Friday, February 14th, 2014

Time	Event
12:30p	Cloud SDN Provider Pertino Enters General Availability Software defined networking provider Pertino has entered into General Availability worldwide. Pertino’s Cloud Network Engine replaces traditional VPN and network appliances with cloud-based services that can be deployed in a few clicks. Targeted to SMBs, the public beta launched early last year. The company landed more than 5,000 free and paid customers during that time. “Our Cloud Network Engine has evolved significantly during public beta,” said Craig Elliott, CEO and co-founder of Pertino. ”Today we have a business-ready cloud networking service that reaches across four continents, supports all modern computing platforms with Android in beta and iOS on the way, and we’ve introduced the first set of apps for our AppScape network services app store.” Pertino enables workforce mobility and the usage of personal devices for SMBs, by making secure, private networking within budgetary reach. Three devices are free, with paid plans starting at $29 a month. The company raised a $20 million Series B in March of last year. The company has also hired two executives Bharath Rangarajan as vice president of product and Ritch Haselden as vice president of inside sales. “Bharath and Ritch bring proven talents that will be instrumental to building on our early product leadership in SDN-powered cloud networking and revving-up sales,” said Elliott. (Comment on this)
2:00p	VMware Pumps Up Its Partners, Including Google This week in San Francisco the VMware Partner Exchange 2014 brought out thousands to network, learn about best practices and new VMware (VMW) solutions – and to “master the new reality” of IT. The event conversation can be followed on Twitter hashtag #VMwarePEX. Beginning in May, VMware is allowing partners to join the network without identifying a specific program that they wish to join, and the company is adding an Enrolled tier for new partners to join and be properly trained. VMware is also launching the Elite Partner Initiative, which will provide a unique introductory market opportunity for qualified VMware partners capable of leading early adoption and investment in the newest VMware technologies and markets. The company will also offer a new Cloud Provider Solution Competency and VMware vCloud Hybrid Service SolutionCompetency. “The technologies we are bringing to market with our partners are driving the software-defined enterprise, built on the pillars of the software-defined data center, hybrid cloud, management and end-user computing solutions,” said Dave O’Callaghan, senior vice president, Global Partner Organization, VMware. “VMware Partner Exchange will empower partners with actionable, real-world insights, strategies, and tools to deliver business value and gain a competitive advantage, as together we ‘master the new reality’ of IT.” Broad support for Virtual SAN At the event, new VMware CTO Ben Fathi announced that Virtual SAN (VSAN) will be certified with hardware servers and devices from Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fusion-io, HGST, a Western Digital, HP, IBM, Intel, LSI, Samsung Electronics, SanDisk and Seagate at general availability. Unveiled at VMworld last August, VSAN pools hardware resources provided by industry-standard x86 servers with internal magnetic disks and server-side flash to produce fast and resilient shared storage for virtual machines. As a stand alone product, VSAN is fully integrated with the vSphere kernel, and VMware describes its architecture as “hypervisor converged”.At general availability, it is expected that more than 150 components as well as 10 Ready Nodes will be certified with VMware Virtual SAN. The product is expected to become generally available in the first quarter of 2014. “VMware Virtual SAN has received an enthusiastic response from the VMware community during its public beta – easily one of the most successful public beta programs at VMware to date with more than 10,000 registered participants,” said John Gilmartin, vice president and general manager, SDDC Suite Business Unit, VMware. “That enthusiasm extends to the broad support from our hardware and storage partner ecosystem. Their commitment to certifying their hardware and storage devices with VMware Virtual SAN will offer our joint customers extensive choice and flexibility for jump-starting their software-defined storage initiatives.” VMware and Google collaborate for Windows Access on Chromebooks VMware and Google (GOOG) announced a collaboration to modernize corporate desktops for the Mobile Cloud Era by providing businesses with secure, cloud access to Windows applications, data and Desktops on Google Chromebooks. This expanded relationship between Google and VMware enables enterprise customers to achieve greater security and lower Total Cost of Ownership of Google Chromebooks along with cloud access to current and legacy applications, delivered on the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) platform from VMware. “Google Chromebooks can save businesses about $5,000 per computer when compared to traditional PCs,” said Amit Singh, President of Google Enterprise. “Chromebooks are designed for the way people use computers today and are a secure, easy and cost-effective solution to help organizations embrace a new way of doing business. Through our partnership with VMware, businesses can now capitalize on these advantages with access to legacy applications, data and desktops they need to keep employees productive.” The joint solution is expected to be delivered as a fully managed, subscription DaaS offering by VMware and other vCloud Service Provider Partners, in the cloud or within hybrid deployments. Users will be able to access their Windows applications, data and desktops using