Citrix XenApp 5 Breaks Performance, User Experience and Cost Barriers to Expand Application Virtualization Adoption

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on September 2, 2008 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA. » 8/25/2008 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced Citrix® XenApp™ 5, the next generation of the world’s most widely-deployed application virtualization solution. The new release of Citrix’s flagship product breaks through performance and operating-cost barriers, making application start times up to 10 times faster, dramatically improving end-user experience and lowering application management costs by more than 25 percent over previous versions.¹  XenApp 5, when used alone or in conjunction with Citrix® XenDesktop™, now makes it even easier for customers to centralize applications in the datacenter and deliver them as an on-demand service to both physical or virtual desktops for either online or offline usage – an approach that improves security, enhances user productivity and can save millions of dollars over traditional methods of installing and managing applications.

“XenApp 5 broadens the horizon of the end-user experience and accessibility by delivering an end-to-end virtualization solution that addresses the needs of both local and hosted applications,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “In addition, XenApp 5 is giving new and existing customers a welcome boost in performance at an attractive price-point, two highly sought-after requirements for companies investing in strategic technologies in today’s economy.”

A key component of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, XenApp combined with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix® XenServer™, creates an end-to-end virtualization solution that spans servers, applications and desktops. The new XenApp 5 release is being featured on September 9, 2008 as part of a global, online launch event called, Citrix Delivery Center Live!  This virtual event is the first in a series that will take place in the second half of 2008 highlighting the entire Citrix Delivery Center product family. This debut event features presentations, chat sessions and online demos from Citrix, as well as participation from key partners such as Microsoft and Intel.

Application Virtualization Cuts Cost of Application Management in Half
Windows-based applications continue to represent the majority of applications managed by IT today. Unfortunately, traditional methods of installing, patching, updating, managing and removing these applications on every desktop can be extremely complex and costly with today’s rapidly changing business environment and user requirements. As a result, IT costs continue to climb, business needs are left unmet and user experience and productivity suffer.

To thrive in today’s volatile business environment, organizations need a better, more flexible approach for delivering these applications across a diverse and rapidly changing user base. For more than 200,000 customers and 100 million end users around the world, centralizing applications in the datacenter and delivering them as an on-demand service to end users via Citrix XenApp has proven to be the answer.  In fact, in a recent study, Gartner found that the total cost of ownership of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50 percent lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.²

Delivering a “Better-than-Installed” Experience
With the release of XenApp 5, Citrix is raising the bar once again with significant new improvements to performance, user experience and cost savings. With version 5, Citrix has improved local application start-up time by up to 10 times, enabled IT to prioritize users and applications for maximum performance and dramatically enhanced ease-of-use for end users. In addition, XenApp 5 reduces the cost of application preparation and ongoing maintenance by more than 25 percent and cuts support costs by making it easy for IT to proactively detect and prevent potential performance issues even before they occur. In total, XenApp 5 includes more than 50 new major enhancements that come together to deliver an experience that is unequivocally “better-than-installed” for both end users and IT.

Delivering Applications to Virtual and Physical Desktops
XenApp 5 is the best way to deliver applications to both physical and virtual desktops and is a key component of the Citrix desktop delivery solution, XenDesktop. Using XenApp to deliver applications into virtual desktops, in fact, has been proven to cut down server infrastructure costs by an additional 50 percent³, further improving datacenter efficiency and green computing initiatives.

“The introduction of XenApp 5 represents an important step in the continued innovation of Citrix flagship product. With this latest release, Citrix is building upon the legacy that began almost 20 years ago,” said Gordon Payne, senior vice president and general manager, Delivery Systems Division, Citrix Systems. “XenApp is a cornerstone of our Citrix Delivery Center product family and allows our customers to move beyond merely deploying applications to delivering them to users in a flexible, cost-effective, scalable manner.”

Enabling a Smooth Transition to Microsoft Windows Server 2008
XenApp 5, which runs on the Microsoft Windows Server platform, leverages all the enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and fully supports Windows Server 2003. This enables existing Windows Server 2003 customers to immediately deploy Windows Server 2008 into their existing XenApp environments in any mix.

