BrianMadden.com

NVIDIA announces new virtualizeable GPU to power high graphics VDI

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Last November I wrote an article about NVIDIA's "Monterey" project where they were researching how they could use GPUs to enhance the VDI remoting experience. They talked about multiple goals, including (1) using GPUs to do super fast, high quality, hardware-based encoding of the remoting protocols for general desktop users, and (2) providing "real" GPUs to VDI virtual machines so users can use any app that requires a GPU. Fast forward to this week at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference (that...

Thin Client madness - NComputing's HDX SoC and Wyse Xenith 2 debut & analysis

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:34:00 GMT

We already posted our article and video of HP's 13-watt PoE All-in-One thin client from Citrix Synergy last week, and we actually have a few more interesting videos from Wyse and NComputing. Wyse was showing off Xenith 2, which has been reworked with a System-on-Chip architecture. It's not the HDX SoC, though, but it's the same idea. If you recall the first Xenith, it was based on a Wyse C-Class device, had a bios and on-board firmware, which had zero client purists up in arms. Xenith 2 is...

Citrix Synergy 2012 - NComputing shows their HDX SoC

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:07:00 GMT

I had a chance to catch up with Mike Pagani at NComputing to talk about their new HDX System-on-Chip offering. NComputing is using this as their first foray into mainstream thin clients, having previously focused on their own solutions (which they still do). (Please visit the site to view this media)

Citrix Synergy 2012 - Wyse shows off Xenith 2, talks Stratus

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:57:00 GMT

Wyse's Jeff McNaught took some time out to show us Wyse's new Xenith 2 terminal as part of Wyse's last hurrah as an independent company (the deal with Dell closes soon). There's some talk about how Wyse Stratus fits in, and how things will look post-acquisition. For Xenith 2, it appears that Wyse took to heart some of the criticisms from the first Xenith and created a more streamlined device. It still only supports XenApp/XenDesktop, though. (Please visit the site to view this media)

Podio feels like another portal, Citrix could make it into the "desktop" of the future

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:01:00 GMT

The Podio acquisition announcement and subsequent demo at Citrix Synergy last week brought on a lot of applause, and while that was going on, Brian and I looked at each other and shrugged. We were both thinking the same thing: "Been there, done that." The closest thing that comes to mind when watching the short demo is that Podio looks an awful lot like Sharepoint with a Facebook theme on it, but there has to be more to it than that, right? In fact, it brought back memories of the last time...

Is Citrix going to compete with Good Technology now?

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:31:42 GMT

Jack Madden has an interesting post on ConsumerizeIT.com where he looks at all the announcements from Citrix Synergy last week and wonders whether Citrix will end up competing with companies like Good Technology? (If they do, Gabe joked that the ad tagline should be "Citrix: Great, not Good.") The basic idea is that CloudGateway 2 will have the capability to wrap native mobile apps with encryption and policy controls. And Jack noticed that in the keynote, Brad Peterson's iPad had a native iOS...

New HP all-in-one thin client powers both the system and monitor via PoE! (with video demo)

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:48:00 GMT

One of the coolest things at Citrix Synergy last week was a new all-in-one thin client from HP. ("All-in-one" means that the monitor and thin client are integrated into a single unit.) Ordinarily I don't get too excited about thin clients, and all-in-one thin clients have been around for years. What makes this one special is that it's completely powered via Power over Ethernet (PoE), so all it needs is the Ethernet wire plugged in. You don't need a power outlet. (To be clear—both the...

Brian & Gabe LIVE Special Edition: Shawn Bass joins the gang to discuss the Citrix Synergy 2012 keynote

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:01:00 GMT

We had a special edition of Brian & Gabe LIVE this week around Citrix Synergy. The Synergy opening keynote itook place from 10:30-12:30 today, so we did a live show to discuss everything we've heard and provide some analysis of the news. Shawn Bass joined to give his thoughts! Topics included: Is Citrix Project Avalon a big deal or not? VDI and cost savings SoC HDX-ready thin clients HP’s all-in-one SoC thin client powered by 13 watt power-over-ethernet. (That 13 watts includes the...

