BrianMadden.com

Our "state of the industry" survey closes tomorrow. Please take 5 minutes and fill it out.

Brian Madden — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:06:00 GMT

We're going to keep our industry survey open until Friday, so if you haven't taken it or you haven't finished yours, please take a minute to do so now . We'll share the results publicly, so the more people who participate, the more complete our understanding of the industry will be. From last week's blog post: Are you curious how many people are using products from vendors other than Citrix? Do you want to know if anyone else is doing the "double hop" method of...

The desktop and application virtualization 2008 year in review

Brian Madden — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Another year has ended. We did a "year in review" article in 2005 and 2006 (not sure what happened last year), and we thought it would be fun to take a look back at the significant events in the desktop and application virtualization space from 2008. What was 2008's main theme? If you could sum up the year with a single theme, that theme would be "desktop virtualization is here to stay." I don't want to go so far as to say that desktop virtualization is mainstream,...

The Lonely Planet for Application and Desktop delivery 2008-2009

Ruben Spruijt — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:03:00 GMT

With a wide range of application and desktop delivery solutions available, determining which solution can best accommodate your requirements and desires is no simple matter. What are the different Application Virtualisation solutions, which suppliers are operating in the Server Based Computing and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure segment, and which players offer applications and desktops as a service from the cloud? In this article Ruben Spruijt discusses the most widely used application and...

Citrix Project Apollo: Aero, DirectX, and OpenGL via ICA

Brian Madden — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:46:00 GMT

It's been over a year since Citrix first demoed "Project Apollo," their solution for remoting Vista Aero glass to clients. Displaying Vista Aero glass over a remote display protocol like ICA or RDP is complex, because Aero requires a GPU to render the complex graphics. (It's not as simple as just enabling the "themes" service like when you wanted to add the Windows XP Luna experience to a Windows 2003 Terminal Server.) This is essentially impossible in a multi-user...

State of the industry survey: What products and techniques do you use today?

Brian Madden — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:08:00 GMT

Are you curious how many people are using products from vendors other than Citrix? Do you want to know if anyone else is doing the "double hop" method of server-based computing? How many other companies also buy third-party profile management products? What's more popular: blades or VMs? These are the types of questions that many of us wonder about. These are the things that people talk about a BriForum and in our forums. To that end, Gabe and I have put together a "state of...

Citrix XenDesktop: Centralization Alone Is Not the Answer

Ruben Spruijt — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:20:00 GMT

Citrix XenDesktop is the desktop virtualization solution by Citrix. In this article, Ruben Spruijt discusses the advantages and disadvantages of desktop virtualization and the role that Citrix XenDesktop plays therein. What is the function of the Citrix Provisioning Server in virtualizing desktops? Desktop virtualization is developing into a serious, interesting and effective desktop delivery platform. According to Ruben Citrix is at the forefront when it comes to the development and acceptance...

Ericom's True Media Experience, or Reverse Seamless Windows

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:39:00 GMT

Earlier this week, I had a briefing with Ericom and came away with an interesting bit of information about their upcoming PowerTerm Webconnect release. "True Media Experience," which uses a technology developed by Ericom called Reverse Seamless Application (RS) technology is a feature that takes application windows from the client device and laces them in seamlessly with their virtual desktop session, even preserving the z-order of each window (even alt-tab works). By running certain...

XenApp 5 Feature Profile - Citrix Universal XPS Printer Driver

Gabe Knuth — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:58:00 GMT

I hate printing. Sadly, it's one of those necessary evils like backups, patch Tuesday, and renewing your driver's license (where I've actually helped fix a printer...sigh). That said, among the many changes in XenApp 5, Citrix has added some printing enhancements. In addition to the normal, EMF-based Universal Printer Driver (UPD) and the ubiquitous PCL drivers that we've come to know over the different names and versions, Citrix has included a new feature...

