Now that the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is available, increasingly more applications will be packaged as OVF-based virtual appliances. But don't hold your breath for virtual appliances based on Microsoft Windows, observers say. Generically speaking, virtual appliances consist of one or more applications, and operating systems pre-installed and preconfigured inside a virtual machine. The recently released OVF provides a standard way to package such appliances.

DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization software, today announced that its SANsymphony(TM) and SANmelody(TM) products have been certified on Citrix's newest XenServer 5 release as virtual SAN appliances, as well as on both standard servers and blades. With XenServer 5, Citrix has optimized Citrix XenApp performance on XenServer virtual machines. According to Citrix, this enables XenApp workloads to be virtualized with as little as 7% overhead and as many as 73% more users than XenApp workloads virtualized with competing products.

When times get tough, many organizations look for new ways to reduce costs while still being able to provide their customers with the products and services they need. This appears to be just such a time. Virtualization technology can most certainly be part of the solution. Let’s review how each of the layers could be of assistance. * Access virtualization, such as that offered by Citrix and Microsoft, can make it possible for administrative and operational cost reductions while still making needed applications available in a secure, reliable way.

The new XenApp template for XenServer has generated a great deal of interest. There have been a several posts about XenApp on XenServer on the Citrix Blog (read Dan Feller's posts here, here, here and here). You can listen to an interview with Dan about this topic as part of the Citrix Delivery Center podcast here. Recently Laura Whalen in our Solutions Marketing team put together an excellent slide presentation that covers the reasons why you would want to virtualize XenApp on XenServer.

Gone are the days when you could test an interface to a single client/server app and know that you have performance covered. Today's interconnected systems such as fully integrated packaged applications, ESB-based enterprise platforms, and SOA make ensuring high-performance from application components and solutions increasingly difficult.read more

Abetted by ThinApps, VMware vApps may make application management and provisioning a lot easier, but will require even more attention to security in depth, real-time monitoring and auditing after an incident.

It's all about the vApps baby.

More and more storage vendors are turning toward so-called “application-aware” technology in the hopes that it will give them an edge in increasingly complex virtual environments. Application awareness implies an intelligent storage system built to recognize the particular demands and usage patterns of targeted applications. The idea is to improve on capacity and disk utilization by [...]

The buzz around virtualization grew to a roar over the last few weeks in anticipation of VMware's annual conference, which wrapped up last Thursday in Las Vegas. Application acceleration vendors weren't absent from the frenzy. In particular, Radware unveiled a new product designed to optimize the performance of applications running in virtualized server environments.

Novell's ZENworks Application Virtualization solution is powered by "Xenocoded" virtual applications, which offer fast and easy distribution and security. READ MORE