Red Hat buys Qumranet for $107M. What does this mean for KVM and SolidICE?

Red Hat announced that they've acquired VDI vendor Qumranet for $107M in cash. Qumranet only has one product—an end-to-end VDI product called SolidICE that includes a connection broker, a remote display protocol called Spice, and a...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on September 05, 2008.

Potential BriForum 2009 Chicago dates: Does July 22-24 work?

We're trying to nail down the dates for BriForum 2009. As we've written in the past, finding a venue / date combination is much more complex than we'd like it to be. Most feedback we received was that Chicago and The Navy Pier were great...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on September 03, 2008.

Google Chrome: A browser to help web apps replace Windows desktop apps?

Yesterday Google launched a beta of a new web browser they're calling "Chrome." (Windows only at this time, with Mac and Linux in the works.) Most peoples' initial responses are "Oh great, ANOTHER browser to deal with!"...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on September 03, 2008.

Lawson CEO thinks SaaS is going nowhere

ZDNet's Victoria Ho interviewed Lawson's CEO Harry Debes about the Software-as-a-Service model. Debes thinks that model is going nowhere and will be completely dead in two years. On demand? The Cloud? All overblown hype. What do you think? Is...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on September 03, 2008.

You want your IT project funded? Build a quality business case.

As part of the methodology that I wrote about in my last post, ROI and TCO analysis is part of the initial Analysis Phase, but they are part of the overall business case for IT projects.  Proof-of-Concepts will prove out the technology, but then...

Blog Post by Michael Keen on August 31, 2008.

BriForum Video - The Data Puzzle - by Jason Conger & Kevin Goodman

This week, Jason Conger announced that his project, Web Interface for Resource Manager, is no more (for the reasons, check out Jason's blog post). Instead, a new project is in the works - Project Raley (Jason names all his projects after...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 29, 2008.

EDA, VMware ESX Deployment Appliance

There are a couple of ways to automate the installation of an ESX server. Most methods are very generic though and don’t just install ESX but install a lot of different OSes, automated or not. But all of them only install the basic OS....

Blog Post by Ruben Spruijt on August 29, 2008.

Introducing XenApp 5

Yesterday morning we announced Citrix XenApp 5™. You can visit the product page for details on everything related to XenApp 5. Here you can download the updated feature matrix, XenApp 5 & Windows Server 2008 feature analysis, Top...

News item from The Official Citrix Blog, on August 26, 2008.

A Conversation with VMware's Ed Albanese and Jonathan Clark about Thinstall/ThinApp

In this second of three podcasts with VMware, I speak with Ed Albanese, Senior Product Manager, and Jonathan Clark, Senior Staff Engineer, R&D (and former CTO and Co-Founder of Thinstall) about ThinApp, the new name for recently acquired Thinstall.

Podcast by Brian Madden on August 25, 2008.

DNC and RNC leading to increased interest in Citrix Online

I was just reading a bit about the Democratic National Convention that is kicking off today in Denver, Colo. and the Republican National Convention set to kick off on September 1 in Minneapolis, Minn. To my surprise, I found myself working before I...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 24, 2008.

BriForum Video - My Applications Won't Work - Presented by Rick Mack

This week's BriForum video comes from BriForum 2008 Chicago, where Rick Mack presented a session entitled "My Application Won't Work." From the session description: This session will be a discussion of tools that are available to...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 21, 2008.

KVM should join Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program

Recently, Brian and I spent some time in Sunnyvale, Calif. working with Qumranet testing their Solid ICE VDI solution. Solid ICE uses an open-source hypervisor called KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) to host Windows XP VM's. Qumranet is the...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 20, 2008.

How did you spend your summer?

So how have you spent your summer (technologically speaking)? If you haven't noticed I've been MIA for the past month or so.  Where have I been?  No, not high on Makalu, or attempting a 5.15a pitch on North American Wall in...

Blog Post by Michael Keen on August 18, 2008.

Microsoft announces licensing changes, frugal admins rejoice!

At last, Microsoft has announced a virtualization-friendly change to the license agreements for 41 server products. The changes will allow administrators to run software on more than one physical piece of hardware, which, in the world of VMotion,...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 19, 2008.

A Conversation with VMware CTO Steve Herrod

This past May, Brian visited VMware's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif and spoke with several key people within the company. In this first of three podcasts, he speaks with Steve Herrod, CTO and Senior VP of Research & Development.

Podcast by Brian Madden on August 18, 2008.

Coming soon - the latest release of XenApp!

Get an in-depth look at the upcoming XenApp release in our first Citrix Delivery Center Live virtual event. Attend keynote sessions with live Q&A, chat live with Citrix product experts, participate in forums, network with other...