Citrix Synergy 2012 opening keynote live blog, today at 10:30 PST / 1:30 EST

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:42:00 GMT

12:35 Okay, keynote is over. Now we're heading over to the studio for a special edition of Brian & Gabe LIVE (our live internet radio show). We're going on at 1pm PST / 4pm EST today (25min from now) to discuss what we learned in the keynote. Join / listen live here . 12:29 Here's the "one more thing" moment. He says this time it's the biggest announcement of the conference. It's "Project Avalon," about delivering Windows apps and desktops as a true cloud service. He says that current...

I was wrong about how VMware View 5.1's new "Storage Accelerator" works. It's way cooler than I thought!

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:24:00 GMT

Last week VMware announced View 5.1. One of the major new features is this thing called "View Storage Accelerator," or "VSA." In my article about View 5.1 , I wrote that I wasn't particularly excited about VSA. It turns out I didn't fully understand how it worked. If you're not familiar with VSA, it's the productized implementation of a feature of vSphere 5 called "Content-Based Read Cache." When enabled, the vSphere hypervisor allocates some amount of RAM to act as a read cache for disk blocks...

Setting the stage for Citrix Synergy (Make a prediction and you could win a signed book!)

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:01:00 GMT

With just a few days to go before Citrix Synergy, I thought it would be wise to use today's post to take a look at what we expect to see next week. Synergy doesn't start until Wednesday, but Monday and Tuesday are already full for us with meetings and, well, more meetings. In fact, by the time we get to the opening keynote on Wednesday, it'll be nice to sit and let someone else do the talking! So, with that schedule, now seems to be the best time to do this. We thought we'd have a little fun,...

VMware announced View 5.1, plans to deliver seamless apps via PCoIP and full desktops via HTML5

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

[UPDATED MAY 4] Corrected info about how the View Storage Accelerator Works Today VMware released the details of the next version of View, called version 5.1. (They also announced that Horizon App Manager is available for on-premises deployments and that Octopus is available in public beta form. Jack Madden covered both of these stories on ConsumerizeIT.com today.) In terms of major features, there's not a lot new for View 5.1. The main new thing is that vSphere's Content Based Read Cache is...

Desktone goes back to their roots, focusing only on service providers with version 5.0

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:00:00 GMT

It appears that Desktone is reinventing themselves again, or at least going back to their roots. Just about a year ago, Brian wrote an article about how they'd re-tooled and are now going to sell DaaS solutions direct to businesses instead of trying to sell to huge service providers. That's changing again, with a focus shift back towards the service providers. I had a call with Peter McKay today, who you may remember was a guest on Brian & Gabe Live a few months ago. In the call,...

Brian & Gabe LIVE #27: Guest Jeff Fisher talks about RES HyperDrive, Gabe & Brian argue about VPNs

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 01 May 2012 04:46:00 GMT

This week we were joined by RES Software's Jeff Fisher, who will address the accusations that RES mislead people by saying they developed their Hyperdrive on-premise cloud-like storage product. (Last week AppSense accused them of white labeling it without telling anyone.) On today's show: HyperDrive does happen to be based on NomaDesk, but RES made changes on the backend. They created a virtual appliance version, added SQL integration, and added AD integration. Brian and Gabe discuss...

The REAL reason Microsoft Windows RT devices won't be able to join AD domains. (Hint: AD is not about systems management anymore!)

brian@brianmadden.com — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:05:00 GMT

By now you've probably heard that the final name of the version of Windows 8 that will run on ARM-based systems will be called "Windows RT." (I have no idea what the "RT" stands for or why there's no "8" in the name like the x86 versions.) Also you've probably heard that Windows RT will not support the ability for the devices to be added to Windows domains. Windows RT's lack of domain support has launched a firestorm of complaints and speculation, including a conversation on Slashdot suggesting...

Would Citrix + Mobilisafe be the match Jack is looking for?

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:01:00 GMT

Earlier this week, Jack speculated about which Mobile Application Management (MAM) companies might be ripe for the picking by Citrix. With such a focus on delivering apps to any device, it seems to make sense that Citrix formally enters that space. I say formally because, in a way, Citrix Receiver already provides some features of MAM platforms, with the isolation of corporate apps and data from the device itself. As the application landscape evolves beyond Windows to include more SaaS and...

