Articles In Virtualization

By Ken Phelan, Posted in Virtualization

There are a lot of traditions surrounding the New Year. Some people make resolutions. Many people start a new fitness regimen. In IT, we make predictions. Here are some of mine for 2016: Big Data for Business. Big Data and tools like Splunk are great and as they’ve been introduced to technology people, they naturally see ways that these tools can provide value to IT. People are waking up to the real value of these tools – business data. If you’re using Splunk to manage IT stuff, get in front of it as a b... read more.

• January 06, 2016

By Ken Phelan, Posted in Virtualization

The future of virtual desktops seems a little murky right now. In 2008 Gartner predicted that 40% of desktops would be virtualized by 2010. They continued to predict this target over the next several years and were still maintaining as late as 2012 that 40% of corporate desktops would be virtualized by 2013. After several years of stretching for this goal, in 2012 the rubber band seemed to snap. Brian Madden, one of the top VDI pundits, published his book “The VDI Delusion”. The book seemed to claim that... read more.

• December 04, 2015

By Ken Phelan, Posted in Virtualization

My daughter Joyce is graduating this week with a Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy (#joytheot). Joyce has spent some time educating me on Occupational Therapy, and one of the concepts that I really like is OT’s position on Client Centered Care. I think there is a message there for us in the IT industry. Client Centered Care starts with getting its goals directly from the client. If I was to be in some kind of accident, the healthcare industry would work to put me back together. They would try to re... read more.

• June 02, 2015

By Hank Smith, Posted in Virtualization

Last week I had the privilege to attend Citrix Synergy 2015 down in Orlando, FL. In this blog I wanted to review some the key announcements Citrix made during the keynote. XenApp 6.5 Lifecycle Citrix loves XenApp, so much so that they extended the lifecycle for XenApp 6.5 to December 31, 2017. However, there is a catch; the extended date is only for customers that remain current in the Software Maintenance or Subscription Advantage and Technical Support programs. Otherwise the end of maintenance (EOM)... read more.

• May 18, 2015

By Hank Smith, Posted in Virtualization

What is vGPU? vGPU provides the ability to virtualize the GPU of a graphics card, specifically an NVIDIA K card. Most applications in VDI environments do not require a GPU; however, for CAD, engineering, and medical applications, GPUs are typically required. For more information on vGPU take a look at this article. Citrix Citrix recently announced vGPU support for mixed environments - Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp on the front-end and VMware vSphere on the back end. The requirements for vGPU are VMware... read more.

• March 30, 2015

By Ken Phelan, Posted in Virtualization

Gotham rolled out this self-assessment at an event this week, and I thought I would share it with our Blog followers. First of all, let me clarify my use of the term DaaS. DaaS does not refer specifically to an outsourced or cloud Desktop. DaaS is your internal desktop offering, offered as a service. This can be delivered via traditional internal methods, cloud methods, or some hybrid. The important inflection to DaaS is that you’re offering your users a Desktop Service. It’s a productization issue. Your... read more.

• March 17, 2015

By Stephen Kilcoyne, Posted in Virtualization

At Citrix Summit earlier this year, Citrix announced a change in partnership requirements intended to help customers differentiate among Solution Advisors in a highly competitive market. All Platinum and Gold partners must now hold at least three of the following four specializations:     Virtualization     Networking for Data Center     Networking for Apps & Mobile Security     Mobility Management     Gotham is p... read more.

• March 17, 2015