Cloud Infrastructure & Platform - Virtualization Review

December 2013/January 2014 | Vol. 7 No. 1

VirtualizationReview.com

The 2014 Virtualization Review

READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS

& Buyers Guide

Who’s Better, Who’s Best

PLUS> HOW VDI, CLOUD COMPUTING

WILL BE BETTER IN 2014

> WE WANT APP VIRTUALIZATION NOW

> GET CLOUD CERTIFIED

© 2013 VCE Company LLC. All Rights Reserved. Vblock and the VCE logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of VCE Company, LLC and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Numbers based on IDC Whitepaper: “Convergence with Vblock Systems: a Value Measurement” September 2013. Specifications may vary according to customer’s requirements. All information is provided ‘as is’ and all warranties are disclaimed.

5X96%1 2

FASTER DEPLOYMENT

LESS DOWNTIME

THE COST

Focus on business, not infrastructure. Vblock Systems are built on the Cisco Unified Computing System with Intel® Xeon® processors, storage from EMC and virtualization from VMware. The results speak for themselves – more productivity with less cost. Learn more at www.vce.com/roi

THE NUMBERS ADD UP.VCE VBLOCKTM SYSTEMS. THE NUMBERS ADD UP.VCE VBLOCKTM SYSTEMS.

http://www.vce.com/roi

VirtualizationReview.com | Virtualization Review | December 2013/January 2014 | 1

FEATURES10 The 2014 Virtualization Review

Readers’ Choice Awards & Ultimate Buyers Guide

Who’s better and who’s best in a growing list of virtualization and cloud products.

12 Application Virtualization

12 Server Virtualization

14 Desktop Virtualization & VDI

15 Mobile Virtualization & Bring Your Own Device

16 Thin-Client & Zero-Client Computing

16 Virtualization Management & Optimization

18 Cloud Infrastructure & Platform

20 Cloud Storage

20 Cloud Security

21 Cloud Software

22 Business Continuity

23 Virtualization Automation

24 Storage Virtualization

25 Network Virtualization

25 Virtualization Security

26 Virtualization Training

DECEMBER 2013/JANUARY 2014 | VIRTUALIZATION REVIEW | VOL. 7, NO. 1

VISIT VIRTUALIZATIONREVIEW.COM

contents

UPFRONT4 VDI: Amazon Jumps into VDI

6 Cloud Certifi cations: Microsoft Extends Cloud Vision to Certifi cation

8 Collaboration: New OpenStack Tools, Extended Cloud Certs from Red Hat

COLUMNS2 Editor’s Note: MICHAEL DOMINGO Looking into the Cloud

28 Virtual Insider: ELIAS KHNASER How the Cloud will Explode

in 2014

30 Everyday Virtualization: RICK VANOVER

All Else is Virtual: So Why Not the Apps?

32 Take 5: MIKE MATCHETT 5 Reasons 2014 will be the Year of VDI

10

Even with consolidations and buyouts, our guide of virtualization and cloud companies and services keeps growing. Here’s the best of the best, as voted by you.

2 | December 2013/January 2014 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com

DOMINGOED NOTE

MICHAEL DOMINGO

VIRTUALIZATIONREVIEW.COMDecember 2013/January 2014 ■ VOL. 7 ■ NO. 1

EDITORIAL STAFF

Editor in Chief Michael Domingo

Group Managing Editor Wendy Hernandez

COLUMNISTS

David Davis

Don Jones

Elias Khnaser

Greg Shields

Rick Vanover

ART STAFF

Creative Director Scott Shultz

PRODUCTION STAFF

Director, Print Production David Seymour

Production Coordinator Teresa Antonio

ONLINE/DIGITAL MEDIA

Editor, VirtualizationReview.com Michael Domingo

Director, Online Media Becky Nagel

Site Administrator Shane Lee

Designer Rodrigo Muñoz

ADVERTISING AND SALES

VP, Group Publisher Dan LaBianca

Publisher Al Tiano

Microsoft Account Manager Danna Vedder

Advertising Sales Associate Tanya Egenolf

President Henry Allain

Director, Marketing Michele Imgrund

Online Marketing Director Tracy S. Cook

Audience Development Irene Fincher Manager

President & Chief Executive Offi cer Neal Vitale

Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Offi cer Richard Vitale

Executive Vice President Michael J. Valenti

Vice President, Christopher M. Coates Finance & Administration

Vice President, Erik A. Lindgren Information Technology & Application Developement

Vice President, Event Operations David F. Myers

Chairman of the Board Jeff rey S. Klein

Reaching the Staff

Staff may be reached via e-mail, telephone, fax, or mail.A list of editors and contact information is also available

online at VirtualizationReview.com.