VMware’s Blast HTML5 technology from a Web-based application catalog on their Chromebook. In addition, VMware Horizon DaaS will provide enterprises with a choice between a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Remote Desktop Services (RDS) connection. “VMware’s End-User Computing mission is to radically simplify IT and enable customers to run any application, anywhere, any place, and any time, so they can work at the speed of life,” said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. “We are pleased to expand our partnership with Google and offer customers added choice for their corporate desktop environments with two of the technology industry’s strongest brands behind them. VMware DaaS and desktop virtualization will enable Windows-based applications and desktops to run on Google Chromebooks, delivering on the promise of the Mobile-Cloud Era without compromise.” (Comment on this)
2:30p	Fusion-io Accelerates VMware Virtualized Solutions At the VMware Partner Exchange event Fusion-io (FIO) announced comprehensive updates to its full portfolio of flash-fueled virtualization solutions based on Fusion ioMemory. The general availability of Fusion ioVDI software for VMware Horizon View hosted virtual desktop environments was announced, as well as Fusion ioVDI software for VMware Horizon View. “Flash and virtualization technologies complement each other to maximize datacenter efficiency, performance, and cost savings,” said Lee Caswell, Fusion-io vice president, Virtualization Products Group. “By relieving the stress that virtualization places on conventional disk performance as users increase virtual server density, flash memory extends the performance of desktops and boosts the value of existing shared storage resources.” A new VMware-validated VDI Reference Architecture with VMware Horizon View documents how companies implementing VDI can lower storage costs per desktop while delivering the predictable user experience necessary for VDI success with the Fusion ioControl hybrid flash appliance. It provides guidelines on maximizing consistent performance and reducing VDI implementation risks with ioControl Hybrid Storage, Cisco UCS and VMware Horizon View. An update to the Fusion ioTurbine caching software now provides tighter integration with vCenter as well as new operating system support for vSphere 5.5, RHEL 6.5 and SLES 11.ioTurbine Profiler software can look at actual application workloads to assess the benefits of caching in particular data center environments. “Companies of all sizes have adopted virtualization to make better use of IT resources and achieve economic savings,” said David Floyer, Wikibon Chief Technology Officer. “However, virtualization brings an IO ‘tax’ that can adversely affect performance and user experience, especially with latency sensitive workloads such as database and VDI. Fusion-io provides a rich variety of storage products and software that easily integrate into the datacenter, enabling databases, virtual servers, VDI, and high performance applications to deliver cost-effective performance in virtual environments.” Additionally, Fusion ioMemory flash products are now VMware-certified as optimized solutions for powerful flash performance for the VMware Virtual SAN converged virtual infrastructure. Currently in public testing, VMware Virtual SAN is a new software-defined storage solution that extends the hypervisor to pool CPUs, flash memory and locally attached disks to provide a converged compute and storage infrastructure. ioVDI software accelerates VMware Horizon View virtual desktops Fusion-io launched Fusion ioVDI software for VMware Horizon View hosted virtual desktop environments. Fusion ioVDI software speeds the deployment of VMware Horizon View virtual desktops by intelligently combining the stateless cost economics of server flash performance with the manageability benefits of installed shared storage required for persistent desktops. It is a virtual desktop solution that offers Write Vectoring, a patent-pending technology that monitors and directs session-based desktop writes uniquely to server-side flash. By limiting shared storage interaction to the small number of writes that persist between login sessions, Write Vectoring preserves the use of VMware value-added features such as vMotion, HA, DRS, and SRM that require shared storage while substantially reducing SAN or NAS performance dependencies. “In many ways, virtual desktops are the litmus test of application acceleration expertise,” said Lee Caswell, Fusion-io vice president, Virtualization Products Group. “Every desktop user is a hypercritical judge of performance, and every desktop administrator is looking to simplify the scaling of centralized desktops to minimize both capital and operating expenses.” With patent-pending Transparent File Sharing technology from Fusion-io, many hosted virtual desktops are able to simultaneously share common files. Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) testing of ioVDI found that caching further offloads shared storage by up to 87 percent so that VDI success no longer requires expensive storage or network upgrades. That research also reported that the solution delivered consistent microsecond response times for workloads of one thousand data-intensive VDI desktops, as well as fast, consistent boot times averaging less than ten seconds. (Comment on this)
