BrianMadden.com

Our Geek Week: VDI Shootout methodology (and how you can help)

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:06:00 GMT

The Super Bowl is over (congrats, Saints…hopefully the Browns can do that someday), and we're getting into full swing planning our VDI shootout, otherwise known as Geek Week. We've got conversations going with all of the companies involved (VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Quest, and Red Hat) about who they're sending out and when, but we've yet to formalize a test plan. I know we've asked before, but we now have a bit clearer idea of what we want to do, so I...

Brian Madden TV #28 - Interview with Benny Tritsch, "fifth vendor" voting results, and news round-up

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:28:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) In this week's Brian Madden TV, Gabe and Brian discuss Array Network's forthcoming iPhone remote desktop client, Citrix's Nirvana phone hardware spec, and the situation with RTO, Symantec, and VMware. Then Brian interviews Benny Tritsch about the products he's building at Immidio. (Note, the full interview was about 30min, although we had to cut it down to 12min for the show. We'll post the full interview tomorrow.) Finally,...

Symantec suddenly stops selling Workspace Profiles. Does this mean VMware is acquiring RTO?

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Last March, we learned that Symantec’s Workspace Profiles product was an OEM / rebranded edition of RTO Software’s Virtual Profiles . Then in September, we learned that VMware also signed an agreement with RTO Software for their Virtual Profiles product. Although VMware has yet to sell any products with RTO’s technology, Symantec has been selling “Workspace Profiles” (which is basically RTO Virtual Profiles painted yellow) for over six months now. But apparently...

Help us pick the “fifth vendor” in our VDI week

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:20:00 GMT

[UPDATED with Winner at the end of this article] Last month, Gabe and I announced that we’re planning on doing a five-day, five-product VDI shoot-out. There were a lot of great ideas in the conversation around the idea , and we’re working out the details of exactly what we’ll do and how it will work. (And we’ll share more thoughts and ask for more opinions as we get a bit closer to the week, which will take place March 8-12.) But today we have a more pressing need. In...

BriForum 2010, June 15-17 in Chicago. Registration now open.

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

After talking about BriForum 2010 for months and jockeying some dates around, we're pleased to let everyone know that we've finalized all the details for BriForum 2010 , which will take place from June 15-17, 2010 at the Chicago Hilton. 2010: Small improvements & changes from 2009 This will be our 8th BriForum, and we feel like we've got the general event down and we're not really planning on changing too much from last year. That said, we're making a few small tweaks...

Next week: exclusive video interviews with Citrix's and VMware's desktop CTOs. What questions should I ask?

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:24:00 GMT

February is "sweeps" month in the US, so we thought we should participate on BrianMadden.com with some great videos! Specifically, I'll be doing hour-long, one-on-one videos interviews with VMware's desktop CTO Scott Davis and Citrix's desktop CTO Harry Labana. Most BrianMadden.com readers are family with Citrix's Harry Labana. Harry attended BriForum, he tweets , he blogs regularly , and he often participates in the article comments on BrianMadden.com. VMware's...

Look out Pano, Sun, Ncomputing! Wyse Project Badger is their entry into the "zero client" space.

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:34:00 GMT

Details are starting to emerge about something called Wyse Project "Badger," a software solution that will challenge the so-called "zero" clients like those from Pano Logic, Sun, and Ncomputing. Badger (which should come out of beta any day now) is essentially a new version of ThinOS. And although it will probably have a new name when it's released, it will be fully backwards compatible. The big change from ThinOS to Badger is that Badger only has a 3.5mb footprint and...

iPad fever is going around, and we caught it! Is this the ultimate desktop virtualization client?

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:01:00 GMT

I wasn't going to write anything about Apple's iPad for fear of being labeled a "fanboy," but I just can't help it. Yes, I want one, even though the name kind of sucks. (iSlate was cool, I thought.) Yes, it's mostly because it's Apple and it's almost sure to rock, especially because I already love my iPod Touch, iPhone, and MacBook Pro (although I am disappointed there was no mention of Intel's i5 processors going into a future MacBook). Really what...

