|
Market Roundup Wyse: Thin Clients For VMware VDI |
|
At a press event in New York,
It is obvious that this is a big announcement; big in the
number of products being offered, but also big—or more aptly wide—in its
breadth and depth. Opteron is no longer strictly new; however, this
announcement serves clear notice that at least Big Blue is no longer
pigeonholing the processor to the narrowly defined realm of high-performance
computing applications. With all that Opteron has had to offer, this artificial
limitation has always been perplexing to us; however, now that this (in our
view) misguided positioning appears to be over, we are encouraged by
At the same time, the performance of these solutions,
especially at the three-way and higher CPU levels illustrate the value of
innovation when creating a solution. The use of HTX as opposed to PCI Express
benefits memory handling and allows what the company claims to be near linear
four-way scaling of processors. The ability to maintain
faster front bus speeds (667MHz) to memory when deploying more than sixteen
DIMMs also provides an advantage as systems and memory requirements scale
upward. The technological prowess of the
The notion of Business Performance Computing is an
interesting one that
Wyse: Thin Clients For VMware VDI
Wyse Technology has announced a thin client desktop device that has been designed for organizations making use of VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). The solution results from collaboration between Wyse and VMware to make the Wyse Thin OS aware of key VMware VDI technologies. The result, Wyse Thin OS—VDI Edition, is designed to enhance user experience and functionality, delivering all of the qualities associated with VMware VDI in a single “push power button to work” device. The solution incorporates the new Thin OS—VDI edition software and is delivered on the Wyse S-Class thin client appliance. The VDI optimized desktop with the new OS and a single Wyse S-Class Thin Client device is priced at $299, with volume discounts available.
This announcement represents another step in the long and winding Thin Client road. Thin client solutions have come a long way in the last few years, but have managed to do so without attracting undue attention. We have promoted the use of both the Thin Client service delivery architecture and of VMware Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, as the combination of the two has much to offer. Enterprise Desktop Virtualization allows organizations to employ small, secure thin clients on the user’s desktop and then linki them to their own virtual desktop machines residing on centrally managed servers. Adding the Wyse thin client appliance and OS to the mix provides the organization with the opportunity to utilize a totally “stateless” desktop device as the user access platform. These are simple switch-on/switch-off machines with no moving parts and, more importantly, no user-accessible local operating system software to “accidentally” corrupt thus resulting in a near elimination of IT support to manage the desktop device. Equally, there is no way for business information to be stored on the device, as the thin client holds no local storage, thereby greatly enhancing enterprise security should a Wyse Thin Client device be stolen. Similarly, if a device fails, a new thin client appliance can be plugged in to the power and the network and be ready to use. Indeed, any user can log into a desktop from any thin client system in the enterprise.
The combination of Wyse Thin OS—VDI Edition and VMware
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure has the potential to radically alter the
delivery of desktop services. Users are comfortable with the business
applications and the way of working enabled by the PC. The Wyse Thin
Client/VMware VDI combination gives users the applications they need in a
fashion to which they have become accustomed while greatly improving overall
security and availability and minimizing the costs of delivering these key
desktop services. With Wyse now promoting a roadmap of future enhancements that
includes enhanced multimedia support, virtualized
There is today no doubt at all that enterprise asset
management is important. Indeed, in a recent survey of CEOs around 40% of those
responding highlighted “asset utilization” as an area of major focus. With IT
now a cornerstone in almost every business transaction, the optimization of IT
asset usage has never been more important, nor more
visible. As we have said before, effective IT management can only be built on a
solid foundation of asset and service knowledge. Asset Management and Service
Catalogue are the foundations on which IT operations run and by which the costs
associated with service delivery optimised. The addition of the
While much of the initial focus of the acquisition of
Cisco has recently announced its Proactive Automation of
Change Execution (PACE) solution for IT management. PACE is intended to help
companies’ IT departments control the operations, technical, and deployment
services, and is designed to address the needs of any size business. The
solution reportedly uses secure proactive automation of change, configuration,
and analysis tasks while providing reduced management cost and time. PACE is
configured to support the Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) in
order to centrally manage network infrastructure and ease the deployment of
advanced services across the enterprise. The complete PACE solution is
comprised of Cisco's Access Control Server (
Overall, networks are getting larger and more complicated, and require a higher degree of understanding and expertise in order to be effectively managed. At the same time, network security is becoming more important on an almost exponential basis. Both of these phenomena mean that there is a severe shortage of staff that has the necessary skills to implement and manage even simple networks securely. Thus, network management tools are essential for the successful running of a company’s IT. Cisco is seeking to bridge the gap between need and skills with their PACE solution, and hopefully, it will address this need in an elegant solution that effectively rivals the offerings from HP’s OpenView, Dell’s OpenManage Client Administrator, and a host of boutique IT management companies. However, Cisco is generally trusted to manage Cisco networks.
