The Nokia Lumia 525, a variant of the 520, costs $199, has swappable, candy-colored shells and may be the Moto G's challenger in emerging markets.
Nokia has quietly launched the Lumia 525, a low-cost, feature-rich Windows Phone 8 smartphone that may be the Motorola Moto G's closest competition.
The 525 is a variant—not a replacement, says Nokia—of the Lumia 520, the best-selling Windows Phone smartphone in the world, according to a Nov. 27 report from AdDuplex. It features a 4-inch super-sensitive touch screen (meaning it responds to fingernail taps and can be used with gloves on), a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and a 5-megapixel rear camera. Like the 520, it doesn't have flash but can shoot HD video at 720p.
There's 1GB of RAM on board, 8GB of mass memory, Nokia's suite of HERE Maps, including for transit and driving, and a microSD card slot to support up to 64GB of memory. Further enhancing the memory situation, Microsoft is including 7GB of free SkyDrive cloud storage.
The phone, which has a swappable, candy-colored polycarbonate shell, comes in orange, yellow, white and black, and measures 4.7 by 2.5 by 0.39 inches.
Again like the 520, the 525 has access to apps including Instagram and Vine.
Nokia released the 525 out of Singapore priced, unlocked, at U.S. $199—same as the Lumia 520. Details about when and how quickly it will reach the rest of the world are still to come. (Nokia says it has a deal to sell the 525 to China Unicom and a 526 to China Mobile.)
The Windows Phone Market
Google's Android controlled 82 percent of the global smartphone OS market share as of the third quarter of 2013, up from 73 percent a year earlier, Gartner announced Nov. 14. But Windows Phone still managed to also grow its numbers, from a 2.3 percent share to 3.6 percent—a growth of 123 percent, earning Microsoft the title of "winner of this quarter," said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.
He added that Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's devices and services business is expected to "unify the effort and help drive appeal of the Windows ecosystem."
AdDuplex, which created its report around a sampling of 2,000-plus Windows Phone apps, found the Lumia 520 to account for nearly 27 percent of all active Windows Phone handsets. The Lumia 920 accounts for 8.8 percent and the Lumia 620 for 8.6 percent.
Nokia is, by far, the largest backer of Windows Phone handsets, selling 90 percent of the devices running the OS. HTC, in second place, has just a 7 percent share, followed by Samsung and Huawei, with less than 2 percent each.
In the United States, the leading Windows Phone smartphone is the Lumia 521; combined with the Lumia 520, they have a 30 percent share.
A Lumia 525 in the U.S. could be very good news for Nokia, which during the third quarter sold 63 million phones, thanks to its Lumia and Asha lines, proving its arrow is once again pointing in the right direction.
Low-Cost Phones for the Holidays
Beating the Lumia 525 to the U.S. market, Motorola announced Nov. 26 that the Moto G (or at least the GSM version) has come to town, weeks ahead of its promised early-January delivery.
A lower-cost follow-up to the Moto X, the Moto G has a 4.5-inch display with more pixels per inch than the Apple iPhone 5S; a processor that enables it to perform some tasks faster than the Samsung Galaxy S 4; a battery that can outlast any popular competitor (24 hours, says Motorola); and a price tag (it starts at $179) that's one-third, if not less, of the iPhone or GS4.
"It's not fair that these people have to buy an old or underpowered phone," Motorola CEO Dennis Woodwide said during his Nov. 13 introduction of the Moto G, speaking of the 500 million people expected to buy a sub-$200 device in 2014. "With Moto G, we're giving people around the world a better choice."
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Tablet Growth Expected to Slow, With Android in the Lead: IDC
IDC forecasts that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013.
Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units in 2013, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to IT research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.
The tracker, which provides market size, vendor share and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe, predicted shipment growth of tablets will to slow to 22.2 percent year over year in 2014 to a total of 270.5 million units.
The firm forecasted that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013, a figure that would slide back to 58.8 percent by 2017.
Apple's iOS tablets, including the iPad Air and the iPad mini, are projected to represent 35 percent of the market in 2013, and that share is forecast to fall to 30.6 percent by 2017.
"In some markets consumers are already making the choice to buy a large smartphone rather than buying a small tablet, and as a result we've lowered our long-term forecast," Tom Mainelli, research director for tablets at IDC, said in a statement. "Meanwhile, in mature markets like the U.S. where tablets have been shipping in large volumes since 2010 and are already well established, we're less concerned about big phones cannibalizing shipments and more worried about market saturation."
