Alcatel-Lucent and Arbor Networks join forces. Alcatel-Lucent and Arbor Networks announced that the two companies have joined forces to tackle the growing threat of ‘distributed denial-of-service’ (DDoS) attacks. A combined solution integrates Arbor’s Threat Management System (TMS) software into Alcatel-Lucent’s IP routers – wherever they are located in a given network – attacks can be detected and dealt with at the edge of the cloud, closer to the location of the attack, which is a much more effective and less costly approach. “This partnership brings DDoS mitigation capabilities to the edge of provider networks and benefits them in multiple ways, from the cost saving benefits of reducing the volume of backhaul traffic to the ability to scale and generate additional revenue from managed security services,” said Michael Suby, Stratecast Vice President of Research at Frost & Sullivan.  ”The demand for edge-based services also speaks to the complex challenges facing enterprise network administrators when it comes to DDoS and availability threats. They are increasingly looking to their service providers for managed solutions.”

TelecityGroup selected by Justin.tv.  TelecityGroup announced that Justin.tv, the world’s largest live video platform serving 31 million users a month, has selected TelecityGroup Netherlands as its colocation provider in Europe. Justin.tv will now be able to expand its services in Europe and maximise European service levels for TwitchTV, the company’s new and fast-growing video game broadcasting and chat community.  Justin.tv selected TelecityGroup’s Amsterdam data centers to host its mission-critical infrastructure. Access to the Dutch Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) will provide the resilience and connectivity to TwitchTV’s service levels in Europe in a cost-efficient way. “We selected TelecityGroup in the Netherlands due to its ability to provide carrier-neutral and highly diverse connectivity along with an extremely resilient and secure environment,” said Jonathan Shipman, Operations Director at Justin.tv.  ”TelecityGroup is the ideal partner to ensure TwitchTV can deliver a high quality of service to our users in the European market.”

Red Hat launches Enterprise Virtualization 3.  Red Hat (RHT) announced strong partner support for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 from its ISV partner ecosystem.  In line with the general availability of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 portfolio today, Red Hat introduces its ecosystem of industry-leading vendors that have integrated their applications with the 3.0 product through its APIs. A new Red Hat central hub will offer a forum for collaboration, partner documentation such as data sheets and solution guides, and trial evaluations of products and applications certified for use with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. “We are excited to introduce Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 to worldwide enterprises today with the backing of our wide-ranging ecosystem of ISV partners that we have worked closely with to certify their solutions to our portfolio,” said Navin Thadani, senior director, Virtualization Business at Red Hat. “We selected leaders in product areas ranging from advanced management to security, backup, disaster recovery, compliance, capacity and performance management and monitoring to augment the reach and capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0.  With these collaborations, we will offer joint support for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and our partners’ certified products to our customers.”

VCE Teams with SAP.  VCE announced Monday that it has become a SAP global technology partner, through which it will cooperate with SAP AG to help customers deploy the latest virtualization and cloud technologies to simplify and automate their mission-critical applications. Running on VCE Vblock Infrastructure Platforms VCE will work closely with SAP to provide services and support for customer SAP applications. “SAP and VCE are working together to help our mutual customers optimize their SAP solutions on the VCE Vblock Infrastructure Platform to transform business processes,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, senior vice president, Business Development and Strategic Alliances at SAP.  “This global technology partnership provides a framework for a variety of collaborative efforts designed to bring together the cloud and virtualization technologies enabled by VCE converged infrastructure with SAP software and applications to help customers be more efficient and lower costs.”

Mexico’s Alestra uses VCE Foundation.  At Cisco Live! Mexico IT and telecom company Alestra announced it will offer cloud services to Mexican customers based on VBlock Infrastructure Platforms, which integrate best-of-breed technology from Cisco, EMC and VMware into a highly automated and standardized IT infrastructure. The cloud computing capabilities will allow Alestra to expand its value-added services portfolio, to include an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) solution for virtual computing, storage  and disaster recovery capabilities through its Enterprise C-Computing service. ”Cisco has been providing technology for Alestra since its first MPLS and IP network  deployment, and now Cisco is able to support it to enhance its  portfolio with a new line of business at the same time we still supporting its network to ensure reliability, capacity, flexibility and resilience to Alestra end customers,” said Alejandro Ceballos, from Cisco Mexico. “The  VBlock platform will help Alestra accelerate its ability to realize the benefits of pervasive virtualization and private cloud infrastructure.” Alestra’s infrastructure includes two VBlock interconnected platforms, one  to be deployed in  Monterrey and one  in Guadalajara.

