18702 North Creek Pkwy. #208Loading
Volume 4, Issue 8 - October, 2009 - © 2009 by Moose Logic, All Rights Reserved
Cover Story: Announcing the Moose Logic Blog!
Desktop Virtualization Does Not Equal VDI
Moose Logic Joins Sun Partner Advantage Network
Fun Pumpkin Facts
Halloween Decorating Tips
Moose Logic Coming Events
October Recommended Reading
(Moose Views is a monthly newsletter prepared by Moose Logic to bring you information and tips on maintaining a trouble-free network)
Announcing the Moose Logic Blog!
We’re excited to announce that
our blog site is now
live. We’ve been working on the layout for a while, and it’s time for the
“grand opening.”
So why did we do this, and why should you care? And does the world really need another technology blog?
Only time will tell whether the answer to the last question is yes or no. But we did it as part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier for you to get information that we hope will make your jobs easier, your businesses better, and help make sense of some of the more complex technologies that we all have to deal with today.
It is also an opportunity for you to participate through your comments and feedback, and by so doing help build a community that is more valuable to its members than just a blog where we’re doing all the talking.
To that end, we will also have guest posts from time to time from our vendor partners—the first, from InfoFinder, on the subject of Business Search technology, is already on the site.
You’ll also find links there to a number of other industry blogs that we follow ourselves and think might be valuable to you.
There are even RSS feeds available for both posts and comments, so you don’t have to remember to visit the site, new content will come to you as it’s created.
We would love to have you visit our blog site, register, and create a profile for yourself. You don’t have to register in order to read and comment on posts, but if you do register, you’ll be listed in the membership directory, and you can even upload a picture (or avatar) if you choose to do so.
And don’t forget that you can also follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter.
The Moose Views newsletter only hits your desk once a month, but our Facebook fan page gets updated whenever we run across something that we believe might have value to you. It’s linked to our Twitter feed, so any post to our Facebook page gets propagated to Twitter as well. And one of our commitments to you is that we will not use these channels to talk about where we had lunch or to tell you which espresso stand we’re headed to next. Our objective is to have multiple ways to get interesting information into your hands, not to irritate you and waste your time with trivial posts.
As always, we value your feedback. Please let us know what communication channels you find most valuable, and what kinds of information you would like to see. If there are topics you’d like to see us cover in our blog, please let us know that as well. Thanks!
So why did we do this, and why should you care? And does the world really need another technology blog?
Only time will tell whether the answer to the last question is yes or no. But we did it as part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier for you to get information that we hope will make your jobs easier, your businesses better, and help make sense of some of the more complex technologies that we all have to deal with today.
It is also an opportunity for you to participate through your comments and feedback, and by so doing help build a community that is more valuable to its members than just a blog where we’re doing all the talking.
To that end, we will also have guest posts from time to time from our vendor partners—the first, from InfoFinder, on the subject of Business Search technology, is already on the site.
You’ll also find links there to a number of other industry blogs that we follow ourselves and think might be valuable to you.
There are even RSS feeds available for both posts and comments, so you don’t have to remember to visit the site, new content will come to you as it’s created.
We would love to have you visit our blog site, register, and create a profile for yourself. You don’t have to register in order to read and comment on posts, but if you do register, you’ll be listed in the membership directory, and you can even upload a picture (or avatar) if you choose to do so.
And don’t forget that you can also follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter.
The Moose Views newsletter only hits your desk once a month, but our Facebook fan page gets updated whenever we run across something that we believe might have value to you. It’s linked to our Twitter feed, so any post to our Facebook page gets propagated to Twitter as well. And one of our commitments to you is that we will not use these channels to talk about where we had lunch or to tell you which espresso stand we’re headed to next. Our objective is to have multiple ways to get interesting information into your hands, not to irritate you and waste your time with trivial posts.
As always, we value your feedback. Please let us know what communication channels you find most valuable, and what kinds of information you would like to see. If there are topics you’d like to see us cover in our blog, please let us know that as well. Thanks!
Desktop Virtualization Does Not Equal VDI
That’s the message Citrix hopes you will take away from their announcement of
XenDesktop 4.
Virtualized desktops are on the minds of lots of people as they contemplate how best to roll out Windows 7 to their users. As Brian Madden pointed out in a techtarget.com article recently, “...there’s no sense virtualizing your desktops just to end up with XP again. And when Windows 7 launches, there’s no sense migrating to it while still managing your desktops the ‘old’ way.”
So, just in time for your Windows 7 planning, Citrix is changing the game — by changing the conversation about desktop virtualization.
