This combined issue brings you a virtual cornucopia of products and ...

December 2010/January 2011 | Vol. 4 | No. 1

VirtualizationReview.com

This combined issue brings you a virtual cornucopia of products and vendors. Can you guess who dominates the RCA awards?

www.microsoft.com

By combining these two efforts, we are able to showcase both the virtualization and cloud products that you voted as your favorites.

VirtualizationReview.com | Virtualization Review | December 2010/January 2011 | 1

DECEMBER 2010/JANUARY 2011 | VIRTUALIZATION REVIEW | VOL. 4, NO. 1

VISIT VIRTUALIZATIONREVIEW.COM

contents

“I’d say virtualization is a fi rst step toward

realizing the vision of cloud

computing.”Garth Fort,

General Manager, System Center and

Virtualization Marketing Team, Microsoft

14

2 Online TOC31 Ad/Edit Index

UPFRONT6 Q&A Garth Fort Talks Cloud, Virtualization

10 Review Spoon Stirs up Application Virtualization

COLUMNS4 Hoard: BRUCE HOARD

Andres Rodriguez Plays Corporate Judo

32 Take 5: BRUCE HOARD

Storage Problems and Proposed Solutions

FEATURES14 The 2011 Ultimate

Virtualization Buyers Guide and Virtualization Review Readers Choice Awards Our readers rate products, and we reward them with the hands-down, most-informative,

must-read print guide to virtualization and cloud products.

16 Application Virtualization

18 Virtual Automation

18 Virtual Business Continuity

19 Cloud Computing

20 Desktop Virtualization/Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

6PHOTO PROVIDED BY MICROSOFT

22 Virtual Management & Optimization

24 Network Virtualization

24 Virtual PC

26 Virtualization Security

26 Server Virtualization

26 Virtualization Standards

28 Storage Virtualization

28 Thin/Zero-Client Computing

30 Virtualization Training

30 Miscellaneous Virtualization

32

READERS CHOICE AWARDS

Salesforce.com Announces Multi-platform Enterprise Cloud Database In December Salesforce.com Inc. unveiled Database.com, aimed at next-generation enterprise apps, and what the company bills as the fi rst database for the cloud.

Not yet commercially available (no date was specifi ed), the database is available now for free trials.

Read more about this off ering here: VirtualizationReview.com/Schwartz1210

USDA Buying Microsoft Cloud ServicesAccording to Chris Smith, the chief information offi cer for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 120,000 users will move to Microsoft Online Services, consolidating 21 diff erent messaging and collaboration systems into one. The USDA is aiming to save money and improve effi ciencies that build on existing infrastructure. VirtualizationReview.com/Yasin1210

2 | December 2010/January 2011 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com

what’s [email protected]

VIRTUALIZATIONREVIEW.COMDECEMBER 2010/JANUARY 2011 ■ VOL. 4 ■ NO. 1

EDITORIAL STAFF

Vice President, Editorial Director Doug Barney

Editor in Chief Bruce Hoard

Managing Editor Wendy Gonchar

Associate Managing Editor Katrina Carrasco

COLUMNISTS

David Davis

Rick Vanover

ART STAFF

Creative Director Scott Shultz

Art Director Brad Zerbel

ONLINE/DIGITAL MEDIA

Editor, VirtualizationReview.com Michael Domingo

Director, Online Media Becky Nagel

Site Administrator Shane Lee

Designer Rodrigo Muñoz

President Henry Allain

Vice President, Publishing Matt N. Morollo

Director, Marketing Michele Imgrund

Online Marketing Director Tracy S. Cook

President & Chief Executive Offi cer Neal Vitale

Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Offi cer Richard Vitale

Executive Vice President Michael J. Valenti

Senior Vice President, Abraham M. Langer Audience Development & Digital Media

Vice President, Christopher M. Coates Finance & Administration

Vice President, Erik A. Lindgren Information Technology & Application Developement

Vice President, Carmel McDonagh Attendee Marketing

Vice President, Event Operations David F. Myers

Chairman of the Board Jeff rey S. Klein

Reaching the Staff

Staff may be reached via e-mail, telephone, fax, or mail.A list of editors and contact information is also available

online at VirtualizationReview.com.

E-mail: To e-mail any member of the staff , please use thefollowing form: [email protected]

Framingham Offi ce (weekdays, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET)Telephone 508-875-6644; Fax 508-875-6633

600 Worcester Road, Suite 204, Framingham, MA 01702

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16261 Laguna Canyon Road, Suite 130, Irvine, CA 92618

Corporate Offi ce (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. PT)Telephone 818-814-5200; Fax 818-734-1522

9201 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311

The opinions expressed within the articles and other contents herein do not necessarily express those of the publisher.

Changing the Name of the vCenter ServerChanging the name of your vCenter Server may not be the No. 1 task on your list, but there are probably plenty of reasons why it should be done. Everyday Virtualization blogger Rick Vanover put together a comprehensive list of the steps involved so you don’t have to feel so overwhelmed. Vanover recommends that you should go “through it on a test environment confi gured as similar to your production systems as possible fi rst.” Read the entire step-by-step process online. VirtualizationReview.com/Vanover1210

Read Editor in Chief Bruce Hoard’s blog at VirtualizationReview.com/ Hoard. Topics recently covered include enhancements to the F5 Data Solutions portfolio, the release of CloudSwitch Enterprise 2.0 and a year-end look at Microsoft in the cloud. Stay on top of your game—check The Hoard Facts daily for fresh insights into the evolving virtualization market.

The Hoard Facts

VirtualizationReview.com • Redmondmag.com • RCPmag.com • RedDevNews.comVisualStudioMagazine.com • MCPmag.com • CertCities.com • TCPmag.com • ENTmag.com

RedmondEvents.com • ADTmag.com • ESJ.com

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ED NOTE

Bruce Hoard

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Andres Rodriguez Plays Corporate JudoAndres Rodriguez, CEO and cofounder of Nasuni, is a man on the move. If he’s not talking on the phone to investors or keeping customers happy with his personal touch, he’s running off to some other meeting or conversing with someone else. Good luck getting his undivided attention during lunch because everybody, it seems, wants to engage him—and why not? He’s very engaging.

He may be a whirlwind, but his ceaseless pursuit of success is the reason that at the tender age of 45, he’s already compiled a resume that most people would give anything to achieve in a lifetime. Over the past few years, he was CTO of The New York Times; cofounder and CTO for Archivas, which offered an enterprise-class cloud storage system; and CTO of Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) File Services after HDS bought Archivas.

Why Nasuni? For Andres, it’s about unfi nished business. “I wanted to complete something I started 20 years ago when I began my career in physics,” he explains. “I’m interested in two things: First, solving large data problems, like what to do with it all—what I can do to make it really easy for IT to get a better handle on the incredible reams of data they have growing in datacenters. Second, I wanted something that everybody needed. My uncles used to always tell me, ‘If you’re going to do something and sell it, make sure it’s something like underwear, which everyone needs. Don’t be fancy.’”

With that sage advice in mind, he and cofounder and President Robert S. Mason Jr. developed the Nasuni Filer. Andres says it delivers unlimited fi le storage and complete protection, and leverages the cloud’s unlimited capacity to store and protect customer fi les off-site while retaining the local functionality and performance of traditional network-attached storage. It was perfect—he had wanted something

that could be used by large and small companies alike, and, Andres notes, everybody uses fi le servers. Mission accomplished? Not yet, but the charge is on.

Although things seem to be going well so far, Andres is impatient and frustrated with the lack of knowledge concerning cloud storage. As he puts it, “I fi nd it frustrating that cloud computing gets confused with cloud storage.” In his view, this lack of awareness is a serious impediment to cloud storage companies such as Nasuni. He’s especially concerned with the perception that cloud storage is insecure, saying: “Cloud storage is really way ahead of where cloud computing is because it has the security model that allows it to basically completely protect your data once it’s in the cloud.”

Andres may be rankled, but he’s been through the awareness

battles before, so he keeps pushing forward,

undeterred. In his opinion, being a start-up is akin judo. As he puts it, in judo the

trick is to fi nd a way to defeat someone who is 10 times stronger than

you—and the way to do that is to use their own strength against them, and get them off balance. “We’re playing judo all the time with partners that are 10 times, 100 times our size,” he says.

There are other frustrations with each new day—fi nding good people who take on each new challenge with a fresh outlook, reversing bad attitudes and searching out the best cloud service providers—but Andres is up for the fi ght.

“The best you can do is think very hard about how you can put yourself in the path of enormous waves that are going to hit no matter what, and hopefully, if you do everything right, you won’t drown—but you’re never going to control when or where the waves are going,” he says.

What do you think about cloud storage? Is your company ready to move its data off-site? Tell me at [email protected]. VR

Why Nasuni? For Andres, it’s about unfinished business.