Juniper selected by WI-Manx.  Juniper Networks (JNPR) announced that Wi-Manx, an Isle of Man communications and IT solution provider, has selected Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches and MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers as the backbone for its new state-of-the-art data center and IPv6 Network. ”This data center is critical to our strategy of building on international success and becoming a truly global player in the data center market, enabling us to offer the very latest technology at a competitive rate,” said Joe Hughes, chief technical officer, Wi-Manx. From the new data center, Wi-Manx will launch a comprehensive range of hosting services including dedicated servers, co-location solutions, virtual servers, cloud hosting, complex hosting, domain-name and e-mail services.

Alcatel-Lucent and China Unicom partner.  Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and China Unicom, one of the country’s major communications service providers, have announced plans to launch one of the largest fiber broadband access networks to date in China. The Alcatel-Lucent Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) platform will be used to ensure future capacity and speed demands are met. With this deployment, China Unicom will be able to offer subscribers speeds of up to 100 Megabits-per-second, all with guaranteed quality of service levels providing great flexibility to a wide range of consumer and business services including IPTV, video on demand, and voice over IP (VoIP). “This project represents another major milestone in the rapid expansion of broadband in China. It also demonstrates our strong and growing leadership position in the FTTx market as we help accelerate availability of superfast broadband throughout China,” said Rajeev Singh-Molares, President, Asia-Pacific at Alcatel-Lucent.

Citrix announced that it has acquired App-DNA, updated VDI-in-a-Box 5, produced a HDX ready System-on-Chip and Wyse announces day one support for VDI-in-a-Box.

App-DNA Acquisition

Citrix announced it has agreed to acquire App-DNA, a leader in application migration and management, and long-time Citrix partner. The acquisition serves as a key element to Citrix’s enhanced Desktop Transformation strategy and accelerating deployments of desktop virtualization enterprise-wide. App-DNA’s flagship product AppTitude gives organizations the ability to intelligently assess their application portfolio and migration plans. “Customers want to move to virtual desktops faster but often don’t know how to evolve their application portfolio. App-DNA provides customers a clear roadmap and the ability to automate the migration of their applications to new virtual environments. As part of a complete desktop transformation strategy with a proven methodology for deploying virtual desktops across all users, Citrix and App-DNA together help customers more quickly realize the business benefits and operating efficiencies of creating a virtual computing environment,” said Bob Schultz, Group Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Desktops and Applications at Citrix.

Driving down the cost of Virtual Desktops

Citrix announced new desktop transformation technology innovations and tools that further reduce both the cost and time of deploying virtual desktops. They are enhancing the 2010 Citrix Desktop Transformation model with new tools and processes that IT organizations can leverage to plan and implement a successful enterprise-wide desktop virtualization strategy. With the advancements announced at Synergy 2011 Citrix predicts that within six months the cost of virtual desktops will be less expensive than physical desktops.

This will be driven by things like Citrix FlexCast delivery technology, the new Citrix HDX Ready System-on-Chip (SoC) program and innovation from Citrix partners. New tools set to enhance the Desktop Transformation Model include Success Accelerator for XenDesktop design, a Virtual Desktop Assessment tool for taking and assessing inventories, AppTitude (from App-DNA), and XenDesktop Personal vDisk Technology as a part of their recent acquisition of RingCube.

VDI-in-a-Box 5

Citrix announced version 5 of their all-in-one virtual desktop solution, VDI-in-a-Box, in support of their new SMB initiative. Following the acquisition of Kaviza in May 2011 the new release is purpose-built for SMB customers and eliminates over 60 percent of VDI costs without compromising features. “There is pent-up demand among small and medium organizations who want to realize the benefits of desktop virtualization but have been underserved by existing solutions,” said Krishna Subramanian, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, SMB Solutions, Citrix. “Together with our partners, Citrix is breaking down the barriers for smaller organizations wanting to realize the business agility and efficiency of virtual desktops but face tight budget and resource constraints.” VDI-in-a-Box 5 will be released this quarter.

