December 2013/January 2014 | Vol. 7 No. 1 VirtualizationReview.com The 2014 Virtualization Review READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS & Buyers Guide Who’s Better, Who’s Best PLUS > HOW VDI, CLOUD COMPUTING WILL BE BETTER IN 2014 > WE WANT APP VIRTUALIZATION NOW > GET CLOUD CERTIFIED
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6 Cloud Certifi cations: Microsoft Extends Cloud Vision to Certifi cation
8 Collaboration: New OpenStack Tools, Extended Cloud Certs from Red Hat
COLUMNS2 Editor’s Note: MICHAEL DOMINGO Looking into the Cloud
28 Virtual Insider: ELIAS KHNASER How the Cloud will Explode
in 2014
30 Everyday Virtualization: RICK VANOVER
All Else is Virtual: So Why Not the Apps?
32 Take 5: MIKE MATCHETT 5 Reasons 2014 will be the Year of VDI
10
Even with consolidations and buyouts, our guide of virtualization and cloud companies and services keeps growing. Here’s the best of the best, as voted by you.
2 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
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The opinions expressed within the articles and other contents herein do not necessarily express those of the publisher.
Looking to the CloudI’m not one to spout my own opinions or predictions. I’m usually doing the listening, not the talking. When I talk, what I have to say is often based on what you tell me instead of what I’ve experienced or proven myself as an IT professional. With that, here’s what I believe you’ll be talking about in the next year, based on what many of you have told me over the months.
First off, whatever you do that has any relation to your virtualization or cloud work, it’ll soon be labeled as “software-defi ned.” That is, whatever the solution, that’s what it will be called—even though it might not be inherently software-defi ned. You’re likely to hear storage virtualization solutions being referred to as software-defi ned storage in the next year, for example. There will be others.
VDI will gain some traction—again. If there’s a technology that many have dismissed as ineffi cient, it’s VDI, or the reality of implementing VDI. Expect VDI proponents to come out of the woodwork, now that Amazon is jumping into the game. That will wake up everyone to become more innovative or perish trying to keep up with the frontrunners.
Microsoft’s cloud vision will shake out in the coming year and mount a serious challenge to VMware in the cloud. I believe the next CEO to run Microsoft will take the company in that direction and charge full speed ahead.
Now, I’ll go back to just listening. What would you like to get off your chest?
Call for Virtualization Experts Are you your company’s virtualization expert? We’re interested in what you have to say and are looking for writers for the magazine. Send me a message at [email protected] with “I’m into Virt” in the subject line, what types of projects you’ve been working on and the virtualization management tools that you have at your disposal.
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4 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
news • trends • analysis
VDI
Amazon Web Services has stated it wants to shake up the struggling VDI market. It
plans to release a cloud-based alternative that requires no hardware, software or datacenter infrastructure. Amazon’s solution is called Amazon WorkSpaces. Amazon claims it can offer services at half the cost with better performance than traditional virtual desktop infrastructure platforms today.
Amazon Web Services senior vice president Andy Jassy revealed the new cloud-based VDI offering in his opening keynote address at the company’s second annual re:Invent customer and partner conference held in Las Vegas in mid-November.
Jassy told the thousands of attendees and online viewers in his keynote that VDI hasn’t taken off because it’s complex to set up and manage, and that Amazon WorkSpaces promises to
reduce those barriers. It will help organizations move their desktop licenses to Amazon and provide integration with Active Directory.
“You can access your Amazon WorkSpace from any of your devices, whether it’s a desktop, laptop or an iOS device,” Jassy said. “And you get persistent sessions, so if you’re using a WorkSpace on
your laptop and you switch to your Android [or any other] device, the session picks up just where you left off. What’s also nice, because it’s a
cloud service, all of the data lives in the cloud. It doesn’t live local to those devices, which of course is a concern for an IT administrator.”
The company described in a blog post a use case with 1,000 employees that would cost just $43,333 using Amazon WorkSpaces. This would be 59 percent less expensive than an on-premises VDI deployment that
would cost $106,356 (that fi gure includes datacenter investments).
Amazon will initially offer a Standard service that costs $35 per month for one virtual CPU, 3.75
GB of memory and 50 GBytes of capacity. The Performance plan will cost $60 for two virtual CPUs, 3.75 GB of memory and 100 GB storage per user. The Performance Plus package will come with 7.5 GB of memory. Customers that don’t have existing licenses to move over can purchase licenses for Microsoft Offi ce and antivirus software fi rm Trend Micro for $15 per month per user.
Jassy said Amazon intends to fi rst offer invitation-only trials. He didn’t disclose general availability. In the mean time, customers can register for access to the preview at aws.amazon.com/workspaces/. VR
Jeffrey Schwartz is Editor-in-Chief of Redmond Magazine.
Amazon Jumps into VDIBy Jeff rey Schwartz
Amazon WorkSpaces will help organizations move their desktop licenses to Amazon and provides integration with Active Directory.
We’re so proud of these honors. We’re really proud to shower our customers with the value of Hitachi cloud solutions and the technology that powers them, including Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform. Thanks for noticing.
6 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
Coming next issue: VMware Certification TipsUpFrontCLOUD
The Microsoft certifi cation program has experienced something of an upheaval
since the Microsoft Learning Group that manages certifi cation announced the death of the elite Microsoft Certifi ed Master and Microsoft Certifi ed Architect programs over the summer.
“Microsoft couldn’t win with those ones,” says one MCSE who asked for anonymity. He says he once gave serious thought to tackling an MCM,
but reconsidered when he worked out the payback. “It’s expensive and I don’t know if it would have helped my career at all, to be honest.”