By 2017, annual market growth will slow to single-digit percentages and shipments will peak at 386.3 million units, down from the previous forecast of 407 million units. The report noted that Windows-based tablets are not expected to steal share from tablets running iOS and Android until the latter part of the forecast.
"For months, Microsoft and Intel have been promising more affordable Windows tablets and 2-in-1 devices," Jitesh Ubrani, research analyst for IDC's Worldwide Tablet Tracker, said in a statement. "This holiday season, we expect a huge push for these devices as both companies flex their marketing muscles; however we still don't expect them to gain much traction. We're already halfway through the holiday quarter, and though there have been some relatively high-profile launches from the likes of Dell, HP, and Lenovo, we've yet to see widespread availability of these devices, making it difficult for Windows to gain share during this crucial period."
The rise of large phones, often referred to as "phablets," could well push consumers back toward larger tablets as the difference between a 6-inch smartphone and a 7-inch tablet isn't great enough to warrant purchasing both.
Apple's launch of the iPad Air, a much thinner and lighter version of its 9.7-inch product, could herald another market transition back toward larger screens, reversing the trend toward smaller tablet devices the market has seen for the past two years.
Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units in 2013, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to IT research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.
The tracker, which provides market size, vendor share and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe, predicted shipment growth of tablets will to slow to 22.2 percent year over year in 2014 to a total of 270.5 million units.
The firm forecasted that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013, a figure that would slide back to 58.8 percent by 2017.
Apple's iOS tablets, including the iPad Air and the iPad mini, are projected to represent 35 percent of the market in 2013, and that share is forecast to fall to 30.6 percent by 2017.
"In some markets consumers are already making the choice to buy a large smartphone rather than buying a small tablet, and as a result we've lowered our long-term forecast," Tom Mainelli, research director for tablets at IDC, said in a statement. "Meanwhile, in mature markets like the U.S. where tablets have been shipping in large volumes since 2010 and are already well established, we're less concerned about big phones cannibalizing shipments and more worried about market saturation."
By 2017, annual market growth will slow to single-digit percentages and shipments will peak at 386.3 million units, down from the previous forecast of 407 million units. The report noted that Windows-based tablets are not expected to steal share from tablets running iOS and Android until the latter part of the forecast.
"For months, Microsoft and Intel have been promising more affordable Windows tablets and 2-in-1 devices," Jitesh Ubrani, research analyst for IDC's Worldwide Tablet Tracker, said in a statement. "This holiday season, we expect a huge push for these devices as both companies flex their marketing muscles; however we still don't expect them to gain much traction. We're already halfway through the holiday quarter, and though there have been some relatively high-profile launches from the likes of Dell, HP, and Lenovo, we've yet to see widespread availability of these devices, making it difficult for Windows to gain share during this crucial period."
The rise of large phones, often referred to as "phablets," could well push consumers back toward larger tablets as the difference between a 6-inch smartphone and a 7-inch tablet isn't great enough to warrant purchasing both.
Apple's launch of the iPad Air, a much thinner and lighter version of its 9.7-inch product, could herald another market transition back toward larger screens, reversing the trend toward smaller tablet devices the market has seen for the past two years.
IDC forecasts that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013.
Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units in 2013, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to IT research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. The tracker, which provides market size, vendor share and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe, predicted shipment growth of tablets will to slow to 22.2 percent year over year in 2014 to a total of 270.5 million units. The firm forecasted that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013, a figure that would slide back to 58.8 percent by 2017. Apple's iOS tablets, including the iPad Air and the iPad mini, are projected to represent 35 percent of the market in 2013, and that share is forecast to fall to 30.6 percent by 2017. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/small-business/tablet-growth-expected-to-slow-with-android-in-the-lead-idc.html#sthash.lQANCTj6.dpufIDC forecasts that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013.
Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units in 2013, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to IT research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. The tracker, which provides market size, vendor share and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe, predicted shipment growth of tablets will to slow to 22.2 percent year over year in 2014 to a total of 270.5 million units. The firm forecasted that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013, a figure that would slide back to 58.8 percent by 2017. Apple's iOS tablets, including the iPad Air and the iPad mini, are projected to represent 35 percent of the market in 2013, and that share is forecast to fall to 30.6 percent by 2017. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/small-business/tablet-growth-expected-to-slow-with-android-in-the-lead-idc.html#sthash.lQANCTj6.dpufIDC forecasts that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013.
Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units in 2013, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to IT research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. The tracker, which provides market size, vendor share and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe, predicted shipment growth of tablets will to slow to 22.2 percent year over year in 2014 to a total of 270.5 million units. The firm forecasted that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013, a figure that would slide back to 58.8 percent by 2017. Apple's iOS tablets, including the iPad Air and the iPad mini, are projected to represent 35 percent of the market in 2013, and that share is forecast to fall to 30.6 percent by 2017. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/small-business/tablet-growth-expected-to-slow-with-android-in-the-lead-idc.html#sthash.lQANCTj6.dpufIDC forecasts that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013.
Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units in 2013, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to IT research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. The tracker, which provides market size, vendor share and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe, predicted shipment growth of tablets will to slow to 22.2 percent year over year in 2014 to a total of 270.5 million units. The firm forecasted that tablets running Google's Android operating system will constitute 60.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2013, a figure that would slide back to 58.8 percent by 2017. Apple's iOS tablets, including the iPad Air and the iPad mini, are projected to represent 35 percent of the market in 2013, and that share is forecast to fall to 30.6 percent by 2017. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/small-business/tablet-growth-expected-to-slow-with-android-in-the-lead-idc.html#sthash.lQANCTj6.dpufManageEngine to Launch Social Networking Software for IT Teams in Large Enterprises and Data Centers
ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, today
announced it is launching Social IT Plus, private social networking software for IT
departments. Social IT Plus is on-premise software that helps IT shops at large
enterprises and data centers collaborate in real time by establishing a
one-stop, cascading wall for real-time display of IT infrastructure health. A
live demo of Social IT Plus is available online at http://demo.socialitplus.com/.
Large enterprises and data centers expand their IT very quickly, leveraging technologies such as virtualization, software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined data center (SDDC). This mandates a communication platform that is superior to email, a platform that is dynamic and capable of pulling valuable information from IT management tools, in real time.
"We have bridged the long-standing gap between IT management tools and a communication platform with Social IT Plus," said Dev Anand, director of product management at ManageEngine. "Now, admins have a way to collaborate on issues in real time and improve the mean-time-to-repair."
Inside Social IT Plus
Social IT Plus is the downloadable, on-premise version of the company's proven, SaaS-based social networking service for IT teams. To prove the power of Social IT Plus, ManageEngine has integrated it with OpManager, the data center infrastructure and network monitoring software that can monitor 50K devices from a single installation. The integration lets IT teams share a particular page - such as a device snapshot page or alarm details page of OpManager - on the Social IT Plus wall to help the team discuss the device's performance, share troubleshooting steps and fix issues without wasting time.
Social IT Plus reduces communication barriers between IT team members. The social network is very simple to use and unlike email, provides a threaded, discussion-like UI that makes it easy to follow extended conversations that include multiple participants. IT staffers can start discussions, share videos and articles, and trigger a script to post its status via REST APIs offered by Social IT Plus. Leveraging these APIs, IT admins can integrate it with IT management solutions from HP, IBM, CA and Microsoft. Alarms and performance reports from these solutions can be shared on the wall.
Social IT Plus will be launched at the DCIM Meetup, Dallas, where most of the data center admins and IT admins from large enterprises will be participating. The DCIM Meetup is a social event sponsored by ManageEngine that gives data center admins and IT admins an opportunity to socialize and discuss their day-to-day, IT-related problems and share best practices.
Pricing and Availability
Social IT Plus will be available for download beginning December 10, 2013. Social IT Plus prices start at $495 for two technicians per year. Additional technician licenses cost $95 per user per year. Users can register at http://www.manageengine.com/social-IT/download.html to receive the download link.
A six-month free license for Social IT Plus and OpManager Large Enterprise Edition will be provided for all the attendees of DCIM Meetup, Dallas.
Large enterprises and data centers expand their IT very quickly, leveraging technologies such as virtualization, software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined data center (SDDC). This mandates a communication platform that is superior to email, a platform that is dynamic and capable of pulling valuable information from IT management tools, in real time.
"We have bridged the long-standing gap between IT management tools and a communication platform with Social IT Plus," said Dev Anand, director of product management at ManageEngine. "Now, admins have a way to collaborate on issues in real time and improve the mean-time-to-repair."