Citrix HDX Ready System-on-Chip

Citrix announced a new HDX Ready System-on-Chip (SoC) initiative, designed to enable an entirely new generation of devices to deliver high-definition virtual apps and desktops at an unprecedented low cost using the company’s market-leading HDX technology. This will allow non-traditional devices like network monitors, phones, smart keyboards, consumer set-top boxes, shop floor equipment, kiosks and hospital workstations-on-wheels to be able to display virtual apps and desktops directly, without the need for an a full PC at the endpoint. With design assistance from partners Texas Instruments and NComputing Citrix built the HDX SoC reference architecture based on standards and off-the-shelf components. “We applaud Citrix and embrace this initiative. The enterprise will too,” said Raj Dhingra, CEO, NComputing. “Combining the power of Citrix HDX with NComputing Numo SoC virtual desktop technology will solve the cost and complexity issues of traditional thin clients, as well as provide the blueprint for future virtual desktop devices and form factors. Historic barriers to deploying VDI in the enterprise will be removed; at the same time paving the way for entirely new and more powerful VDI architectures and environments – to deliver a rich user experience, at radically lower costs of acquisition.”

Citrix CloudGateway

Citrix announced the next stage of their CloudGateway strategy with a unified service broker that aggregates, controls and delivers Windows, web, SaaS and mobile apps to any user on any device via the Citrix Receiver universal software client. It will be generally available in three months and comes in Enterprise and Express editions.

Wyse Solutions in Support of Citrix Initiatives

Wyse Technology announced sweeping support of new Citrix products and initiatives.  Wyse announced the addition of new HDX features in its popular thin and zero client line, powered by the company’s Wyse Zero firmware engine. With the enhancements and new product updates Citrix has announced at Syngery Wyse users will benefit from improved performance, management and security, along with new features providing additional wireless capabilities, advanced multimedia, flexible language localization, and audio and peripheral support. Wyse’s entire range of thin clients supports VDI-in-a-Box. “SMB customers are seeking easy, affordable virtual desktop solutions that do not paint them into a corner.  Coupling Citrix’s easy yet complete solution with Wyse thin and zero clients takes VDI to the next level of simplicity without sacrificing core functionality.  We are pleased to partner with Wyse and share our vision of plug-and-play virtual desktops for the SMB market,” says Krishna Subramanian, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Citrix. Wyse also recently announced a major extension of how its cloud client computing technology supports the work of the Salvation Army in the UK.

VMware unveils three product suites.  VMware (VMW) unveiled three product suites designed to simplify and automate IT management. The company announced enhancements to VMware vCenter Operations and the introduced  new VMware vFabric Application Management and VMware IT Business Management suites. Introduced earlier this year VMware has enhanced vCenter Operations with deeper integration of vCenter Capacity IQ and vCenter Configuration Manager.  The new vFabric Application Management Suite is comprised of two solutions that integrate application disciplines to unite and streamline developer and operations efforts.  The new IT Business Management Suite includes IT Finance Manager, IT Service Level Manager and IT Vendor Manager. ”Cloud computing requires a new way of thinking about the delivery of IT services,” said Cameron Haight, research vice president, Gartner. “Automation is key not only to enable scale, but to keep pace with the rate of change in dynamic environments. And, as the infrastructure itself becomes programmable, management tools and processes must be updated to support an integrated, agile approach that spans across the IT divide.”

VMware selected by SAP.  VMware announced that SAP has selected the VMware cloud infrastructure and management platform for one of its internal global IT modernization and reorganization projects designed to more effectively support business demand.  Following a successful internal automation and private cloud project, SAP IT has expanded its cooperation with VMware, striving to reach an overall virtualization rate of 80 percent of its global IT infrastructure. ”SAP’s selection of VMware technology for its global IT infrastructure further validates our IT as a Service vision,” said Maurizio Carli, senior vice president and general manager, EMEA, VMware. “SAP has bought into this vision and our technology delivery, investing in an almost complete stack including datacenter, enterprise management and desktop solutions.”

EMC and VMware integrate VPLEX.  EMC announced that EMC VPLEX is now certified by VMware to implement vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC). VPLEX is a  virtual storage technology that federates data located on multiple storage systems that allows storage resources in multiple data centers to be pooled together and accessed anywhere. EMC and VMware working together to certify clustered storage enables a higher level of availability and data mobility. “EMC is excited to accelerate the benefits of cloud computing with stretched VMware vSphere clusters across active/active datacenters,” said EMC’s Chad Sakac, Vice President, VMware Technology Alliance. “Combining industry-leading features in EMC VPLEX and VMware vSphere customers can now achieve simple workload mobility across their data centers while at the same time decreasing management overhead.”