This MCSE also says that there was some irony to the title. “Microsoft created the titles based on user feedback, and people branded the title as elitist. Wasn’t that the
point? But they killed it anyway.”The rest of the certifi cation
program rolls on, however. There is renewed emphasis on cloud and
virtualization within the other certifi cations, which indicates the seriousness with which Microsoft is executing on its cloud vision. The Microsoft Learning Group has even created a portal specifi cally branded Virtualization2 (Virtualization Squared).
According to a blog post from Brad Anderson, corporate vice president with the Windows Server & System Center division, the idea is the company recognizes many of its certifi cation candidates are “comfortable with both Microsoft and VMware platforms.” As such, his group has been working with the Microsoft Learning Group to create a new certifi cation that takes this into consideration.
Dubbed Microsoft Certifi ed Specialist: Server Virtualization with Hyper-V and System Center, this certifi cation requires passing one exam, 74-409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center. The exam page doesn’t mention vSphere among its study objectives, but Anderson says the exam is “geared toward the skills of VMware VCPs.”
Beta testing the exam for that program began at the end of November. Microsoft hadn’t mentioned when the exam would be generally available, but it’s likely to go live at the beginning of 2014. Upon availability, the exam will be $150. VR
Michael Domingo is Editor-in-Chief of Virtualization Review.
Microsoft Extends Cloud Vision to Certifi cation By Michael Domingo
Exam 74-409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center’s exam page doesn’t mention vSphere among its study objectives.
d whe
of“comand VMhis grouMic
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Red Hat Software released an upgrade of its CloudForms tools that deploy and manage
private and hybrid IaaS clouds with support for OpenStack. The company also said you can now deploy its OpenShift Platform as a Service software on OpenStack clouds. This move helps you use OpenStack infrastructure to create PaaS environments.
“OpenStack is one of the foundational pillars upon which we are building out our open hybrid cloud strategy and portfolio,” said Bryan Che, Red Hat’s general manager of cloud, during a Webcast introducing the products. Since committing to OpenStack two years ago, Che said Red Hat has become the largest contributor to the open source project, including the most recent Havana release. The company says it has 87 engineers working on 69 various OpenStack projects.
Red Hat was able to integrate OpenStack management into
CloudForms after it acquired ManageIQ in the beginning of the year for $104 million. CloudForms 3.0 also gained improved management of Amazon public and hybrid cloud services and VMware infrastructure from ManageIQ. “Enterprises are now going to be able to deploy OpenStack, and they’ll be able to bring enterprise-class management capability on top of it as well,” Che said.
The new release includes tools for authoring and administrating service catalogs, and comes as a virtual appliance. Red Hat offers it as a standalone management platform, as well as part of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Platform, which includes the Linux distribution bundled with OpenStack.
Red Hat has also extended its OpenStack certifi cation programs. The company’s partner network, launched in June, now has 140 members that have introduced over 900 certifi ed solutions available in
the Red Hat Marketplace. “As a result of the partners who are engaged with us in this program, we’re seeing hundreds of customers with POCs,” says Mike Werner, Red Hat’s senior director for global ecosystems.
While the current certifi cations focus on core compute, storage and networking, Red Hat said it is adding OpenStack SWIFT object storage and extensions to advanced networking features in the community called Neutron. On top of certifi cation for OEMs, independent system builders and ISVs, Red Hat is extending the certifi cation program to systems integrators, managed service and cloud service providers, and its channel partners. VR
Jeffrey Schwartz is Editor-in-Chief of Redmond Magazine.
New OpenStack Tools, Extended Cloud Certs from Red HatBy Jeff rey Schwartz
Red Hat was able to integrate the OpenStack management functionality into CloudForms after it acquired ManageIQ earlier in the year.
12 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
Application Virtualization
The more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s how this year’s application virtualization category shook out in the fi nal tally. The same winners, fi nalists and Editor’s Choice as last year won this year. VMware ThinApp extends last year’s hat trick in this category with a four-win streak, while Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Application Virtualization each earned a Finalist spot on the virtual podium. Symantec Corp. also snagged the attention of the editors this year.
RCA WINNERVMware ThinApp - VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALIST Citrix XenApp 6.5 - Citrix Systems Inc.Standalone pricing starts at $350 per concurrent user and includes one year of Subscription Advantage. XenApp is also included in XenDesktop Enterprise or Platinum ■ citrix.com
RCA FINALISTMicrosoft Application Virtualization (App-V) - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com
Scense 8 - Scense B.V.Contact for price ■ scense.com
Spoon Server - Spoon.netContact for price ■ spoon.net
Server Virtualization As you can probably guess, VMware vSphere 5.0 easily tops this category. Who here does any work with virtualization and hasn’t used this? It’s also no surprise that Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer were fi nalists. Both are nearly in equal use by voters, but still a good distance from vSphere. The Editor’s Choice award goes to Splunk this year, for a visually appealing product and equally appealing name.
RCA WINNERvSphere 5 - VMware Inc.VMware vSphere Standard starts at $995 for one processor with up to 32GB vRAM entitlement per processor ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALIST Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V - Microsoft Corp.See bit.ly/182OjOg for licensing details ■ microsoft.com
RCA FINALIST Citrix XenServer 6.0 - Citrix Systems Inc.Pricing ranges from free to $1,000 per server for the Advanced Edition, $2,500 per server for the Enterprise Edition, and $5,000 per server for the Platinum Edition ■ citrix.com
Dell vStart 50, 100, 200 series - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ dell.com
FabricCache QLE 10000 - QLogic Corp.Contact for price ■ qlogic.com
FlashArray 400 Series - Pure Storage Inc.Contact for price ■ purestorage.com
FlashSoft for vSphere - SanDisk Corp.$3,900 ■ sandisk.com/products/fl ashsoft/vsphere/
FlexSuite QLE2600 and QLE8300 - QLogic Corp.Contact for price ■ qlogic.com
MethodologyAs in years past, we sent out the Virtualization Review Readers’ Choice Awards survey to approximately 20,000 of our readers via e-mail addresses we have on fi le. We also made one vote solicitation through the Virtualization Review newsletter. We kept voting open for two weeks, then combed through the responses and tallied the results. Readers span the IT spectrum, from executives to managers to the various professionals who get their hands dirty deploying technology on the front lines. It’s readers who make this guide possible, and it’s you we thank for participating every year.