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news • trends • analysis

Q&A

Garth Fort is general managerof the System Center and Virtualization Marketing team

at Microsoft, where he’s responsible for both the System Center Suite and Forefront Client Security products. During a recent interview with Virtualization Review Editor in Chief Bruce Hoard, Fort spoke about the Microsoft migration to the cloud, the evolution of Windows Server as a vehicle for virtualization, and competition with VMware Inc., among other topics.

VR: How does Microsoft distinguish between virtualization and cloud computing? Fort: We think of virtualization as a fi rst step toward cloud computing. I think the easiest way to think about it is by visualizing a virtualized infrastructure as the fi rst step toward realizing the vision of cloud computing. Cloud computing is in some ways very closely related to a vision that we laid out around dynamic IT, where pools of resources, compute network and storage can be very dynamically allocated to applications depending on workload and need. That’s the private cloud—that’s the foundation for cloud computing. Over time, more folks like Amazon—and Microsoft in the form of Windows Azure—have started bringing out a lot of these resources with new programming and management models, so there’s a public domain with public cloud computing, and

that accelerates a lot of the conversations that our customers are having with us around the private cloud. So I’d say virtualization is a fi rst step toward realizing the vision of cloud computing.

VR: Where do we go from the virtualized datacenter? Fort: We go from there to application development on our way to the cloud. Let me frame two opposite ends of the spectrum. I think in some ways virtualization got started by taking a bunch of existing applications that were running on traditional infrastructures and wrapping them up in a virtual machine that allowed you to do a lot of very interesting things in terms of backup patching, fault tolerance, disaster recovery, etc.—but didn’t require that you actually change the underlying

architecture of the application. So if you were virtualizing SAP, Oracle or a workload like Exchange, there were a lot of benefi ts. It allowed you to consolidate to get better utilization out of your hardware, but it didn’t change the way that applications were fundamentally written.

When we look at how people are building what I’ll call “cloud-scale applications” on a platform like Windows Azure, for example, it actually presumes a change in the way you build an architecture application so it’s not tightly bound to the underlying hardware. As a result, the way you build a Windows Azure application, which is very cloud from the core, requires changes in the ways you think about accessing network computing and storage resources. It takes a lot of the middleware layer, which we call the app fabric. The system itself actually takes on a lot of responsibility for allocating those resources and the application developer can write the business logic in an abstract way that doesn’t have to be cognizant of the underlying physical resources required.

VR: Microsoft is expanding System Center so that from a single screen right from System Center Operations Manager, you can manage your apps in an on-premises virtualized environment and a hosted virtualized environment in Windows Azure. What are the implications of that?Fort: For that matter, it could be Windows Azure or another third party that’s running that application. We have a lot of partnerships with big guys that do that. My crystal ball’s not perfect, but when we look out fi ve years to see what’s happening with hardware, we think of the growth of the public cloud—so

Garth Fort Talks Cloud, VirtualizationThe Microsoft marketing meister describes a team effort in Redmond.By Bruce Hoard

Garth Fort, General Manager, System Center and Virtualization Marketing Team, Microsoft

Two virtualized IBM Power® 730 Express systems can easily handle the workload of 36 existing scale-out HP ProLiant DL360 G5 servers. Yet many organizations might not consider an 18:1 consolidation job because of the typical up-front cost associated with higher-end systems like Power. The math underlying that assumption has changed. Today, two Power Express systems can cost less than the annual software subscription and support on 36 HP ProLiant servers, while consuming up to 92% less energy and using up to 89% less rack space.1 In addition, the two Power systems may cost up to 26% less than migrating to the latest HP x86-based servers.2 Can systems be built to do more for less? On a smarter planet they can. ibm.com/power7

Smarter systems for a Smarter Planet.

The new math of consolidation.

1. Annual software maintenance costs on the 36 existing scale-out HP ProLiant DL360 G5 servers include Linux server support and WebSphere subscription and support. IBM Power 730 Express systems include the cost of the systems, operating system, virtualization and middleware subscription and support for 3 years. 2. Comparison based on consolidating 36 unvirtualized HP ProLiant DL360 G5 servers to fi ve virtualized HP ProLiant DL380 G7 systems and assumes the WebSphere licenses transfer to the HP ProLiant DL380 G7 systems. Actual performance, cost savings and energy usage referenced in this ad will vary depending on client actual implementation. Contact IBM to see what we can do for you. See www.ibm.com/power7/claims. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Power, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of IBM Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. © International Business Machines Corporation 2010.

www.ibm.com


Coming next issue: Datacenter updateUpFront

services providers that are building these public cloud infrastructures and putting a lot of hardware capacity into operation there will grow faster than the overall market. This will become a bigger part of the overall server landscape, but still be less than 20 percent of the total hardware run rate. From a customer perspective, we did a survey where we talked to several thousand customers and asked them how they think about adopting the cloud. Specifi cally, we asked: “In the next three to fi ve years, do you think

you’re going to be entirely on-premises, entirely in the cloud or somewhere in between?” Of our customers, 85 percent came back and said they’d likely be in this hybrid mode where they’re going to continue to have a lot of their on-premises infrastructure, but be opportunistically taking advantage of the public cloud to move some of their workloads over there.

That infl uenced the way we thought from a System Center point of view. What you’ll see, for example, is we have a management pack for Windows Azure that’s coming out in the next quarter or so. We demonstrated that onstage in Las Vegas back in April. What we’re hearing from customers is that they want to have that single pane of glass that allows them to manage both their on-premises and their public cloud infrastructures. Today we’re going to start with the ability to do things like monitor your applications, but over time we’ll be building capabilities into System Center that will allow you to actually provision or even move applications

from on-premises to the public cloud and then back again.

VR: How is System Center, as part of Windows Server, competitively superior to VMware?Fort: It’s different than VMware. We’ve taken a couple of different points of view on this. One, we started from a very rich heritage in terms of understanding both the physical and the virtual, where I think VMware viewed everything from a purely virtualized standpoint. Getting a little more tactical, we’ve taken a view that

says, for a lot of our customers running Windows Server in their datacenters, they’re running a multi-hypervisor environment. System Center Virtual Machine Manager, for example, is cross-hypervisor. We can understand and manage guests running in ESX, as well as in Hyper-V and third parties like Xen, so we’ve taken an explicitly multi-hypervisor approach to the management tools that we’re building, which is of course very different from the way VMware has approached it.

VR: How does System Center make Hyper-V a better product?Fort: The easiest way to think about it is, we work together with customers to understand where we need to be to make platform enhancements to the underlying hypervisor and how we can expose those to the user. The team that built System Center also built a lot of the core management infrastructure that ships as part of Windows, including things like Windows Management Instrumentation and PowerShell. So,

as we think about the next generation of Windows and the work that Mike Neil’s team is doing—Mike is general manager of Windows Server and Server Virtualization—we’re providing a lot of stuff we call inbox manageability. [Inbox manageability means] that, as you buy a straight copy of Windows Server with Hyper-V and you want to stand that up without buying System Center, there’s going to be a lot of functionality in terms of how you manage and exercise the virtualization capabilities that will just ship as part of Windows. That’s going to be delivered by the same team that eventually builds a higher-end tool for Virtual Machine Manager and then System Center on top of that, so it’s a very close engineering relationship.

VR: How does Microsoft make it easy for both its large business partners and small ecosystem partners alike to move into virtualization?Fort: From a management perspective, we released in April a new product called System Center Essentials, which is specifi cally designed for companies that have up to about 50 servers and about 500 desktops. This is a product that’s really had a strong uptake in the market. It’s priced in an incredibly affordable way, and it appeals to many of these guys who have felt like virtualization was outside of their reach. So if you’re upgrading your infrastructure to Windows Server 2008 R2 and so on, we’re giving you a set of tools that allows you to manage the physical and the virtual. It allows you to manage your desktop and your datacenter, and do it all from one pane of glass in a way that’s very approachable for your average IT shop. VR

Bruce Hoard ([email protected]) is editor in chief of Virtualization Review.

Q&A

“My crystal ball’s not perfect, but when we look out five years to see what’s happening with hardware, we think of the growth of the public cloud.”

www.veeam.com


Check out our CTO blogsUpFront

In addition to the usual categories of virtualization, such as hypervisors and storage

virtualization, a new category promises to bypass the OS and virtualize applications by running Windows applications without the need to install them.

Spoon Server and Spoon Studio are a package designed to make it simple and straightforward to run a Windows application from anywhere, without downloading software or installing the application on the local

system. This enables legacy applications that might require older versions of Windows to run on Windows 7, including older versions of Internet Explorer, games and custom applications.

Applications are selected through an application portal. Once the small Spoon plug-in is installed and the application is started, it seems to run on the local system, providing the same user experience as the application would if installed in the normal manner but without a lengthy download or installation process.