VMware and NVIDIA partner for workstation-class virtual desktop.  NVIDIA and VMware announced a strategic partnership to advance virtual 3D graphics technology and enable the remote delivery of high-end, workstation-class virtual desktops and applications for engineers, artists and scientists. Within a virtualized environment on a remote server the NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Graphics Platform delivers server-based Quadro professional graphics cards via a network connection, providing a high level of graphics horsepower to users on demand. “Working together, VMware and NVIDIA are pushing the traditional boundaries of desktop virtualization by bringing workstation-class 3D Graphics to hosted virtual desktops and universal application access,” said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End-User Computing, VMware. “Once only needed by power-users, 3D graphics are fast becoming a requirement amongst all end-users as they use Office 2010, and even the Windows 7 Aero interface. Our partnership with NVIDIA will enable 3D capabilities for power-users as well as a growing number of use cases from any endpoint device, even tablets and thin clients.”

CA and VMware integrate products.  CA Technologies (CA) announced a connector for integrating CA Process Automation, a central component of both CA Automation Suite for Data Centers and CA Automation Suite for Clouds, with VMware vCloud Director. The new capability enables more efficient service delivery and helps to lower costs by automating and orchestrating IT operational processes, such as change, configuration, and financial management, involving VMware vCloud Director. “One of the best ways for VMware customers to increase ROI and avoid creating new technology islands is to integrate their VMware infrastructure investment into their IT service management and other processes using CA Process Automation,” said Roger Pilc, general manager, Virtualization and Automation, CA Technologies. “Taking advantage of our many management solutions via the integration of CA Process Automation and vCloud Director enables customers to achieve automated processes across their data centers and cloud infrastructures, and a common, integrated service view, regardless of whether workloads or business services reside on virtual and physical infrastructure. The connector also helps customers gain end-to-end service control, lowering the risk of human error and improving service delivery efficiency.”

EMC’s Greenplum Modular Data Computing Appliance.  EMC introduced the Greenplum Modular Data Computing Appliance (DCA), the industry’s first complete Big Data analytics platform. The DCA enables enterprises to combine a shared-nothing MPP relational database with enterprise-class Apache Hadoop in a single, unified appliance to achieve structured and unstructured data coprocessing. Deployed in quarter-rack increments, the approach to capacity management and scaling is based on processing performance or storage needs. The Greenplum DCA is a scalable data-warehousing appliance module that architecturally integrates database, computing, storage and network into an enterprise-class, easy-to-implement system. ”We are the only company enabling data coprocessing, the fast, bidirectional sharing of structured and unstructured data between relational and Hadoop modules within a single appliance, to allow each system do what it does best and achieve a whole that’s much greater than the sum of its parts,” said Scott Yara, vice president of products of Greenplum, a division of EMC. “That’s why data coprocessing is so important and so powerful, and it is the new modularity of our DCA that provides this opportunity for enterprises to get the benefits of Big Data analytics from whatever kind of data they’re working with.”

Cisco and Microsoft collaborate.  Cisco (CSCO) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced a collaboration for delivering data center virtualization solutions designed to provide improved scalability and operational control of Microsoft Windows Server “8″ virtual environments. Advanced Cisco networking features will be constant across both virtual and physical networks with the Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch and the Cisco UCS with Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) capabilities and Windows Hyper-V hypervisor.  VM-FEX collapses the physical and virtual networking layers into one virtual infrastructure, improving traffic engineering, visibility and troubleshooting capabilities for VM traffic. ”Cisco Unified Computing System scalability and memory density make it an ideal system for customers as they explore the many new virtualization features of Windows Server 8 and Hyper-V,” said Jackie Ross, vice president of Server, Access, and Virtualization Technology Group for Cisco.  “Together, Nexus 1000V and VM-FEX with Windows Server Hyper-V will provide the advanced controls and consistency with simplified management to help accelerate customers’ journey to the cloud.” The Cisco Nexus 1000V and VM-FEX solutions for Hyper-V will be available when Windows 8 Server is released to the market.

Nimsoft announces SAP monitoring.  Nimsoft announced Nimsoft Monitor for SAP, an automated solution that enables customers to optimize service levels across physical, virtual and cloud environments while reducing their technology ownership costs. As a component of the Nimsoft Monitor, it features a built-in knowledge base of key performance indicators (KPIs) and associated best-practice thresholds to help administrators proactively address potential issues and quickly identify and resolve problems before they impact service levels. “Enterprise SAP environments have become highly dynamic due to both increasingly volatile business conditions and today’s extensively virtualized IT infrastructure,” said Chris O’Malley, Nimsoft CEO. “The SAP monitoring application and Nimsoft Monitor empower customers to stay on top of these dynamic SAP environments so they can achieve superlative service levels while driving down management overhead.”

