BrianMadden.com

Is standard RDP 7 ready for everyday desktop replacement? I’m on a mission to find out!

Brian Madden — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT

I’ve been writing about remote display protocols for over six years now. In that time I’ve written about performance, user experience, bandwidth, and latency. I’ve written about the importance of the display protocol in a desktop replacement environment , where real users will use the protocol every minute of every day. And of course I’ve played with all the various protocols in the lab. But there’s one thing I’ve never done: I’ve never actually used a...

The first “real” layering product? MokaFive’s new v2.0 looks pretty good!

Brian Madden — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:43:57 GMT

Last week MokaFive released version 2 of their desktop virtualization product (which I don’t think really has a name apart from just “MokaFive.”). If you’re not familiar with MokaFive, they’re a desktop virtualization software company that’s focused on managing client-side virtual machines. (If you’d like to see a quick demo, they were our random vendor of the week on the April 2 episode of Brian Madden TV .) MokaFive’s v2 release is a big deal because it’s quite possible the first real...

Application Virtualization Solutions Overview and Feature Compare matrix - UPDATED -

Ruben Spruijt — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:01:00 GMT

The whitepaper, Application Virtualization Solution Overview and Feature Compare matrix, will provide new and updated information about the various Application- and Desktop Delivery solutions, Application Virtualization in general and the main Application Virtualization vendors. It also includes a matrix with feature details of the different Application Virtualization solutions such as Altiris SVS, Citrix XenApp, Microsoft App-V, Vmware ThinApp, InstallFree Bridge, Endeavors...

You think $500m for XenSource is a lot? That's about what Microsoft has spent on desktop virt companies over the past few years too.

Brian Madden — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:21:00 GMT

There are a lot of people out there who think Citrix was a fool to spend $500m on XenSource . A few people think it was brilliant though. (Doug Brown had a good piece on the brilliance although I can't find it now.) I agree with Doug. Citrix paid $500m for a seat at the virtualization table, and they're definitely getting their money's worth. (Especially if you consider that the $500m was a cash and stock deal, and the rumor is that the cast portion was only around $120m.) Of course...

Microsoft’s RDP host-side rendering (Calista) plans include optional GPU offload hardware & custom chips. (Oh, and Hyper-V is required!)

Brian Madden — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT

Earlier this week I wrote about about Microsoft’s last minute change to RDP in Windows 7, where all DirectX components will now be rendered on the host . I based my post on an MSDN blog post by Microsoft employees Christa Anderson, Gaurav Daga, and Nelly Porter. In the comments of the original MSDN post, reader David Rottenberg wrote that this change was a bad idea, partially because host-side software-based DirectX rendering would be slow. Microsoft’s Guarav Daga’s response...

My 2008 prediction about VDI being ready in 2010: a mid-point status update

Brian Madden — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT

It's been exactly one year since I wrote “ Prediction: VDI will be ready for wholesale desktop replacement in 2010. Here's how we'll solve the problems to get there. ” Since that whole article was me making predictions about how things would be in two years, I thought it would be cool to do a half-way point “check up” to see whether I have any chance of being right when the June 2010 deadline hits. In case you don’t remember last year’s article,...

Microsoft makes a post-RC change for RDP7: no more client-rendered DirectX

Brian Madden — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:58:00 GMT

On Friday Microsoft announced (via an MSDN blog post ) some major changes to the way RDP will work in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is interesting because both of those products are currently available as release candidates now. These changes are NOT in the current release candidates, but will be made before RTM. So what's changed? First of all, everything we're talking about here has to do with the location of where different types of content are rendered (client-side or...

Early-bird registration for BriForum ends today!

Gabe Knuth — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:54:00 GMT

Just a quick note to let you all know that today is the last day that members of BrianMadden.com can receive the special $300 discount off the registration fee for BriForum. If you're not already a registered user, you can sign up today and still qualify! When you have a user account, contact Jackie Anderson at (781) 657-1380 to receive the discount code. We also are offering a discount to past attendees, so if you'd like to come but haven't yet made arrangements, give...

Is IBM’s new Smart Business Desktop Cloud secretly powered by Desktone?