14 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
HC3 - Scale Computing $25,499 for 15-30 Virtual Workloads Compute Resources, 96GB RAM, three Quad-Core Intel CPUs, 6x1GbE or 3x10GbE Storage Resources, 12 SATA or SAS drives, 6TB to 24TB RAW storage ■ scalecomputing.com
Memory Channel Storage - Diablo TechnologiesContact for price ■ diablo-technologies.com
Oracle VM 3.2 - Oracle Corp.Oracle VM has no license fee, only a support fee ■ oracle.com
Proxmox Virtual Environment - Proxmox Server Solutions GmbHContact for price ■ proxmox.com
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers 3.2 - Red Hat Inc.Free, fully supported 60-day trial; $2,994 Standard Subscription for one year ■ redhat.com
Riverbed Granite 2.5 - Riverbed TechnologyContact for price ■ riverbed.com
ScaleMP vSMP Foundation 4.0 - ScaleMP Inc.Contact for price ■ scalemp.com
Virtuozzo Containers - Parallels IP Holdings GmbHContact for price ■ parallels.com
V-locity 3 - Condusiv Technologies Corp.Contact for price ■ condusiv.com
Desktop Virtualization & VDIHere’s yet another category in which VMware pretty much ran over the competition, earning RCA Winner with VMware View. Citrix XenDesktop snagged an RCA Finalist award, along with the popular Parallels Desktop. Dell vWorkspace remains a strong contender here, once again earning Editor’s Choice honors.
RCA WINNERVMware View 5.5- VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALISTCitrix XenDesktop - Citrix Systems Inc. Contact for price ■ citrix.com
RCA FINALISTParallels Desktop - Parallels IP Holdings GmBH$79.99 ■ parallels.com
VDI-in-a-Box - Citrix Systems Inc. Starts at $975 for a 5-pack ■ citrix.com
Login VSI - Login VSIContact for price ■ loginvsi.com
Verde 7 - Virtual Bridges Inc.Contact for price ■ vbridges.com
vIO - GreenBytesContact for price ■ getgreenbytes.com
Virtual Desktop Platform - VDIworks Contact for price ■ vdiworks.com
vSpace Management Center - NComputingContact for price ■ ncomputing.com
vSpace Server - NComputingContact for price ■ ncomputing.com
vSTAC VDI Appliance - Pivot3 Inc.Contact for price ■ pivot3.com
WorkSpace iQ - Centrix Software Ltd. Contact for price ■ centrixsoftware.com
WorldDesk for Enterprise - WorldDeskContact for price ■ myworldesk.com
Mobile Virtualization & Bring Your Own Device The VMware Horizon Suite made some signifi cant strides on the mobility front, including the support from a handful of Android smartphone makers to make their phones VMware-ready. It’s those kinds of initiatives that probably had some impact on readers, who went on to vote Horizon to the top of the category as this year’s RCA Winner. It knocks Citrix down a notch (it was the winner here last year) to RCA Finalist, along with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. Fusion-io Inc. takes home Editor’s Choice for its ioVDI product.
RCA WINNERHorizon Suite - VMware Inc. Contact for price ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALISTCitrix XenMobile - Citrix Systems Inc.Free with Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and Citrix CloudGateway ■ citrix.com
RCA FINALISTSystem Center Operations Manager - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com
EDITOR’S CHOICE ioVDI - Fusion-io Inc.Contact for price ■ fusionio.com
Dell Wyse PocketCloud - Dell WyseContact for price ■ wyse.com
Intelligent Mobile Edge - Extreme NetworksContact for price ■ extremenetworks.com
Moka5 - Moka5 Inc.Contact for price ■ mokafi ve.com
Parallels Access - Parallels IP Holdings GmbH$79.99 per year ■ parallel.com/access
System Center 2012 Confi guration Manager - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com
vLogix Mobile - Red Bend SoftwareContact for price ■ redbend.com
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/2014RCA.
16 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
Thin-Client & Zero-Client Computing
Dell has seen some rough times with its core business, but has been mildly successful with two acquisitions: Wyse and Quest. Products from those two companies continue to thrive. The Dell Wyse T10 thin clients repeat as the RCA Winner for thin clients. From Quest, the newly dubbed Dell vWorkspace Thinshell is a skinnier, thinner Windows shell replacement. This takes a spot as an RCA Finalist. Last year, it was a Preferred Product with the longer Quest Workspace Desktop Virtualization ThinShell moniker.
Co-fi nalist Teradici Corp. and its PCoIP Zero Clients have proven to be quite popular with readers once again this year. The Editor’s Choice award for this category this year goes to 10ZiG Technology and its line of thin clients it sells through the channel.
