Virtualisation: News

As the IT infrastructure manager at Digital Intelligence Systems LLC (DISYS), an IT solutions company, I recently initiated the build-out of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to support our large mobile workforce, and learned some important lessons along the way that may help smooth the way for your VDI rollout.

Dell has dramatically shifted its cloud computing strategy, canceling plans it once had to launch a public cloud service based on the OpenStack open source platform, and discontinuing a VMware-based public cloud it already has on the market.

There have been rumors and speculation. There have been whispers and rumblings. But this week VMware is expected to release details about its plans to launch a public Ccloud offering, the central part of its new hybrid Cloud strategy.

Software defined networking was a hot topic at the recent Interop conference in Las Vegas, where enthusiasm for the emerging technology overpowered any lingering doubts.

Anyone remotely within the orbit of SAP lately knows that its number-one focus is the HANA in-memory database and development platform. At this week's Sapphire conference in Orlando, the vendor sought to show the progress it is making in both building out HANA's capabilities as well as attracting developers and partners to HANA.

Can the old guard in business continuity and disaster-recovery services thrive in an era when the companies are looking at new ways to process business data? SunGard Data Systems, with decades of experience in availability services, is feeling the pinch as some business clientele move data to the cloud. But SunGard says it's pushing forward with innovations that are making it a public cloud provider as well with the kind of application availability it says will be hard to match elsewhere.

Fresh off the acquisition of a company that specializes in helping customers manage resources across multiple public clouds, Dell said it is "refining" its own plans to build a public cloud based on OpenStack.

Treasurer Wayne Swan's sixth budget may well be his last. But it certainly had some highlights although most analysts agree that it didn't offer a great deal to Australian economy. The following stories offer a broad-based, ICT-centric coverage of the budget.

Through a deal with Verizon, VMware is going to offer the ability for employees to download a app that allows their companies to run a standardized corporate version of Android OS on their phones along side their personal version.

A recent survey by Forrester found that 7 per cent of IT executives and 9 per cent of business leaders feel they have gained a true return on investment from Big Data. That means there's a lot more business can be doing to glean insights from the massive amount of data that's potentially available to them.

In the battle for the next generation of enterprise IT, John Stratton carries a lot of weapons. Stratton is president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, the nearly $30 billion unit formed just over a year ago to deliver networking, cloud, mobility, managed security, telematics and a host of other services in a more coordinated fashion for Verizon's top enterprise buyers. Building on a traditionally strong base of wired and wireless network services, Verizon Enterprise also blends in acquired assets like cloud hosting company Terremark, security company Cybertrust and Hughes Telematics. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Stratton spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about Verizon Enterprise's progress since its inception, including a dramatic streamlining of internal systems and processes designed to make life much easier for the company's customers. Stratton also discussed the company's suite of services aimed at simplifying life for IT teams struggling with mobility and the influx of consumer devices, and he talked candidly about the prospects for a third mobile platform to rival Apple's iOS and Google's Android. He also talked about how cloud is reshaping the IT landscape and hinted at a series of major upcoming cloud announcements from Verizon Enterprise. Also, he explained how the "Internet of Things" is creating powerful new business opportunities for Verizon and its enterprise customers.

ARN's Community Manager, Hafizah Osman, has disappeared under a flood of community picture stories and reports of company events, so we thought what better to do than put them all in a slideshow summing up the week in the channel. This week features company awards and partner events amongst others. Are you pictured?

Dell has purchased Enstratius, a company that allows customers to manage cloud resources across multiple providers from a single management console for an undisclosed sum this week.

ICT solutions and services provider, Dimension Data, has introduced tiered storage options to its enterprise-class public compute-as-a-service (CaaS) offering.

Software defined networking (SDN) is generating a lot of buzz these days, but the technology will ultimately make itself useful in the enterprise largely because it will save enterprises time in deploying new applications, predicted Martin Casado, chief architect of networking at VMware.

As part of its ongoing restructuring, EMC today announced its latest round of layoffs, which are expected to include 1004 positions.

Citrix today announced new models in its CloudBridge line of branch repeater hardware, along with a software update to Version 7.0, which adds WAN optimization capability and direct support for public cloud services.

Huawei this week unveiled a high-end upgrade to its CloudEngine core switch, which debuted here at Interop a year ago.

The latest version of Debian -- Version 7.0, codenamed "Wheezy" -- is now in stable release, bringing with it accessibility enhancements, a new version of the GNOME 3.4 desktop environment and support for multiple hardware architectures.

It starts with a gathering in a warehouse in Brisbane, Calif. Vendor reps, volunteers and networking experts of all stripes meet to create an enormous temporary network using products from 23 different companies, test it within an inch of its life -- and then stuff it on to trucks drive it out to Las Vegas.