Spoon Server corresponds to an application server such as Tomcat, running a Java application that emulates the actual application and

the essential features of the OS necessary to run it. There’s no need for the application to access the local host OS to create registry entries or install device drivers, and it doesn’t require administrative privileges to load or run applications. Spoon Server runs on Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2, Windows Vista and Windows 7, and supports either x86 or x64 versions.

Spoon Studio is the engine that processes Windows applications, preparing them for access via the

Spoon Server. The studio uses templates that can be downloaded from the Spoon Web site to create virtual versions of standard applications; custom applications can also be packaged manually.

The process of virtualizing an application manually can be complex. Fortunately, many application templates that automate the process are available from Spoon. If there’s no template available, the process involves capturing the OS state before and after an application is installed. The Spoon Studio tracks what DLLs are installed, where application fi les are stored, what runtime environments (such as the Microsoft .NET Framework or Java)

are installed, what changes are made to the registry and more. All of these changes are stored in a sandbox, which simulates those on the client system without actually requiring that changes be made to the local fi lesystem or registry.

Easy App AccessApplications can be easily accessed through a Web portal without the need for local installs, or they can be installed locally to make them available offl ine. Because each application runs in a sandbox that provides the necessary OS components and device drivers, it’s entirely possible to run applications from older versions of Windows (Windows XP or Windows 2000, but not Windows 95 or Windows 98) on Windows Vista or Windows 7, ensuring a smooth migration path without having to buy new versions of applications and convert fi les. Spoon Studio can virtualize applications created to run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008 or Windows 7.

Applications can also be installed on a USB or fl ash drive, and run on any Windows system, enabling road warriors to access standard corporate applications. Applications can be set to expire, enabling the administrator to give a contractor access to a necessary application and then terminate it once a job is completed.

Virtual applications can be run from standard browsers, including IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. There’s a Spoon plug-in that’s required to access the virtualized applications, but it’s small and loads quickly (there was no measurable impact on system performance in my tests). Virtualized applications run as fast—and in some cases, faster—than standard applications installed locally.

REVIEW

Spoon Stirs up Application VirtualizationPackage makes it easy to run Windows applications from anywhere.By Logan Harbaugh

Applications can be easily accessed through a Web portal without the need for local installs, or they can be installed locally to make them available offline.

www.f5.com


Coming next issue: Storage virtualizationUpFront

When an application is virtualized, the normal installation process runs, including registration and entering the software key (if applicable). Applications that look for multiple users sharing a single key may not work correctly; this includes many Microsoft apps. You may need to switch to a site license in these cases.

During the installation of Spoon Server, two HTTP ports are specifi ed: one for the application portal and one for the administration portal. By default, port 80 is specifi ed for the app portal and port 81 is specifi ed for the admin portal. The admin portal doesn’t use HTTPS by default and doesn’t require a log-in. This is because the recommended procedure in the Spoon manuals to secure the portals is to enable a Windows fi rewall on the system hosting the server and then grant exceptions to users for one of the portals. It would be nice to see integration with Active Directory and standard Windows security.

The admin portal provides the features you’d expect, allowing for the creation of applications, the installation of additional portal servers, reporting tools and user administration. Reports depict application usage by application or user, and allow access to logs and alerts for basic troubleshooting.

Spoon recommends creating a virtualized application on a freshly installed copy of Windows in order to ensure that unnecessary DLLs or software modules aren’t inadvertently picked up along with the necessary ones. This can be done in a virtual machine environment so that reverting to a clean image is simplifi ed. It also recommends optimizing the application by removing unnecessary features before taking the second snapshot. This will speed up loading and

execution of the application, though it may also make some features unavailable. Spoon recommends

installing on the earliest version of Windows you expect to use in order to support the application; some apps may require multiple snapshots for different OSes.

PipeliningSpoon introduces a process it calls pipelining, which uses three separate OS installs—one each on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7—with the application installed on each OS, to capture a single snapshot that will have maximum compatibility. This is most useful when the applications use OS features that aren’t available in all OS versions, as the fi nal merged, virtualized app will combine the features available from all three OS versions in one application.

Apps requiring frequent software updates from the manufacturer will be more diffi cult to virtualize because each update requires a new snapshot that captures the difference between the basic application and the application after the update. Because this must be done manually after each update, applications that update frequently will introduce a lot more work for the administrator. If OS updates affect application functionality (such as a major change to the .NET runtime framework), the administrator will need to create a fresh snapshot, as well.

Spoon Server and Spoon Studio are priced separately. Spoon Studio costs $2,395 and $495 per year for

maintenance. Spoon Server 2010 Standard Edition with 10 end-user licenses is $1,595. The Spoon Server 2010 Standard Edition End User License 5-Pack is $395. The Spoon Server 2010 Standard Edition End User License 20-Pack is $1,425.

Spoon Server and Spoon Studio combine to present applications to end-users in a simple, easy-to-use way that bypasses the usual installation considerations. Many organizations will fi nd the price of $2,395 plus $495-per-year maintenance to be much less than the savings they will realize. However, a lack of integration with standard Windows security and a cumbersome process for updating applications once virtualized may put some admins off. Those willing to make the investment in working through these issues will fi nd a system that can enable a seamless transition from Windows XP or Windows Vista to Windows 7, as well as other unique advantages for admins supporting traveling workers or contractors. VR

Logan Harbaugh is a freelance reviewer and IT consultant located in Redding, Calif. He has been working in IT for almost 20 years, and has written two books on networking and many articles for IT publications. You can reach him at [email protected].

REVIEW

Spoon recommends installing on the earliest version of Windows you expect to use in order to support the application; some apps may require multiple snapshots for different OSes.

www.quest.com

READERS CHOICE AWARDS


FEATURE | The 2011 Ultimate Virtualization Buyers Guide and Virtualization Review Readers Choice Awards


The 2011 Virtualization Review

Readers Choice Awards

Ultimate Buyers Guide

By Bruce Hoard

Our readers rate products, and we reward them with the hands-down, most-informative, must-read print guide to virtualization and cloud products.

and



Welcome to the combined 2011

Virtualization Buyers Guide and

Virtualization Review Readers

Choice Awards. By combining

these two editorial efforts, we are able to

showcase both the virtualization and cloud

products that you voted as your favorites

and many others that will be vying for your

attention during the coming year. All told,

we amassed some 211 products from 106

vendors, and placed them in 15 categories for

both the Readers Choice Awards and Ultimate

Virtualization Buyers Guide.

Regarding the Readers Choice Awards,

VMware dominated the competition, fi nishing

fi rst in 10 of the 15 categories, and second in

another. The market leader took the top spot in

everything from Server Virtualization to Best

Virtualization Training Vendor. Can you say

juggernaut?

Turning to the Ultimate Virtualization Buyers

Guide, we extensively surveyed an industry-

wide list of vendors, capturing their most

recent products and pricing. We also combed

through submissions from last year’s guide and

culled out and updated many offerings that are

still relevant. For more detailed information,

you’ll want look at the expanded PDF version

of the guide, which features expanded

product descriptions, and is accessible at

VirtualizationReview.com/2011RCABG.

Application Virtualization

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware ThinApp 4.5 – VMware Inc. (43.6%)$5,000 ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerCitrix XenApp 6 – Citrix Systems Inc. (41.9%)Starts at $350 per concurrent user ■ citrix.com ■ 800-424-8749

Merit Award WinnerParallels Virtuozzo Containers — Parallels (3.8%)Call for price ■ parallels.com ■ 425-282 6400

This is a big win for VMware in a category where Citrix is extremely well-established with its XenApp product, which has been around for many years. ThinApp no doubt benefi ted from its ability to ease the migration of existing apps to Windows 7. Merit Award winner Citrix was joined by Parallels, which fi nished a distant third, but is favorably viewed as a technology trendsetter.