The term “VDI,” which stands for “Virtual Desktop Infrastructure,” is generally used to refer to a deployment where multiple virtual instances of a PC Operating System are run on a platform such as VMware, XenServer, or Hyper-V, and users connect to these virtual PCs using a protocol such as ICA (Citrix), RDP (Microsoft) or PC-over-IP (VMware).
There are a number of pieces and parts that need to be addressed to make this kind of VDI work properly. We think that Citrix has the best all-around solution for VDI at the moment, but that’s only part of the story. The rest is that VDI is only one way of virtualizing a desktop.
Another way is to deliver a desktop from a Windows Terminal Server (a “Hosted Shared” desktop). We’ve been doing this for years — in fact, since the days of the NT 3.51-based Citrix WinFrame product. It may not be the first thing that leaps to mind when you hear the term “VDI,” but it is a way of delivering a virtualized desktop to a user.
In fact, it’s a more cost-effective way to deliver virtualized desktops in terms of the number of users you can support on a given piece of hardware.
But there are other ways of delivering virtualized desktops as well:
XenDesktop 4 is all about giving you a single license model that allows you to deploy any or all of these virtualization scenarios — and it just may be the biggest change in the Citrix product line since WinFrame v2.0 was split into MetaFrame and NT4 Terminal Server Edition.
A XenDesktop 4 Enterprise or Platinum Edition license includes the rights to run XenApp. That means you can deliver virtualized desktops using any of the scenarios above, and have the flexibility to stream applications to your virtualized desktops for local execution or run them on XenApp servers (or both). Or you can use XenApp as the primary application execution platform, and spin up a virtual instance of a PC OS for that problem application that just won’t run properly on a Terminal Server. It’s the ultimate in flexibility.
Up until now, if you wanted both XenApp and XenDesktop, you had to buy and manage two different licenses — and there was a certain amount of feature overlap, particularly in the Platinum Editions. Now, if you buy XenDesktop, you get both XenApp and XenDesktop. What’s not to like about that?
However (another big change), the licensing for XenDesktop 4 will be per user rather than based on a concurrent use model.
The math is pretty straightforward. For example, the cost (all prices quoted here are MSRP) for a XenDesktop 4 Enterprise user license is exactly half the price of a XenApp Enterprise concurrent use license ($225 vs. $450). So anyone who is looking at a XenApp purchase should obviously purchase XenDesktop 4 instead, unless their concurrency ratio (total users to concurrent users) is greater than 2-to-1. Even if you think all you need is XenApp, why not have the flexibility to deploy other flavors of desktop virtualization in the future if you need to?
The only reasons for purchasing XenApp licenses in the future will be in cases where concurrency is significantly greater than 2-to-1, or where XenApp is only serving as a “point solution,” e.g., serving a few remote users, or running a call center where everyone can be well served via a “Hosted Shared” desktop.
XenDesktop 4 Platinum Edition licenses will be $350 per user, and XenDesktop Standard Edition (which does not include XenApp and is therefore for VDI-only deployments) will be $75 per user.
Citrix will also offer an annual product license for customers who prefer subscription-based pricing to capital expenditures. The cost for annual licenses of XenDesktop 4 Standard, Enterprise, and Platinum will be $35, $95, and $145 per year, respectively.
For users who currently own XenApp Enterprise or Platinum Edition licenses, have they got a deal for you! XenApp Enterprise licenses can be “traded up” to XenDesktop 4 Enterprise licenses for $95 each. If you trade up all of your XenApp licenses, you will get two XenDesktop licenses for every XenApp license...otherwise it’s 1 for 1.
If you trade up instead of renewing your Subscription Advantage, the effective out-of-pocket cost drops to $50 each, since it would have cost you $45 each to renew S.A. anyway, and you’ll get a fresh year of S.A. with the new licenses.
XenApp Platinum licenses can be traded up to XenDesktop 4 Platinum licenses for $135 each. Again, if you trade up all your licenses, you get 2 for 1. Again, if you trade up instead of renewing S.A., it drastically reduces the out-of-pocket cost.
XenApp Enterprise licenses can be traded up to XenDesktop 4 Platinum licenses for $200 each.
The trade up program is available through June 30, 2010. General Availability of XenDesktop 4 is planned for November 16, 2009, and orders will be accepted beginning October 28.
As of November 16, XenDesktop 3 licenses will no longer be available for sale.
You may also want to register for the upcoming Citrix virtual event: Secrets, Lies, and VDI, coming to a browser near you on Tuesday, October 20.