RCA FINALISTTeradici PCoIP Zero Clients 1.7.1 - Teradici Corp.Starts at $299 ■ teradici.com
EDITOR’S CHOICE 10ZiG Zero Clients - 10ZiG TechnologyContact for price ■ 10zig.com
2X OS 7.3 - 2X SoftwareFree ■ 2x.com
AG7600 - Computer Lab International Inc. (CLI)Contact for price ■ computerlab.com
Devon Terminal Operating System - Devon ITContact for price ■ devonit.com
JC6100C Cloud Computing Model - Computer Lab International Inc. (CLI)Contact for price ■ computerlab.com
NoTouch Desktop 2.34.0 - Stratodesk Corp.Contact for price ■ stratodesk.com
Remote Desktop Reporter - RDPSoft $199 per monitored Terminal Server; with volume discounts ■ rdpsoft.com
UD2, UD3, UD5, UD9 Series - IGEL TechnologyContact for price ■ igel.com
Userful MultiSeat Linux Zero Clients - Userful Corp.Contact for price ■ userful.com
Virtualization Management & Optimization
Even with the sheer number of competitors in this category, VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite emerged as the runaway RCA Winner. It can manage such a comprehensive list of components within the VMware ecosystem that there’s little need to rely on third-party tools. RCA Finalists include Microsoft System Center and Veeam Management Pack for VMware, both worthwhile toolsets. For this year’s Editor’s Choice, it was SolarWinds Virtualization Manager. We like that it’s a fairly comprehensive alternative to many of the management tools out there at a fraction of the cost.
RCA WINNERvCenter Operations Management Suite 5.0 - VMware Inc.Standard Edition starts at $1,250 per 25-VM pack ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALISTSystem Center - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com
RCA FINALISTVeeam Management Pack for VMware - Veeam Software$450 per socket ■ veeam.com
EDITOR’S CHOICE Virtualization Manager 6 - SolarWinds Inc.Starts at $2,995 to monitor up to 50 VMs; priced to scale up to 15,000 VMs ■ solarwinds.com
AppSense User Virtualization Platform - AppSense Ltd.Contact for price ■ appsense.com
Aptare StorageConsole Platform - Aptare Inc.Contact for price ■ aptare.com
Argent for VMware - Argent SoftwareContact for price ■ argentsoftware.com
Equalizer OnDemand - Coyote Point Systems$3,595 ■ coyotepoint.com
Foglight for Virtual Desktops - Quest Software, a Division of Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ quest.com
Grid Engine - Univa Corp.Contact for price ■ univa.com
HIPAA Essential - SilverSky Contact for price ■ www.silversky.com
Hitachi Command Suite 7.3 - Hitachi Data Systems Corp.Contact for price ■ hds.com
Hosted Monitoring for In-House IT Departments - LogicMonitor Inc.Contact for price ■ logicmonitor.com
Hotlink Hybrid Express - Hotlink Corp. $300/year per Amazon EC2 Instance; free version supports 10 Amazon EC2 Instances ■ hotlink.com
Hotlink SuperVISOR - Hotlink Corp. $1,500/year per host; free version supports 3 hosts/15 VMs ■ hotlink.com
HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Server 7 - Hewlett-Packard Co.Free when managing HP Storage under support contract; contact for other pricing options ■ hp.com
HyTrust Appliance - HyTrust Inc.Contact for price ■ hytrust.com
IgniteVM 8.2 - Confi o Software Contact for price ■ confi o.com
Intigua - IntiguaContact for price ■ intigua.com
ioTurbine Fusion-io - Fusion-io Inc.Contact for price ■ fusion-io.com
IP Address Management Freeware - Infoblox Inc.Free ■ infoblox.com
Librato - Librato Contact for price ■ metrics.librato.com
MozyPro - Mozy Corp.Contact for price ■ mozy.com
Netuitive 6.0 - Netuitive Inc.Contact for price ■ netuitive.com
NetWrix Change Reporter - NetWrix Corp.Contact for price ■ netwrix.com
Novell Endpoint Lifecycle Management Suite - NovellContact for price ■ novell.com
OmniCube - SimpliVity Corp.Contact for price ■ simplivity.com
OnCommand Management Software Portfolio - NetAppContact for price ■ netapp.com
OneFabric Data Center Manager - Enterasys Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ enterasys.com
PAN Manager Software - Egenera Inc.Contact for price ■ egenera.com
Splunk App for Citrix - Splunk Inc.Free ■ splunk.com
Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise - Quest Software, a Division of Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ quest.com
StorageCraft ShadowControl ImageManager 5.0.5 - StorageCraft Technology Corp.ShadowControl ImageManager is included with the ShadowProtect license; additional licensing is required for individual jobs featuring ShadowStream, intelligentFTP and HeadStart Restore technology ■ storagecraft.com
Stratusphere FIT - Liquidware Labs Inc.Contact for price ■ liquidwarelabs.com
StruxureWare for Data Centers - Schneider ElectricContact for price ■ schneider-electric.us
Terra Alta - Akamai TechnologiesContact for price ■ akamai.com
Unifi ed Communications - Avaya Inc.Contact for price ■ avaya.com
up.time 7 - Uptime Software Inc.$99 per element monitoring ■ uptimesoftware.com
18 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
Vblock System 700 - VCE Contact for price ■ vce.com
vCapacity 3.3 - Refl ex Systems LLCContact for price ■ refl exsystems.com
Veritas Dynamic Multi-Pathing for VMware - Symantec Corp.Starts at $900 per processor and is licensed based on processor type and number of cores ■ symantec.com
VirtualWisdom - Virtual Instruments Inc.Contact for price ■ virtualinstruments.com
VMTurbo Operations Manager - VMTurbo Inc. Contact for price ■ vmturbo.com
WorkSpace iQ - Centrix Software Ltd.Contact for price ■ centrixsoftware.com
Xangati Management Dashboard 5 - XangatiContact for price ■ xangati.com
Zenoss Service Dynamics - Zenoss Inc.Contact for price ■ zenoss.com
Cloud Infrastructure & PlatformLast year, VMware’s whole story focused on the cloud—particularly the hybrid cloud. The centerpiece of that story is vCloud Director, the orchestration and provisioning tool that takes virtualized datacenters a bit further along on their evolutionary path. It’s also this category’s RCA Winner. This year, vCloud Director had some healthy competition from RCA Finalists Microsoft with Windows Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) with its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). A new entry this year, TwinStrata CloudArray, got the editors’ attention for its combo cloud/on-premises play, earning an Editor’s Choice award.