The larger the business, the more complex and urgent the compliance issues become, and the bigger the target it is for both security threats and government overseeing agencies. At first blush, Cisco’s PACE may have the most appeal in the enterprise sector; however, organizations where "network" specialists are in short supply, namely the mid tier and small enterprises, will likely find much that is appealing in this offering. Enterprise businesses will more easily become compliant with regulations if it is easier and more cost-effective to do so rather than to procrastinate, and perhaps PACE is easy enough and inexpensive enough that more enterprises will get on board with the whole compliance issue. Outside organizations themselves, another sector that could use this technology would be service providers that seek to supply network management to end-user organizations.
Among the things to be considered when setting up any IT management solution is the identification of how the network should be configured, which would ideally encompass the combination of skills, knowledge, best practice, and experience available in a company’s IT department. Then the solution needs to ensure that all components in the network are properly configured, and a monitoring solution of all of the components will need to be implemented to ensure that the system is running in accordance with the desired outcome. And last but not least, any system must have an excellent change management available to make sure that any changes to network infrastructure will not compromise security or delivered services and quality of said services. Whether Cisco’s PACE lives up to all expectations remains to be seen; however, even if PACE doesn’t meet or exceed all expectations, the notion of management solution offerings is spot on.
The nonprofit organization Green Wi-Fi has taken on an
ambitious project by attempting to bring the Internet to developing countries,
especially schools in those countries, by using cheap, solar-powered WiFi
networks. In some areas of developing countries, basic, reliable electricity is
often a problem as are other infrastructure details such as cable and telephone
lines. However, with initial funding from One Laptop Per
Child, an organization whose goal is to develop and distribute $100 laptops in
developing countries, Green WiFi will launch a full-scale pilot project this
summer in
Most of the technology for this noble endeavor has already been developed; it just needed to be put together in a creative way while coping with the decision of a cost ceiling of $200 per node. The nodes need what the organization calls an “intelligent charge-controller.” The controller sits between the battery and the router, and regulates power to the router depending on the charge level of the battery and the amount of incoming sunlight. Bailke developed the software used in the controller, which categorizes users based on a per-need basis. At full power, everyone can connect. However, when power drops (e.g., during monsoon season when there is often a month or more of clouds and much less sunlight), then certain groups are cut off, bandwidth is limited, and hours of operation can be restricted to the open hours of the school. A simple web-based interface manages the division of groups and routing of power.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished and there are critics of every project. One criticism of Green WiFi is that people don’t care to learn about the Internet when they don’t have adequate food or water, and that connecting people to the Internet when they are still living in aching poverty is putting the cart before the horse. But to be fair, Green WiFi probably cannot deliver food, water, medical care, etc., and is delivering what could be of substantial value, provided that more traditional relief and economic development agencies play their part in delivering basic life-supporting staples. Other critics note that even if the electrical supply is more or less reliable, the wifi service won’t be, but then again, could such a claim be made in the industrial world? Does that mean that people shouldn’t use wifi until it is as reliable as a cable connection? Of course not. It just means that everyone is further connected by a worldwide frustration with the limitations of current technology.
The technologically advanced areas of the globe have recently been squeezed by astronomical oil prices and more constricting pollution laws; Green WiFi’s solution may just be a boon to those areas as well. Some cities are dealing with brownouts in their electrical supply, with most of California and New York being the first areas that come to mind. Rising summer temperatures drives air conditioning demand, and the increased drain on the grid means that some businesses and residences are left without power some of the time. Maybe solar-powered wifi is just a drop in the bucket compared to total electricity usage, but it might be viewed differently by those who need to continue conducting business during a brownout.