“Microsoft and Citrix share a common vision around application delivery,” said Chandra Shekaran, general manager of presentation and hosted desktop virtualization at Microsoft Corp.  “With XenApp 5, Citrix is once again extending the core platform capabilities of Windows Server 2008 while delivering a leading virtualization solution compatible with the Hyper-V role.  XenApp 5 can help provide better user performance and cost savings to our joint customers who are turning to Microsoft and Citrix for their VDI and remote computing projects.”

Pricing and Availability
XenApp 5 will be available September 10, 2008. For North America, suggested retail pricing is per concurrent user (CCU) and includes one year of Subscription Advantage:

• Advanced Edition – US $350
• Enterprise Edition – US $450
• Platinum Edition – US $600

Current customers with Subscription Advantage can upgrade at no additional charge. Standalone pricing for client-side application streaming and virtualization begins as low as $60 per CCU. For more information on XenApp, visit www.citrix.com/xenapp.
Training and Certification
New instructor-led and e-Learning training courses will be available to help end-users and partners maximize their use of XenApp 5. These training offerings include skills updates as well as full product training. In addition, a new CCA (Citrix Certified Administrator) is being developed to support the product. The new courses and certification are expected to be available upon product release. For more information and updates, please visit the Citrix Education website at www.citrixeducation.com.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in Application Delivery Infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.

VMware Launches ThinApp 4.0 to Run Virtually Any Application on Any Windows Operating System without Conflict

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Virtualization by thirdoctet on June 10, 2008 | No Comments

VMware ThinApp Agentless Application Virtualization Enables “Package Once, Deploy Anywhere” Non-Disruptive Virtual Applications

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 10, 2008 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced the upcoming availability of VMware ThinApp 4, an application virtualization solution that lets customers run multiple versions of virtually any application on any Windows operating system without conflict. For example, users can run both Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 on the same operating system without disruption. 

ThinApp, based on Thinstall technology, the leading agentless application virtualization solution, requires no pre-installed software on physical or virtual PCs and no new deployment infrastructure or management tools.  ThinApp dramatically improves application packaging, delivery, and management by enabling plug-and-play applications using an enterprise’s existing systems and management tools.  ThinApp packages applications in familiar formats (.MSI or .EXE) that can plug into existing infrastructure for software license management, deployment, audit and compliance. 

ThinApp 4 introduces two revolutionary new features: Application Link and Application Sync, which enable two virtualized applications to communicate with each other and remote virtual applications to be updated.  These features are important for easier management of the virtual applications. ThinApp extends VMware’s industry-leading desktop virtualization product family to enable management solutions for both desktops and applications.

Traditional application packaging and delivery tools are fraught with application and operating system conflicts, which lead to a “brittle” desktop environment. ThinApp eliminates these conflicts and securely packages applications for delivery to physical and virtual desktops throughout the extended enterprise. The result is an application delivery solution which lets IT administrators define their technology roadmaps based on their business needs rather than being constrained by application limitations. 

Customers want application virtualization technologies that do not restrict applications to one presentation format or another, ThinApp enables the same virtual application to be streamed from a network, presented from a terminal server, delivered to USB stick (e.g., for a contract worker), or delivered through standard software delivery tools with little to no integration required.  ThinApp also helps IT administrators manage applications that do not run as well in shared-user environments such as Microsoft Terminal Server. By creating a separate instance with its own private sandbox, each application runs in the context of each user session without having to be modified; if a user “breaks” the application, other users are not impacted.

“Application packaging, testing and delivery continues to be one of the biggest drivers of desktop management costs and a barrier to compliance and security,” said Jeff Jennings, vice president of desktop products and solutions for VMware. “With VMware ThinApp, customers can decouple applications from the underlying OS, which makes their application environments more agile and flexible while maintaining control over their desktops.”

Rolling out new applications, desktops, or operating systems brings with it the challenges and complexity of managing IT change.  This disruption puts the business at risk, as employee productivity can suffer when applications do not work.  In addition, the growing trend for mobility and the need for agility are often compromised by strict regulatory requirements.