E-mail: To e-mail any member of the staff , please use thefollowing form: [email protected]

Framingham Offi ce (weekdays, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET)Telephone 508-875-6644; Fax 508-875-6633

600 Worcester Road, Suite 204, Framingham, MA 01702

Irvine Offi ce (weekdays, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. PT)Telephone 949-265-1520; Fax 949-265-1528

4 Venture, Suite 150, Irvine, CA 92618

Corporate Offi ce (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. PT)Telephone 818-814-5200; Fax 818-734-1522

9201 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311

The opinions expressed within the articles and other contents herein do not necessarily express those of the publisher.

Looking to the CloudI’m not one to spout my own opinions or predictions. I’m usually doing the listening, not the talking. When I talk, what I have to say is often based on what you tell me instead of what I’ve experienced or proven myself as an IT professional. With that, here’s what I believe you’ll be talking about in the next year, based on what many of you have told me over the months.

First off, whatever you do that has any relation to your virtualization or cloud work, it’ll soon be labeled as “software-defi ned.” That is, whatever the solution, that’s what it will be called—even though it might not be inherently software-defi ned. You’re likely to hear storage virtualization solutions being referred to as software-defi ned storage in the next year, for example. There will be others.

VDI will gain some traction—again. If there’s a technology that many have dismissed as ineffi cient, it’s VDI, or the reality of implementing VDI. Expect VDI proponents to come out of the woodwork, now that Amazon is jumping into the game. That will wake up everyone to become more innovative or perish trying to keep up with the frontrunners.

Microsoft’s cloud vision will shake out in the coming year and mount a serious challenge to VMware in the cloud. I believe the next CEO to run Microsoft will take the company in that direction and charge full speed ahead.

Now, I’ll go back to just listening. What would you like to get off your chest?

ID STATEMENT Virtualization Review Magazine (ISSN 1941-2843) is published fi ve times a year (April, July, August/September, October, and December/January) by 1105 Media, Inc., 9201 Oakdale Avenue, Ste. 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311. Complimentary subscriptions are sent to qualifying subscribers. Annual subscription rates payable in U.S. funds for non-qualifi ed subscribers are: U.S. $39.95, International $64.95. SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES, BACK ISSUE REQUESTS AND ADDRESS CHANGES: Mail to: Virtualization Review, 9201 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311, E-mail [email protected] or call 818-814-5223, fax number 818-936-0267. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Virtualization Review, 9201 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311. Canada Publications Mail Agreement No: 40612608. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to 9121 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT © Copyright 2014 by 1105 Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Reproductions in whole or part prohibited except by written permission. Mail requests to “Permissions Editor,” c/o Virtualization Review, 4 Venture, Irvine, CA 92618. LEGAL DISCLAIMER The information in this magazine has not undergone any formal testing by 1105 Media, Inc. and is distributed without any warranty expressed or implied. Implementation or use of any information contained herein is the reader’s sole responsibility. While the information has been reviewed for accuracy, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results may be achieved in all environments. Technical inaccuracies may result from printing errors and/or new developments in the industry. CORPORATE ADDRESS: 1105 Media, 9201 Oakdale Ave. Ste 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311, www.1105media.com MEDIA KITS: Direct your Media Kit requests to Dan LaBianca, VP and Group Publisher, [email protected], 972-687-6702 (phone) or 972-687-6799 (fax). REPRINTS: For single article reprints (in minimum quantities of 250-500), e-prints, plaques and posters contact: PARS International, Phone: 212-221-9595, E-mail: [email protected], magreprints.com/QuickQuote.asp LIST RENTAL This publication’s subscriber list, as well as other lists from 1105 Media, Inc., is available for rental. For more information, please contact our list manager, Merit Direct. Phone: 914-368-1000; E-mail: [email protected]; Web: www.meritdirect.com.

Call for Virtualization Experts Are you your company’s virtualization expert? We’re interested in what you have to say and are looking for writers for the magazine. Send me a message at [email protected] with “I’m into Virt” in the subject line, what types of projects you’ve been working on and the virtualization management tools that you have at your disposal.

mailto:[email protected]



http://www.1105media.com




http://www.meritdirect.com

Better backup for all.

