How’s this test of the Windows Live Essentials Writer look?  Windows Live Essentials, of course, is the tool toutes 'better than Mac for photos, hands down' by Brian Hall, General Manager of WIndows Live for Microsoft.

We shall see.

This is one of the first major technology developments specific to services designed for VDI of which I am aware.  Is this an indication that there is more market focus on VDI?

Trend Micro Monday is announcing an updated endpoint security product designed to go beyond protecting Windows environments to safeguard virtualized desktops based on Citrix XenDesktop and VMware (VMW) View.

Link here.

The Kentucky Department of Education is replacing its e-mail servers with a free cloud-based offering from Microsoft (MSFT), one that will supply 700,000 students, faculty and staff with e-mail and other information-sharing tools.

Link here.

Virtualization is predicated on storage.

Worldwide external disk storage systems sales posted year-over-year growth of 17.1%, totaling $5 billion in the first quarter of 2010, according to the IDC report, released today.

Link here.

Wow, that's quite a feature set.

After unveiling the list of features that will appear in the next major release of the VMware vSphere platform (currently numbered 4.1, but likely to change in 4.5 to align with the upcoming release of View 4.5), virtualization.info can now share full details about the performance improvements introduced by some of them, like Scalable vMotion, Wide VM Numa, Memory Compression and others.

Link here.

I hate to say it, but the nail may have been hit so hard it was demolished.  Now, I'm not saying Citrix figured this out either, but for service providers or IT shops think that vBlock solves their user problems, they are wrong -- unless, of course, their user problems revolve around needing the top shelf architecture and API-driven provisioning engines for automation.

Who exactly is this [VBlock] system designed for? It surely isn’t the end user so it must be for the IT group. But if you believe what industry pundants are saying today, virtualization is all about the end user and client side of the equation. To paraphrase from Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, "IT is becoming irrelevant because it doesn’t meet the needs of the end user." So how is it that EMC, VMware and Cisco have missed the fact that IT is evolving into a Service where the end user defines the requirements and the system is built around user needs?

Link here.

 

Another step towards a Trekkie world.

Needles? Ouch. Pills? Yuck. Lasers? Awesome! This, we figure, is how a new means of delivering drugs was born. Pantec Biosolutions AG has created a device it calls the Painless Laser Epidermal System, or P.L.E.A.S.E. (We're not sure where the last E comes from, either.) P.L.E.A.S.E. is a means to deliver drugs via laser, effectively blasting tiny holes in your skin through which medication is absorbed, as demonstrated in a soothingly orchestrated video. The process is, apparently, completely painless both for the recipient and the deliverer too, thanks to a fancy touchscreen UI. The device has received marketing authorization, meaning it's able to be sold in Europe, but there is naturally no price or availability listed, so for now you'll just have to take your medicine the old fashioned way.

Link here.

I like good stories.

The funny thing about business books is that for many stories, there are countless counterexamples of management philosophies that are radically different, yet still successful. What is inspiring about Zappos.com, the world’s largest online shoe retailer, is that it is possible for a business to be founded on curiosity, built with friendship, and sustained with employee happiness. CEO Tony Hsieh’s (pronounced “shay”) retelling of the Zappos story in the upcoming Delivering Happiness is a zippy, pleasant read about a business model that doesn’t compartmentalize labor and leisure.

Link here.

Veeam doesn't have my favorite product suite, but I sure am impressed with the thinking behind this product.  One of the major challenges for IT is to connect the underlying support systems with the business units they support, especially in the minds of the business leaders.  Decisions aren't made because of the underlying technical complications of a deployment - in fact, the failings of the technology are expected to be overcome by the genius of the operators.  Business decisions are made because they lead to overcoming profit challenges and those are best defined by the business units impacting the bottom line.  Now, the only thing left is to see how it works.

Veeam Business View is an add-on that works with other Veeam products to provide business categorization for your VMware vSphere environment. Business View allows you to group, view and manage virtual machines (VMs) based on criteria such as business unit, department, location, purpose, SLA etc., instead of their VMware infrastructure location.

Link here.

vFoglight QuickView is a simple and quick-to-deploy free performance monitoring solution that provides essential alerts and data to enable administrators to quickly detect, diagnose and resolve critical issues within the virtual infrastructure.

Link here.

Brocade this week rolled out 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 8Gbps FibreChannel modules for its routers and storage-area network switches designed to increase the wire-speed density of both platforms to better support network consolidation and improve service levels.

Link here.

VMware released a window into the future of products.

VMware vSphere 4.1
VMware View 4.5
View 4.5 was planned for a Q2 launch but has been postponed.
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 4.1
VMware vCloud Service Director (vCSD) 1.0
VMware vCenter AppSpeed 2.0
VMware vCenter Lab Manager 4.x


Link here.

People first.

Nothing sells like ditching a name everyone knows.

The time has finally come: more than two years after Quest completed the acquisition of Vizioncore, it’s about to drop the brand.

Starting end of August (exactly in time for the VMware VMworld 2010 in US) Vizioncore will become Quest Software Server Virtualization Management Group.

Link here.

Check them out.

According to the new job post on Microsoft careers website, Microsoft now wants to take virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI) to the next level with different roles like Remote Desktop Web Access (RDWA), Remote Desktop Connection Broker (RDCB), RemoteApp and Desktop Publishing (RADC), Remote Desktop Virtualization (RDV) and Remote Desktop Publishing.

Link here.

Research scientists announced on Monday they had identified the missing piece of a major puzzle involving the make-up of the universe by observing a neutrino particle change from one type to another.

The CERN physics research center near Geneva, relaying the announcement from the Gran Sasso laboratory in central Italy, said the breakthrough was a major boost for its own LHC particle collider program to unveil key secrets of the cosmos.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/01/scientists-unlocks-tiny-mystery-matter/

VDI is today's SBC.  Is it a silver bullet for IT folks?  No.  More on VDI here and here.

Desktop virtualization harks back to the good old mainframe days of centralized computing while upholding the fine desktop tradition of user empowerment. Each user retains his or her own instance of desktop operating system and applications, but that stack runs in a virtual machine on a server -- which users can access through a low-cost thin client similar to an old-fashioned terminal.

Link here.

Unleash the Kraken!

The twice-a-year list of the Top 500 supercomputers documents the most powerful systems on the planet. Many of these supercomputers are striking not just for their processing power, but for their design and appearance as well.

Link here.

Trimming fat or cutting services?

HP isn't being shy about spending cash and taking big steps to reinvent itself lately: it just spent $1.2b on Palm in order to strengthen its consumer device portfolio, and now it's announcing another billion-dollar outlay designed to streamline its enterprise services business and fully consolidate its $12.5b acquisition of EDS. 

Link here.