News item from The Official Citrix Blog, on August 18, 2008.

How do I update my base images in XenDesktop?

XenDesktop offers a powerful way to update all virtual desktops just by updating your shared base image.  Most of this functionality is provided via the Provisioning Server component of XenDesktop.  Some storage vendors offer...

News item from The Official Citrix Blog, on August 16, 2008.

BriForum Video - The Excruciating Detail of the XenApp Logon Process

This week's BriForum video is always a popular session during the show: The Excruciating Detail of the XenApp Logon Process (2008 Version). Brian Madden and Kevin Goodman have been doing this session since BriForum 2006 in Washington, D.C.,...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 14, 2008.

VMware Update 2 wrap-up, Plus - what can we do in the future?

It's been a few days now since VMware's VI 3.5 and ESX 3.5i Update 2 problems, so I thought it prudent to wrap up what's gone on. Those of you directly affected are probably already aware of what's gone down. As of Wednesday...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 14, 2008.

Oops! VMware's VI 3.5 Update 2 locks out customers, pulls Update 2 download.

Word on the street is that VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Update 2 and ESXi 3.5 Update 2 have been affected by a licensing bug left over from development. This bug renders any powered off machine incapable of being turned back on, suspended machines...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 12, 2008.

Brian Madden is now a Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA)

I'm often asked whether I'm Citrix-certified. For the past five years, my answer has been "no." I used to be Citrix-certified. Back in September 1998 I passed the 1Y0-302 exam, "Citrix MetaFrame 1.0 Certification," with a...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on August 11, 2008.

BriForum Video - Xen vs VMware by Ron Oglesby

Back in April, I posted a session from BriForum Amsterdam comparing Xen to VMware ESX.  The only problem was that enough had changed in the time between BriForum and the release of the video that some people found it wasn't relevant.So, in...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on August 07, 2008.

New Video: App-V Sequencing with Tim Mangan, Episode 8

I know.  It's summer and there just isn't much new news until the fall.  But in addition to working on my golf swing I've been spending my summer kicking the tires of the new version of SoftGrid, or as it is now known App-V...

Blog Post by Tim Mangan on August 05, 2008.

The Clouds are Building in Iowa

It's been known for some time that Iowa was full of corn, pigs, soybeans, etc, but now it's starting to become known for data centers.  More interestingly, cloud computing data centers.  With cheap electricity (of which 8% of that...

Blog Post by Michael Keen on August 05, 2008.

BriForum 2008 DEMO Lab video podcasts now online

Those of you who attended BriForum probably noticed us filming Brian in the DEMO Lab . We were recording videos of the vendors showing off what they brought to BriForum. Links to the videos are available at the bottom of this blog post. ...

Blog Post by Jack Madden on August 04, 2008.

Symantec acquires a desktop broker. Combined with past Altiris and AppStream acquisitions, we now have another major player in the VDI space!

Looking to "redefine endpoint virtualzation," yesterday Symantec announced that they bought connection broker software vendor nSuite Technologies. Known mostly in the medical field, nSuite's Desktop Connection Broker product manages ICA...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on August 06, 2008.

Xtreaming Technology releases VHD CMS Professional 1.0 of its diskless OS-streaming product

Xtreaming Technology Inc. is a new US-invested start-up company working out of Shanghai, China investing in building diskless related products.  Their Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) product uses OS-streaming and allows any PC to boot up a full version...

Blog Post by Ruben Spruijt on July 31, 2008.

Citrix sells off the part of Ardence that isn't Provisioning Server

Just a quick note to clarify a recent Ardence/Citrix related announcement that's making the rounds this week.Yesterday, Citrix announced that it had sold off Ardence's embedded software business, which has been stuck in Citrix purgatory after...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on July 29, 2008.

Quest Software releases Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite 5.10

That's "five-point-ten"—the version after 5.9—not "five-point-one-zero." This is the first release of Provision's product that had direct feedback from Rick Mack, Jeff Pitsch, Michel Roth, and Patrick Rouse....

Blog Post by Brian Madden on July 29, 2008.

"What I learned at BriForum" Webcast - Wednesday 7/30

Our sixth BriForum conference took place in Chicago about six weeks ago. It was our biggest event yet, with over 400 people and 75 hours of technical breakout session content. A few weeks ago I was talking to another presenter, Kevin Goodman, (the...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on July 28, 2008.

BriForum Video - Technical Review of Citrix XenApp Web 5.0

Today we wanted to show some of the great content that we had at BriForum last month. In this video, Thomas Kötzing of www.ThomasKoetzing.de discusses XenApp Web 5.0, otherwise known as Web Interface 5.0 in a session titled "Technical...

Blog Post by Gabe Knuth on July 22, 2008.