Copyright © 2013 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec Logo, the Checkmark Logo, Backup Exec, and NetBackup are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. VMware is a trademark of VMware, Inc. Hyper-V is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

Symantec is tackling modern-day backup challenges head-on.Organizations and IT are dealing with explosive data growth, complex environments, and a fragmented backup landscape.

Symantec is delivering better backup for today’s demanding environments. To address data growth, Symantec will break the

backup window by delivering up to 100X faster backup. To unify a fragmented landscape, only Symantec brings together

virtual and physical with Symantec V-Ray technology for VMware®, Hyper-V®, and their physical hosts. To reduce complexity,

Symantec delivers options to back up with on-premise software, and appliances. Most importantly, Symantec provides better

backup for all organizations, big and small. To learn more, visit www.backupexec.com

http://www.backupexec.com


news • trends • analysis

VDI

Amazon Web Services has stated it wants to shake up the struggling VDI market. It

plans to release a cloud-based alternative that requires no hardware, software or datacenter infrastructure. Amazon’s solution is called Amazon WorkSpaces. Amazon claims it can offer services at half the cost with better performance than traditional virtual desktop infrastructure platforms today.

Amazon Web Services senior vice president Andy Jassy revealed the new cloud-based VDI offering in his opening keynote address at the company’s second annual re:Invent customer and partner conference held in Las Vegas in mid-November.

Jassy told the thousands of attendees and online viewers in his keynote that VDI hasn’t taken off because it’s complex to set up and manage, and that Amazon WorkSpaces promises to

reduce those barriers. It will help organizations move their desktop licenses to Amazon and provide integration with Active Directory.

“You can access your Amazon WorkSpace from any of your devices, whether it’s a desktop, laptop or an iOS device,” Jassy said. “And you get persistent sessions, so if you’re using a WorkSpace on

your laptop and you switch to your Android [or any other] device, the session picks up just where you left off. What’s also nice, because it’s a

cloud service, all of the data lives in the cloud. It doesn’t live local to those devices, which of course is a concern for an IT administrator.”

The company described in a blog post a use case with 1,000 employees that would cost just $43,333 using Amazon WorkSpaces. This would be 59 percent less expensive than an on-premises VDI deployment that

would cost $106,356 (that fi gure includes datacenter investments).

Amazon will initially offer a Standard service that costs $35 per month for one virtual CPU, 3.75

GB of memory and 50 GBytes of capacity. The Performance plan will cost $60 for two virtual CPUs, 3.75 GB of memory and 100 GB storage per user. The Performance Plus package will come with 7.5 GB of memory. Customers that don’t have existing licenses to move over can purchase licenses for Microsoft Offi ce and antivirus software fi rm Trend Micro for $15 per month per user.

Jassy said Amazon intends to fi rst offer invitation-only trials. He didn’t disclose general availability. In the mean time, customers can register for access to the preview at aws.amazon.com/workspaces/. VR

Jeffrey Schwartz is Editor-in-Chief of Redmond Magazine.

Amazon Jumps into VDIBy Jeff rey Schwartz

Amazon WorkSpaces will help organizations move their desktop licenses to Amazon and provides integration with Active Directory.

We’re so proud of these honors. We’re really proud to shower our customers with the value of Hitachi cloud solutions and the technology that powers them, including Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform. Thanks for noticing.

Yes, Our Head Is in the Clouds

HDS.com community.HDS.com

© Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2013. All rights reserved. HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners.

http://community.HDS.com

http://www.HDS.com


Coming next issue: VMware Certification TipsUpFrontCLOUD

The Microsoft certifi cation program has experienced something of an upheaval

since the Microsoft Learning Group that manages certifi cation announced the death of the elite Microsoft Certifi ed Master and Microsoft Certifi ed Architect programs over the summer.

“Microsoft couldn’t win with those ones,” says one MCSE who asked for anonymity. He says he once gave serious thought to tackling an MCM,

but reconsidered when he worked out the payback. “It’s expensive and I don’t know if it would have helped my career at all, to be honest.”

This MCSE also says that there was some irony to the title. “Microsoft created the titles based on user feedback, and people branded the title as elitist. Wasn’t that the

point? But they killed it anyway.”The rest of the certifi cation

program rolls on, however. There is renewed emphasis on cloud and

virtualization within the other certifi cations, which indicates the seriousness with which Microsoft is executing on its cloud vision. The Microsoft Learning Group has even created a portal specifi cally branded Virtualization2 (Virtualization Squared).