Blue Coat updates PacketShaper.  Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) announced a new version of operating software for its Blue Coat PacketShaper appliances that adds an intelligent structure to auto-discovered applications and Web content categories, making it easy to instantly understand application usage. Version 8.7 of the PacketShaper operating software adds an automated hierarchical grouping of applications and content to quickly monitor and control social media, business-critical applications, business data, Web threats and other groupings. “Application visibility and control is increasingly critical now that typical Web usage consumes over 50 percent of a company’s network, and video and aggressive applications can easily incapacitate business-critical applications,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president, Blue Coat Systems. PacketShaper 8.7 is available now as a software upgrade for all customers with a current support contract for a PacketShaper appliance.

Virtualizing mobile with Samsung

VMware (VMW) announced a new strategic collaboration with Samsung to deliver virtual desktops to mobile devices and enable a new class of “dual persona” mobile devices. Integrating Samsung mobile devices, VMware View and VMware Horizon Mobile will enable seamless and secure use of employee-owned IT devices for accessing both work and personal data.  VMware Horizon Mobile and Samsung smartphones will let enterprises securely manage an employee’s connected mobile workspace (email, applications, data etc.) in isolation from their personal environment.

“VMware’s end-user computing solutions enable customers to break free from more than two decades of complex, device-centric computing, and deliver a more user-centric experience for the connected enterprise,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “Working with Samsung, a leading provider of Android smart devices, our goal is to help IT organizations retain control and security of corporate data and applications while enabling end users to utilize their own wireless devices.”

VMware and Symantec Partner

VMware and Symantec (SYMC) announced an expansion of their strategic partnership to define and architect Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions with the goal to provide virtual desktop computing environments for enterprises and IT service providers. The combined DaaS service will leverage VMware View, vCloud Director 1.5, vSphere 5 and Symantec Endpoint Protection and the Altiris Client Management Suite. The solution will provide a service driven cloud infrastructure, security protection from the cloud to the endpoint and end-to-end configuration and control of applications.

“VMware is committed to enabling the delivery of IT as secure, cloud-based services to end users,” said Christopher Young, vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. “Through our expanded partnership with Symantec, we can deliver Desktop-as-a-Service solutions for enterprise organizations and service providers that offer the security, management and compliance customers require – all baked directly into a virtual desktop infrastructure and accessible to end users regardless of device or location.”

Symantec V-Ray Enabled Backup Appliances

Symantec also announced the general availability of the Backup Exec 3600 and NetBackup 5220 enterprise backup appliances to help organizations modernize their backup infrastructures and accelerate new initiatives around virtualization. Backup Exec 3600 is an all-in-one backup appliance with integrated client and target data deduplication for protecting virtual and physical machines for medium sized companies. It provides virtual server visibility, key operating system protection, reduce integration complexity and includes Symantec Critical System Protection for total virus malware security protection.

NetBackup 5220 is a scalable backup appliance for enterprise organizations with both client and target deduplication designed to accelerate backups for physical and virtual systems. “Backup is a critical insurance policy for virtual environments,” said Sean Regan, director of product marketing for Symantec’s Information Management Group. “The Backup Exec 3600 and NetBackup 5220 appliances provide organizations with the flexibility to manage data in a way that makes the most sense for their physical or virtual environments, while getting them up and running as fast as possible.”

Symantec NetBackup 5220 series and Backup Exec 3600 series appliances are available now in North America.

Network Virtualization: VXLAN

As a major step towards on-demand networks, VXLAN (Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network was introduced as a breakthrough in network virtualization. VXLAN is a collaborative effort for an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft as a framework for overlaying virtualized layer 2 networks over layer 3 networks. It is a networking group Internet draft released August 26th, with participating companies including Cisco, VMware, Arista Networks, Broadcom, Citrix and Red Hat. VMware CTO Steve Herrod discussed VXLAN in his VMworld keynote Tuesday and in a blog post described it as a “model that enables the efficient and fluid movement of virtual resources across shared cloud infrastructures both within and across datacenters.” VXLAN will offer a network encapsulation technique with segment identifiers for creating millions of logical networks and for enabling workloads to seamlessly move across datacenters and cloud infrastructures.