2X ApplicationServer 8.1.875 –2X Software$990 for one server ■ 2x.com ■ 866-970-6262

AdminStudio 9.5 – Flexera SoftwareCall for price ■ fl exerasoftware.com ■ 800-809-5659; +44 (0) 870 873 6300; +81-3-4360-8291

App-V – MicrosoftCall for price ■ microsoft.com ■ 425-882-8080

AppZero 4.5 – AppZeroStarts at $500 instance per year ■ appzero.com ■ 866-980-2770

AX Series – A10 Networks Inc.Call for Price ■ a10networks.com ■ 888-210-6363; 408-325-8616

InstallFree Bridge 2.0 – InstallFreeCall for price ■ installfree.com ■ 203-267-1460

Radware vAdapter – RadwareFree ■ radware.com ■ 877-236-9807

Radware Virtual ADC-ODS3 – RadwareStarts at $73,995 ■ radware.com ■ 877-236-9807

Specops Deploy 4.1 – Specops SoftwareCall for price ■ specopssoft.com ■ 877-773-2677; 416-849-5325

Spoon Browser Sandbox – SpoonFree ■ spoon.net ■ 877-223-3551; 206-774-8769

Spoon Server – Spoon$7,995 ■ spoon.net ■ 877-223-3551; 206-774-8769

Spoon Studio – Spoon$2,395 ■ spoon.net ■ 877-223-3551; 206-774-8769

Symantec Workspace Virtualization 6.1 – Symantec Corp.Call for price ■ symantec.com ■ 800-745-6054

www.quest.com


Virtual Automation

Readers Choice Award WinnerUC4 Rapid Automation Package for VMware – UC4 Software (40.2%)$36,000 ■ uc4.com ■ 877-284-2121; 425-644-2121

Merit Award WinnerRES Automation Manager (formerly RES Wisdom) – RES Software (21.6%)$46 per license ■ ressoftware.com ■ 800-580-0786; 610-994-0577

Merit Award WinnerUC4 Rapid Automation Package for Hyper-V – UC4 Software (18.1%)$36,000 ■ uc4.com ■ 877-284-2121; 425-644-2121

Proving the old adage that you can never go wrong aligning with VMware—in this case, vSphere and vCenter—UC4 offers an automation package that balances workloads in both physical and virtual environments. Turning to the Merit Award winners, RES Automation Manager features daily task automation and self-serving capabilities, while UC4 shows that aligning with Mircosoft via Hyper-V is also a good idea.

Refl ex vProfi le 1.0 – Refl ex SystemsCall for price ■ refl exsystems.com ■ 888-696-5725; 404-924-2400

Virtualization Adaptive Device VAD 2.1 – Apco$5,500 ■ apco.com ■ 877-586-6500

Virtual Business Continuity

Readers Choice Award WinnerVeeam Backup & Replication 5.0 – Veeam Software (33.6%)Starts at $599 - $899 per socket ■ veeam.com ■ 877-389-0140; 614-339-8200

Merit Award WinnerVMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 4.0 – VMware Inc. (28.9%)$13,613 for 25 VM pack, includes one year support ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerQuest Software/Vizioncore vRanger Pro 5.0 – Quest Software/Vizioncore (7.9%)Call for price ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

The hardworking team at Veeam delivered VMware its only defeat with a product that provides two-in-one backup and replication for VMs running in VMware ESX(i) environments. Even in defeat, Merit Award winner VMware gets a favorable mention, along with third-place fi nisher and arch Veeam competitor Quest/Vizioncore vRanger Pro.

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition 3.0 – Acronis, Inc.$1,999 per server ■ acronis.com ■ 877-669-9749; 781-782-9000

BEX 3.2 – SyncsortCall for price ■ syncsort.com ■ 201-930-9700

Continuity Cloud 1.0 – ilandCall for price ■ iland.com ■ 800-697-7088

InMage Scout 5.1 – InMage SystemsCall for price ■ inmage.com ■ 800-646-3617; 408-200-3840

LifeKeeper for Linux – SIOS Technology Corp. (formerly Steeleye Technology)Call for price ■ steeleye.com ■ 800-769-4242; 650-843-0655

LinkFixerPlus – LinkTek CorporationCall for price ■ linkfi xer.com ■ 727-442-1822

NetApp – Syncsort Integrated Backup – NetApp – SyncsortCall for price ■ NetApp.com ■ 408-822-8000

Replay 4.4 – AppAssure Software$899 per host server, unlimited guests ■ AppAssure.com ■ 703-547-8686

StorageCraft ShadowProtect Desktop 4.0 – StorageCraft Technology Corporation$89.95, volume discounts available ■ storagecraft.com ■ 888-455-5041; 801-545-4700

StorageCraft ShadowProtect Server 4.0 – StorageCraft Technology Corporation$995 MSRP, volume discounts available ■ storagecraft.com ■ 888-455-5041; 801-545-4700

SunGard Secure2Disk Backup and Recovery Solutions – SunGard Availability ServicesCall for price ■ sungardas.com ■ 800-468-7483

Symantec Backup Exec 2010 – Symantec Corporation$1,174 for a media server license and basic maintenance ■ symantec.com ■ 800-745-6054

Symantec Workspace Streaming 6.1 – Symantec CorporationCall for price ■ symantec.com ■ 800-745-6054

vConverter 5.0 – Quest Software / VizioncoreCall for price ■ quest.com/virtualization/server.aspx ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

vReplicator 4.0 – Quest Software / VizioncoreCall for price ■ quest.com/virtualization/server.aspx ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

vSRM – Quest Software / VizioncoreCall for price ■ quest.com/virtualization/server.aspx ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222


AVAILABILITY SERVICES

Cloud by Van Gogh, 1890 Cloud by SunGard, 2010

Building a better cloud takes a revolutionary approach to virtualization that goes far beyond conventional solutions. With a resilient infrastructure and robust security, SunGard provides maximum protection and a fully managed solution that virtually eliminates the risk of failure. Navigate the cloud with confi dence as it dynamically scales to meet your needs. With leading-edge technology and a staff of accomplished professionals, SunGard can help make your next cloud computing project a work of art.

© 2010 SunGard. SunGard and the SunGard logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Download the white paper “Building a Better Cloud” at: sungardas.com/cloud7

A work of art in secure computing.

www.sungard.com


Cloud Computing

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware vCloud Director 1.0 – VMware Inc. (33.0%)Starts at $150 per VM ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerCloudStack 2.0 – Cloud.com (19.5%)Free to $10,000 per year, depending on edition ■ cloud.com ■ 888-384-0962; 408-916-1761

Merit Award WinnerAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) – Amazon Web Services (10.2%)Call for price ■ aws.amazon.com ■ 206-266-1000

VMware gets the nod here for vCloud Director, which is paving the way to the cloud-based infrastructure VMware hopes will solidify its role as market leader. Merit Award winners Cloud.com and Amazon EC2 are known for transforming datacenters into multifarious cloud environments and resizing compute capacity in the cloud, respectively.

Citrix Cloud Solution for On-Demand Desktops – Citrix Systems Inc.Call for price ■ citrix.com ■ Citrix Service Provider CSC at csc.com/outsourcing

IT.Shavlik.com 1.5 – Shavlik Technologies$250 for 250 machines ■ shavlik.com ■ 800-690-6911; 612-331-6737

LISA DCM-Virtual Development Cloud Manager 5.0 – iTKOCall for price ■ itko.com ■ 877-289-4856

Microsoft Windows Azure Platform – MicrosoftCall for price ■ microsoft.com ■ 800-386-5550; 425-882-8080

Novell Cloud Manager 1.0 – NovellCall for price ■ novell.com ■ 800-529-3400

Parallels Automation 5.0 – ParallelsCall for price ■ parallels.com ■ 425-282 6400

Quest Cloud Automation Platform 7.0 – Quest SoftwareCall for price ■ quest.com/virtualization/server.aspx ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Quest Cloud Express 7.5 – Quest SoftwareCall for price ■ quest.com/virtualization/server.aspx ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Skytap Cloud 18.0 – Skytap Inc.Call for price ■ skytap.com ■ 888-759-827

The xStream Platform 1.0 – VirtustreamPrice: e-mail [email protected] ■ virtustream.com ■ 240-252-1007

UniCloud 2.1 – Univa Inc.Call for price ■ univaud.com ■ 800-370-5320; 630-563-8625

vSMP Foundation for Cloud 3.0 – ScaleMP$650 per node ■ scalemp.com ■ 408-342-0330

Zetta Enterprise Storage On-demand 2.0 – Zetta$0.25 per GB per month ■ zetta.net ■ 877-469-3882; 650-590-0950

Desktop Virtualization / Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware View 4.5 – VMware Inc. (28.8%)$150 - $250 per concurrent connection ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerCitrix XenDesktop 5.0 with Citrix XenClient – Citrix Systems Inc. (17.0%)$95 - $350 per user or device ■ citrix.com ■ 800-424-8749

Merit Award WinnerKaviza VDI-in-a-box 3.0 – Kaviza (9.7%)$260 - $410 ■ kaviza.com ■ 888-350-5801

This is a battleground category where Citrix XenDesktop 5 with its new XenClient addition was viewed as a serious threat, if not outright favorite over VMware View 4.5, which had been delayed due to alleged technical diffi culties. It wasn’t to be. Looks like VMware still rules the virtual desktop domain. Citrix can’t be happy about being a Merit Award winner here, but the company is only getting stronger. The second Merit Award winner, Kaviza, is generating a healthy industry buzz.