RCA WINNERvCloud Director - VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALISTWindows Azure - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com
RCA FINALISTAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Amazon Web Services LLCContact for price ■ aws.amazon.com
EDITOR’S CHOICE CloudArray - TwinStrata Inc.Starts at $0.19 per gigabyte ■ twinstrata.com
6fusion IaaS Marketplace - 6fusion Inc.Contact for price ■ 6fusion.com
AppCluster for Public Cloud - Sanbolic Inc.$8,000 per server ■ sanbolic.com
AppFog CenturyLink - AppFog Inc.Contact for price ■ appfog.com
Apprenda Open Platform as a Service - Apprenda Inc.Contact for price ■ apprenda.com
Application Services - AT&TContact for price ■ att.com/hosting
20 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
xStream Enterprise Cloud - Virtustream Inc.Contact for price ■ virtustream.com
Cloud StorageYou’ve got to hand it to Amazon Simple Storage Service. It’s a truly simple concept, easy to use, reliable and cost-effective. It’s almost too big to fail. Readers recognize that, which is probably why it’s the runaway RCA Winner for Cloud Storage. Dropbox drops down a notch from last year, to RCA Finalist, joining EMC Atmos. The Editor’s Choice goes to Hitachi Cloud Storage Solutions for its fl exible, highly scalable solutions.
RCA WINNERAmazon Simple Storage Service - Amazon Web Services LLCContact for price ■ aws.amazon.com
RCA FINALISTDropbox - DropboxPro Edition starts at $9.99 per month for 100GB, 200GB or 500GB plans; Team Edition plans start at 1TB for fi ve users; contact for price ■ dropbox.com
RCA FINALISTAtmos - EMC Corp.Contact for price ■ emc.com
EDITOR’S CHOICE Hitachi Cloud Storage Solutions - Hitachi Data Systems Corp. Contact for price ■ hds.com
Abiquo - Abiquo Inc.Contact for price ■ abiquo.com
AcerCloud - Acer Inc.Contact for price ■ cloud.acer.com
Aryaka - AryakaContact for price ■ aryaka.com
Asigra Cloud Backup - Asigra Inc.Contact for price ■ asigra.com
AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service - AT&TContact for price ■ att.com
Ayrris - Appistry Inc.Contact for price ■ appistry.com
Box - BoxContact for price ■ box.com
Carbonite Business - CarboniteContact for price ■ carbonite.com
Cloud-Integrated Enterprise Storage - StorSimple Inc.Contact for price ■ storsimple.com
CloudAlly - CloudAllyContact for price ■ cloudally.com
CloudArray - TwinStrata Inc.Starts at $0.19 per gigabyte ■ twinstrata.com
CloudScaler - Caringo Inc.Contact for price ■ caringo.com
Elastic Content Protection - Caringo Inc.Contact for price ■ caringo.com
iCloud - Apple Inc.Contact for price ■ apple.com
MagFS - MaginaticsContact for price ■ maginatics.com
n5 Storage System - NexGen Storage Inc.$55,000 ■ nexgenstorage.com
NexentaStor - Nexenta Systems Inc. Contact for price ■ nexenta.com
Panzura CloudFS File System - PanzuraContact for price ■ panzura.com
Profi tBricks Infrastructure as a Service - Profi tBricksContact for price ■ profi tbricks.com
Cloud Security Privacy and trust are big issues this year. In the cloud, trust issues are exponentially more diffi cult to overcome. RCA Winner in the Cloud Security category—Trend Micro Inc. for its SecureCloud product—has an edge on the competition, having established itself as the market leader in giving users a sense of safety and security. The votes for RCA Finalist were tight, going to IBM Cloud Security, McAfee Cloud Security and Symantec O3 Cloud Identity and Access Control product. The Editor’s Choice winner here is Acronis International GmbH for its easy-to-use, simplistic Cloud Backup Solution.
RCA WINNERSecureCloud - Trend Micro Inc.Contact for price ■ trendmicro.com
RCA FINALISTIBM Cloud Security and Infrastructure Management Services - IBM Corp.Contact for price ■ ibm.com
VirtualizationReview.com | Virtualization Review | December 2013/January 2014 | 21
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
RCA FINALISTSymantec O3 Cloud Identity and Access Control - Symantec Corp.Price is based on hardware appliances or service subscriptions on a per-user schedule ■ symantec.com
EDITOR’S CHOICE Acronis Cloud Backup Solution - Acronis International GmbHContact for price ■ acronis.com
Security Solutions for Cloud Providers - Fortinet Inc.Contact for price ■ fortinet.com
Managed Security Service - SilverSkyContact for price ■ silversky.com
StillSecure Cloud NSA 1 - StillSecureContact for price ■ stillsecure.com
Cloud Software
More readers continue to fl ock toward Citrix ShareFile. It’s like Dropbox (RCA Winner in 2013) on steroids, with some sophisticated management and collaboration features that tie into other Citrix products. NetIQ Corp. and Salesforce.com are new RCA Finalist award winners this year. NetIQ has been providing IaaS with its Cloud Manager successfully for quite some time, and Salesforce.com has had a strong cloud play ever since it tacked the .com to the end of its name. Zenoss Inc. earns an Editor’s Choice here for its simple but comprehensive cloud monitoring service.