While Cisco’s Overlay Transport Virtualization was an interconnect technology extending Layer 2, VXLAN is for creating more logical networks in a cloud environment.  Cisco released this white paper for creating a Scalable Cloud Network with Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches and VXLAN.

“Together with VMware, Cisco has unlocked the power of the network to extend virtual machines beyond the confines of a single stack to the entire data center and cloud infrastructure from different locations,” said Soni Jiandani, senior vice president, Server, Access, Virtualization Technology Group for Cisco. “VXLAN will provide the ability to scale networking segments to millions of VMs to ease the deployment of applications in the cloud.  Also, by segmenting these VMs and applications via highly secure virtual networks, customers will be able to achieve the security required for multi-tenant cloud environments.”  VXLAN technology in Cisco Nexus 1000V will be available for beta in September 2011.

Desktop Virtualization expansion

Expanding on the 2010 Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) system and VMware vSphere 5, Cisco and VMware are expanding VXI to support VMware View 5 and the Cisco suite of collaboration solutions.  One such integration is click-to-call, where users running WebEx Connect inside of VMware View virtual desktops can use click-to-call communication. VMware View and Cisco UCS provide a a collaborative workspace and VMware View 5 will be available on the Cisco Cius and Cisco Virtualization Experience Clients (VXC) 2100 and 220 endpoints.

IT as a Service

Building a strong foundation for the cloud vSphere 5 and UCS 2.0 are enhanced to offer better cloud management capabilities to virtualize the most demanding business-critical applications and workloads. The VXLAN technology will be supported in VMware vSphere 5, VMware vCloud® Director 1.5 and Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch to deliver an on-demand cloud infrastructure to enhance the end-user experience. Cisco demonstrated a Virtual ASA firewall for Nexus 1000V and will integrate it with VMware vCloud Director.

EMC boots 500 desktops in 5 minutes.  EMC announced its support of EMC VNX unified storage for VMware View 5. The EMC VNX Family will allow customers to boost performance during “log-in storms” – the period at the start of the workday when large numbers of employees arrive at work and seek to load their virtual desktops.  Early test results have shown the ability to boot 500 VMware View 5.0 desktops on VMware vSphere 5 over NFS to steady state, in 5 minutes. Additionally with EMC FAST Cache customers can significantly reduce the number of drives used in a VMware View environment while providing exceptionally fast boot time performance. ”The EMC VNX Family is designed from the ground-up to optimize virtual environments,” said Eric Herzog, Vice President, Unified Storage Division at EMC. “We’ve seen great results in early testing with VMware View 5, and look forward to helping customers to deploy VMware View 5 in environments ranging from hundreds to thousands of desktops. Applying EMC’s unique FAST technology to a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) enables customers to maximize the full potential of their VMware View deployment.” EMC also announced that it has shattered the performance limits it previously set for strorage throughput and bandwidth in a VMware vSphere 5 environment.  Performance testing of an EMC Symmetrix VMAX storage system with VMware vSphere 5 achieved in excess of 1,000,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS), which is three times the previous ceiling of 364,000 IOPS achieved by utilizing three EMC CLARiiON CX4 storage systems with VMware vSphere 4. Bandwidth testing of a single EMC VNX unified storage system with VMware vSphere 5 achieved a workload of 10GBps, over 3.5 times more than the previous VMware vSphere limit which required three EMC CLARiiON CX4 arrays, illustrating the power of a VNX system.

VCE launches Vblock GRC solution with RSA.  VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment company announced general availability of the Vblock GRC Solution with RSA.  Based on the RSA Archer platform the enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solution was validated by VCE to address the challenge of managing risks in virtualized infrastructures. The GRC solution follows VCE’s four-phased approach by architecting business requirements, implementing to discover VMware devices, validating VMware-based controls and managing non-compliance, and governing via a dashboard and reporting for transparency on the security policy and compliance posture of the Vblock platform. “The Vblock GRC Solution with RSA provides an automated way to manage policies, procedures and compliance initiatives across the IT infrastructure,” said Alex Bender, Director, eGRC Programs and Strategy at RSA, the Security Division of EMC. “This foundational approach allows organizations to tie IT into the broader enterprise GRC strategy to help manage risk and demonstrate compliance.”