Inside Social IT Plus
Social IT Plus is the downloadable, on-premise version of the company's proven, SaaS-based social networking service for IT teams. To prove the power of Social IT Plus, ManageEngine has integrated it with OpManager, the data center infrastructure and network monitoring software that can monitor 50K devices from a single installation. The integration lets IT teams share a particular page - such as a device snapshot page or alarm details page of OpManager - on the Social IT Plus wall to help the team discuss the device's performance, share troubleshooting steps and fix issues without wasting time.
Social IT Plus reduces communication barriers between IT team members. The social network is very simple to use and unlike email, provides a threaded, discussion-like UI that makes it easy to follow extended conversations that include multiple participants. IT staffers can start discussions, share videos and articles, and trigger a script to post its status via REST APIs offered by Social IT Plus. Leveraging these APIs, IT admins can integrate it with IT management solutions from HP, IBM, CA and Microsoft. Alarms and performance reports from these solutions can be shared on the wall.
Social IT Plus will be launched at the DCIM Meetup, Dallas, where most of the data center admins and IT admins from large enterprises will be participating. The DCIM Meetup is a social event sponsored by ManageEngine that gives data center admins and IT admins an opportunity to socialize and discuss their day-to-day, IT-related problems and share best practices.
Pricing and Availability
Social IT Plus will be available for download beginning December 10, 2013. Social IT Plus prices start at $495 for two technicians per year. Additional technician licenses cost $95 per user per year. Users can register at http://www.manageengine.com/social-IT/download.html to receive the download link.
A six-month free license for Social IT Plus and OpManager Large Enterprise Edition will be provided for all the attendees of DCIM Meetup, Dallas.
Citrix Eyes Growth Opportunity for Virtualizing 3D CAD Apps
Citrix today announced new customer deployments of the market-leading Citrix
XenDesktop® with HDX 3D Pro to deliver high-end 3D apps to designers, engineers
and workers all along the product design chain. Citrix global customers,
Knightec AB and Wiha Werkzeuge GmBH are using XenDesktop to securely,
centrally-deliver CAD applications to dispersed design teams, with the stunning
visual performance required for this type of intensive design and engineering
work. Since the introduction of HDX 3D Pro graphics app acceleration
technologies, Citrix has seen rapid customer adoption led by organizations
across North America, Europe and Japan in heavy manufacturing, global
engineering and energy sectors who have deployed XenDesktop to host and
securely-deliver design and engineering applications from the
datacenter.
"Supporting the CAD application market with our desktop and app virtualization solutions represents a significant growth opportunity for Citrix. Today, there are nearly 15 million CAD users that design products and another 100 million users require access to design data to view and edit these designs, representing a significant new target user base for Citrix," said Calvin Hsu, vice president of product marketing, Desktop and Apps at Citrix.
In today's global business environment, design and manufacturing organizations require the ability to collaborate and manage design lifecycles effectively with offshore, mobile and remote employees across the globe. At the same time, they have to maintain tight security and control over valuable intellectual property as the workforce becomes more mobile and distributed. XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro is the only solution that can support high-end designers, engineers and broad range of employees working with 3D data, while delivering real-time, remote collaboration. No other solution can offer the same performance, scale and graphics compatibility. Competing solutions are architected such that they cannot keep up with the latest versions of OpenGL, OpenCL, CUDA and DirectX, which limits customers to certain applications and legacy products. In addition, these solutions only offer one method of GPU sharing, which does not leverage the full performance of GPU virtualization designed by graphics market leader, NVIDIA. Professional graphics applications such as CAD, visualization and analysis rely on the parallel processing power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to visually render and manipulate large data models with pixel perfect quality.
Global Organizations Virtualize CAD Apps
Knightec has a vision to become the Nordic region's leading engineering consulting firm in product and production development. The firm's 350 engineers collaborate from throughout Sweden, combining technical skill with business development expertise to create new solutions and increase profitability for its customers. Knightec is delivering product design projects faster and at a lower cost by empowering engineers to work and collaborate from anywhere using Citrix technologies. Prior to deploying XenDesktop, design data residing on local workstations was shared between engineers via email and USB thumb drives. Traditional remote access tools performed poorly with design apps, forcing users to make simple design edits only in the office.
"We needed to provide our engineers with access to powerful workstations with CAD abilities from anywhere in the world, without having to install and support CAD applications over our network. We evaluated solutions from VMware and Citrix. XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro was selected because of its better performance with our design and simulation applications and shared GPU roadmap with NVIDIA. Now engineers in any location can use their virtual desktops to access CAD applications and collaborate around project files. This also allows greater efficiency and flexibility for the firm because we can easily assign people to additional projects, working with different colleagues in many other locations," said Jörgen Norman, head of IT at Knightec.