RCA WINNERShareFile - Citrix Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ citrix.com
RCA FINALISTCloud Manager - NetIQ Corp.Contact for price ■ netiq.com
RCA FINALISTSalesforce.com - Salesforce.comContact for price ■ salesforce.com
Puppet Enterprise - Puppet LabsContact for price ■ puppetlabs.com
QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Hosting Service - Intuit Inc.$54.99/user per month ■ intuit.com
SAP Cloud Business Applications - SAP AGContact for price ■ sap.com
Virtustream xStream - Virtustream Inc. Contact for price ■ virtustream.com
Z-Business Enterprise Editions - Zuora Inc.Contact for price ■ zuora.com
Zenoss Service Dynamics - Zenoss Inc.Contact for price ■ zenoss.com
Zoho Business Apps - Zoho Corp. Pvt. Ltd.Contact for price ■ zoho.com
Business Continuity VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager takes top honors here. That’s no surprise. It works well with vSphere, and most of you have deployed that in some fashion. Even so, Veeam Backup & Replication came in as a strong second, along with IBM and its IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, both earning RCA Finalist awards. Dell’s AppAssure takes Editor’s Choice honors for its ability to recover data or VMs across dissimilar platforms.
RCA WINNERvCenter Site Recovery Manager - VMware Inc.Standard Edition pricing starts at $195 per VM ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALISTIBM Tivoli Storage Manager - IBM Corp.Contact for price ■ ibm.com
Zetta DataProtect - Zetta Inc.Contact for price ■ zetta.net
Virtualization AutomationThis race was a tight one, but HP Cloud Service Automation fi nished at the top to get its fi rst RCA Winner award. HP has a veritable feast of cloud services, and Cloud Service Automation keeps them all straight. It barely beat out RCA Finalists IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator and PHD ReliableDR, both worthwhile contenders. IBM has lots of enterprise fans, so it’s no surprise that it fi nished highly. PHD ReliableDR is unique in that it makes DR a set-and-forget kind of job. Editor’s Choice goes to Red Hat Inc.’s CloudForms, based on technology from its acquisition of ManageIQ.
RCA WINNERHP Cloud Service Automation - Hewlett-Packard Co.Contact for price ■ hp.com
RCA FINALISTIBM SmartCloud Orchestrator - IBM Corp.Contact for price ■ ibm.com
RCA FINALISTPHD Virtual ReliableDR - PHD Virtual Technologies$250 per VM ■ phdvirtual.com
EDITOR’S CHOICERed Hat CloudForms - Red Hat Inc.Contact for price ■ redhat.com
Cloud Lifecycle Management - BMC SoftwareContact for price ■ bmc.com
ioTurbine - Fusion-io Inc.$3,900 ■ fusionio.com
JAMS - MVP Systems Software Inc.Contact for price ■ jamsscheduler.com
24 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide
rPath Cloud Engine - rPath Inc.Contact for price ■ rpath.com
vProfi le 3.3 - Refl ex Systems LLCPricing is about $595 per socket ■ refl exsystems.com
Storage VirtualizationVMware’s acquisition of Virsto this year did wonders to the storage hypervisor’s credibility. It easily won RCA this year, displacing last year’s champ. NetApp, last year’s winner, still managed an RCA Finalist spot, alongside Hitachi Data Systems and its increasingly popular 3D-scaling storage platform. Atlantis ILIO gets the Editor’s Choice award for its ability to simplify and optimize storage via a VDI scenario.
RCA WINNERVirsto - VMware Inc.Starts from $5,000 per TB ■ vmware.com
RCA FINALISTNetApp V-Series Open Storage Controller - NetAppContact for price ■ netapp.com
RCA FINALISTHitachi Virtual Storage Platform - Hitachi Data Systems Corp.Contact for price ■ hds.com
WD Arkeia Network Backup - Arkeia Software and Western Digital TechnologiesContact for price ■ arkeia.com
Tegile Zebi - Tegile Systems Inc. HA2400, $168,000; HA2800, $235,000 ■ tegile.com
Network Virtualization Networking technology is evolving. Pretty soon, we’ll wonder what a server closet looks like as network virtualization gains traction. RCA Winner VMware is putting lots of work toward this, and its vSphere Distributed Switch is one key. Another is VMware’s NSX, dubbed RCA Finalist. Cisco’s Nexus 1000V is the other fi nalist, blazing a path for network virtualization with its highly popular virtual switch. F5’s BIG-IP Local Traffi c Manager gets the Editor’s Choice for the work it has done in network optimization and performance.
Virtualization SecuritySecurity is an issue that seems to keep many enterprises from committing to the cloud. Perhaps Trend Micro Inc.’s RCA winner Deep Security will help turn the tide. Cisco snags two RCA Finalist awards here, with its Cloud Firewall and Virtual Security Gateway. Kaspersky Lab ZAO gets Editor’s Choice with its Kaspersky Security for Virtualization.
RCA WINNERTrend Micro Deep Security - Trend Micro Inc.Contact for price ■ trendmicro.com
RCA FINALISTCisco ASA 1000V Cloud Firewall - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com/en/US/products/ps12233/index.html
RCA FINALISTCisco Virtual Security Gateway - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com
EDITOR’S CHOICEKaspersky Security for Virtualization - Kaspersky Lab ZAOContact for price ■ kaspersky.com
VM Fortress - Tresys Technology LLCContact for price ■ tresys.com
vTrust - Refl ex Systems LLCPricing is about $595 per socket ■ refl exsystems.com
WatchGuard XTMv Series - WatchGuard Technologies Inc.Contact for price ■ watchguard.com
Websense Triton - Websense Inc.Contact for price ■ websense.com
Virtualization Training You need to update your IT skills as quickly as information technology and tools continue to improve. That’s where training companies like RCA Winner Global Knowledge Training LLC shines. It continues to update its course catalog with highly relevant cloud and virtualization material. It also has more than 150 locations globally, and comes highly
recommended by many Virtualization Review readers. RCA Finalist New Horizons also garnered quite a few votes. PluralSight Inc. recently acquired TrainSignal, which had a heavy emphasis on cloud and virtualization training. Fast Lane earns an Editor’s Choice for its focus on high-end networking and virtualization courses.