CherryPal - A cloud-based computer for $249

Gabe Knuth — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:12:00 GMT

This morning I was checking out Digg and saw a post about something called a CherryPal. Thinking maybe it had something to do with CherryOS, I decided to check it out. What I found had nothing to do with a PowerPC emulator for the PC. In fact, the CherryPal is a device used to connect users to a cloud (not "The" Cloud, since that doesn't exist). In the fifteen minutes since I first heard about CherryPal, here's what I've found out: The initial...

VDI, VDI+, VDI.next... Really, it's all about all desktops. (And so are we!)

Brian Madden — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:44:00 GMT

Last night I was thinking about something I'd written last week. In a conversation about what is or isn't "VDI," I wrote about how the term "VDI" was evolving to what I called "VDI+", but that in five years it wouldn't be called "VDI" or "VDI+", it'd just be called "desktops," and everyone would know we were using combinations of local/remote/online/offline/streamed/whatever. In the desktop world of 2013: Some of us may...

Is offline VDI really that important? Yes! (But not for the reasons you think.)

Brian Madden — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:55:00 GMT

I was speaking with some folks yesterday about VDI and the future of our industry, and they asked me, "Why do you make such a big deal about offline VDI? Do you really think it's that important?" And actually, people wrote the same type of questions in the comments to yesterday's post , essentially saying, "look, just because a product doesn't do offline doesn't mean it's no good!" Two good points. Here are my thoughts about offline, and what's...

Application Virtualization Solutions Overview and Feature Comparison Matrix, Reloaded!

Ruben Spruijt — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:12:00 GMT

In April 2007, I released the first Application Virtualization Feature Compare Matrix, aka ‘The Matrix’. In December 2008, a new white paper is released. This document will provide information about the various application- and desktop delivery solutions, application virtualization in general, the main application virtualization vendors and a matrix with feature details of the different virtualization solutions. It’s important to understand that the vision of application and...

Citrix XenDesktop also allows streaming disk images to local laptops. So it's more than VDI, it's a "desktop delivery system."

Brian Madden — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:44:00 GMT

Citrix's Robert Hammersmith took me to task last week for pigeon-holing XenDesktop as just an old-school server-based computing product that connects to Windows XP or Vista hosts instead of Terminal Server hosts. Specifically, he wrote : Brian frequently misses the boat when he talks about XenDesktop. In fact he recently assessed that XenDesktop is just an "old school server-based computing remote desktop delivery product". To even suggest that, one has to seriously sell the...

Virtualization "virtual" events in December

Brian Madden — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Citrix held their first (or one of their first?) "virtual" trade shows last Friday, called Citrix Delivery Center live. I attended (virtually), and it was actually pretty cool. It was basically like watching a live webcast (audio + slides), although there were different forums and chat areas and vendors set up. It's certainly not replacing a real live conference anytime soon, but it was generally worthwhile and something I had running in the background all day. As it turns out,...

IBM launches Ubuntu-based VDI solution

Brian Madden — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:46:00 GMT

Kevin Goodman (founder of RTO Software , previous BriForum presenter , and co-creator of the Logon Process Wall Chart with me) gave me a heads-up about IBM partnering with VDI-vendor Virtual Bridges and Canonical , the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu Linux , to deliver an Ubuntu-based VDI solution. This is interesting because it avoids the various Microsoft licenses (Windows Vista Enterprise, VECD , and Office, just for starters), which they estimate can be $500-$800 per desktop. It seems that...

Today's VDI is like the Apple Newton. Some people loved it. Everyone else wished it was an iPhone.

Brian Madden — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:34:00 GMT

I was talking to [my now colleague] Alex Barrett a few days ago about a story she was writing on VMware View 3. Referring to my article where I said DO NOT USE VDI TODAY , she asked whether View 3 was game-changing enough that people could actually start using VDI. Before we discussed View 3, I wanted to clarify my statement where I said that people should stay away from VDI today. First of all, that statement was the second half of a sentence. The whole sentence was "Unless you have a...