According to a blog post from Brad Anderson, corporate vice president with the Windows Server & System Center division, the idea is the company recognizes many of its certifi cation candidates are “comfortable with both Microsoft and VMware platforms.” As such, his group has been working with the Microsoft Learning Group to create a new certifi cation that takes this into consideration.

Dubbed Microsoft Certifi ed Specialist: Server Virtualization with Hyper-V and System Center, this certifi cation requires passing one exam, 74-409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center. The exam page doesn’t mention vSphere among its study objectives, but Anderson says the exam is “geared toward the skills of VMware VCPs.”

Beta testing the exam for that program began at the end of November. Microsoft hadn’t mentioned when the exam would be generally available, but it’s likely to go live at the beginning of 2014. Upon availability, the exam will be $150. VR

Michael Domingo is Editor-in-Chief of Virtualization Review.

Microsoft Extends Cloud Vision to Certifi cation By Michael Domingo

Exam 74-409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center’s exam page doesn’t mention vSphere among its study objectives.

d whe

of“comand VMhis grouMic

You need to virtualize. You need a complete workload protection and mobility solution that handles any combination of physical, virtual and cloud servers, on any type of hardware or infrastructure. But how to do all that when your budget is under such intense pressure?

Easy. Get new Double-Take® 7.0. It’s the complete virtualization, migration and workload protection solution that handles any combination of physical, virtual and cloud servers, on any type of hardware or infrastructure. It provides affordable, full-scale agentless or agent-based protection and total workload mobility, so you can confidently virtualize, migrate and dominate the cloud without worrying about downtime, lost data or stranded workloads. Or about how to get Finance on board with your plans.

With Anything, Anytime, Anywhere protection, Double-Take® 7.0 ensures that there will be no surprises, downtime or risk to your business. Only smiles all around the table.

GET REAL, QUANTIFIABLE R.O.I FROM YOUR DATA CENTER MODERNIZATION PROJECT. BE PREPARED TO SEE FINANCE SMILE AT YOUR 2014 BUDGET MEETING.

GO AHEAD. NO WORRIES.

Get a Free Trial!www.visionsolutions.com/Trial

Seamless Virtualization. Risk-Free Migration. Cloud Domination.

http://www.visionsolutions.com/Trial%ED%AF%80%ED%B0%99


Configure vSphere QoS bit.ly/18TgYC5UpFrontCOLLABORATION

Red Hat Software released an upgrade of its CloudForms tools that deploy and manage

private and hybrid IaaS clouds with support for OpenStack. The company also said you can now deploy its OpenShift Platform as a Service software on OpenStack clouds. This move helps you use OpenStack infrastructure to create PaaS environments.

“OpenStack is one of the foundational pillars upon which we are building out our open hybrid cloud strategy and portfolio,” said Bryan Che, Red Hat’s general manager of cloud, during a Webcast introducing the products. Since committing to OpenStack two years ago, Che said Red Hat has become the largest contributor to the open source project, including the most recent Havana release. The company says it has 87 engineers working on 69 various OpenStack projects.

Red Hat was able to integrate OpenStack management into

CloudForms after it acquired ManageIQ in the beginning of the year for $104 million. CloudForms 3.0 also gained improved management of Amazon public and hybrid cloud services and VMware infrastructure from ManageIQ. “Enterprises are now going to be able to deploy OpenStack, and they’ll be able to bring enterprise-class management capability on top of it as well,” Che said.

The new release includes tools for authoring and administrating service catalogs, and comes as a virtual appliance. Red Hat offers it as a standalone management platform, as well as part of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Platform, which includes the Linux distribution bundled with OpenStack.

Red Hat has also extended its OpenStack certifi cation programs. The company’s partner network, launched in June, now has 140 members that have introduced over 900 certifi ed solutions available in

the Red Hat Marketplace. “As a result of the partners who are engaged with us in this program, we’re seeing hundreds of customers with POCs,” says Mike Werner, Red Hat’s senior director for global ecosystems.

While the current certifi cations focus on core compute, storage and networking, Red Hat said it is adding OpenStack SWIFT object storage and extensions to advanced networking features in the community called Neutron. On top of certifi cation for OEMs, independent system builders and ISVs, Red Hat is extending the certifi cation program to systems integrators, managed service and cloud service providers, and its channel partners. VR

Jeffrey Schwartz is Editor-in-Chief of Redmond Magazine.