3:00p	Tintri Raises $75 Million for Application-Aware Storage Tintri raises $75 million to accelerate continued innovation for its application-aware storage technology, and Violin Memory helps Korean game publisher GAMEVIL deliver markedly improved server performance with its Flash Memory array. Tintri raises $75 Million Series E Funding.  Storage for virtualization and cloud environments provider Tintri announced its has closed an oversubscribed $75 million Series E funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture, Menlo Ventures and NEA. With a new total of $135 million raised, the application-aware storage pioneer is on track for a future initial public offering. The funding will accelerate continued global expansion and technology innovation as well as help the company further scale operations and support its rapidly growing customer base. Tintri is aggressively expanding its global presence and says it is establishing operations in numerous new countries. “Much has been said about how flash is the disruptive technology in the storage industry these days,” said David Cheriton, a Tintri investor who is also renowned as one of the earliest investors of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and VMware. “Flash is great, but it’s only one of the ingredients to making storage more useful to end-users. Far more important is whether flash-powered storage has the intelligence to make applications run better. This is where the Tintri application-aware storage is in a league of its own. As the only application-aware storage platform, Tintri storage is intelligent, self-learning and adaptive to the needs of the virtualized applications it supports.” Violin Memory selected by Gamevil. Violin Memory (VMEM) announced it has been chosen by Korean mobile game publisher GAMEVIL to help deliver premium publishing services to its customers. GAMEVIL’S platform is used to develop and publish hundreds of games on multiple platforms. Using a Violin 6000 Series Flash Memory Array, GAMEVIL was able to increase server performance by an average of seven times, enabling the company to differentiate its publishing services and to further solidify its position as the market leader in the domestic mobile game market. “We talked to other companies who had implemented Violin flash memory solutions similar to the GAMEVIL environment, which is built on VMware virtualization technology,” said Tae-Kwang Youn, the team leader of the Cloud Development Office in the Infrastructure Development Headquarters at GAMEVIL. “We walked through actual scenarios for solution deployment and operation, and after careful consideration we were confident the Violin solution could deliver the performance and reliability we required. We look forward to Violin Memory’s role in helping GAMEVIL deliver premium gaming services that differentiate our company.” (Comment on this)
3:15p	Mac Mini Hosting: A Growing Niche for Colo Providers A row of Mac Minis in a rack at Mac Mini Vault, one of several providers specializing in colocation services for Minis running Apple OS X server. (Photo: Mac Mini Vault) Mini growth seems like an oxymoron. But minis are proving to be good business for a handful of colocation providers that specialize in hosting web sites on Mac minis, the compact computers from Apple. This week Mac Mini Vault has just added a second data center location in Phoenix to supplement its original facility in Milwaukee. The new space at Phoenix NAP will open on March 10, the company said this week. The Mac mini Server is a smaller and cheaper alternative to the discontinued Xserve, and for many Apple users offers the best option for hosting sites on Apple OS X server. The Mac mini and Mac mini Server are just 7.7 inches wide and 1.4 inches deep, but are powered by a multi-core Intel Core i5/i7 processor and are upgradeable to 16 GB of RAM and up to 2 terabytes of storage. At idle, the Mac mini uses 13 watts of power. Apple touts the Mac mini server as a user-friendly way to set up a network for small offices and schools, supporting workgroups of up to 50 people. Mac Mini Vault says many customers use their Mac mini as server running software like Apache, MySQL, Daylite, Filemaker, Jenkins and Xcode Server. “Because of the mini’s efficiency we are able to offer enterprise level colocation at a reduced price,” says Mac Mini Vault. “We are able to host a great number of Mac minis in a single data center cabinet allowing us to maximize the number of clients we can sustain while keeping our power and cooling usage down. The Mac mini is the most cost effective way to start hosting with OS X.” Mac Mini Vault has plenty of company. Macminicolo hosts more than 1,200 Mac minis in its data center space at the Switch Supernap in Las Vegas. Macminicolo started hosting minis in 2005, and has customers in 31 countries around the world. Here’s a look at one of their racks: A full rack of Mac minis inside the SuperNAP in Las Vegas. (Photo: Macminicolo.net) Other providers offering Mac mini colocation include Atlanta-based MacStadium and MacConnect, which operates out of a data center in northern Virginia. Mac Mini Vault is a part of CyberLynk, a data center company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Here’s a look at a full cabinet of Mac Minis: A full rack of Mac minis (Photo: Mac Mini Vault) (Comment on this)
4:36p	Friday Funny: What’s The Best Caption? Thank Goodness It’s Friday. We can see above the snow mountains here on the East Coast and we’re ready for the weekend! But before we go, let’s take a minute and have a vote for the best caption for our data center cartoon, Time for Cupid? Diane Alber, creator of Kip and Gary, creates the data center cartoon, and you, our readers, submitted the captions. Please vote for the best one. Take Our Poll The caption contest works like this: We provide the cartoon and you, our readers, submit the captions. We then choose finalists and the readers vote for their favorite funniest suggestion. The winner will receive his or her caption in a signed print by our artist Diane Alber. For the previous cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel. (Comment on this)

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