XenApp 5 Feature Profile: Preferential Load Balancing

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

What is Preferential Load Balancing? Preferential Load Balancing (PLB) is a new feature included in XenApp 5 (Platinum only) that uses administrator-configured levels of importance to assign more or less CPU cycles to users and/or applications. For instance, dispatchers and their applications in a trucking company might be assigned a higher level of importance because their job is more critical to the company's day to day operations than, say, data entry people using Excel. This increased...

VMware releases their new VDI product, View 3. Here's a 60-second overview

Brian Madden — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:21:00 GMT

Today VMware released their new VDI product, called VMware View 3 . View is a complete solution, combining the hypervisor, management tools, connection broker, and everything else needed into a single product. As a complete solution, View's main competition is Citrix XenDesktop, although Quest Software, Ericom, Leostream, and others offer VDI products in this space that connect to other vendors' hypervisors. The big new features in View 3 Enhancements to RDP - including multimedia...

Farewell (for now)

Michael Keen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:47:00 GMT

This will be my last post. I'm not going to write about strategy or anything else, but more of a way to let you all know that it has been great writing content for Brian and Gabe. Back in May, Brian asked me to take what I was doing on my old blog and start writing for BM.com. I, of course, was stoked be able to share my viewpoints, best practices, etc with his following on the site. I've shared many things in those 7 months, like how to build a solid business...

A Look at Microsoft "Hyper-V Server" on a Notebook

Tim Mangan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:25:00 GMT

Summary This article is a personal look at trying the Microsoft Hyper-V Server. It is not a formal "review", but more of a personal observation, in trying to use the product differently than perhaps Microsoft intended. In this article, a look at trying the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server on a notebook computer shows that it is not for the faint of heart. Quite frankly, I don't think it is "ready for prime time" without some serious work...

Do you think VMware is catching up to Citrix in the desktop space? Balderdash! Citrix needs to catch up to VMware.

Brian Madden — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:25:00 GMT

I heard an analyst the other day who said that with VMware's View and vClient announcements over the past few months, they were finally starting to catch up to Citrix in the desktop space. "Are you kidding me?" I thought. "The tables are turned. Now it's Citrix who must catch up to VMware! " Let me qualify that statement. Saying that "Citrix must catch up to VMware in the desktop space" has variable truthiness depending on how you define the words...

How should we do product reviews on BrianMadden.com?

Brian Madden — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:24:00 GMT

One of the best things about being part of TechTarget is that Gabe and I can spent a lot more time writing. In the very old days (of 2003), I did a fair amount of honest-to-goodness products reviews. We haven't really done too many (if any?) of these in the past few years though, mainly because they take so much time. (After all, you really have to use the product to be able to honestly rate it.) That said, we'd like to get back into doing product reviews, and we'd like to ask you...

The Best of Two Worlds in App-V

Tim Mangan — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:36:00 GMT

In our latest master level training class on Microsoft App-V 4.5 in Boston last week, Christopher Cawvey asked a question that lead us down an unexpected path; through it we may have discovered a new way to deploy virtual applications to terminal servers and branch office desktops. In this article, I explain what we found. Background With the latest version of Microsoft System Center Application Virtualization (App-V for short) we have three methods to deploy the virtual...

Details about Microsoft Calista start to emerge, but much is still unknown

Brian Madden — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:34:00 GMT

It's been almost a year since Microsoft bought Calista Technologies , a non-shipping set of technologies that leverages host and client-based GPUs for 3D and multimedia remoting. Since the acquisition, Microsoft has been mum about the technology. Nevertheless, we've still learned a few things about it over the past year. So of the Microsoft folks at BriForum talked a bit about it, Tad Brockway posted a blog entry about it earlier this week, Microsoft demoed a Calista preview at WinHEC...

BrianMadden.com is now part of TechTarget

Brian Madden — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:07:00 GMT

I'm happy to announce that we have been acquired by TechTarget . This is really cool because it means that Gabe and I can focus 100% on writing and interacting with the community, and we don't have to be weighed down by all the operational minutia of running a business. For those of you unfamiliar with TechTarget, they're an IT Media Company. They have something like 60 IT-related websites, including IT Knowledge Exchange , NotebookReview.com , LabMice.net , and all those...