2X VirtualDesktopServer 8.1.875 – 2X Software$1,190 for one server ■ 2x.com ■ 866-970-6262

AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 – AppSense$75 per user ■ appsense.com ■ 212-597-5501; +44 845 839 9075

Aqua Connect Terminal Server 3.5 – Aqua Connect Inc.Call for price ■ aquaconnect.net ■ 866-543-2782; 310-694-5043

Check Point Abra R65 – Check Point Software TechnologiesStarts at $140 for a 4GB stick, $210 for an 8GB stick ■ checkpoint.com ■ 866-488-6691

eG VDI Monitor 5.0 – eG Innovations Inc.$2,000 per physical server ■ eginnovations.com ■ 866-526-6700

Ericom Blaze 1.4 – Ericom SoftwareCall for price ■ ericom.com ■ 888-769-7876; 201-767-2210

Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect 5.7.0 – Ericom SoftwareCall for price ■ ericom.com ■ 888-769-7876; 201-767-2210

NEC Virtual PC Center – NECCall for price ■ necam.com/vpcc/Advantage.cfm ■ 631-755-0727

NetWrix VMware Reporter 3.0 – NetWrix Corporation$80/socket for 10 sockets, volume discounts ■ netwrix.com ■ 888-638-9749; 201-490-8840

Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – Oracle Corp.Call for price ■ oracle.com ■ 650-506-9914

Pano Express 1.0 – Pano Logic$24,450 or $489 per user ■ panologic.com ■ 877-677-7266

Pano System 3.0 – Pano Logic$319-$329 per user ■ panologic.com ■ 877-677-7266


Internet Explorer 6 and Windows 7

www.symantec.com


Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops 2.2 – Red Hat Inc.Call for price ■ redhat.com ■ 888–733-4281

RES Workspace Manager (formerly RES Powerfuse) – RES SoftwareStarts at $45 per concurrent user ■ ressoftware.com ■ 800-580-0786; 610-994-0577

RingCube vDesk 3.1 – RingCube TechnologiesStarts at $250 per user ■ ringcube.com ■ 866-323-4278; 650-605-6900

Symantec Workspace Corporate 6.2 – Symantec Corp.Call for price ■ symantec.com ■ 800-745-6054

SysTrack 5.0 – Lakeside SoftwareCall for price ■ lakesidesoftware.com ■ 800-969-7717; 248-686-1700

The Leostream Connection Broker 7.0 – Leostream Corporation$75 per user ■ leostream.com ■ 800-503-0133; 781-890-2019

Unidesk 1.1 – UnideskStarts at $150 per named user, volume discounts ■ unidesk.com ■ 508-573-7800

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure-VDI Standard Suite – MicrosoftCall for price ■ microsoft.com ■ 800-386-5550; 425-882-8080

vWorkSpace 7.1 – Quest SoftwareCall for price ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Wanova Mirage 1.5 – Wanova$200 per seat with volume discounts ■ wanova.com ■ 408-236-7440

Workforce Cloud 1.0 – ilandCall for price ■ iland.com ■ 800-697-7088

Xangati for ESX 1.0 – Xangati Inc.Free for up to 10 IP identities (including VMs) ■ xangati.com ■ [email protected]

Virtual Management & Optimization

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware vCenter Suite 4.0 – VMware Inc. (18.8%)Call for price ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerVeeam ONE Solution – Veeam Software (12.8%)Starts at $550 per socket ■ veeam.com ■ 877-389-0140; 614-339-8200

Merit Award WinnerWyse Virtual Desktop Accelerator (VDA) – Wyse Technology (10.3%)$59 per seat ■ wyse.com ■ 800-438-9973; 408-473-1200

More hand-to-hand combat here between Veeam and VMware, but vCenter has been around too long, does too much and is too entrenched to allow another management-related defeat at

the hands of Veeam, its upstart ecosystem partner and Merit Award winner here. Wyse Virtual Desktop Accelerator is a Merit Award winner that’s been fl ying under the radar while amassing a loyal following for its software-only product that minimizes network latency and errors.

3Tera AppLogic 2.9 – CA TechnologiesCall for price ■ ca.com/cloud ■ 800-225-5224

AccelOps Software-as-a-Service – AccelOpsCall for price ■ accelops.net ■ 408-490-0903

AccelOps Virtual Appliance – AccelOpsCall for price ■ accelops.com ■ 408-490-0903

BalancePoint 3.5 – AkorriCall for price ■ akorri.com ■ 978-431-1200

Brocade Application Resource Broker 1.0 – Brocade Communications Systems Inc.Available with ServerIron ADX service contract ■ brocade.com ■ 877-272-3232; 408-333-8000

Capacity Management Suite 2.0 – VKernel$299 per application per socket ■ vkernel.com ■ 866-370-2733; 978-289-6300

CiRBA 6.0 – CiRBACall for price ■ cirba.com ■ 866-731-0090; 905-731-0090

Dynamic Ops Cloud Automation Center – Dynamic OpsCall for price ■ dynamicops.com ■ 781-328-9222

eG Enterprise Suite 5.0 – eG Innovations Inc.$2,000 per physical server ■ eginnovations.com ■ 866-526-6700

eG VM Monitor 5.0 – eG Innovations Inc.$2,000 per physical server ■ eginnovations.com ■ 866-526-6700

Hyper9 3.0 – Hyper9Call for price ■ hyper9.com ■ 800-622-9405; 877-949-7379

MokaFive Suite – MokaFiveCall for price ■ mokafi ve.com ■ 650-980-0960

NetApp SANscreen 6.0 – NetAppCall for price ■ netapp.com ■ 877-263-8277

NetIQ AppManager for VMware – NetIQ CorporationCall for price ■ netiq.com ■ 888-323-6768; 713-548-1700

Netuitive 5.0 – NetuitiveCall for price ■ netuitive.com ■ 703-464 1500; +44 (0) 844 546 5001

NetWrix VMware Change Reporter 3.0 – NetWrix Corp.$80/socket for 10 sockets, volume discounts ■ netwrix.com ■ 888-638-9749; 201-490-8840

Novell PlateSpin Migrate 9.0 – NovellStarts at $295 per protected workload, includes one year support ■ novell.com ■ 800-529-3400

Novell PlateSpin Orchestrate 2.0 – NovellStarts at $750 for 2 CPU server, includes one year support ■ novell.com ■ 800-529-3400

Novell PlateSpin Protect 10.0 – NovellStarts at $1,495 per protected workload, includes one year support ■ novell.com ■ 800-529-3400


On a virtual platform, fragmentation on top of fragmentation (host and VMs) rapidly creates I/O bottlenecks. The elimination of fragmentation is imperative, but the way a virtual platform shares resources between the VMs can make it diffi cult to defrag

without creating other performance bottlenecks.

Effectively shared resources are of critical importance in a virtual environment but are severely impacted by three key barriers:1. I/O bandwidth is a vital hardware resource for

virtual platform performance. Fragmented fi les and fragmented free space create more I/O activity than is needed to directly get a job done. This excess use of a virtual platform’s limited bandwidth occurs in both host platforms and the virtual machines.

2. Virtual machines compete for shared I/O resources. Excess and unnecessary use of disk I/O channels from any VM will impede performance across all other systems running on the host.

3. Virtual disks set to dynamically grow don’t shrink when users or applications remove data. This wastes space that could be allocated to other virtual systems. Manually trying to determine which VMs to shrink is time-consuming and endless.

V-locity® 2 virtual platform disk optimizer by Diskeeper Corporation contains the only feature set that eliminates the most important virtual platform performance issues without also creating resource confl icts.

V-locity 2 optimizes the per-formance on the virtual platform from host disk to VMs. It eliminates resource management priority confl icts, operates transparently in the background, maximizes I/O bandwidth effi ciency and eliminates “bloated” free space on thin/dynamic disks.

1. Eliminating Resource Confl icts. Using InvisiTasking® technology, the V-locity component on the host virtualization operating system is able to effectively coordinate I/O optimization routines across all guest systems using only truly idle system resources. This allows robust real-time defragmentation with zero confl icts across the platform.

2. Getting Maximum I/O Bandwidth Effi ciency. V-locity 2 also includes proprietary IntelliWrite™ fragmentation prevention technology. This highly adaptive application prevents up to 85% of all fragmentation by writing fi les intelligently to the disk. The recovery of I/Os that would have been wasted produces a signifi cant boost in system speed.

3. Recovering Wasted Free Space. V-locity includes a virtual disk compaction feature, the fi rst of its kind, that provides a window on how much a thin/dynamic virtual disk can be shrunk. A system admin can, with a single click, compact any of those selected virtual disks. As a result, better allocation of storage resources is easily achieved.

V-locity 2 not only opens up the full potential of virtualization and its hardware economy, it actually “completes” virtualization’s functionality and creates previously unattainable performance and cost effi ciencies.

© 2010 Diskeeper Corporation. All Rights Reserved. V-locity, IntelliWrite and InvisiTasking are registered trademarks owned by Diskeeper Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and brand names are the property of their respective owners.