Germany's Wiha Premium Tools is one of the world's leading manufacturers of precision hand tools for use in industry and skilled trades. With more than 850 employees that produce over 4,000 styles of precision tools, the company has manufacturing facilities in Germany, Switzerland, Poland and Vietnam to meet the demands of customers. In order to collaborate and design across these multiple locations, Wiha uses XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro technology to support remote locations securely, while enabling mobile workstyles for CAD developers. Prior to using XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro, users requiring high computing power and rapid graphics performance were provided with high-performance workstations running Siemens Solid Edge and other developer tools running locally. Recently, a new challenge emerged with plans for a new development site two hours away.
"The development of a completely independent environment would have caused high costs and considerable administrative effort, and synchronizing data regularly with the head office would have taxed the network connection enormously," Wiha IT Manager, Siegried Disch, said.
"Citrix technology opens many new options for us," explained Disch. "For example, we can recruit CAD construction specialists who live in a different city or who want to work from their home office. Freelancers and development sites abroad can also be connected simply and securely. Wherever our users work, our invaluable know-how always remains secure within our datacenter."
Industry-leading Graphics Acceleration Technologies
HDX 3D Pro in XenDesktop is a set of graphics acceleration technologies designed to deliver graphics-intensive apps and desktops using deep compression technologies that significantly reduce bandwidth requirements. HDX 3D Pro leverages server-based GPUs specifically designed for achieving the smoothest visual performance on a dedicated GPU per virtual machine basis. New NVIDIA GRID virtual GPU (vGPU) technology introduced earlier this year provides a more cost-effective solution for delivering virtualized 3D professional graphics apps by supporting more users per host without sacrificing graphics performance. Citrix XenServer® is the first hypervisor to integrate this technology from NVIDIA, and it will be available on December 16, 2013.
"Remote users can now enjoy uncompromised virtualized desktops and graphics-intensive applications," said Jeff Brown, vice president, Professional Visualization and Design business, NVIDIA. "With NVIDIA GRID vGPU virtualization technology integrated into XenServer and XenDesktop, designers and engineers can work wherever they are, with the highest performance, stability and compatibility."
"Supporting the CAD application market with our desktop and app virtualization solutions represents a significant growth opportunity for Citrix. Today, there are nearly 15 million CAD users that design products and another 100 million users require access to design data to view and edit these designs, representing a significant new target user base for Citrix," said Calvin Hsu, vice president of product marketing, Desktop and Apps at Citrix.
In today's global business environment, design and manufacturing organizations require the ability to collaborate and manage design lifecycles effectively with offshore, mobile and remote employees across the globe. At the same time, they have to maintain tight security and control over valuable intellectual property as the workforce becomes more mobile and distributed. XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro is the only solution that can support high-end designers, engineers and broad range of employees working with 3D data, while delivering real-time, remote collaboration. No other solution can offer the same performance, scale and graphics compatibility. Competing solutions are architected such that they cannot keep up with the latest versions of OpenGL, OpenCL, CUDA and DirectX, which limits customers to certain applications and legacy products. In addition, these solutions only offer one method of GPU sharing, which does not leverage the full performance of GPU virtualization designed by graphics market leader, NVIDIA. Professional graphics applications such as CAD, visualization and analysis rely on the parallel processing power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to visually render and manipulate large data models with pixel perfect quality.
Global Organizations Virtualize CAD Apps
Knightec has a vision to become the Nordic region's leading engineering consulting firm in product and production development. The firm's 350 engineers collaborate from throughout Sweden, combining technical skill with business development expertise to create new solutions and increase profitability for its customers. Knightec is delivering product design projects faster and at a lower cost by empowering engineers to work and collaborate from anywhere using Citrix technologies. Prior to deploying XenDesktop, design data residing on local workstations was shared between engineers via email and USB thumb drives. Traditional remote access tools performed poorly with design apps, forcing users to make simple design edits only in the office.
"We needed to provide our engineers with access to powerful workstations with CAD abilities from anywhere in the world, without having to install and support CAD applications over our network. We evaluated solutions from VMware and Citrix. XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro was selected because of its better performance with our design and simulation applications and shared GPU roadmap with NVIDIA. Now engineers in any location can use their virtual desktops to access CAD applications and collaborate around project files. This also allows greater efficiency and flexibility for the firm because we can easily assign people to additional projects, working with different colleagues in many other locations," said Jörgen Norman, head of IT at Knightec.
