Microsoft has some cool products hiding behind ridiculously confusing names. Users of the very nifty Live Mesh file and desktop syncing beta, for example, were told their service shuts down in March 2011. Where should they migrate? Windows Live Mesh, of course. Microsoft is emailing Live Mesh beta users and explaining how they can transition their files to Windows Live Mesh. It involves not a small bit of re-configuring the folders you want to sync, […]
hosted desktops
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The VDI skeptics firmly believe that business comes first, not technology. While they feel that VDI technologies are undeniably cool, they don’t necessarily believe that they offer true value to a lot of the businesses that pursue them. In this series of articles, the skeptics outline their arguments for and against various VDI technologies, helping you focus on what your business actually needs — not on what vendors want to sell. One of the hardest […]
John Glendenning, Virtual Computer’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Business Development, and I had a very interesting conversation about Desktop Virtualization in general and where his company’s product, NxTop, is enjoying a great deal of success. During that discussion we covered quite a bit of territory. We ran out of time long before we ran out of interesting topics to discuss. Here, in a nutshell, are a few of the reasons that desktop […]
Cloud computing is famous for being a metaphor instead of a technology, but that metaphor is increasingly hard for non-techies to understand. Many variations of cloud have emerged that have little to do with the initial vision that sparked interest— a public cloud with burst-up capability on demand. “Public cloud is not what most of our clients are talking about right now,” according to Chris Wolf, analyst for Gartner Group’s Burton Group consultancy. “Pretty much […]
When Dataprise Inc., an IT services company, helped a customer with a desktop virtualization project last year, it found itself dealing with desktop virtualization’s dirty little secret: No one — including vendors — seems to know how to license the software. Having run a successful pilot, Dataprise’s client wanted to take the next step and deploy 700 virtual desktops, says Chris Sousa, director of infrastructure service at Dataprise. That’s when the trouble began. Like many […]
SMBs looking at cloud computing – don’t overlook hosted and managed services Almost every child has looked at a cloud and said, “That cloud looks like a _____.” The filled-in blank often becomes the point of highly subjective argument. In much the same way, IT professionals continuously seek to fill in the blank with an understanding of “cloud computing” and we’ve learned that what you see in your cloud has a lot to do with […]
This article is based on the book “Creating the Infrastructure for Cloud Computing: An Essential Handbook for IT Professionals” The virtualization models for clients are, arguably, more diverse than those for servers. For servers there are essentially two, the earlier model of static consolidation and the more recent dynamic model where virtual machines lightly bound to physical hosts can be moved around with relative ease. With virtualized clients there are also two main models, depending […]
Quick cloud computing stats for a Sunday: – CRN predicts that small business spending on Cloud Computing will hit $100 billion by 2014 – IDC estimates the market for public cloud products and services at $16B in 2010, growing to $56B by 2014 – Gartner estimates the Cloud market at $150B by 2013 while Merrill Lynch has it at 160B by 2011 – A recent survey of 500 IT decision-makers by SandHill found that ~50% […]
Hosted desktop technology is an innovative new method for delivering desktops to end users. Part of the ‘cloud computing’ concept, a hosted desktop looks and acts exactly like a traditional PC, but instead of residing locally, all software and data are housed in the meshDESK state-of-the-art data centers. You simply access your resources with a simple internet connection. Hosted desktops offer numerous advantages in terms of cost savings, security, resilience, flexibility and reduced management. The […]