Solving the 3 Barriers to Virtual Platform Performance Recent innovations that unlock virtualization potentials

See the difference V-locity can makeThe best way to understand the impact of V-locity 2 on your Hyper-V™ or VMware® platform is to see for yourself. Download a FREE 30-DAY TRIAL now.www.diskeeper.com/VROr call us for a customized, no-obligation quote: 800-829-6468

InvisiTasking resource usage graph in V-locity (on Hyper-V Host)

Idle resources Idle resources used by InvisiTasking

Resources used by system

www.diskeeper.com


Novell PlateSpin Recon 3.7 – NovellStarts at $119 for one processor core, includes one year support ■ novell.com ■ 800-529-3400

Parallels Virtual Automation – ParallelsCall for price ■ parallels.com ■ 425-282 6400

PerfectDisk 11 Hyper-V Bundle – Raxco Software Inc.$499 single-host license ■ raxco.com ■ 800-546-9728; 301-527-0803

PerfectDisk 11 VMware Workstation Bundle – Raxco Software Inc.$199 single license ■ raxco.com ■ 800-546-9728; 301-527-0803

PerfectDisk 11 vSphere Bundle – Raxco Software Inc.$499 single-host license ■ raxco.com ■ 800-546-9728; 301-527-0803

Quest Management Pack for VMware 1.0 – Quest Software/VizioncoreCall for price ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Quest vEcoShell 1.2.6 – Quest Software/VizioncoreFree ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Quest vFoglight 6.5 – Quest Software/VizioncoreCall for price ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Quest vFoglight Storage 1.0 – Quest Software/VizioncoreCall for price ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Quest vOptimizer Pro 3.0 – Quest Software/Vizioncore$299 per socket ■ quest.com ■ 866-260-2483; 847-589-2222

Refl ex Virtualization Management Center – Refl ex SystemsCall for price ■ refl exsystems.com ■ 888-696-5725; 404-924-2400

Refl ex vWatch 2.0 – Refl ex SystemsCall for price ■ refl exsystems.com ■ 888-696-5725; 404-924-2400

Shavlik NetChk Protect 7.6 – Shavlik Technologies$40 per workstation ■ shavlik.com ■ 800-690-6911; 612-331-6737

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 (includes Hyper-V) – MicrosoftCall for price ■ microsoft.com ■ 800-386-5550; 425-882-8080

SysTrack Enterprise/Site Visualizer 5.0 – Lakeside SoftwareCall for price ■ lakesidesoftware.com ■ 800-969-7717; 248-686-1700

The xStream Advisor 1.0 – VirtustreamE-mail [email protected] ■ virtustream.com ■ 240-252-1007

ThinPrint .print Desktop Engine – ThinPrint AGCall for price ■ thinprint.com ■ 49-30-39 49 31 66

ThinPrint .print Engine for VMware View – ThinPrint AGCall for price ■ thinprint.com ■ 440-331-8446

up.time 5.3 – uptime software Inc.$395 - $695 per physical server ■ uptimesoftware.com ■ 866-735-4304

V-Commander 3.6 – Embotics Corp.Starts at $398 per socket per year ■ embotics.com ■ 877-599-0494; 613-599-0494

VirtualWisdom 2.0 – Virtual InstrumentsStarts at $15,000 ■ virtualinstruments.com ■ 831-439-4080

VM6 VMex 2.1 – VM6 Software$995 per server node for a single server ■ vm6software.com ■ 866-990-1221; 514-990-1221

VMLogix LabManager – VMLogixCall for price ■ vmlogix.com ■ 650-451-5555

Zenoss Enterprise 3.0 – ZenossSubscriptions start at $100 per managed resource per year ■ zenoss.com ■ 888-936-6770

Network Virtualization

Readers Choice Award WinnerCitrix NetScaler VPX — Citrix Systems Inc. (65.9%)Free to $2,000, depending on level ■ citrix.com ■ 800-424-8749

Merit Award WinnerBrocade ServerIron ADX 1008-1 — Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (21.7%)$12,995 ■ brocade.com ■ 877-272-3232; 408-333-8000

Merit Award WinnerVirtensys VIO-4004 I/O Virtualization Switch 1.0 — Virtensys (12.4%)Call for price ■ virtensys.com ■ 503-210-5190

This is a solid win for NetScaler, the Citrix application delivery platform for Web apps and clouds, which snagged the company’s only fi rst-place award, and produces some $300 million a year in revenues. Merit Award winners include Brocade ServerIron ADX 1000-1 and the Virtensys VIO-4004 I/O Virtualization Switch.

Virtual PC

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware Workstation 7 — VMware Inc. (75.5%)$189 for a new license; $99 for an upgrade ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerWyse PocketCloud 2.0.4 — Wyse Technology (24.5%)$14.99 ■ wyse.com ■ 800-438-9973; 408-473-1200

VMware simply describes VMware Workstation as “the most advanced virtualization software for desktop and laptop computers,” and who can argue with a product that has been successfully deployed since 1999? Merit Award winner Wyse PocketCloud is a toddler by comparison, but a very slick machine nonetheless.

VirtualPC – MicrosoftCall for price ■ microsoft.com ■ 425-882-8080


800-754-3310www.aberdeeninc.com/vm006

STORAGE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

Imagine what you can achieve with Aberdeen.

Aberdeen’s AberSAN Z-Series scalable storage platform brings the simplicity ofnetwork attached storage (NAS) to the SAN environment, by utilizing the innovativeZFS file system.

Featuring the high performance of the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, theAberSAN Z-Series offers enterprise level benefits at entry level pricing, deliveringthe best bang for the buck.

Who gives you the best bang for the buck?

NetAppFAS 2050

EMCNS120

AberdeenAberSAN Z20

Deduplication ✓ ✓ ✓

Thin Provisioning ✓ ✓ ✓

VMware® Ready Certified ✓ ✓ ✓

Citrix® StorageLink™ Support ✓ ✓ ✓

Optional HA Clustering ✓ ✓ ✓

Optional Virtualized SAN ✓ ✓ ✓

Optional Synchronous Replication ✓ ✓ ✓

Optional Fibre Channel Target ✓ ✓ ✓

Unified Storage: NFS, CiFS, iSCSI ✓ ✓ ✓

Unlimited Snapshots x x ✓

Unlimited Array Size x x ✓

Hybrid Storage Pooling x x ✓

Integrated Search x x ✓

File System WAFL 64-bit UxFS 64-bit ZFS 128-bitRAID Level Support 4 and DP 5 and 6 5, 6 and Z

Maximum Storage Capacity 104TB 240TB Over 1,000TBWarranty 3 Years 3 Years 5 Years

Published Starting MSRP Not Available Not Available $8,995Above specific configurations obtained from the respective websites on Sept. 13, 2010. Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Pentium, Xeon, and Xeon Inside

are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All trademarks are the property of their respectiveowners. All rights reserved. For terms and conditions, please see www.aberdeeninc.com/abpoly/abterms.htm. vm006

www.aberdeeninc.com


Virtualization Security

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware vShield Suite 1.0 – VMware Inc. (56.9%)Call for price ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerTripwire Enterprise – Tripwire (13.0%)Call for price ■ tripwire.com ■ 800-874-7947; +44 (0) 2073 82 5420

Merit Award WinnerSecurity Gateway Virtual Edition (VE) R71 – Check Point Software Technologies (11.7%)Starts at $2,000 ■ checkpoint.com ■ 866-488-6691

A company with solid bona fi des in security is in a particularly good position when it provides virtualization and cloud computing customers with the peace of mind that comes from knowing their data is secure, which is where vShield Suite excels. Tripwire, which won this category last year, is a Merit Award winner this time with its Tripwire Enterprise product, while Check Point is the other Merit Award winner with its Check Point Security Gateway Virtual Edition offering.

Altor 4.0 – Altor NetworksStarts at $1,500 per CPU Socket ■ altornetworks.com ■ 888-734-6555

Refl ex vTrust 2.0 – Refl ex SystemsCall for price ■ refl exsystems.com ■ 888-696-5725; 404-924-2400

Tripwire Log Center – TripwireCall for price ■ tripwire.com ■ +44 (0) 2073 82 5420

vSecurity 2.0 Catbird$1,295 per socket ■ catbird.com ■ 866-682-0080; 831-440-8164

Server Virtualization

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware vSphere 4.1 – VMware Inc. (66.4%)Starts at $83 - $3,495 per processor ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerCitrix XenServer 5.6 – Citrix Systems Inc. (13.7%)Free to $5,000 per server, depending on edition ■ citrix.com ■ 800-424-8749

Merit Award WinnerWindows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (includes Hyper-V) – Microsoft (9.1%)Call for price ■ microsoft.com ■ 800-386-5550; 425-882-8080

Here’s a virtual certainty: VMware vSphere 4.1 is No. 1 in server virtualization. After all, VMware basically invented it (OK, they emulated IBM mid-60s mainframe technology), and have cashed in on it like no other vendor. Merit Award winners Citrix with XenServer, and Microsoft with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (including Hyper-V) are destined to play catchup.