Virtualized desktops are on the minds of lots of people as they contemplate how best to roll out Windows 7 to their users. As Brian Madden pointed out in a techtarget.com article recently, “...there’s no sense virtualizing your desktops just to end up with XP again. And when Windows 7 launches, there’s no sense migrating to it while still managing your desktops the ‘old’ way.”
So, just in time for your Windows 7 planning, Citrix is changing the game — by changing the conversation about desktop virtualization.
The term “VDI,” which stands for “Virtual Desktop Infrastructure,” is generally used to refer to a deployment where multiple virtual instances of a PC Operating System are run on a platform such as VMware, XenServer, or Hyper-V, and users connect to these virtual PCs using a protocol such as ICA (Citrix), RDP (Microsoft) or PC-over-IP (VMware).
There are a number of pieces and parts that need to be addressed to make this kind of VDI work properly. We think that Citrix has the best all-around solution for VDI at the moment, but that’s only part of the story. The rest is that VDI is only one way of virtualizing a desktop.
Another way is to deliver a desktop from a Windows Terminal Server (a “Hosted Shared” desktop). We’ve been doing this for years — in fact, since the days of the NT 3.51-based Citrix WinFrame product. It may not be the first thing that leaps to mind when you hear the term “VDI,” but it is a way of delivering a virtualized desktop to a user.
In fact, it’s a more cost-effective way to deliver virtualized desktops in terms of the number of users you can support on a given piece of hardware.
But there are other ways of delivering virtualized desktops as well:
- XenDesktop will allow you to boot and run multiple physical PCs from a common, read-only image. Using Citrix’s Provisioning Services, you can not only stream the PC OS into a virtual environment, you can stream it to physical desktops. This gives you the advantages of centralized management and control while still preserving the investment you’ve made in PC hardware.
- Those physical PCs don’t have to be desktop workstations, either — they can be blade PCs. This can be a great solution for those users who need to remotely connect to a centrally managed PC OS, but also need, say, the high-end performance of a dedicated graphics processor.
- Very soon (we’re now hearing Q1 of next year) you will be able to stream a PC OS to a client-side Xen-based hypervisor so your laptop users will be able to disconnect from the network and take their system on the road. Imagine how great life will be when you can really lock down the corporate desktop, and give your users the ability to hot-key over to a personal desktop on the same system where they can install their own stuff — and if they break their personal desktop, it doesn’t affect the business desktop!
XenDesktop 4 is all about giving you a single license model that allows you to deploy any or all of these virtualization scenarios — and it just may be the biggest change in the Citrix product line since WinFrame v2.0 was split into MetaFrame and NT4 Terminal Server Edition.
A XenDesktop 4 Enterprise or Platinum Edition license includes the rights to run XenApp. That means you can deliver virtualized desktops using any of the scenarios above, and have the flexibility to stream applications to your virtualized desktops for local execution or run them on XenApp servers (or both). Or you can use XenApp as the primary application execution platform, and spin up a virtual instance of a PC OS for that problem application that just won’t run properly on a Terminal Server. It’s the ultimate in flexibility.
Up until now, if you wanted both XenApp and XenDesktop, you had to buy and manage two different licenses — and there was a certain amount of feature overlap, particularly in the Platinum Editions. Now, if you buy XenDesktop, you get both XenApp and XenDesktop. What’s not to like about that?
However (another big change), the licensing for XenDesktop 4 will be per user rather than based on a concurrent use model.
The math is pretty straightforward. For example, the cost (all prices quoted here are MSRP) for a XenDesktop 4 Enterprise user license is exactly half the price of a XenApp Enterprise concurrent use license ($225 vs. $450). So anyone who is looking at a XenApp purchase should obviously purchase XenDesktop 4 instead, unless their concurrency ratio (total users to concurrent users) is greater than 2-to-1. Even if you think all you need is XenApp, why not have the flexibility to deploy other flavors of desktop virtualization in the future if you need to?
The only reasons for purchasing XenApp licenses in the future will be in cases where concurrency is significantly greater than 2-to-1, or where XenApp is only serving as a “point solution,” e.g., serving a few remote users, or running a call center where everyone can be well served via a “Hosted Shared” desktop.
XenDesktop 4 Platinum Edition licenses will be $350 per user, and XenDesktop Standard Edition (which does not include XenApp and is therefore for VDI-only deployments) will be $75 per user.
Citrix will also offer an annual product license for customers who prefer subscription-based pricing to capital expenditures. The cost for annual licenses of XenDesktop 4 Standard, Enterprise, and Platinum will be $35, $95, and $145 per year, respectively.