“During the past two years, new client architectures have emerged that complement today’s PC configuration tools, improving efficiency of management and enabling user-provisioned client computing,” said Ronni Collville, vice president, Gartner. “Over the next 2 to 5 years over 50% of medium to large enterprises will adopt application virtualization – to save costs, complexity, and time to value throughout their desktop lifecycle. The ability of upcoming application virtualization technology to work with multiple PC configuration tools is critical to reducing the overall complexity and realization of true costs savings of packaging, testing and deployment of applications and desktops.” * 

VMware ThinApp 4.0 highlights include:

• Application Link (NEW) – Free-flowing communication between interdependent virtual applications.  Application Link allows interdependent applications to communicate with one another (such as Java, .Net, IE, Office) to eliminate conflicts, reduce application size, and maintain continuity and tracking of software licenses.
• Application Sync (NEW) – Internet-based updates of applications. Application Sync streams byte-level updates to users’ critical applications inside and outside the enterprise using HTTP/HTTPS, and on managed and non-managed PCs running virtualized applications.
• “Package once, deploy anywhere” with agentless application virtualization. ThinApp uses Thinstall technology, which pioneered agentless application virtualization allowing applications to be deployed on virtually any Windows OS across virtually any device (kiosks, PCs, laptops, thin clients, virtual desktops).
• Works with existing management tools to streamline costs and maintain compliance. ThinApp plugs into existing processes and desktop management tools to reduce the costs and complexity around managing the physical and virtual desktop.  According to Gartner**, “Virtualized applications can reduce the cost of testing, packaging and supporting an application by 60%.” 
• Conflict-free applications eliminate risks to business continuity. Applications are isolated from the underlying OS, eliminating costs of conflicting resources and allowing different versions of an application to run side by side (such as different versions of Internet Explorer).
• Regain control of the desktop. ThinApp, along with VMware’s desktop virtualization family of products (ACE, Fusion, Workstation, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) enables IT to segment their applications, operating systems and migration deployments to speed time to value while decreasing complexity of managing the desktop.

“VMware ThinApp allows our contracted employees working on foreign networks where interoperability and security concerns exist to safely access complex applications critical to their productivity,” said Robert Carter, senior IT engineer, Fluor Federal Services. “ThinApp is another example of the way VMware helps customers address real-world problems that save time, money, and manpower.  I am very excited to see how ThinApp will continue to evolve.”

“VMware’s approach to providing modular virtualization solutions that plug into existing Desktop Configuration Management tools enables customers to re-engineer their approach to migrations without disrupting their current processes,” said Scott Fulton, vice president, BMC Service Automation Product Line. “Both companies are committed to providing end-to-end solutions that make for seamless adoption of desktop virtualization.  Our demonstrated success in this area has already enabled mutual customers to streamline their efforts in user based provisioning, enhancing business service alignment and achieving greater operational efficiency.”

Pricing, Packaging and Availability:
The VMware ThinApp offering, which includes a copy of VMware Workstation and 50 client licenses, is priced at $5,000.  The client licenses are priced at $39 per endpoint. The ThinApp licenses are perpetual.  ThinApp will be available for purchase within 30 days through VMware’s network of distributors, resellers and OEMs.  All prices are VMware list prices.

Services and Support –VMware will offer 5×12 Gold and 24×7 Platinum support options for ThinApp.  VMware also offers several services to accelerate application virtualization adoption including ThinApp JumpStart, ThinApp Plan & Design, and ThinApp Application Packaging Framework.

For more information on VMware ThinApp, please visit: http://www.vmware.com/go/thinapp.