RCA WINNERGlobal Knowledge Training LLCContact for price ■ globalknowledge.com
RCA FINALISTNew Horizons Computer Learning CentersContact for price ■ newhorizons.com
RCA FINALISTPluralSight Inc.Contact for price ■ trainsignal.com
EDITOR’S CHOICEFast LaneContact for price ■ fastlaneus.com
Ascolta TrainingContact for price ■ ascolta.com
Capella UniversityContact for price ■ capella.edu
DeVry UniversityContact for price ■ devry.edu
Hatsize Corp.Contact for price ■ hatsize.com
Intense SchoolContact for price ■ intenseschool.com
InfoSec InstituteContact for price ■ infosecinstitute.com
ITT Technical InstituteContact for price ■ itt-tech.edu
Kaplan UniversityContact for price ■ kaplan.edu
Learning Tree InternationalContact for price ■ learningtree.com
Learn iT!Contact for price ■ learnit.com
MeasureUpContact for price ■ measureup.com
NetCom LearningContact for price ■ netcomlearning.com
QuickStart TrainingContact for price ■ quickstart.com
University of PhoenixContact for price ■ phoenix.edu
Register to download this eBook from Wiley Publishing compliments of Tegile
http://www.tegile.com/flash
Flash Storage for Virtualization For Dummies', introduces you to the options flash technology offers to meet the increasing demands on storage created by virtualization.
28 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
VIRTUAL
By Elias Khnaser
INSIDER
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How the Cloud Will Explode in 2014”Everything is achievable through technology: Better living, robust health and for the fi rst time in human history, the possibility of world peace.” Not sure about the world peace, but overall, that’s well said. That’s Howard Stark, Iron Man’s father in the latest movie. When you look at the innovation of today and what we can expect in the future, that statement truly represents what we can achieve through technology.
Most of that fi ctional technology is starting to become real. Big data analytics, mobile, cloud, social and, of course, security got close-ups in the story. I predict those exact technologies—especially security—will be trending into 2014.
SecurityThe proliferation of mobile devices is bound to present security threats in 2014 and beyond. So far, we haven’t seen widespread attacks on mobile devices, but to think that will never happen is naive. As a result, the wider adoption of MxM technology will accelerate, especially if vulnerabilities surface at a more rapid pace. Security will also be a signifi cant focus around the cloud. Now that enterprises have accepted the cloud and are using it more extensively, many security questions are arising and the need to protect data in the cloud will be ever more crucial next year.
Flash arraysThe storage industry will wrestle with all-fl ash arrays in 2014, with new players like Cisco entering the market and existing players intro ducing or improving their all-fl ash arrays. There is room for consol i da tion, so expect to see HP in particular make an acquisition of some sort. While I believe hybrid arrays will be the winner when the dust settles, all-fl ash will dominate storage headlines.
Desktop as a ServiceThe VMware acquisition of Desktone and the Amazon introduction of Workspaces will no doubt make 2014 the year of DaaS. It will likely amount to serious conversation, but no real implementation aside from some limited use cases. The importance of DaaS is in its future direction. Between 2015 and 2016, we might see
DaaS being taken seriously and possible deployment methods with enterprises. This will require some other aspects of technology to improve, specifi cally remote protocols and bandwidth availability.
IT Department RestructureIT management will start to take a serious look at current IT departments’ siloed structure and make corrective changes to position resources for the transformation happening with these trends. The storage, networking, virtualization and compute silos we have will start to converge into a datacenter role, especially as software-defi ned everything starts to become a reality.
IT Broker Services Build OutVendors will release products that help IT departments become brokers. By brokers, I am talking about the ability to have one enterprise-wide resource store that can aggregate local applications and resources with external resources, cloud and others and present them in a meaningful way. This is more than just the current self-service portal and app stores. Brokerages will help departments branch out and include services they can’t offer today.
In-Memory Database AdoptionBig data analytics will be a widely-discussed trend for a long time. As a fan and believer that big data analytics will change the world, I believe we’ll see more movement from conceptual talk to implementation and value extraction. I’m predicting the adoption of in-memory analytics and processing will signifi cantly increase as we start to deploy and leverage big data analytics. I expect the major database vendors will innovate products specifi cally geared towards in-memory, which is a requirement in my opinion to generate the real-time analytics the business needs.
The year 2014 will defi nitely be a cornerstone for big data analytics, cloud and social. I also predict some acquisitions and consolidations, which you can read about on my online blog. VR
Elias Khnaser owns professional services fi rm The Elias Khnaser Company. He’s an expert on VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, and has authored many books and published a number of training videos on the subjects of virtualization and server based computing, primarily Citrix and Terminal Services. He has blogged for Forbes and eWeek.
30 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
EVERYDAYVIRTUALIZATION
All Else is Virtual, So Why Not the Apps?Before virtualization was a centerpiece of my IT practice, I spent a lot of time dealing with application owners talking about application topics. With virtualization, I’ve been spending a lot more time dealing with infrastructure topics to make everything better for the application owners.
Whether or not they really appreciate that level of focus is a whole other topic. It’s important to note that applications are still what really matter in an infrastructure solution, whether that’s a physical infrastructure or one built on virtualization as a cornerstone technology.
