VBLOCK KILLER - HP and Microsoft, aim to out-box @ Cisco, EMC and VMware with HP VirtualSystem

 HP and Microsoft, aim to out-box Cisco, EMC and VMware with HP VirtualSystem

In November 2009, the three industry giants Cisco Systems, EMC, and VMware formed the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) joint venture, called Acadia, to build Vblock virtualised data centre systems. Well-informed industry folks knew it was only a matter of time before another top-tier IT company, or two, stepped up to compete. That came to pass October 2011, with long-time partners Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft announcing the HP VirtualSystem for Microsoft.

Virtualised building blocks

Vblocks are pre-integrated, preconfigured computing systems consisting of network hardware from Cisco; storage, security and systems management from EMC; and virtualisation software from VMware. The resulting cloud computing systems range in size from a few hundred virtual machines to more than 6,000, depending upon the needs of the customer.HP VirtualSystem for Microsoft, a similarly integrated, pre-configured IT system aimed at cloud computing workloads, is now in the virtual boxing ring with Vblocks.“Microsoft and HP view this as almost a Vblock-killer,” Jeff Carlat, HP’s Director of Industry Standard Servers and Software Marketing, Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking, told eWEEK.In simplest terms, the Vblocks and the HP VirtualSystem for Microsoft are about as close as one can get to plug-and-play data centres. Hardware, networking and software is pre-configured for various use cases, applications are pre-integrated, and access management and security controls are pre-set. It is not precisely turnkey, but it is pretty close.“We’ve brought together core elements of our converged infrastructure – servers, storage, networking – and wrapped it up with our integrated management stack and Microsoft SystemCenter, and are delivering two distinct solutions from Microsoft,” Carlat said. “These are turnkey-configured and factory shipped from HP.
“Our blades, with 2TB of memory, really allow us to drop more VMs onto a given host – we think about 2X that of what Cisco can do. In networking, with our VirtualConnect, we’ve embedded 10Gb NICs (network interface cards) into our servers. This is boding well for providing much more aggregated bandwidth for the virtual infrastructure. This is a huge step up from what Cisco’s Vblock is offering.”...

Another brick in the wall of virtualisation

HP VirtualSystem is the latest result of HP and Microsoft’s $250 million Infrastructure to Application (I2A) initiative announced in January 2010. The two companies launched four business-messaging appliances in January 2011, some specific health-care vertical IT systems in December 2010, and collaborated in development of HP’s tablet PCs using Microsoft Bing’s search engine earlier this year
HP VirtualSystem for Microsoft is built on the same architecture as HP CloudSystem, enabling clients to deploy private, public or hybrid cloud environments. It also aligns with Microsoft’s Private Cloud Fast Track specification for standardised deployments.
VS systems come in two types: VS1 and VS2, Carlat said. VS1 is aimed at deployments of about 750 virtual machines; VS2 capacities can range into the tens of thousands of VMs. The packages combine Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V hypervisor, Microsoft System Center, HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers, HP Insight software, HP Networking, and HP Converged Storage.
Other factors that set the VirtualSystems apart from VCE Vblocks are what Microsoft’s Ed Anderson called the “deep integration of HP and Microsoft technology” – and the pricing.

Stacks of activity

“We have done work up and down the stack to make sure this thing is tightly integrated together,” said Anderson, who serves as director of Microsoft’s server and tools division marketing. “From the lowest level of hardware management all the way up to application management with (HP) Insight, then with VM management and virtualisation and so on in the middle, we’ve knitted this thing together so that it really is a single product.”
VirtualSystem has the performance and flexibility to host heavy-duty applications like SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server, Carlat said. “It also has the integrated management based on HP Insight Control and Microsoft System Center to ensure visibility into the health and performance of the solution hardware, operating systems and applications,” he said.
Carlat said that HP and Microsoft built and deliver the whole system as one, whereas Cisco’s is comprised of partner products from EMC, VMware and others.
Another major differentiator between the two systems appears to be in the up-front investment. A starter VirtualSystem can be acquired for around $175,500, Carlat said. Vblock systems range in price from “the low hundreds of thousands to multimillions [of dollars]”, EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci said at the VCE launch.
HP VirtualSystem for Microsoft is available now.
Story October 21, 2011 by Chris Preimesberger

Topic of the day Lync Online Federation of Domains

 Online Federation of Domains

This video shows you how to troubleshoot domain federation for Lync by confirming the Lync Online and Lync Server 2010 settings.