*Gartner Research Inc., “Strategic Planning for Application Virtualization”, Ronni Colville, Terrence Cosgrove, May 16, 2008
**Gartner Research Inc., “TCO of Traditional Software Distribution vs. Application Virtualization”, Brian Gammage, Mike Silver, Terrence Cosgrove, Mark Margevicius, April 16, 2008

About VMware
VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter.  Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.3 billion, more than 100,000 customers and nearly 14,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies.  VMware is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and on the web at www.vmware.com.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Working Green – Bottom-Line Benefits of Secure Remote Access

Posted in: C-Level, Green Technology by thirdoctet on June 5, 2008 | No Comments

Growing public concern about global warming and other environmental issues is spilling over into the business world, where companies are increasingly looking to make their operations more “green” by minimizing their environmental impact. The reasons range from scarcity of resources to the boost to corporate image to potential cost savings by using more environmentally sensitive activities.

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Podcast: The Benefits of Virtualizing XenApp with XenServer

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Virtualization by thirdoctet on April 25, 2008 | No Comments

Hear about the benefits of virtualizing XenApp with XenServer.

Microsoft and Citrix Expand Alliance to Deliver Virtualization Solutions

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on January 26, 2008 | No Comments

REDMOND, Wash., and FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. » 1/22/2008 » Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS) today announced an expanded alliance to deliver a comprehensive set of virtualization solutions to address the desktop and server virtualization needs of customers. The two companies will work together to deliver and market joint virtualization solutions with Windows Server 2008 to help customers achieve a flexible and dynamic client computing infrastructure.

For more than 18 years, Microsoft and Citrix have offered customers solutions to deliver Windows-based applications using Citrix Presentation Server™ running on Terminal Services. Now the companies plan to co-market new client computing offerings with the next generation of Citrix Presentation Server and the Citrix XenDesktop™ products, both based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimized Desktop solutions, and managed by Microsoft System Center. With these solutions, customers can build an array of flexible, low-cost and manageable client computing options for different types of enterprise users.

Citrix Presentation Server along with Windows Server 2008 enables customers to deliver remote Windows-based applications at a low cost and with high performance for users. The next generation of Citrix Presentation Server will support and extend Windows Server 2008 and will help enable customers to use Windows Server 2008 for the remote Windows application execution workload.

Citrix XenDesktop is a complete desktop virtualization system and, when combined with Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop and System Center, will help enable customers to deliver Windows-based desktops to virtually all task-based and knowledge-based workers at a low cost, and with high performance and enhanced security features. Citrix XenDesktop, planned for release in second quarter 2008, will support and extend Windows Server 2008 shortly after the availability of Hyper-V, a hypervisor-based virtualization feature available as part of Windows Server 2008. The two companies will work together to co-market both of those solutions — Citrix Presentation Server and Citrix XenDesktop along with Windows Server 2008 and System Center — to help customers meet the full spectrum of their Windows client computing needs. This expanded alliance also marks an initial step toward a longer-term plan to collaborate on future desktop virtualization solutions.

“Citrix’s end-to-end virtualization strategy includes a strong shared alliance with Microsoft and a commitment to continued innovation on the Windows platform,” said Mark Templeton, chief executive officer of Citrix Systems. “By leveraging our strength in desktop virtualization in support of the Windows Server 2008 platform and System Center, our development efforts enable businesses to deliver the right desktop experience to the right user at the right time for the increasingly diverse set of user needs. Customers should find that our virtualization products together provide one of the best ways to virtualize Windows apps, desktops and servers.”

Microsoft and Citrix also have extended their alliance for server virtualization to enable IT departments to run heterogeneous hypervisor software. Citrix is developing a capability to enable the portability of virtual machines between the Xen hypervisor in Citrix XenServer™  and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. This capability will offer the companies’ joint customers a unified portfolio of virtual infrastructures that utilizes both Hyper-V and the Xen hypervisor under a common System Center management platform. This capability is scheduled to be available for beta evaluation in the second quarter of 2008.

Microsoft and Citrix will offer server virtualization solutions with the combination of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center family of products and Citrix XenServer. Citrix will extend support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center in all its virtualization products: XenDesktop, Presentation Server and XenServer. As part of this collaboration, a future version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager will support managing Citrix XenServer, and Citrix plans to integrate Hyper-V with Citrix XenServer. This collaboration will enable customers to easily deploy and manage heterogeneous virtualization environments built on both Citrix XenServer and Hyper-V.