Riverbed accelerates vSphere replication.  Riverbed (RVBD) announced its Steelhead appliance wide area network (WAN) optimization solutions accelerate VMware vSphere Replication, a new feature of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5. New in VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5, vSphere Replication allows virtual machines to be replicated within or between local, remote or cloud-based data centers. Steelhead appliances overcome the challenges of replicating data across the WAN, which include bandwidth constraints, high latency and packet loss. “Riverbed and VMware continue to build and expand our strategic partnership and the solutions we create enable organizations to build high-performance and high-efficiency public, private and hybrid clouds,” said Venugopal Pai, vice president of Global Alliances at Riverbed. “This latest joint solution integrates the best-of-breed Riverbed Steelhead appliance with VMware vSphere Replication to accelerate disaster recovery and reduce the cost of WAN infrastructure.”

CiRBA announces DCI Control 7.  Data Center Intelligence software company CiRBA announced CiRBA DCI – Control, version 7.0 of its analytics software, which provides a new way of visualizing and managing environments, giving infrastructure managers unprecedented control over virtual and cloud infrastructure. The CiRBA Control Console, enables infrastructure managers to determine in a single glance which resources are appropriately placed, configured and provisioned and which are at risk at the VM, host, cluster and environment level. Addressing the needs of infrastructure managers and capacity managers the new time-based views show the current state, as well as historical and predictive views to understand an environment’s status and requirements over time.  ”Automation is critical to streamlining the management of virtual and cloud infrastructure,” said Andrew Hillier, CiRBA CTO and co-founder. “Organizations hesitate to automate certain functions because of potential risks and lack of trust in the actions to be taken. CiRBA’s analytics are recognized as the best in the industry and are trusted by market leading SI’s and technology partners including BT, Cisco, IBM and Intel. CiRBA’s answers incorporate an organization’s unique policies, historical and predicted utilization and expected changes in the environment to ensure placement and allocation recommendations will always comply with SLAs, operational, and business requirements.”

Dell’s vCloud Datacenter. Dell and VMware (VMW) jointly announced the availability of the Dell Cloud based on VMware vCloud Datacenter Services designed to provide a seamless multi-tenant environment for running virtual systems. Aimed at hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators and service providers Dell and VMware will provide the Infrastructure as a Service choice and leverage automation, workload scalability and multi-level security. The Dell vCloud Data center services will provide options for a public IaaS hosted in a secure Dell datacenter, a private Dell-built cloud on-premise or at Dell data centers, or a hybrid approach that will offer the greatest flexibility to customer requirements. The hybrid cloud will use VMware vCloud Connector to allow management of on or off premise private cloud and Dell’s public cloud offering.

NetApp and VMware Joint Cloud Solution.  NetApp (NTAP) and VMware jointly announced VMware cloud infrastructure and management on NetApp, a new joint solution that enables organizations to evolve to a secure cloud computing model at their own pace, gaining greater flexibility and efficiency without needing to rip and replace their existing infrastructure. The best practices solution is well documented and offers an evolved step from virtualization to a secure private, hybrid or public cloud infrastructure. ”Franklin University is committed to providing our students with the educational resources and tools they need to succeed, and our IT infrastructure is a critical foundation to ensuring that happens,” said Daniel Morgenstern, manager of Windows and Virtualization at Franklin University IT. “With VMware cloud infrastructure and management on NetApp, we were able to move to a secure private cloud that offers unprecedented flexibility to expand in any direction, fluidly move resources, and quickly provision services. As a result, we’ve been able to optimize our resources and focus on delivering the best education to our students.”  See this site for additional information.

EMC launches VSI 5.0.  EMC introduced the next generation EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) 5.0.  VSI 5 is a free VMware vCenter plug-in that let’s IT achieve simple and efficient data center operations, and accelerate their trip into the cloud. With this version of VSI, EMC is providing an end-to-end integration with VMware vCenter that dramatically simplifies management of virtualized storage with the ability to map virtual machines to storage and to self service storage provisioning across EMC Symmetrix VMAX and EMC VNX families of storage platforms from VMware vCenter with full support for VMware vSphere 5. ”VMware vCenter plays an important role in simplifying IT management, streamlining operational efficiency and ultimately driving down costs. IT vendor’s like EMC who is investing in its Virtual Storage Integrator plugin to extend the power of VMware vCenter is signaling it not only understands customers’ needs to be able to have a VMware administrator see, map and provision storage from one single console but also that it intends to protect their investments in EMC platforms,” said Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst, ESG.