I’ve seen categorical improvements across the board. In memory technology, there have been great improvements both on servers and in hypervisors for performance, capacity, cost savings and usage effi ciency. The processor realm has continually improved in performance and density, with additional points for energy effi ciency. That has been a huge important advance recently. We all know how and what storage is doing. If you haven’t heard, it is awesome. There’s a huge network change among us. We’re all still taking that in for now, but that’s not all that we can do.
Sure, we’ve made incredible advances in how we administer this virtual environment. Go back to 2006 or 2007, when the vSphere client or later on Hyper-V Manager consoles was your only view into the virtual environment. We really had quite a limited view and reach of the potential back then. Now we have incredible automation options for performance, resource management and even self-provisioning. There also are enhanced administration and availability techniques.
With all of that being said, have we really changed how we handle our applications? We’ve come so far with this virtualized infrastructure in terms of everything else, so is the application the problem now?
I talk to a lot of people around the world who are operating at varying levels of virtualization maturity. One factor is consistent. Those who embrace the infrastructure with clear lines of communication to the application teams, coupled with superior virtualization implementations, are best equipped for the future.
The application change is the hard part. In many of those scenarios, there is a bit of stakeholder education required. A simple conversation can make a huge difference: “If the application fi ts here, we can do all of this.”
Before anyone calls foul here, I get that all applications can’t be changed that easily. In fact, for the best part of my career, I worked in the industrial supply chain automation space. Even today, that would be a tough sell when trying to virtualize applications.
But each application that is a pain point in our environments is an opportunity for advancement. Can we have those conversations with our application owners? Can we get involved with the application process? From the IT standpoint, it’s a risk versus reward decision. The risk is there may be a lot of time invested, with no changes made. The reward is possibly removing your last pain point in your datacenter. Wouldn’t that be worth it to you? VR
Rick Vanover (vExpert, VCP, MCITP) is a software strategy specialist for Veeam Software based in Columbus, Ohio. His areas of expertise include virtualization, servers, storage and Windows systems.
We have come so far with the virtualized infrastructure, so is the application the problem now?
By Rick Vanover
Vanover Online! For more practical virtualization information from the Rickatron, check out
Everyday Virtualization online at bit.ly/AluIP
Visit VirtualizationReview.com for live and on-demand webcasts. You’ll get tips and learn about technologies that can improve and grow your business. Watch these free webcasts without leaving your desk. This month’s featured events include:
32 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com
IMA
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Five Reasons 2014 will be the Year of VDI
Mike Matchett is a senior analyst and consultant with IT analyst fi rm Taneja Group.
Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) fi nally breaks
out. VMware buying Desktone proves
two things: One is that VMware is serious
about service provider scales of cloud
building. Two is that DaaS has proved both
viable and profi table for service providers
and productive and cost-effi cient for subscribers.
Providing VDI as a cloud service only makes sense.
It becomes elastic, dynamic and pay-as-you-go.
Letting new users self-provision desktops and apps
online with a few clicks changes the whole way the
rest of the business views IT. “What? No waiting
for three days for an IT guy to stop by and install a
bunch of stuff ?”
TAKE
1
Mobile devices are becoming productive endpoints. Between BYOD and an increasingly distributed workforce, supporting workers productively across any device has been a challenge. We see more devices, OSes and protocols supported to the point where by the
end of this year, practical VDI options should reach critical mass. There will be no need to force users to choose between PC, Mac, dedicated thin client, Android or iOS clients, nor between Windows or Linux virtual desktops.
TAKE
2VM-aware storage directly addresses IO
bottlenecks. We all know the dirty secret of VDI
is that storage is really the problem with scaling
out properly. Part of the problem is a fundamental
misalignment between traditional storage and how
hypervisors work—LUNs and fi le systems. Now
we have solutions like Atlantis ILIO for memory-based VDI
acceleration layered over older SAN/NAS and Tintri’s newest
VMstore T650 for directly integrated VM-aware storage that
can support 2K+ VMs for massive VDI hosting.
TAKE
3
Applications are becoming more “app” like. Finally, we see
more business productivity applications with more app-like
features, UIs or even lightweight app alternatives. This takes a
load off the need for high-end desktop services to start with.
It also frees up resources for those users and applications that
really need them.
We haven’t even mentioned advances in CPU, network, VDI protocols
or fl ash technology that also accelerate the client VDI experience. If
your organization has previously toyed around with VDI, but shelved the
idea, it might be time to revisit virtualizing desktops, either wholesale
or in select parts of your organization. The potential OpEx savings and
productivity opportunities should be motivation enough. The good will
from your business counterparts will be priceless.
TAKE
5
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has long been hailed as the capability we should all be using. In many cases, the truth is performance becomes slow at scale. Hidden storage costs outweigh the intended cost-effi ciencies. That may all be changing with new products and capabilities designed to overcome those limitations.
There’s a fl urry of virtual desktop news lately: VMware is buying Desktone to ramp up its DaaS cloud/service provider capabilities. Virtual Bridges VERDE is rolling out support for multi-tenancy (and dual-monitor Linux for us dev geeks). NComputing is bringing down the costs of Citrix session virtualization. Even the convergence and hyper-convergence players are getting serious about VDI.
We can think of fi ve reasons 2014 will be the year VDI adoption really ramps up:
Hyperconvergence provides building blocks for VDI infrastructure. It’s almost too easy to build a fully featured datacenter with “simple” Lego-like infrastructure solutions like Simplivity, Scale Computing and Nutanix Hyperconverged infrastructures. Besides its
built-in VM-aware storage, Simplivity announced its OmniCube can incorporate a PCoIP offl oad engine and NVIDIA GPUs to ramp up VDI scale and performance.
4TAKE
TAKE FIVE 5 TIPS AND TRICKS TO TAKE WITH YOU : : BY Mike Matchett