Everyone who needs VDI already has it

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:18:45 GMT

Citrix, VMware, and other vendors are spending millions trying to convince customers that they need VDI. The reality is that everyone who really needs VDI is already using it. There are 500-700m corporate desktops in the world. The number of VDI users is not known for sure, although it's thought to be in the single-digit millions. (For sure less than 5m, probably less than 2m.) So why aren't the other 498m users in the world using VDI? Simple. Because they don't need it! Look, if...

"A fool with a tool is still a fool"--words of wisdom in IT

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:00:00 GMT

When you've been building desktop and application virtualization solutions for so many years, you have to be blind not to spot the typical patterns which re-occur in almost every project. Actually, it's fun to identify them when you talk to your peers who've been in the same business for so long. The same themes repeat themselves: bloated expectations of virtualization, how projects are managed, the business case for automation and management tools, how people perceive IT,...

BriForum 2010 Call for Papers is officially open, you too can present!

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:14:00 GMT

We've talked a bit about BriForum 2010 in the past, which will take place June 15-17 at the Chicago Hilton. This year's BriForum will be just about the same as BriForum 2009, except we'll have real food at the party and it will take place offsite at Lucky Strike (which is where we had the party for BriForum 2007). Last week Gabe and I finalized our "call for papers" process for 2010. The main difference this year is that we're using a web form to collect responses...

Brian Madden TV #27 - 2010 trends and predictions

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) For our first episode of 2010, Brian & Gabe sat down in the same room as their very first episode from a year ago. Today's episode is about about the desktop virtualization trends that will be important in 2010. Specifically, they discuss: Client hypervisors will drive Type 2 client-based VMs too Tradition desktop management will drive desktop virtualization People will start to think about the managed versus unmanaged desktop Some kind of...

A Local User Group Goes Virtual with Virtualization Alliance

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:14:00 GMT

So I'm helping run this local user group, Virtualization Boston, here in the Boston area. Being based on Virtualization, we like to use whatever virtualization we can. Now we have decided to put on an event and make it virtually available to others. Some people have heard about it and asked me why I haven't blogged about it, so here it is. When we started a year ago, we decided that we not only wanted to work locally, but we wanted to create an alliance with...

New Free App-V Self Support Tool (and how to make friends at the helpdesk)

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:54:00 GMT

When you deploy App-V applications on laptops and pc's, expect a lot of helpdesk calls. While App-V is a mature application virtualization solution, it is interesting to see that a simple design decision does actually not make a lot of sense… One of the things that you will find out early on when actual users start working with App-V, is that sometimes they manually need to reset, preload and refresh their virtualized applications. As a result, you will need to give users access to...

Gabe's solicitation for prognostication (or, please send in your predictions for 2010!)

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:01:00 GMT

Here's your invitation (ok, I'll stop with the -tion's) to comment or email us with your thoughts/predictions for 2010. This week, Brian and I will be together at our company meeting in Boston, and while we're there, we're going to be recording our 2010 predictions show for Brian Madden TV. We each have some of our own, but I thought it would be cool to share some of the community's predictions as well. We're looking for the practical (except for the...

Is the world ready for the BYOPC / employee-owned PC?

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:17:35 GMT

We've written quite a bit about the Bring-Your-Own-PC (BYOPC) / employee-owned PC concept over the years. (Check here and here if you're not familiar with the concept.) Now that Citrix and VMware are getting closer to releasing their client hypervisors and the economic recovery means that we'll have to start fighting for good employees again, I wonder: Are we ready for the employee-owned PC? The concept looks great on paper. Employees are happier because they get to use whatever...

Why do people decide NOT to use VDI today?