Friday roundup: Let's talk about Citrix, mobile application management, and Google Drive

brian@brianmadden.com — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This week had a lot of interesting stories that I kept on thinking about, so I wanted to recap them all one more time: Citrix First off, many people are wondering what Citrix's new mobile application management (MAM) capabilities will look like. Over the last few weeks, it's become clear that Citrix will be adding some sort of MAM to Cloud Gateway, on the heels of the ShareFile Follow-Me-Data features Read More......(read more)

Google Drive represents the future. Unfortunately that future is really far away.

brian@brianmadden.com — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:14:00 GMT

You probably heard that Google entered the cloud-based file sync race yesterday by releasing Google Drive . At first glance, Google Drive seems to be a head-on competitor to services like Dropbox or Box, but after reading the announcement it looks like there's more to it than just file sync. Like the other cloud-based file sync services, Google Drive has a client agent that you install on your Mac or Windows client which keeps a folder in sync across all your computers and the cloud. There's...

Brian & Gabe LIVE Special Edition: Reps from Intel and Wanova talk about desktop virtualization and management

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:01:00 GMT

On today's special edition of Brian & Gabe LIVE, we welcomed representatives from Intel and Wanova into our San Francisco studio to participate in a special discussion on desktop virtualization and desktop management from two companies that are leaders in that space. (Please visit the site to view this media) Part of the Virtual Desktop Library on...

Un-managing all your endpoints: Treat everything as insecure and you don't need to manage devices anymore!

brian@brianmadden.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

With consumerization or even desktop virtualization, organizations are faced with the new issue of dealing with all these devices coming in on the same network. We have our managed corporate devices on the corporate LAN, and many organization's approach to wireless devices is to stick an access point on the network and let users connect to it. Some people may laugh at that, but the truth is that it Read More......(read more)

Brian & Gabe LIVE #25 - Part 4: Brian is convinced Active Directory is dead

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:28:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) Listen to the whole show here! Transcript: Brian Madden: So we talk about, so we have managing the device versus managing the personality or the applications on the device, and this is a conversation, I look at app virtualization versus SMS or System Center, or look at managing like delivering apps and data versus, like, pushing out patches and owning the device. Or even, Jack, like in your space, like mobile device management, MDM...

Brian & Gabe LIVE #25 - Part 3: We discuss how clueless Microsoft's new licensing and tablets strategy is

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:27:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) Listen to the whole show here! Transcript: Brian Madden: And nor can they afford to sell at a loss because all the app store stuff goes to Microsoft, not to them, So – And no consumer – Rodney Medina: Yeah. Brian Madden: Like what – Is your grandmother gonna buy – I mean, what consumer in their right mind, besides – Because if you hate Apple, you probably hate Microsoft, too. And you’ve got,...

Brian & Gabe LIVE #25 - Part 2: Rodney Medina gives his thoughts on Windows RT

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:23:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) Listen to the whole show here! Transcript: Brian Madden: Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about that. And, and the voice you’re hearing is Rodney Medina, CTO of Immidio, joining us from Amsterdam. And also we’ve got Gabe in Omaha and Jack and me, Brian Madden, in San Francisco. Jack Madden: Sure do. Brian Madden: And incidentally, in the chat room, Flippy the Clown, who is actually a known person on our site,...

Brian & Gabe LIVE #25 - Part 1: Rodney Medina drops in to talk about Microsoft UE-V and Immidio

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:19:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media) Listen to the whole show here! Transcript: Brian Madden: My name is – Gabe Knuth: How you doing? Brian Madden: Hey. My name is Brian Madden and coming from San Francisco. That was Gabe you heard, I notice wearing your Ohio State gear. Gabe Knuth: My wife makes fun of me because she thinks it’s all I have. And she may be right. Brian Madden: Right. She’s making fun of you because that’s all you...

Brian & Gabe LIVE #25: Immidio's Rodney Medina joined us and we talk about Microsoft licensing and Windows RT

brian@brianmadden.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:01:00 GMT

Happy Tuesday! Today we welcomed Rodney Medina on Brian & Gabe LIVE. Rodney is a Microsoft MVP, BriForum speaker, and expert on App-V and user profile virtualization. He's currently the CTO of Immidio Software. Our topics included: Microsoft's User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) Immidio Flex Windows RT (WOA) Microsoft's plan (or lack thereof) on tablets Microsoft Licensing Active Directory in the cloud Video: Part 1: Rodney Medina drops in to talk about Microsoft UE-V and...