“For nearly two decades, Microsoft and Citrix have delivered significant value to customers, and we’re excited to expand our work around desktop and server virtualization technologies,” said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. “Virtualization enables our customers to deliver the right computing resources to their employees virtually anytime, anywhere, regardless of the situation, and helps create IT systems that are more efficient, more flexible and more cost-effective. Microsoft and Citrix are working together on product integration so that customers have access to comprehensive and flexible virtualization solutions, all controlled by an integrated management platform.”

Today’s announcement is another milestone in the alliance between Citrix and Microsoft. Also recently, the two companies have collaborated on solutions designed to simplify branch office computing using Citrix WANScaler™ running on the Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server platforms. In the area of virtualization software, the companies agreed in September 2007 to standardize the companies’ desktop and application virtualization solutions on the Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format as a common runtime environment. And in July 2006, before Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource, Microsoft and XenSource announced plans to provide interoperability between Xen-enabled Linux and Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100% of the Fortune 100 companies and 99% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 6,200 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2006 was $1.1 billion.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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Minneapolis Bridge Collapse: Why Cellular Service Goes Down During Disaster

Posted in: C-Level, Communicate by thirdoctet on August 7, 2007 | No Comments

The tragedy that unfolded in Minneapolis on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 is still being assessed, and rescuers continue to search for more of the missing. The horrifying bridge collapse, however, is yet another recent example of the power and limitations of wireless devices and networks during a disaster situation.

Emergency responders rely largely on wireless communications to coordinate operations at the scene, find those who are injured and rescue them from the wreckage. And ordinary citizens use mobile devices to alert loved ones to their status or whereabouts.

But what also usually happens near accident scenes like the one in Minneapolis is a disruption in cellular service because there’s too much radio and network congestion. Many news outlets reported that cell phone service in the greater Minneapolis area went down, citing the fact that cell phone towers and antennae were overloaded by the sheer number of users trying to place calls.

read more | digg story

IBM saves $250 million consolidating Linux servers on to mainframes

Posted in: C-Level by thirdoctet on August 1, 2007 | No Comments

Talk about eating your own dog food. IBM today will announce it is consolidating nearly 4,000 small computer servers in six locations onto about 30 refrigerator-sized mainframes running Linux saving $250 million in the process. The 4,000 servers that IBM will replace by making this change will be recycled by IBM Global Asset Recovery Services. Read more…

Virtualization for $1000, Alex

Posted in: C-Level, Virtualization by thirdoctet on July 14, 2007 | No Comments

Care of Techworld.com,

Ten questions to test your virtualisation readiness
Analysts suggests asking critical questions before diving into virtualisation
Denise Dubie, Network World July 13, 07
Virtualisation appeals to IT executives looking to maximise data centre operations, but they must ask themselves 10 difficult questions before rolling virtualisation out to successfully adopt the technology, industry watchers say.

Enterprise Management Associates this week released its collection of “Top 10 questions to ask before any virtualisation project.” According to EMA senior analyst Andi Mann, the list starts with the basics around existing skill sets and quickly moves on to technical hurdles of which every IT organisation should be aware. The benefits of abstracting software away from hardware to create a flexible, dynamic environment are compelling, but successful adoption depends on having the right skills, security and management tools and business drivers in place.

“In some cases, the technology is not ready, or the returns will not be sufficient, to embark on such a major change in technology, architecture and process,” Mann writes. “Virtualisation should not be rushed. It is a long-term opportunity, and enterprises that approach virtualisation carefully as a strategy, not just a project, will be better positioned to benefit in the long run.”

Here are the key questions to ask before embarking on an enterprise-wide virtualisation project.

1. Do you have the skills to support virtualisation?
EMA ranks the lack of “appropriate skills” as potentially the biggest barrier to successful virtualisation deployments. The research firm says about three-quarters of enterprise companies that don’t yet have virtualisation in place believe they don’t have the skills to support the technology. EMA recommends training staff before the technology is adopted, determining requirements, documenting expected changes and performing pilots of virtualisation technology in small sample environments.