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:50:00 GMT

Yesterday's conversation on BrianMadden.com was about the real-world non-BS reasons people use VDI today . So I thought a fun follow-up for today would be to have the opposite conversation where we look at the real-world reasons that customers decide NOT to use VDI. Like yesterday, I'll kick off the conversation by sharing the reasons that I've seen customers say "no" to VDI: Perception that thin client computing doesn’t work Since VDI is a form of server-based...

What are the real-world non-BS reasons people use VDI today?

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:06:00 GMT

Yesterday I had a discussion with some business-type people who weren't terribly technical and who were interested in desktop virtualization as it relates to power savings. They were generally familiar with server virtualization and equated desktop virtualization to server virtualization plus thin clients, which I guess is VDI. So anyway, they asked me point blank, "Why do people use VDI today?" My first instinct was to go into my whole elevator pitch about the advantages of...

Microsoft and Citrix...Is there a competition brewing?

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:01:00 GMT

Brian and I have been talking, most recently on Brian Madden TV, about how Microsoft and Citrix have become competitors since each has a VDI solution. With their product lines and release dates fresh in my mind, I thought I'd take a look and see if there is anything to this growing sentiment that Microsoft and Citrix are becoming "frenemies." These "Microsoft hates Citrix" rumors have been going on for so long now that I forget when they started. "Bear Paw,"...

Best practices for virtualizing terminal servers, from Project VRC Phase 2

brian@brianmadden.com — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Ruben and I are getting close to the release of the Project VRC phase 2 white paper. (Here's a primer on Project VRC if you haven't heard of it.) Although we've been discussing and presenting the best practices from the first paper around the world, it's still important to understand Project VRC’s methodology and how the results should be interpreted. This article is a preview of the next VRC whitepaper: Virtual CPUs (vCPUs) A Terminal Server is similar to a...

Round up of last week’s “Oracle might buy Citrix” rumor

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

The old rumor of Citrix getting acquired popped up again over the past few weeks when Briefing.com reported that Oracle might be interested in buying Citrix. Barron’s Tiernan Ray mentioned it on December 23, and The Register’s Timothy Prickett Morgan ran a full analysis a week later. The rumor didn’t really catch on though until yesterday when a few more folks found it and blogged about it. That led to lots of twitter conversations and kind of put the whole thing...

What’s the best configuration for WAN simulation of remoting protocols?

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Now that Gabe and I are back from the holidays, we’re getting ready to spend some quality time with several of the recently-released VDI products (both for our “ VDI Week ” and for our general knowledge and articles.) One of the first things I want to test is VMware’s software implementation of PC-over-IP that’s built-in to View 4. Most remoting protocols work great over the LAN—the real test comes when you start adding congestion and WAN-like...

RemoteApp for Hyper-V - Microsoft's single-user app solution

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:01:00 GMT

In the twixt-holiday lull last month, Microsoft threw up a blog post about a feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 called RemoteApp for Hyper-V. The blog post positioned the feature as an alternative to XP Mode on machines that aren't powerful enough to run both Windows 7 and an instance of XP at the same time. In reality, RemoteApp for Hyper-V is more than just a workaround for underpowered Windows 7 endpoints that can't run multiple OS's. It's a single-instance application...

Help us plan our week-long five-product head-to-head VDI shoot-out!

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

A few months ago on Brian Madden TV , Gabe and I briefly mentioned that we were putting together a plan for something like a VDI version of “ Shark Week .” (For those outside the US, “Shark Week” is a week-long event on the Discovery Channel where all the evening shows are about sharks. They have video, blogs, discussion, etc., and focus 100% on sharks for the week.) Gabe had the idea where he and I could do a “VDI Week” where we get together and build five...

Microsoft's Desktop Virtualization product line as of 2009

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:01:00 GMT

Last up in our rundown of the Big 5's desktop virtualization product lines is Microsoft. This is probably the most ambiguous vendor, because so many of their products intertwine to make up their solution. Many of those products have been around for a very long time, and in other capacities, so it's not easy to pick which products to focus on. To make it easier, this article will only cover the products listed on Microsoft's Virtualization Products and Technologies...