[thinnews] VMware Touts Enterprise Hosted Desktop At VMworld
- From: "Jim Kenzig http://kenzig.com" <jimkenz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Thinnews <thinnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 09:08:07 -0700 (PDT)
VMware Touts Enterprise Hosted Desktop At VMworld
(URL:
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=172302237)
By Paula Rooney,
10:54 AM EDT Wed. Oct. 19, 2005
VMware built its empire on the server, but this week the software maker will
focus on the Enterprise Hosted Desktop, a managed virtual desktop built on its
virtual infrastructure.
At VMworld 2005 in Las Vegas, Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware is expected to
detail how upcoming upgrades, ESX 3 and VirtualCenter 2, can be used to deploy
secure managed desktop services and remote access to the enterprise. Both
products, announced Monday, are in limited beta testing and are due to ship in
the first quarter of 2006.
Enterprise Hosted Desktop is yet another approach to managing and securing the
desktop, but it's not likely to please Citrix Systems and Microsoft, according
to David Greschler, vice president at Boston-based Softricity, whose
application virtualization software runs atop the Enterprise Hosted Desktop.
"It's a replacement for the [Citrix] MetaFrame server," Greschler said. "You
can fire up [Windows] XP on a server using ESX and have XP sessions using RDP
[Remote Desktop Protocol] to screen scrape to a client. It's not unlike
Microsoft terminal services and Citrix, but it's done in a different way."
Partners lined up at VMworld to tout their own hosted solutions. At VMworld
2005 on Tuesday, for instance, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM unveiled its IBM
Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure with partners VMware and Citrix. The
solution pairs an IBM xSeries or BladeCenter server with versions of VMWare's
virtual infrastructure software and Citrix's Presentation Server
pre-integrated.
VMware Workstation, VMware's first desktop product, traditionally has been used
for application development and testing purposes, like Microsoft's Virtual PC.
Version 5.5, which was introduced last month, is currently in beta testing and
expected to be released later this year.
VMware said virtual machines created with VMware Workstation can be deployed to
its GSX Server and data center-class VMware ESX Server platforms. Once deployed
on GSX Server or ESX Server, VirtualCenter can be used to manage these virtual
machines, the company said.
According to information about the Enterprise Hosted Desktop on VMware?s Web
site, the company's virtual infrastructure can be used to provide centrally
hosted virtual desktops to remote users. Using VirtualCenter 2, for instance,
desktops can be managed, secured, scaled and provisioned more easily than
traditional methods.
Mike Reilly, managing partner at Foedus, a VMware and Softricity partner in
Portsmouth, N.H., said the combination resolves key desktop management issues.
"It's got a lot of potential, the Enterprise Hosted Desktop, in being able to
leverage a virtual desktop instance," Reilly said. "VMware breaks the bind
between the OS and the hardware, and Softricity breaks the bind between the
application and the operating system. We can use those two things in concert.?
Like many ISVs, VMware is trying to leverage its virtual infrastructure
technology to help customers reduce the cost of desktop management, said Paul
Ghostine, president of Emergent Online, a VMware VIP and VMware Authorized
Consulting partner. "There are many ways of doing it, with [VMware] Enterprise
Hosted Desktop, Citrix Online, Web Ex and other managed desktop services," he
said.
Microsoft confirmed last spring that it is experimenting with a managed desktop
service with Energizer Holdings and several other corporate customers.
The Enterprise Hosted Desktop is different from ACE, VMware's other
desktop-related product. ACE is a utility that lets users build secure
corporate desktop images on CDs that can be handed to outside contractors, and
partners can securely load them onto their laptops, plug into the network
without any risk of infection and have the same user interface as internal
workers.
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