Germany's Wiha Premium Tools is one of the world's leading manufacturers of precision hand tools for use in industry and skilled trades. With more than 850 employees that produce over 4,000 styles of precision tools, the company has manufacturing facilities in Germany, Switzerland, Poland and Vietnam to meet the demands of customers. In order to collaborate and design across these multiple locations, Wiha uses XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro technology to support remote locations securely, while enabling mobile workstyles for CAD developers. Prior to using XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro, users requiring high computing power and rapid graphics performance were provided with high-performance workstations running Siemens Solid Edge and other developer tools running locally. Recently, a new challenge emerged with plans for a new development site two hours away.
"The development of a completely independent environment would have caused high costs and considerable administrative effort, and synchronizing data regularly with the head office would have taxed the network connection enormously," Wiha IT Manager, Siegried Disch, said.
"Citrix technology opens many new options for us," explained Disch. "For example, we can recruit CAD construction specialists who live in a different city or who want to work from their home office. Freelancers and development sites abroad can also be connected simply and securely. Wherever our users work, our invaluable know-how always remains secure within our datacenter."
Industry-leading Graphics Acceleration Technologies
HDX 3D Pro in XenDesktop is a set of graphics acceleration technologies designed to deliver graphics-intensive apps and desktops using deep compression technologies that significantly reduce bandwidth requirements. HDX 3D Pro leverages server-based GPUs specifically designed for achieving the smoothest visual performance on a dedicated GPU per virtual machine basis. New NVIDIA GRID virtual GPU (vGPU) technology introduced earlier this year provides a more cost-effective solution for delivering virtualized 3D professional graphics apps by supporting more users per host without sacrificing graphics performance. Citrix XenServer® is the first hypervisor to integrate this technology from NVIDIA, and it will be available on December 16, 2013.
"Remote users can now enjoy uncompromised virtualized desktops and graphics-intensive applications," said Jeff Brown, vice president, Professional Visualization and Design business, NVIDIA. "With NVIDIA GRID vGPU virtualization technology integrated into XenServer and XenDesktop, designers and engineers can work wherever they are, with the highest performance, stability and compatibility."
Ravello Systems Demonstrates up to 2x Increase in Application Performance on AWS With Nested Virtualization
Ravello Systems,
the industry’s first Cloud Application Hypervisor provider, has
demonstrated that with virtual machine consolidation in the cloud it
can increase Amazon Web Services (AWS) performance up to 2x.
Virtualization today has become the de facto platform for running applications, with Forrester Research stating as many as six out of 10 workloads are running in virtual machines. The next generation of virtualization from Ravello uses nested virtualization to significantly improve enterprise agility. This includes encapsulation at the multi-VM application level with software defined networking and storage, as well as abstraction of the underlying cloud.
Ravello Demonstrates up to 2x Better AWS Performance with Nested VM Consolidation
Much like traditional hypervisors can consolidate multiple virtual machines on a single physical server, Ravello’s Cloud Application Hypervisor can consolidate multiple guest virtual machines on a larger host virtual machine. Additionally, Ravello has demonstrated that the performance of a multi-VM application can be increased by a factor of up to 2x in AWS with VM consolidation. This is primarily due to a combination of two factors, networking within the application and pooling of resources. The full details of this performance testing have been published here.
Nested Virtualization Allows for Agile Development and Test
Nested virtualization technology enables enterprises to create agile application development and test environments in the cloud. This is delivered through a hybrid cloud model that utilizes capacity on demand from private and public clouds without making any changes to the application. For example, a complex VMware workload can be run unmodified on AWS – with everything including the VMs and networking staying exactly the same. Using this technology, enterprises can now create accurate, representative test environments in the public cloud without having to modify their existing on-premise applications.
“Just like the early days of VMware which started with development and test servers going from physical to virtual, enterprises today are using Ravello HVX to take their development and test environments to the next level - from virtual to cloud,” said Alex Fishman, virtualization CTO, Ravello Systems. “The key to delivering high performance was to build a nested hypervisor specifically designed for the cloud since it’s a very different environment. Traditionally virtualization adds overhead but here at Ravello we are proving that with our new consolidation capabilities, adding another hypervisor may actually improve performance in the cloud for some workloads.”