2. Are you ready for the politics virtualisation could introduce?
The second pitfall is also related to the human element. Because IT departments have existed in siloed groups for years, IT executives could face pushback in their efforts to win mainstream acceptance of virtualisation technology, EMA says. For instance, some groups may not wish to share server resources, and for that reason, EMA recommends organisations put in reporting tools to show how virtualisation is either helping performance or at the least not hurting departments by sharing resources among them.

3. Have you considered and can you accept the risks?
Virtualisation technology reduces the amount of physical resources needed to support multiple systems and applications. But at the same time, it “concentrates more users and applications on fewer, more complex, shared virtual environments,” the EMA report reads, and because of that, “the impact of hardware failure, human errors, security breaches, planning problems, support issues and more are vastly magnified in a virtual environment.” Among its suggestions, the research group recommends enterprise companies develop detailed business continuity and disaster-recovery plans at all stages of the virtualisation project.

4. How will your security systems hold up?
Virtualisation can introduce more security holes, more forms of malware and more vulnerabilities than many organisations are prepared to tackle — mostly because today’s technology isn’t yet equipped to deal with the new threats. Such security issues as hypervisor infections, rootkit viruses and malicious virtual machines can “be virtually undetectable with current tools,” EMA says. IT executives must secure virtual machines as the do physical machines, and take extra steps to ensure the virtual environment is locked down. “Technology and disciplines for discovery, configuration, change management and more become critical to detecting virtual malware,” the report reads.

5. Do you have compatible systems and applications?
Some applications and systems do not mesh well with virtualisation. For instance, EMA cites applications with “highly efficient usage, severe requirement spikes or continuously high utilisation of any resource.” Also applications that interact directly with hardware will also stall a virtualisation project, the research firm says.

6. Do you have a capacity-planning discipline?
Virtual server sprawl is a common result of virtualisation deployments outgrowing their existing capacity. EMA recommends IT organisations use detailed capacity-planning measures to make sure they have sufficient hardware and software resources to support their virtualisation implementation and make sure it doesn’t get out of control.

7. Is there support for your environments?
While many popular, packaged applications support virtualisation, many applications do not, EMA says. The research group recommends IT shops investigate which of their software and hardware platforms are supported and which might require them to upgrade before rolling out virtualisation.

8. Can your network support virtualisation?
Network and storage can represent potential bottlenecks for virtualisation in the data centre. For instance, virtualisation technologies that focus on the user, such as application or desktop virtualisation or application streaming, don’t work well over low-bandwidth connections, EMA says. Enterprise IT managers can try to address network and storage limitations with WAN-optimisation technologies or by limiting the proliferation of images.

9. Can your management systems handle virtual environments?
While virtualisation reduces the number of physical resources to manage, it increases the complexity of the overall environment and introduces management issues that that could challenge some IT managers. For instance, the ease of deployment leads to a proliferation of virtual machines, or virtual server sprawl, which makes management exponentially more difficult. Also the added layer of software increases the complexity of managing the entire environment, EMA says. “Until management tools catch up with virtualisation, the key to success is having not just tools, but also strong process disciplines for discovery, performance management, configuration management, patch management, service-level management, provisioning, disaster recovery” and more, the report reads.

10. Does virtualisation help you address business objectives?
Perhaps the “most overlooked factor in the rush to virtualisation” is aligning the technology implementation with specific business goals, EMA says. To measure the success of a virtualisation rollout, enterprise IT shops must first know their desired results before deploying the technology. EMA recommends IT managers plan for long-term strategic results and not use virtualisation as a quick fix for a pressing pain point. For instance, while many organisations may consider cost savings a result of virtualisation, EMA reports that is not often the case.

“Overall, cost savings is not always the most likely outcome — in fact, reduced costs (software, hardware and floor space) are the least expected outcomes. Despite the touted cost benefits of server consolidation, for example, it delivers only one-off cost savings, and the additional costs — especially of software — are often considerable,” the report reads.