VDI Ready http://vdiworx.com Virtualization and Green Computing comtemplations and news Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:02:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 en FusionStorm Acquires CentriServ http://vdiworx.com/2010/01/08/fusionstorm-acquires-centriserv/ http://vdiworx.com/2010/01/08/fusionstorm-acquires-centriserv/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:02:27 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2010/01/08/fusionstorm-acquires-centriserv/

Adds Expertise to Client Virtualization Practice Assisting IT Departments With Architecture and Design and Fully-Hosted Managed Virtual Client Solutions

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire - January 6, 2010) - FusionStorm — “Making Technology Work” — a leading systems integrator and managed services provider announced today that it has acquired CentriServ of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

CentriServ specializes in consulting and implementation services for server-based, virtual-client computing, which streamlines delivery of IT resources, centralizes IT management and simplifies applications access for end users. The company is an authorized solution partner for Citrix, Microsoft, VMware and other vendors delivering technology for client virtualization.

The acquisition enhances FusionStorm’s ability to deliver enterprise-class client virtualization to its existing customer base. The company will architect, design and deliver these solutions for customers who are running their own IT systems. FusionStorm will also offer fully-hosted and managed virtual client solutions in “desktop-as-a-service” and “software-as-a-service” cloud computing models.

In addition, CentriServ clients now have access to many more technology solutions from FusionStorm’s broad and deep technology practices, including networking, data center, storage, collaboration, unified communications, business continuity, managed services and managed hosting.

John Varel, CEO of FusionStorm, states, “This is an important acquisition for FusionStorm, and we are excited about what CentriSev brings to the FusionStorm team. Their talent and experience in client virtualization strengthens our ability to deliver these high-demand solutions to our customers.”

According to Anthony Falsone, CEO of CentriServ, “We are excited about the opportunity to combine our resources and expertise with those of FusionStorm. Our consulting practice and products balance well with those currently being offered and we look forward to making the most of our combined strengths to offer tremendous insight and value to customers.”

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About FusionStorm

FusionStorm — “Making Technology Work” — is a national provider of IT products, professional services, support contract services and 24×7 managed services for enterprises of all sizes. The company assists organizations by providing complete solutions for system infrastructure, storage, networking, voice-over-IP communications, security, database, disaster recovery, managed hosting and remote managed services, both onsite and in the data center.

FusionStorm, the FusionStorm logo and “Making Technology Work” are trademarks or registered trademarks of FusionStorm in the United States and other countries.

Contact:
Josh Krasnegor
FusionStorm
415.623.2623
joshk@fusionstorm.com

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2010/01/08/fusionstorm-acquires-centriserv/feed/ NetScaler MPX vs. VPX – differences http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/netscaler-mpx-vs-vpx-%e2%80%93-differences/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/netscaler-mpx-vs-vpx-%e2%80%93-differences/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:52:19 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/netscaler-mpx-vs-vpx-%e2%80%93-differences/ The NetScaler VPX virtual appliance has some decisive differences from its MPX hardware counterparts. While the performance differences are well documented, some of the finer networking related points are a bit obscure and not readily discoverable. While none of them are likely to be show stoppers, it’s important to be familiar with the limitations.

Here’s a short table I’ve assembled describing the impact of the hypervisor on the NetScaler virtual appliance as compared to the network stack of the MPX:

MPX VPX
Native 802.1q VLAN Tagging Tagging is defined on the hypervisor. XenServer is limited to 7 tagged networks and 16 on VMware.
Native 802.3ad Link Aggregation 802.3ad is not supported by XenServer. Source Level Balancing (SLB) NIC bonding is the closest parallel and offers NIC redundancy with great performance. But not all switches work well with SLB so be sure to test under load, plug both links into a single switch, or skip SLB entirely in favor of native NetScaler device failover.
Device Fail-over Failover is supported between VPX devices through NetScaler’s native redundancy mechanism. So there’s no need for XenMotion or VMotion support with the VPX.
Dedicated SSL Chipset No SSL chipsets are available to the VPX, but none the less, it is capable of 300 3DES and 1000 RC4 sessions. At double the VPN capacity, VPX makes a great upgrade path from Secure Gateway by providing a full SSL-VPN, Smart Access, and improved security.

Licensing Changes in VPX 9.1 Build 100.3:
For VPX appliances only, the 9.1_100.3 license software will check the MAC address of the FIRST INTERFACE listed. In previous builds, the license software checked the MAC address of the NEWEST INTERFACE. For VPX customers who upgrade to 9.1_100.3, this change will invalidate licenses on VMs which had more than one interface. They will need to revisit MyCitrix.com licensing portal to re-host their license. CTX122426 – NetScaler VPX Licensing Guide has been updated with the rehosting instructions.

VPX owners are allowed to relicense their VPX system up to 3 times.

References: XenServer Administrator’s Guide: Chapter 4, Networking

thanx to Richard Davis for this blog !

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/netscaler-mpx-vs-vpx-%e2%80%93-differences/feed/ Will Oracle buy Citrix? http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/will-oracle-buy-citrix/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/will-oracle-buy-citrix/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:03:42 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/will-oracle-buy-citrix/


[According to the Briefing.com financial news site, software giant Oracle - not even finished with its $7.4bn acquisition of Sun Microsystems - is sniffing around middleware and virtualization maker Citrix Systems and may be interested in acquiring the company.

