Data Center Virtualization – Virtualizing the Last Mile

Just like a Telco, the ‘last mile’ of Virtualization is often the most difficult, I would say even more difficult than the initial phase of virtualization. What do I mean by the ‘last mile’?
The 5-10% of systems that you have LEFT to virtualize.
These systems are your most highly used, too X to virtualize, the most complex to migrate, dependent upon specific hardware, or travel around the world (such as laptops and other hand held devices). These issues are also highly political as well.

How will you pay for your virtualised applications?

Does an evaluation for a virtualisation project need to be only an exercise in understanding if X hosts will on Y servers? Will you be able to to virtualize every service you deliver? Are new applications required? What are your existing service-levels and requirements across your application portfolio? In most enterprises today, IT is a cost centre not a profit centre. Business units often want detailed involvement in implementation plans, asset purchases and ownership: it is not unusual that requests for applications come in terms of functionality – not in terms of service levels. With their release of Workspace iQ, Centrix Software appear to be unique in endeavouring to aggregate information that can be used to deliver data that can help provide IT with improved costing information without relying on specific vendors solutions to be in place.

No waiting for bare-metal virtual desktops

Virtual Computer’s release of NxTop version 2.0 of this month continues to prove their leadership in client-side virtualization by delivering robust features to meet the needs of the corporate desktop. The delayed release of Citrix’ XenClient and VMware’s Client Virtualization Platform (CVP) to the market has left few options for customers whose virtual desktop implementations need to address a larger offline or disconnected use case.

Persona Management – User Environment Management by Another Name?

They say there’s no such thing as bad weather – just the wrong sort of clothes. Likewise, there shouldn’t be such a thing as a bad user profile experience – its more likely you’ve the wrong type of profile solution. VMWare View users can undoubtedly look forward to faster logon times, but is that the only thing they need?

What User Virtualization Certifications are Necessary?

In many ways, the IT world has gone certification happy. Nearly every job requirement lists certifications as well as length of service, however, in the realm of cloud computing and virtualization what do these certifications mean? Are they even valuable? Is there a general enough certification that covers all the hypervisors, is there a third party certification available?

Windows MultiPoint Server

Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server – globally available from March 1, 2010 – is a “shared resource computing solution designed for educational institutions”.  It is a Presentation Virtualization solution based on Windows 2008 server, and sharing codebase with Remote Desktop Server (i.e. the product formerly known as Terminal Services). It is designed to deal with a specific …