Virtual Desktop Patching and Data Protection

Data Protection and patch management of virtual desktops, while not a sexy topic, is one that should happen on a regular basis within any organization implementing or working to implement virtual desktops. Recently, we have been testing virtual desktop software and there is a huge difference between patching and protecting data in a small number of instances and 1000s of instances. There are scale considerations as well as ease of use for file level and system recovery as well as issues with patching virtual desktops (not to mention other security issues).

OpenStack and the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)

The future of OpenStack looks bright, and with the all the software-defined data center (SDDC) features contained in the recent release of “Grizzly” they are now ready to compete toe-to-toe with heavyweights like VMware, Nutanix, Dell, and HP. Whether they can start unseating VMware products in the enterprise remains to be seen, though. Despite the immediate SDDC advantage of OpenStack, companies and technologies like that of Nicira and Virsto, both acquired by VMware, are not to be ignored.

Gaming as a Service

Gaming as a Service: When we talk about Cloud Computing Systems we may be mainly focusing on Platform, Infrastructure, Software and Network as a service as the main and common areas that are presented to us, but there is another area to watch and keep an eye on as it gets a stronger foothold into the cloud and that newcomer is Gaming as a Service (GaaS).

Cloud Tenant PCI-DSS Dilemma

There is a dilemma for all tenants of a public or private cloud: Scope. For the tenant, they want everything to be in scope. For the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) they want to limit scope to the bare minimum. What does it mean for a Cloud to be ‘PCI Compliant’ and why is this a requirement for some tenants. The real issue, is what is in scope for PCI-DSS while your data is in the cloud and how can you as the tenant meet those requirements.

A Look at the HP Moonshot 1500

Last week HP announced their “second generation” HP Moonshot 1500 enclosure and Intel Atom S1260-based Proliant Moonshot systems, a high-density computing solution targeted at hyperscale computing workloads. They’re billing it as the first “software defined server” and claiming that it can save 89 percent of energy, 80 percent space, and 77 percent of the cost of their DL380 servers.