NEC Express5800 Server Series – NECCall for price ■ nec.com ■ 866-632-3226

NetWrix Virtual Machine Sprawl Tracker 2.0 – NetWrix Corp.$1,000 for up to 1,000 VMs ■ netwrix.com ■ 888-638-9749; 201-490-8840

Oracle VM – Oracle Corp.Call for price ■ oracle.com ■ 650-506-9914

Parallels Server 4 Bare Metal – ParallelsCall for price ■ parallels.com ■ 425-282 6400

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers 2.2 – Red Hat Inc.$2,994 subscription for six sockets ■ redhat.com ■ 888–733-4281

Resource Cloud 1.0 – ilandCall for price ■ iland.com ■ 800-697-7088

Scale Computing N05 Starter Cluster – Scale Computing$7,500 for a 1.5TB cluster of 3 nodes ■ scalecomputing.com ■ 877-722-5359; 317-202-7832

Scale Computing S line of storage clusters with ICS 2.0 – Scale Computing$12,000 for a 3TB cluster of 3 nodes ■ scalecomputing.com ■ 877-722-5359; 317-202-7832

Stirling 267 – Aberdeen LLC$3,395 ■ aberdeeninc.com ■ 800-500-9526; 562-699-6998

Virtualization Standards

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware Open Virtualization Format (OVF) – VMware Inc. (81.3%)Price: N/A ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerDistributed Management Task Force Inc. (18.7%)Price: N/A ■ dmtf.org ■ 503-619-0563

In the spirit of egalitarian competition, VMware acknowledges that it and “other leaders” came together to form OVF, which comprises an open, platform-independent distribution format for virtual machines that enables a host of benefi ts such as streamlined installations and more easily created, pre-confi gured, multitiered services. This year’s Merit Award winner—and last year’s No. 1 choice—Distributed Management Task Force, retains its popularity.


echnology is always providing new ways to improve the way we work. A new and powerful technological innovation is desktop virtualization.

The virtualized desktop approach simplifi es IT management overhead and centralizes resources that can now be repurposed at a moment’s notice for any workload—server, client, infrastructure, whatever is in demand. And that, coupled with streamlined operations and centralized security and confi guration management, results in lower desktop costs. Learn more about desktop virtualization in our new white paper.Download it today for FREE at VirtualizationReview.com/VMware1210.

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Storage Virtualization

Readers Choice Award WinnerNetApp V6000 Series/V3100 Series – NetApp (19.3%)Call for price ■ netapp.com/us/ ■ 877-263-8277

Merit Award WinnerNetApp Data ONTAP 8.0 – NetApp (11.1%)Call for price ■ netapp.com/us/ ■ 877-263-8277

Merit Award WinnerFalconStor Software Network Storage Server (NSS) 6.0 – FalconStor Software (10.7%)Starts at $19,000 ■ falconstor.com ■ 866-669-3252; 631-773-5859

Given the slowdowns and roadblocks associated with storage in virtualization environments, the ability of NetApp V-Series appliances to help users virtualize competitors’ back-end storage arrays while introducing NetApp functionality to them sounded good to Virtualization Review readers, who voted it numero uno. NetApp also copped the Merit Award for its NetApp Data ONTAP 8, which extends virtualized workloads with a low storage total cost of operation. The second Merit Award winner was FalconStor Network Storage Server.

AberSAN Z20 – Aberdeen LLC$7,495 ■ aberdeeninc.com ■ 800-500-9526; 562-699-6998

Compellent Storage Center 5.0 – Compellent TechnologiesStarts at $21,100 to $38,100 ■ compellent.com ■ 866-397-8673; 800-923-1450

Eternus Storage Products – FujitsuCall for price ■ fujitsu.com ■ +44 (0) 20 7861 1627

F5 Networks ARX Series – F5 NetworksCall for price ■ f5.com ■ 888-882-4447

F5 Networks Data Manager – F5 NetworksCall for price ■ f5.com ■ 888-882-4447

GB-X Series – GreenBytes Inc.Call for price ■ getgreenbytes.com ■ 877-476-2983; 401-315-5580

Gluster VMStor for VMware 1.0 – GlusterCall for price ■ gluster.com ■ 800-805-5215; 408-770-1890

Hitachi Command Suite – Hitachi Data SystemsCall for price ■ hds.com ■ 781-782-5873

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform – Hitachi Data SystemsCall for price ■ hds.com ■ 781-782-5873

Nasuni Filer 2.0 – NasuniCall for price ■ nasuni.com ■ 818-884-8282

NEC D Series – NECCall for price ■ necam.com ■ 866-632-3226

NETGEAR ReadyNAS 3100 – NETGEAR Inc.$3,699 for 4TB preconfi gured ■ netgear.com ■ 408-907-8000

NETGEAR ReadyNAS 4200 – NETGEAR Inc.$7,950 for 12TB preconfi gured ■ netgear.com ■ 408-907-8000

Pivot3 Unifi ed Virtual System 2.0 – Pivot3Call for price ■ pivot3.com ■ 281-516-6000

PROMISE SmartStor ZERO NS2600 – PROMISE TechnologyStarts at $279 ■ promise.com ■ 408-228-1400

PROMISE Vtrak S3000 – PROMISE TechnologyStarts at $36,000 for a 32TB, single node confi guration ■ promise.com ■ 408-228-1400

SANmelody 3.0.3 – DataCore SoftwareStarts at $1,000; $10,000 for high-availability pair ■ datacore.com ■ 877-780-5111; 954-377-6000

SANsymphony 7.0.3 – DataCore SoftwareStarts at $30,000 ■ datacore.com ■ 877-780-5111; 954-377-6000

Virsto One 1.2 – VirstoStarting at $1,250 for a two-socket server ■ virsto.com ■ 408-899-5694

Xiotech ICON Manager – Xiotech Corp.Call for price ■ xiotech.com ■ 866-472-6764; 952-983-2338

Xiotech ISE Analyzer – Xiotech Corp.Call for price ■ xiotech.com ■ 866-472-6764; 952-983-2338

Xiotech ISE Manager – Xiotech Cor p.Call for price ■ xiotech.com ■ 866-472-6764; 952-983-2338

Thin/Zero-Client Computing

Readers Choice Award WinnerWyse Xenith 1.0 – Wyse Technology (50.7%)$329 per unit ■ wyse.com ■ 800-438-9973; 408-473-1200

Merit Award WinnerPano System 3.0 – Pano Logic (14.0%)$319 per seat ■ panologic.com ■ 877-677-7266; 650-454-8940

Merit Award Winner2X ThinClientServer 6.2.7412 – 2X Software (9.6%)$595 for 25 clients ■ 2x.com ■ 866-970-6262

Wyse has impeccable thin-client credentials, and Wyse Xenith is the latest example. The company has dubbed Xenith a zero client because it’s completely confi gurable and requires no management software. Merit Award winner Pano Logic says it offers the only true zero client, while Merit Award winner 2X hangs its hat on converting existing PCs to thin clients.

IGEL Universal Desktop Series UD2 – IGELCall for price ■ igel.com ■ 877-438-4435

IGEL Universal Desktop Series UD3 – I GELCall for price ■ igel.com ■ 877-438-4435



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NEC Virtual PC Center – NECCall for price ■ nec.com ■ 866-632-3226

Tadpole Ultra-thin Clients – General Dynamics ItronixCall for price ■ gd-itronix.com ■ 800-441-1309

Virtualization Training

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware Certifi ed Professional Program – VMware Inc. (51.3%)Call for price ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerVMware vSphere Training – Train Signal (22.8%)Call for price ■ trainsignal.com ■ 888-229-5055; 847-776-8800

Merit Award WinnerGlobal Knowledge (14.4%)Call for price ■ globalknowledge.com ■ 800-268-7737

The VMware Certifi ed Professional Program is critical to the knowledge base of anyone who wants to make a living in VMware tech environments because it teaches participants how to successfully install, manage and deploy VMware vSphere 4.1, which is critical to the company’s success as it charges ahead to its vision of cloud computing. Merit Award winners Train Signal and Global Knowledge specialize in computer-based training courses and IT and business training, respectively.

iPhone 4.0 – Apple$200 ■ apple.com ■ 408-996-1010

Intense SchoolCall for price ■ intenseschool.com ■ 877-290-9507

NetCom IT Training and Certifi cation Solutions — NetComCall for price ■ netcominfo.com ■ 888-563-8266

Miscellaneous Virtualization

Readers Choice Award WinnerVMware Zimbra Collaboration Suite Appliance 1.0 – VMware Inc. (50.0%)$ 625 per 25 mailboxes for a perpetual license ■ vmware.com ■ 877-486-9273; 650-427-5000

Merit Award WinnerNovell PlateSpin Forge 3.0 – Novell (13.7%)Starts at $39,395 for up to 10 workloads, includes one year priority ■ novell.com ■ 800-529-3400

Merit Award Winner2X LoadBalancer 8.1.875 – 2X Software (9.7%)$449 for two load-balanced servers ■ 2x.com ■ 866-970-6262

The VMware Zimbra Collaboration Suite Appliance is an e-mail and calendar groupware solution for cloud deployments that features contact management, and sharing and document capabilities. Novell PlateSpin Forge won a Merit Award for its disaster recovery expertise, while the 2X LoadBalancer was given a Merit Award for providing load balancing, increased security and redundancy for terminal servers.

