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Citrix VDI-in-a-Box vs XenDesktop – does size matter?

The challenge for Citrix is to position their VDI portfolio effectively. At the very least there should be a standardised license plan and migration path from (or to) the grid and non-grid solutions. There is potential to remove the reduced functionality versions of XenDesktop. Most importantly – to have a license model that allows organisations to make a choice of technology that fits their need, not their size. Can Citrix FlexCast be truly flexible if it ignores the value that having a grid technology can bring not only to the SMB market – but to any sized enterprise?

News: Virtual Computer Turns VDI on Its Head with NxTop 4

Virtual Computer have redefined virtual desktops delivery with their latest release, NxTop 4. In NxTop4 Virtual Computer have aimed to further improve their client-side hypervisor desktop management solution and to better harness the power of end-point PCs for local execution rather than requiring major investments in virtual machine server farms.

5 Starting Steps to Protect Your Virtual and Cloud Environments

More and more is coming out about the attack from a MacDonald’s that left an organization crippled for a bit of time. The final tally was that the recently fired employee was able to delete 15 VMs before either being caught or he gave up. On twitter, it was commented that the administrator must not have been a powershell programmer because in the time it takes to delete 15 VMs by hand, a powershell script could have removed 100s. Or perhaps the ‘Bad Actor’ was trying to not be discovered. In either case, this has prompted discussions across the twitter-sphere, blog-sphere, and within organizations about how to secure from such attacks.

Secret Consoles — Multiple Management Interfaces — Security Nightmare

While looking on twitter this morning I discovered a tweet that pointed to the following article, which is relatively devoid of details but none-the-less extreme interesting to those who follow virtualization security: Fired techie created virtual chaos at pharma company. This article points out an external attack that lead to management access of a virtual environment. Now we do not know if the attack was using antiquated credentials or some other means. But what we do know is that VMs were deleted by an external source that used to be a former employee. Hoax or not, this is a very serious issue brought to light.

Windows boot IO and storage performance impact on VDI

With Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) initiatives adoption being a popular theme associated with cloud and dynamic infrastructure environments a related discussion point is the impact on networks, servers and storage during boot or startup activity to avoid bottlenecks. VDI solution vendors include Citrix, Microsoft and VMware along with various server, storage, networking and management tools vendors.

A common storage and network related topic involving VDI are boot storms when many workstations or desktops all startup at the same time. However any discussion around VDI and its impact on networks, servers and storage should also be expanded from read centric boots to write intensive shutdown or maintenance activity as well.