Microsoft planning an Apple iOS Version of Office

Microsoft really building an iOS version of Office? If so, is it brilliant or suicide by Jack Madden "The smart play here is to make a for pay version Office 2010 for iOS and Andriod, include the Lync client with Skype video conferencing and then charge for it on a rental basis. Additionaly a second option exists put all those ioS, Windows 8 and Andriod Tablets onto Office 365 and charge users again... ;) 2012 vcould be the Office division best year yet!" - Dr. Strangelove

Rumors about a Microsoft building an Office suite for iOS have been swirling for about a month now. Regardless of whether there’s any truth in these rumors or even what that product might look like, an iOS version of “real” Microsoft Office is a huge opportunity for both for Microsoft and IT departments.

To understand why, let’s look at the current options for accessing Office docs on tablets. (For the purpose of this article, the term “tablets” means dedicated tablet devices like iPad and Android tablets. We’re not talking about the laptops-with-hinged-touchscreens that Microsoft supports today.)

•Use a web-based office product
•Deliver the “real” Windows Office suite to a tablet as a remote hosted app from a virtual desktop or terminal server session
•Install a third-party device-native office app on the tablet.
•Do nothing
•Hope that Microsoft releases a genuine version of Office for non-Windows tablets (iOS & Android) Let’s look at the pros and cons of each of these.

Web based office suites There are a few web-based office suites in the market now, most notably Google Docs and Microsoft’s own Office 365.

Right now Google is well ahead of Microsoft.

Accessing Google Docs from the Safari browser on an iPad leads to an iPad-specific version of the site, and creating and editing docs feels like a “native” app. (Of course Google Docs accessed from a real computer is a better document creation experience due to the keyboard and mouse, but Google Docs when accessed from a tablet is as good as any tablet app.)

Office 365, on the other hand, does not have a good experience when accessed from a tablet. There’s no mobile version of the web apps; instead users are presented with all the same pointing-device centric buttons. Unfortunately neither of these web-based office suites works when the tablet is offline.

 (While Google Docs does have some basic offline functionality, it requires the Chrome browser, so no iPad support today.) Remote hosted copies of “real” Office running on Windows A lot of companies “solve” the “Office apps on tablets” problem by using desktop virtualization to deliver remote Office apps to tablets via a remote display protocol connecting back to a virtual desktop or terminal server session. In fact Citrix has spent a lot of money marketing this exact solution.

The problem is that the “real” version of Microsoft Office is designed to be used on a multitasking computer with a keyboard and precision pointing device (trackpad or mouse). Tablets don’t have either of those. The other problem is that even if you hook up a bluetooth keyboard and use the touch interface of your tablet, real Microsoft Office was built with all the bells & whistles--the million features that 95% of the world never use.

This is not needed on a tablet. And then of course there’s the fact that this also doesn’t work offline. A big promise of tablets is that they are light and can be with you anywhere. If you’re going to go to all the trouble to have a tablet and an external keyboard and an external mouse and a table to use them on and an Internet connection--why not just buy a real laptop and run Office locally?

FULL STORY :

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/jackmadden/archive/2012/01/03/is-microsoft-really-building-an-ios-version-of-office-if-so-is-is-brilliant-or-suicide.aspx

I told you so... LAPD put the kibosh on switch the Gmail Cloud from on prem Exchange/GroupWise

REPORTING CLINT BOULTON SUMMARY: Google lost 13,000 Los Angeles Police Department Google Apps seats as part of its deal with the city. Microsoft was surprisingly quiet about the blow to its cloud computing rival. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Police Department reneged on its agreement to replace its email and collaboration software with Google Apps, effectively removing 13,000 out of 30,000 seats Google had hoped to serve as part of its municipal government contract with Los Angeles... Reporting by http://EWeek.com

Lync for the IPhone , Windows Mobile and Andriod is out.

LYNC 2010 MOBILE : The game is now on!

And the Andriod version actually works!

http://lyncdup.com/2011/12/lync-for-iphone-and-ipad-available-for-download-now-screenshots-and-links/

To make this work you will need the follwoing patch...

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=11551

If your using non-common certificates in your implementation you may get the following error.

In which case you can as an option cadd  certificates to your mobile device
stores using admin tools , or switch to a common certifiacte authority.