Change Reporter for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 1.2 – NetWrix Corp.$80/socket for 10 sockets, volume discounts ■ netwrix.com ■ 888-638-9749; 201-490-8840

LISA Virtualize 5.0 – iTKOCall for price ■ itko.com ■ 877-289-4856

Netronome Network Flow Acceleration Cards (NFE-3240) – Netronome$2,500 for large volume orders of 1,000+ ■ netronome.com ■ 877-638-7629; 724-778-3290

Netronome Network Flow Processor (NFP-3240) – Netronome$275 for large volume orders of 25,000+ ■ netronome.com ■ 877-638-7629; 724-778-3290

Veeam FastSCP 3.0.3 – Veeam SoftwareFree ■ veeam.com ■ 877-389-0140; 614-339-8200

VLX MH4.0 – Red Bend SoftwareCall for price ■ redbend.com ■ 781-890-2090

vSMP Foundation for Cluster 3.0 – ScaleMP$1,750 per node ■ scalemp.com ■ 408-342-0330

vSMP Foundation for SMP 3.0 – ScaleMP$2,500 per node ■ scalemp.com ■ 408-342-0330


Be sure to log on to VirtualizationReview.com and download the expanded Ultimate Virtualization Buyers Guide, which includes descriptions for every product listed here. You can access the PDF directly from VirtualizationReview.com/2011RCABG.


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Advertising IndexAdvertiser Page URLAberdeen 25 www.aberdeeninc.comCDW Corp. 3 www.cdw.comCitrix Systems, Inc. C4 www.citrix.comDiskeeper Corporation 5 www.diskeeper.comDiskeeper Corporation 23 www.diskeeper.comF5 Networks, Inc. 11 www.f5.comIBM Corporation 7 www.ibm.comIBM Corporation C3 www.ibm.comMicrosoft Corporation C2 www.microsoft.comQuest Software 17 www.quest.comQuest Software 13 www.quest.comSunGard 19 www.sungard.comSymantec Corporation 21 www.symantec.comTechXtend 29 www.techxtend.comVmware Inc. 27 www.vmware.com

Veeam Software 9 www.veeam.com

Editorial IndexCompany Page URLAmazon.com Inc. 6 amazon.comApple Inc. 10 apple.comAsigra Inc. 32 asigra.comCitrix Systems Inc. 32 citrix.comF5 Networks Inc. 32 f5.comGluster Inc. 32 gluster.comGoogle Inc. 10 google.comMicrosoft Corp. 6, 8, 10, 12, 32 microsoft.comMozilla Foundation 10 mozilla.orgOracle Corp. 6 oracle.comSAP AG 6 sap.comSpoon 10, 12 spoon.netVirsto Software 32 virsto.comVMware Inc. 6, 8 vmware.com

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IMA

GE FRO

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TAKE FIVE 5 TIPS AND TRICKS TO TAKE WITH YOU : : BY BRUCE HOARD, EDITOR IN CHIEF

Storage Problems and Proposed Solutions

Where do you think virtualized storage is lacking or improving? Tell me at [email protected].

As Citrix notes, datacenter-based,

dynamically provisioned desktops create a

great deal of disk activity, which bogs

down performance and greatly increases

the use of expensive network storage.

Some 80 percent of these writes to disk in

environments with shared image

desktops include temporary or non-

persistent data that need not be saved in

a storage-attached network (SAN) or

network-attached storage (NAS) system.

The Citrix answer to this dilemma is its

new IntelliCache technology, which picks

out this traffi c and caches it to local,

server-side disks, enhancing performance

and slashing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

(VDI) costs. IntelliCache is included in the

free version of XenServer, and will also be

supported in a future release of reference

architecture for XenDesktop 5.

TAKE

1Asigra Cloud Backup is moving away from the use of agents with

backup and recovery solutions, which typically require that agents

installed on host servers be backed up by systems administrators.

However, agent management can become extremely complex

when the admin must work with diff erent OSes and revision

levels. Asigra doesn’t require agents to be installed for each

machine or app that needs to be protected. Instead, it reaches out

over the network to back up OSes, fi le systems and applications,

using industry programming interfaces.

TAKE

5

According to Virsto Software, without an effective storage strategy, the benefi ts of server virtualization can be offset by performance degradation, storage sprawl and increased complexity. Previously, the only way to deal with these issues was by over-provisioning storage. Virsto One, which

installs in seconds on every Hyper-V physical server and integrates with the Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center solutions, manages I/O requests for each virtual machine (VM) on each physical host, dynamically and effi ciently controlling how storage is allocated to each VM instance, as well as where it’s placed on physical hard drives.

4TAKE

Storage presents a lot of problems. It’s expensive, it accumulates in all kinds of places where you can’t fi nd it, it’s a hassle to move from point A to point B and it isn’t always compatible from one vendor to the next. A lot of bright minds are working on a variety of virtualized storage schemes, but the pain points remain real. Here’s a look at some diffi culties and alleged remedies.

Gluster tackles the problem of locating data in the data

pool. The company says other storage vendors

use a dedicated centralized metadata server to

store all data-location information. This prevents

metadata access from being parallelized and

typically results in a bottleneck that reduces and

prevents linear scalability. The metadata server is also a single

point of failure that must be confi gured for high availability,

because if it goes down, data cannot be accessed. Gluster

bypasses these problems via a “no-metadata server” architecture that

doesn’t require an index of information to locate data in the data pool.

F5 Networks is a big fan of virtualized storage, which it says removes a lot of complexity by creating a layer of abstraction that eliminates the links between users or apps and physical storage. However, a storage virtualization solution that only provides a virtualized storage layer isn’t very effective. In order to really help IT

contain increasing storage expenses, the solution must work across multiple OSes, storage platforms and fi le systems. In so doing, it must also offer an intelligent virtualized storage layer, so it can monitor client capacity, resource capacity and network conditions, as well as identify changes in real time. The fi nal step, says F5, is facilitating and automating tasks such as storage tiering, which identifi es the data’s

business value and matches it up with the right storage class.

TAKE

2

TAKE

3

Building the engines of a Smarter Planet:

How midsize businesses can collaborate better on a global scale.As a midsize company, you can now collaborate in new ways to drive innovation, with IBM LotusLive™. It’s an integrated collaboration tool that allows you to focus on growing your business rather than on managing your applications. No additional hardware or software. Just a browser. It’s a cloud-based service that delivers e-mail, plus online meetings, social networking and more, in one security-rich environment for internal and external collaboration. A powerful tool for midsize companies, leading to better decisions and smarter businesses. Consider the benefits:

1 Prices subject to change and valid in the U.S. only. Actual costs will vary depending on individual customer confi gurations and environment. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, LotusLive, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. © International Business Machines Corporation 2010.

IBM LotusLive is priced with midsize companies in mind. Collaboration offerings starting at

$3per user per month.1

View the IBM LotusLive demonstration at ibm.com/engines/lotuslive

1 Save time and money. The power of the cloud means there are no upfront deployment costs. IBM does the work. You focus on your business.

2 Improve productivity. With all the collaboration tools rolled into one, millions of users can see improvements in their businesses.

3 Keep your exchanges more secure. Security-rich infrastructure from IBM helpsprotect your data.

To learn more about services like LotusLive, connect with a Business Partner orget set up now, call 1-877-IBM-ACCESS or visit ibm.com/engines/lotuslive

Midsize businesses are the engines of a Smarter Planet.

www.ibm.com

© 2010 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Simplicity is Power and its stylized treatment, XenDesktop and FlexCast are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. or one of its subsidiaries. iPad and Mac are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. Droid is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd.

Virtual desktops. Adapt to any device. In any environment.

An iPad™ or a Droid™. A smartphone or a tablet. A Mac® or a PC.

Now you can deliver virtual desktops that will adapt easily to

any device in any combination. Seamlessly. Simply. Securely.

That’s the power of

virtual computing, delivered

by Citrix® XenDesktop®

with FlexCast™

technology.

As computing

evolves, say

yes to the demands of your workforce

and your business. All with complete confidence and

complete control. Virtual computing solutions from Citrix.

Simplicity is power. Citrix.

Citrix.com/SimplicityIsPower

www.citrix.com

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