Virtualization today has become the de facto platform for running applications, with Forrester Research stating as many as six out of 10 workloads are running in virtual machines. The next generation of virtualization from Ravello uses nested virtualization to significantly improve enterprise agility. This includes encapsulation at the multi-VM application level with software defined networking and storage, as well as abstraction of the underlying cloud.
Ravello Demonstrates up to 2x Better AWS Performance with Nested VM Consolidation
Much like traditional hypervisors can consolidate multiple virtual machines on a single physical server, Ravello’s Cloud Application Hypervisor can consolidate multiple guest virtual machines on a larger host virtual machine. Additionally, Ravello has demonstrated that the performance of a multi-VM application can be increased by a factor of up to 2x in AWS with VM consolidation. This is primarily due to a combination of two factors, networking within the application and pooling of resources. The full details of this performance testing have been published here.
Nested Virtualization Allows for Agile Development and Test
Nested virtualization technology enables enterprises to create agile application development and test environments in the cloud. This is delivered through a hybrid cloud model that utilizes capacity on demand from private and public clouds without making any changes to the application. For example, a complex VMware workload can be run unmodified on AWS – with everything including the VMs and networking staying exactly the same. Using this technology, enterprises can now create accurate, representative test environments in the public cloud without having to modify their existing on-premise applications.
“Just like the early days of VMware which started with development and test servers going from physical to virtual, enterprises today are using Ravello HVX to take their development and test environments to the next level - from virtual to cloud,” said Alex Fishman, virtualization CTO, Ravello Systems. “The key to delivering high performance was to build a nested hypervisor specifically designed for the cloud since it’s a very different environment. Traditionally virtualization adds overhead but here at Ravello we are proving that with our new consolidation capabilities, adding another hypervisor may actually improve performance in the cloud for some workloads.”
DirectNetworks Selects ASG's CloudFactory to Advance its Clients to the Cloud
ASG Software Solutions today announced that DirectNetworks, Inc.,
a privately held, IT solution provider, has chosen ASG’s
end-to-end cloud management suite, CloudFactory, to create its
cloud-based workplace, DirectCloud Webtop.
CloudFactory solution was not only able to address all of our pain points, but, most importantly, everything was completed within our budget and roll-out timeframe of just three months,” said Colin Mehlum, partner and business development, DirectNetworks, Inc. “We recognized that cloud computing was quickly becoming an essential element of any successful, modern IT strategy, so the development of Webtop was crucial to both our customers and our survival as a company. But, without CloudFactory, Webtop simply would never have been possible. ASG really treated us like a partner in helping us reach our goals, and its innovative cloud suite has been a crucial element of our company’s vision and success.”
With CloudFactory, ASG was able to help DirectNetworks incorporate a single workspace for users to access and provision all of their applications and services, while advanced service orchestration and automated infrastructure lifecycle management is conducted in the background within DirectNetworks’ data centers. Now, DirectNetworks can provide its clients with all of the increased cost savings, mobility and productivity that come inherent with the cloud. And, by including cloud-based storage, servers and virtual desktops, DirectNetworks can help its clients future-proof their operations while increasing data accessibility and reducing costly hardware, software and in-house support.
“We are just as invested as DirectNetworks in helping them grow their business, so are pleased to see the significant role CloudFactory has played in the success of Webtop,” said Victor Paul Fiss, vice president cloud delivery, ASG Software Solutions. “DirectNetworks wants to shoulder its clients’ burden of trying to constantly adapt to increasing technology advancements. And, to know that CloudFactory played a role in that goal, and is helping advance companies’ computing infrastructure to the cloud, is an achievement in and of itself.”
CloudFactory solution was not only able to address all of our pain points, but, most importantly, everything was completed within our budget and roll-out timeframe of just three months,” said Colin Mehlum, partner and business development, DirectNetworks, Inc. “We recognized that cloud computing was quickly becoming an essential element of any successful, modern IT strategy, so the development of Webtop was crucial to both our customers and our survival as a company. But, without CloudFactory, Webtop simply would never have been possible. ASG really treated us like a partner in helping us reach our goals, and its innovative cloud suite has been a crucial element of our company’s vision and success.”
With CloudFactory, ASG was able to help DirectNetworks incorporate a single workspace for users to access and provision all of their applications and services, while advanced service orchestration and automated infrastructure lifecycle management is conducted in the background within DirectNetworks’ data centers. Now, DirectNetworks can provide its clients with all of the increased cost savings, mobility and productivity that come inherent with the cloud. And, by including cloud-based storage, servers and virtual desktops, DirectNetworks can help its clients future-proof their operations while increasing data accessibility and reducing costly hardware, software and in-house support.