Brian Madden — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT

Earlier this week, IBM announced its first wave of commercial cloud services . The news was a big step for them and was well covered by bloggers and via twitter, although I didn’t personally pay too much attention since I don’t really follow the cloud per se. Then I saw a couple of tweets ( 1 , 2 , 3 ... thanks Twitter RSS feed for "cloud + desktop") talking about IBM’s desktop cloud, and I thought, “What desktop cloud?” So I looked at the press release...

VDIworks releases new VDI remote desktop connection protocol. Yawn or Yay?

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT

This week, VDIworks launched a new connection protocol called VideoOverIP (VOIP? Taken. How about V/IP?) that purports to "drastically improve the user experience delivered in a hosted virtual desktop model." And while this isn't the first time that sort of thing has been advertised, rarely does an announcement from a relatively unknown company come with such promise. VDIworks was formerly the software arm of ClearCube until it was spun off earlier this year to bring ClearCube...

RedHat SPICE vs RDP vs ICA performance video

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT

I realized as I was writing today's VDIworks article that we never published the performance videos that we recorded last year when we visited Qumranet's (now Red Hat's) offices in the Bay Area. The information we got is very interesting, but publication was hung up when Red Hat acquired Qumranet, and the videos got lost in the shuffle. The test methodology was pretty simple - we wanted to see how each protocol (SPICE, RDP, and ICA) performed in a controlled...

Will Windows 7’s “offline domain join” finally rid us of all the third party “fast sysprep” functions? No :(

Brian Madden — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:13:00 GMT

One of the things that’s most annoying about the desktop virtualization industry is that we’re doing things with Windows that Windows was never really designed for. For example, we’re taking a single Windows disk image and sharing it among many (hundreds or thousands even) VMs. This is a technical challenge for so many reasons, most of which have to do with changing each cloned disk image’s domain identity (computer name, domain SID, ACLs, policies, secrets, etc.) Of...

Does startup Liquidware Labs hold the secret to VDI success?

Brian Madden — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:53:00 GMT

What happens when one of the founders of Foedus (the professional services firm VMware bought in 2008 ), the founder of Vizioncore (the software vendor Quest bought in 2007 ), and a software company called vmSight get together? You get a new company called “ Liquidware Labs ,” a software company hoping to take the guesswork out of implementing VDI solutions. Their first two products were released yesterday, and they look pretty badass. The ten-second overview of Liquidware Labs is...

Understanding all the Application and Desktop delivery solutions in 30 minutes 2.0 (UPDATED)

Ruben Spruijt — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:14:00 GMT

Last year I created a blog entry "Understanding all the Application and Desktop delivery solutions in 30 minutes". Together with this blog entry a graphical diagram of all the different delivery concepts was created as well. The Application and Desktop delivery market space is rapidly evolving in many ways. I want to share the updated (v2.0) grahical illustration and explanation with you. There are many changes made in this illustration. I am sure this diagram will cover the...

You know why I like blade workstations? Because they’re predictable.

Brian Madden — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:29:54 GMT

Can you believe that it’s been over five years since we wrote our first article comparing TS-based SBC solutions to workstation-based SBC solutions ? Of course in those days we were talking about PC blades in the datacenter rather than VMs, but the idea was the same. (Actually, we could probably go back even further. In 1998 I installed a 32-blade Cubix rack with 386 processors running Windows 95 and PCAnywhere. Each blade had its own modem, and our “connection broker” was the phone switch that...

‘This week with Brian Madden’ – a weekly column for newbies on SearchVirtualDesktop.com

Brian Madden — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:49:00 GMT

I’ve been blogging on BrianMadden.com for over six years now. What started as a blog covering Citrix thin client computing has evolved into an industry and technical site that covers the entire desktop and application virtualization landscape. This technology has obviously become much more popular over the past six years, and more and more people visit BrianMadden.com each month. Most people know that BrianMadden.com is pretty hard-core. It's really geared for the people who are doing...

VMware’s Windows desktop conundrum: do they reinforce ThinApp and go deeper into the VM, or pull out completely?