For users who currently own XenApp Enterprise or Platinum Edition licenses, have they got a deal for you! XenApp Enterprise licenses can be “traded up” to XenDesktop 4 Enterprise licenses for $95 each. If you trade up all of your XenApp licenses, you will get two XenDesktop licenses for every XenApp license...otherwise it’s 1 for 1.
If you trade up instead of renewing your Subscription Advantage, the effective out-of-pocket cost drops to $50 each, since it would have cost you $45 each to renew S.A. anyway, and you’ll get a fresh year of S.A. with the new licenses.
XenApp Platinum licenses can be traded up to XenDesktop 4 Platinum licenses for $135 each. Again, if you trade up all your licenses, you get 2 for 1. Again, if you trade up instead of renewing S.A., it drastically reduces the out-of-pocket cost.
XenApp Enterprise licenses can be traded up to XenDesktop 4 Platinum licenses for $200 each.
The trade up program is available through June 30, 2010. General Availability of XenDesktop 4 is planned for November 16, 2009, and orders will be accepted beginning October 28.
As of November 16, XenDesktop 3 licenses will no longer be available for sale.
You may also want to register for the upcoming Citrix virtual event: Secrets, Lies, and VDI, coming to a browser near you on Tuesday, October 20.
Here Comes the Sun!
Moose
Logic is now an Authorized Reseller Partner of Sun Microsystems’ Intel-based
servers. Didn’t know that Sun made Intel-based servers? They do — and not
only do they make excellent virtualization platforms, their X4250
dual-processor model packs sixteen hot-plug SAS disk drives into a single,
2U, rack-mount package. Use two of them for a mirrored system partition,
and you’ve still got over 4 Tb of raw storage available — a perfect platform
for a DataCore SAN node!If you’re looking at an impending server refresh, you owe it to yourself (and your budget) to check these systems out.
Fun Pumpkin Facts
- Many people believe that pumpkins are vegetables, but they are really fruits.
- About 90 percent of pumpkins sold in the U.S. are used for jack-o-lanterns.
- Not all pumpkins are orange. Some unique pumpkins are white, yellow, red, tan, green, and even blue.
- The average sized pumpkin has about one cup of seeds.
- There is a word for the fear of turning into a pumpkin: apocolocynposis.
- Pumpkins are 90 percent water.
- Illinois grows more pumpkins than any other U.S. state.
- Early U.S. colonists would slice the top off of a pumpkin, remove the seeds, fill the insides with milk, spices, and honey, and bake it in hot ashes.
- The biggest pumpkin pie on record weighed 2020 pounds. It used 900 pounds of pumpkin, 62 gallons of evaporated milk, 155 dozen eggs, 300 pounds of sugar, 7 pounds of cinnamon, 2 pounds of pumpkin spice, and was placed in 250 pounds of crust.
- For the history of the Jack-o-Lantern, see the University of Illinois Extension Web site.
Halloween Decorating Tips
Consumers
spend more on Halloween each year than on any other holiday besides Christmas.
Much of that money goes towards decorating items. Whether you are getting
ready for a Halloween party, or are simply opening your home to
trick-or-treaters, these ideas will be sure to come in handy this Halloween
season.
- Glowing Eye Creatures — Cut ghosts, black cats, and/or witches from sturdy poster board. Decorate with paint and other craft accessories. With a craft knife, cut small holes for the eyes. Attach to a wall or use stakes taped to the back to stick into the ground. String a strand of twinkle lights behind the figures, placing lights into the eyeholes.
- Ghosts, Ghosts, and More Ghosts — You can find inexpensive cheesecloth at craft or fabric stores. Unfold completely and cut to form ghostly shapes. These can be hung from trees or porches outdoors or can grace the entryway to your home. You can also use a thin white chiffon type fabric.
- Spooky Smoke — Dry ice is the way to go if you want to fill your trick-or-treat area with realistic fog. In the Northwest, most Fred Meyer stores carry it. Place the dry ice in a large bucket and cover completely with water. The warmer the water, the more fog you will get, but it will also be gone faster. Cooler water produces less fog, but lasts longer. A special note about dry ice: you can never touch dry ice with your bare hands. You will suffer severe frost burns. Use heavy gloves, avoid all skin contact, and keep away from children.
- Graveyard — Cut headstones from an old Styrofoam cooler or from sheets of craft Styrofoam. Paint them brown or gray and add some funny or spooky epitaphs. Place RIP on the top and the dates on the bottom. You can do an Internet search and find lots of funny epitaphs. Check out http://www.squidoo.com/funnyfamoustombstoneepitaphs to get started.