That Oracle would be interested in buying Citrix is totally plausible. Oracle has its own implementation of the open source Xen hypervisor. When it became clear that Red Hat was going to shift to the KVM hypervisor, Oracle looked around for another set of Xen tools and snapped up Virtual Iron, which had its own variation on the Xen theme. But in August 2007 Citrix bought XenSource.] Full Story Here

 

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/29/will-oracle-buy-citrix/feed/ Virtual Desktop Challenge http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/22/virtual-desktop-challenge/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/22/virtual-desktop-challenge/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:15:42 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/22/virtual-desktop-challenge/


Just plain funny:

Welcome to the Virtual Desktop Challenge with Brian Madden. Play this “Jeopardy” style game and test your knowledge in the virtual desktop space. Top point scorers are eligible for prizes so play now and see if you are an expert on virtual desktop!

http://www.virtualdesktopchallenge.com

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/22/virtual-desktop-challenge/feed/ E-Guide: Expert Guide to Matching Virtual Desktops with Your Users’ Needs http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/e-guide-expert-guide-to-matching-virtual-desktops-with-your-users-needs/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/e-guide-expert-guide-to-matching-virtual-desktops-with-your-users-needs/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:48:14 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/e-guide-expert-guide-to-matching-virtual-desktops-with-your-users-needs/ ABSTRACT:

Today’s businesses are tasked with providing the most effective work environment for their users, while meeting budgetary restrictions and maintaining security initiatives. In this expert E-Guide, brought to you by SearchVirtualDesktop.com and Citrix, you will discover how virtual desktops can be used to meet the growing demands of today’s businesses. Gain insight into the significant benefits associated with virtual desktop technology and explore the top ways VDI can be used to improve the security of your organization. Learn how to determine whether or not available virtual desktop technologies will meet your users’ needs and enhance their work capabilities. Get it here

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/e-guide-expert-guide-to-matching-virtual-desktops-with-your-users-needs/feed/ Things to think of before VDI deployment http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/things-to-think-of-before-vdi-deployment/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/things-to-think-of-before-vdi-deployment/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:38:50 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/things-to-think-of-before-vdi-deployment/ During any VDI implementation, independent of the product you plan to utilise, some key components need to be properly and carefully designed in order to avoid pitfalls further down the track, or prepare the infrastructure for future growth.

VDI designs should also go through assessment process, just like any other deployment in the physical world, that should take care for the following: Read More

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/12/21/things-to-think-of-before-vdi-deployment/feed/ Citrix makes XenDesktop VDI more cost effective for it’s cutomers http://vdiworx.com/2009/10/06/citrix-makes-xendesktop-vdi-more-cost-effective-for-its-cutomers/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/10/06/citrix-makes-xendesktop-vdi-more-cost-effective-for-its-cutomers/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:31:27 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/10/06/citrix-makes-xendesktop-vdi-more-cost-effective-for-its-cutomers/


Citrix’ announced today a “Trade Up” program whereby existing Citrix XenApp customers can get XenDesktop licenses at a significant discount. Also, if you trade up 100% of your XenApp licenses you’ll get two for one!

Personally I think this move is a stroke of genius. Strategically; if you already have XenApp (which most enterprises do) why would you consider any other VDI product? Couple this with the fact that XenDesktop is hypervisor agnostic and that you can even run the XenDesktop agent on physical PC’s (see http://vdiworx.com/category/pandemic/) and XenDesktop is a slam dunk!

 

  • Trade-up all active XenApp licenses at once, get 2X the XenDesktop 4 licenses
  • Trade-up your XenApp licenses, save between 50%-80% on XenDesktop 4
  • Trade-up includes 12 months of Subscription Advantage on XenDesktop 4

 Want some more info? Try www.citrix.com/tucalculator and see for yourself then email for a “Trade Up” quote today

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/10/06/citrix-makes-xendesktop-vdi-more-cost-effective-for-its-cutomers/feed/ Take the VDI assessment and implementation survey http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/take-the-vdi-assessment-and-implementation-survey/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/take-the-vdi-assessment-and-implementation-survey/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:37:04 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/take-the-vdi-assessment-and-implementation-survey/ Whether you’re currently evaluating VDI or have a full scale deployment your input would be greatly appreciated.

It’s a simple 9 question survey about your experiences. Ideally and depending on response; I plan on following up with a more detailed survey next month perhaps detailing Citrix; VMware and hybrid designs.


http://cafesurvey.com/?tin08veh

Also once completed you’ll be able to see the results.

Thanks again,

Tony

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/take-the-vdi-assessment-and-implementation-survey/feed/ counter http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/counter/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/counter/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:29:07 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/counter/

]]> http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/counter/feed/ Free Load Balancer! http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/free-load-balancer/ http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/free-load-balancer/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:20:47 +0000 Tony http://vdiworx.com/2009/09/21/free-load-balancer/ Load balancers are required to fairly distribute traffic among multiple servers. Organizations should not have to purchase expensive load balancers to fully utilize their server infrastructures. With Citrix NetScaler VPX, they can evaluate an advanced load balancer for FREE.

NetScaler VPX Express provides a free load balancer that can be used in almost any environment. With the NetScaler VPX Express, organizations can:

Learn More

The free NetScaler VPX Express load balancer enables any company to test the industry’s most advanced load balancer at no cost. Even though it’s a free load balancer, NetScaler VPX Express still provides full NetScaler load balancing and traffic management. As a free load balancer, NetScaler VPX Express can be installed on off-the-shelf servers to provide the most affordable load balancing in the industry. Not only can organizations evaluate the load balancer for free, but they can smartly select the most economical server hardware to meet their particular load balancer requirements. The free NetScaler load balancer is ideal for small and medium size organizations that are just getting started with high-volume web applications.

To download the free NetScaler load balancer, please click here to download NetScaler VPX Express

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