Brian Madden — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:55:28 GMT

VMware’s purchase of Thinstall last year was a big milestone for them because it was the first time they went “inside” the desktop VM. In other words, VMware has historically been all about managing the VMs themselves without really caring what was actually running within the VM. But Thinstall (now called ThinApp) was a big change for them because (1) it runs inside the VM, and (2) it’s not even a VM-specific solution. (i.e. ThinApp runs just as well on physical Windows desktops as it does in...

Citrix claims app compatibility issues in today’s world are a myth. Is this true?

Brian Madden — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:24:31 GMT

Application compatibility (or “app compat”) is one of the most important issues when architecting, designing, or implementing a desktop or application virtualization solution. After all, if you have an application that’s not compatible with your delivery solution, well, then you pretty much have no choice but to not use that solution! In the earliest days of Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame, everyone knew there were some apps that just wouldn’t work on MetaFrame. Some had issues where they...

Yay! Citrix FINALLY creates a service provider licensing program

Brian Madden — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:36:39 GMT

About five years after Microsoft announced their Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA), and just over two years since most people agreed that Citrix needed one , Citrix finally created a server provider program for companies who provide applications as a service using Citrix technologies. And as much as I want to make smart-alec comments along the lines of “it sure took you long enough!”, the reality is that this is a great program and I’m very excited that Citrix is doing it! Service...

Here are the details for the first 32 (of 56) BriForum 2009 breakout sessions

Brian Madden — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:50:31 GMT

BriForum 2009 will take place July 21-23 in Chicago. This year will be our seventh (!) conference. We both spent a lot of time this year going through the session submissions. We had more submissions than ever, which meant that while our job of picking sessions was really hard, we also have the strongest conference ever. Here’s a quick list of the sessions whose details we have posted so far. (Each session in linked to its description on Briforum.com .) By the way, starting on Monday we’re...

Project Virtual Reality Check's VMware ESX white paper: UPDATED

Ruben Spruijt — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:16:00 GMT

A few months ago, Project "Virtual Reality Check" (VRC) released four whitepapers. These whitepapers cover Citrix XenServer 5.0, Microsoft Hyper-V 1.0, VMware ESX 3.5 and bare metal platforms running Windows Server 2003/2008 x86 and x64 Terminal Services and Windows XP as VDI workload. The VMware ESX whitepaper has just been updated with AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) results. The impact of AMD Nested Page Tables (RVI is AMD's implementation of NPT) is...

Brian Madden TV #15 - VMworld melodrama, Citrix's 2000+ server test lab, and a call with triCerat

Brian Madden TV — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:24:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) Gabe and Brian start off this week's show by talking about the debacle of VMworld and whether they'll disclose that they're officially limiting the size of booths that competitors can buy at VMworld. Then Brian heads down to Ft. Lauderdale to meet with Citrix's John Dagati. John gives a video tour of Citrix's XenApp e-lab, a datacenter with over 2,000 servers where they can test over 100 million ICA logons in a single...

Why do we need "Software" client hypervisors?

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:39:00 GMT

For at the past few years, I've talked about how I think that platform hypervisors are going to move towards the hardware in the future, leaving the current market players sitting not on their own hypervisors, but on a suite of tools to manage/extend the capabilities of the built-in hypervisor on whatever piece of hardware (and therefore embedded hypervisor) is purchased. I think the same can be said for client hypervisors (called CHV from now on...unless I start getting paid by the...

After 18 months with the new names, "XenApp" is as confusing as ever

Brian Madden — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:48:00 GMT

When Citrix first announced their new product naming scheme for XenApp / XenDesktop / XenServer, I was excited. I thought the names were great. The were related to each in terms of brand family while each being sufficiently different enough to describe their own product. Sure, there was some confusion about what was what, but I thought that was temporary as people dealt with the transition. 18 months later, a lot of people are confused as ever. So much so that I'm started to wonder if the...

If Symantec buys a client hypervisor, they could dominate the desktop virtualization market in two years

Brian Madden — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:55:00 GMT

We’ve spent the past year or so talking about when (or whether) desktop virtualization will take off and replace most corporate desktops. (And just a reminder, the term “desktop virtualization” on BrianMadden.com includes ALL methods of separating OS management from the client device, including VDI, client hypervisors, OS streaming, server-based computing, etc.) Today’s full-on desktop virtualization successes are limited, with most people using Citrix or Terminal Server...