Wyse launches Z class thin client family. Wyse Technology announced the Wyse Z90D7 and Z90DW thin clients are now shipping. Wyse also introduced two new Linux-based members of its Z class family – the Wyse Z50S and Wyse Z50D. The Z class clients are available with AMD G-series Fusion accelerated processing units, which allows it to support the most processing-intensive applications including 3-D modeling. The new models support gigabit Ethernet, wi-fi and are compliant with the ENERGY STAR version 5.0 Thin Client specification. “Being able to combine power and performance in such an easily-managed device is something we are extremely proud of,” said Param Desai, Sr. Director, Product Management, with Wyse Technology. “With the availability of Wyse Z class we’ve more than doubled the performance capabilities of competing top-of-the-line thin clients with similar energy requirements.”

F5 and VMware combine to help migration and desktops.  F5 Networks (FFIV) announced enhanced capabilities for data center-to-data center live migration and desktop virtualization deployments. Combining F5 BIG-IP products, vSphere and EMC’s VPLEX Metro customers have a globally coherent active-active storage virtualization platform.  F5 also introduced capabilities to help customers further accelerate virtual desktop environments. “Our technology partnership with F5 continues to produce value for joint customers seeking to implement dynamic virtual desktop infrastructure solutions,” said Raj Mallempati, Director, End-User Computing Product Marketing at VMware. “Through focused integration efforts, we’re able to offer organizations the ability to perform live migrations between data centers and efficiently scale VMware View virtual desktop deployments. BIG-IP solutions extend the capabilities of VMware View solutions, helping customers further automate and configure application and desktop delivery infrastructures to ably support their cloud environments.”

Fusion-io unveils ioCache virtualization. Fusion-io (FIO) announced their ioCache solution customized to deliver Fusion Powered performance for the virtualization of even data-intensive enterprise applications in VMware environments, including environments that use vMotion. Featured in this solution is a new purpose-built ioMemory product dedicated to accelerating Fusion’s ioTurbine virtualization caching software. When deployed in a VMware environment, Fusion’s ioTurbine software dynamically provisions ioMemory capacity and I/O performance across multiple virtual machines (VMs) by using Fusion’s VSL OS Subsystem to house and serve data for each VM. Key benefits of ioCache include acceleration of virtualized applications, increased VM density per physical server, lowered I/O demands on the external storage, lower software licensing costs associated with fewer physical servers and lowered operational costs associated with data center floor space.”“As enterprises continue to try to meet growing demand to process more data faster through cloud infrastructures and virtualization, we believe that Fusion’s new ioCache solution will serve as a fundamental building block that provides the scalable data caching required in these environments,” said David Flynn, Fusion-io Chairman and CEO.

Radware and Vmware joint Plug-in solution. Radware (RDWR) announced a powerful, new solution that allows VMware vCloud Director users to simplify provisioning of virtual applications to include virtual ADC resources.  The joint solution enhances Radware’s vDirect plug-in which interoperates with vSphere to enable services provisioning with vCloud Director, allowing VMware vApps users to provision both application resources and a fully configured Radware virtual application delivery controller (vADC). By combining vDirect — an ADC management plug-in — with VMware vCloud Director, IT managers can provision vApps while also provisioning virtual application delivery services with the needed capacity according to the VMware vCloud Director organization SLAs. “Radware vDirect integrates with VMware vSphere to provide customers a transparent and seamless way to align Radware’s ADC fabric with VMware vCloud Director,” said Dan Chu, Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure and Services, VMware. “VMware vCloud Director end users – especially those incorporating a -cloud and IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) strategy – will benefit from vDirect as they can use the solution to accelerate the delivery and consumption of virtual IT services and deploy workloads on shared infrastructure with maximum agility.”

Virtensys PCIe-Sharing solutions.  Virtensys announced two new Virtensys VIO-4000 models: the VIO-4010 and the VIO-4012. These new products incorporate the Virtensys  PCIe sharing technology and Micron Technology’s high-performance RealSSD P300 and P320h enterprise solid state drives to help organizations remove I/O bottlenecks and extend the scale of today’s virtualized data centers. The VIO-4010 allows up to 16 servers to access a pool of shared SSDs, with each server accessing their own partition of high-performance storage. Acting as a’host cache’ it can be an extension of the hosts’s memory for swapping related functions. ”Virtensys provides data center administrators with innovative new ways to experience the benefits of enterprise SSDs through their consolidated infrastructure models,” said Gary Gentry, general manager of the enterprise division of Micron’s NAND solutions group. “By leveraging Micron’s SATA and PCIe solid-state solutions, Virtensys is able to provide customers with a fast, reliable and power efficient approach to virtualized storage.”