whether they move to Linux desktops or not. They can also gain additional cost savings that come from moving some user segments to Linux desktops. Introducing thin clients, where appropriate, can further increase cost saving opportunities.

The IBM Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) includes open standards-based email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, social networking and more, providing users with exceptional productivity application alternatives. IBM’s smart work client software is based on IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus applications. IBM Lotus Symphony supports the Open Document Format (ODF) standard, the basis for global document interoperability.

VERDE provides protection aginst viruses, malware and other damage while users are disconnected. If a session is corrupted by malware, the user can restart the session and the session is launched from the write-protected replicated cache of the managed image, on the local disk. This ability eliminates costly help desk intervention and makes the environment malware-resistant.

VERDE 2.0 offers the simplest licensing in the industry with a complete offering available for one simple, paid-up, per seat price. All of the components are included in this hassle-free licensing model. VERDE 2.0 is available from partners as an Open Virtual Client bundle. The VERDE 2.0 solution is also available directly from Virtual Bridges and its partners. VERDE pricing is $50 per seat for 1000 seats or more.

Virtual Bridges Adds VERDE To Win4VDI Product Family

by Leave a Comment

Virtual Bridges, a provider of desktop and enterprise virtualization solutions for education and business, announced today the release of a new product in its Win4VDI family. Virtual Bridges’ VERDE (Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment) is a platform for consolidating Linux desktops on x86-based Linux and Solaris servers.

VERDE uses ordinary thin clients for end-points. Organizations benefit from reduced energy consumption, fewer points of failure, and increased security when compared to traditional desktop environments. The VERDE stack further facilitates desktop management through the use of powerful virtual machine technology.

Through Virtual Bridges’ work on virtual desktop computing with hundreds of thousands of users, the company has crafted a product that delivers all of the core features a typical organization would require to accomplish their IT goals. Features like automatic local printing, one-click Windows installation, the ability to integrate with Active Directory, availability of web display or third-party display options, use of write-protected Windows system images for true malware resistance, and integration of RDP support, are just some of the features that combine to put Win4VDI in the lead of the desktop virtualization and consolidation market.

Win4VDI, Virtual Bridges’ Educational/SMB and enterprise product, allows an organization to easily and cost-effectively deliver multiple Windows desktop sessions to PCs, Workstations and thin clients from a non-Windows server such as Linux and Solaris OS.

Maintaining and upgrading desktop computers physically distributed across an organization is a difficult and slow process that is also not effective for users who find themselves with aging computers with degraded performance.  VERDE offers IT organizations the ability to easily deploy “desktop as a service” across the organization for both fixed-function as well as custom desktop users, all from a central location, reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of desktop computing.

VERDE allows organizations to standardize the application environment to users regardless of desktop hardware and operating system – Windows, UNIX, Linux or Mac can be used on the client, but a common application profile can be created and served from VERDE server configurations such as blade servers, rack arrays or large multi-way machines.

The VERDE product is available immediately.

Virtual Bridges Upgrades Win4VDI Product Family

by Leave a Comment

—

Virtual Bridges announced today the release of a major upgrade to its Win4VDI family of products.  The company says the Version 5 release brings Win4VDI on par with the company’s standalone Desktop offerings.

Win4VDI, Virtual Bridges’ Educational/SMB and enterprise product, allows an organization to easily and cost-effectively deliver multiple Windows desktop sessions to PCs, Workstations and thin clients from a non-Windows server such as Linux and Solaris OS.

With this release Win4Lin Virtual Desktop Server and Win4Solaris Virtual Desktop Server have been renamed to Win4VDI for consistency with the growing Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) market space that Virtual Bridges founded with their Win4Lin Terminal Server (WTS) products.

Features of Win4VDI Products include:

  • Dynamic Renewable Desktops for instant deployment and centralized software updates and patches
  • Easy to use and install thanks to powerful management console and comprehensive documentation
  • Seamless remote printing over LAN, WAN, or Internet
  • Highly scalable infrastructure, supporting high server density
  • Powerful new architecture improves performance, scalability, security, and reliability
  • Win4DI for Linux: Works on any 32-bit or 64-bit x86 Linux platform running a 2.6.x kernel
  • Supports connectivity from almost any type of client (PC, thin client, workstation)
  • Centralized management and provisioning of users
  • Consistent user access to personal desktop environment from home, office and other network connected locations.
  • Support for multiple remote display choices – Win4Lin client, NoMachine, LTSP, VNC, and X, for example
  • Increased security and reliability by running on Linux and Solaris servers
  • Lock down Windows read, write and other operations with Linux and Solaris permissions – an administrator’s dream!
  • Provide standard application environments to users regardless of desktop hardware and operating system – Windows, UNIX, or Linux on the client, but standard application profile served from Win4VDI servers.

Win4VDI allows organizations to standardize the application environment to users regardless of desktop hardware and operating system – Windows, UNIX, Linux or Mac can be used on the client, but a common application profile can be created and served from Win4VDI server configurations such as blade servers, rack arrays or large multi-way machines.

Win4VDI for Linux and Win4VDI for Solaris are available immediately. Win4VDI is priced at $125 per user with a minimum configuration of 10 seats. Win4VDI for Workgoups, a 10-seat configuration is being offered at a special price of $699 until September 15, 2008.

Virtual Bridges