“We are just as invested as DirectNetworks in helping them grow their business, so are pleased to see the significant role CloudFactory has played in the success of Webtop,” said Victor Paul Fiss, vice president cloud delivery, ASG Software Solutions. “DirectNetworks wants to shoulder its clients’ burden of trying to constantly adapt to increasing technology advancements. And, to know that CloudFactory played a role in that goal, and is helping advance companies’ computing infrastructure to the cloud, is an achievement in and of itself.”
Software Efficiency, Multi-Hypervisor and Software Defined Challenges to be seen in 2014
In 2013, organizations
turned their attention to the problem of over-provisioning, and explored the
levers that enabled them to move to the next level of operational maturity and
efficiency within virtualized infrastructures, and of course, the
cloud.
In 2014, the drive to efficiency will continue, but will not just focus on reducing hardware spend. Significant savings will also be had through increasing the density of expensive operating system and application licenses. Many organizations have already adopted per-host or per-processor licensing models for this very reason, but have not yet optimized the density of the VMs to realize the savings. Some forward-thinking organizations have already placed a big focus on this, but the coming year will see this happen on a much broader scale as it becomes clear that a lot of money can be saved by simply moving VMs around.
This software efficiency theme will also extend to the hypervisors themselves, which have long been a sore point from a cost perspective. Many organizations will seek to reduce the unit cost of hosting workloads, and at the same time avoid vendor lock-in, by considering different hypervisor alternatives. Hyper-V environments will become more commonplace, and KVM will start to gain traction as it rides in on the coat tail of cloud technologies like OpenStack. As with any adoption cycle, these trends will start in dev/test environments, but will have an accelerated path to production as the ecosystems build out around them and management vendors throw more weight behind them. Those organizations that remain flexible and utilize the automation tools that optimize workload placements will continue to see efficiency gains.
Additionally in 2014, as more and more infrastructure components become "software-defined," organizations will realize that the more degrees of freedom there are to define things through software, the more difficult it becomes to figure out how to define them. We have had a glimpse of this already with virtualization, which is really another name for software-defined servers. Although it created the ability to place VMs on different servers and flexibly define their resource allocations, it ended up causing a bit of a mess as VMs were inevitably put in the wrong places and made the wrong sizes. In recent years management software has emerged to control this flexibility, and by analyzing all of the operational metrics and constraints it became possible to optimize placements and allocations, effectively driving up efficiency and reducing operational risk. The need for this kind of approach will expand to a broader scale, and from it will emerge software to define the software-defined data center.
In 2014, the drive to efficiency will continue, but will not just focus on reducing hardware spend. Significant savings will also be had through increasing the density of expensive operating system and application licenses. Many organizations have already adopted per-host or per-processor licensing models for this very reason, but have not yet optimized the density of the VMs to realize the savings. Some forward-thinking organizations have already placed a big focus on this, but the coming year will see this happen on a much broader scale as it becomes clear that a lot of money can be saved by simply moving VMs around.
This software efficiency theme will also extend to the hypervisors themselves, which have long been a sore point from a cost perspective. Many organizations will seek to reduce the unit cost of hosting workloads, and at the same time avoid vendor lock-in, by considering different hypervisor alternatives. Hyper-V environments will become more commonplace, and KVM will start to gain traction as it rides in on the coat tail of cloud technologies like OpenStack. As with any adoption cycle, these trends will start in dev/test environments, but will have an accelerated path to production as the ecosystems build out around them and management vendors throw more weight behind them. Those organizations that remain flexible and utilize the automation tools that optimize workload placements will continue to see efficiency gains.
Additionally in 2014, as more and more infrastructure components become "software-defined," organizations will realize that the more degrees of freedom there are to define things through software, the more difficult it becomes to figure out how to define them. We have had a glimpse of this already with virtualization, which is really another name for software-defined servers. Although it created the ability to place VMs on different servers and flexibly define their resource allocations, it ended up causing a bit of a mess as VMs were inevitably put in the wrong places and made the wrong sizes. In recent years management software has emerged to control this flexibility, and by analyzing all of the operational metrics and constraints it became possible to optimize placements and allocations, effectively driving up efficiency and reducing operational risk. The need for this kind of approach will expand to a broader scale, and from it will emerge software to define the software-defined data center.
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