New OpenStack Tools, Extended Cloud Certs from Red HatBy Jeff rey Schwartz

Red Hat was able to integrate the OpenStack management functionality into CloudForms after it acquired ManageIQ earlier in the year.

Copyright © 2013 Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, and JBoss are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the U.S. and

other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

Learn more at redhat.com/cloudforms.

AWARD-WINNING VMWARE MANAGEMENT

Capabilities include:

for enterprises running multiple platforms.

standards enforcement and infrastructure automation.

infrastructures from a single management interface.

Manage your virtualized infrastructure and evolve to the cloud with Red Hat® CloudForms.

http://www.redhat.com/cloudforms

The 2014 Virtualization Review

Readers’ Choice Awards & Ultimate Buyers Guide

Who’s better and who’s best among the growing list of cloud and virtualization companies and products.

By Michael Domingo


COVER STORY | 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide

IMAGE FROM SHUTTERSTOCK/VRM Staff


his year’s 2014 Virtualization

Review Readers’ Choice Awards w

(RCA) and Ultimate Buyers Guide

continues to expand. Even with

the number of mergers and acquisitions

that have taken place in the past year

since we put together the last guide, there

are always more. It’s a testament to a

vibrant market that continues to generate

innovations, improvements and evolutions

in technology that are helping enterprises

make data more accessible, mobile,

cost-effective and secure.

VMware had a busy year innovation-wise,

and it shows in this year’s results. The

cloud company topped nine categories, two

more than last time (one of them, though,

could be chalked up to an acquisition). Citrix

Systems Inc. once again took its place on

the podium with six RCA Finalist awards,

and also garnered one RCA Winner Award

for ShareFile. Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp. and

Cisco Systems Inc. made strong showings.

There were also some surprises from smaller

companies who made the list this year.

We’ve made this guide as comprehensive

as possible, but we know it can always

bee mmororee cocompmpleletete. Helpp uus s imimprprovovee anand d

exexpapandnd. IfIf yyouou kknonow w ofof aa vvirirtutualalizizatatioion n oror

clclououd d prprododucuct t oror ccomompapanyny tthahat t shshououldld bbee

included here and in next yeearar’ss guiidee, seendnd

me an e-mail at [email protected]

with “2014 Buyers Guide Additions” in the

subject line of your message.



COVER STORY 2014 RCAs/Buyers Guide

Application Virtualization

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s how this year’s application virtualization category shook out in the fi nal tally. The same winners, fi nalists and Editor’s Choice as last year won this year. VMware ThinApp extends last year’s hat trick in this category with a four-win streak, while Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Application Virtualization each earned a Finalist spot on the virtual podium. Symantec Corp. also snagged the attention of the editors this year.

RCA WINNERVMware ThinApp - VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALIST Citrix XenApp 6.5 - Citrix Systems Inc.Standalone pricing starts at $350 per concurrent user and includes one year of Subscription Advantage. XenApp is also included in XenDesktop Enterprise or Platinum ■ citrix.com

RCA FINALISTMicrosoft Application Virtualization (App-V) - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Symantec Workspace Virtualization 7.5 - Symantec Corp.$44 per node ■ symantec.com

2X ApplicationServer XG 10.6 - 2X Software$75 per user ■ 2x.com

AccessNow - Ericom SoftwareContact for price ■ ericom.com

AdminStudio Suite 2013 - Flexera Software LLCContact for price ■ fl exerasoftware.com

Application Delivery Solution - Radware Ltd.Contact for price ■ radware.com

Application Jukebox - NumecentContact for price ■ numecent.com

AppZero Cloud - AppZero Contact for price ■ appzero.com

Aternity for VDI - Aternity Inc.Contact for price ■ aternity.com

Cameyo 2.0 - Cameyo Free ■ cameyo.com

eG Enterprise 5.7 - eG Innovations Inc.Contact for price ■ eginnovations.com

ElectricCommander - Electric CloudContact for price ■ electric-cloud.com

Quest Workspace ChangeBASE 6.0 - Quest SoftwareContact for price ■ quest.com

Scense 8 - Scense B.V.Contact for price ■ scense.com

Spoon Server - Spoon.netContact for price ■ spoon.net

Server Virtualization As you can probably guess, VMware vSphere 5.0 easily tops this category. Who here does any work with virtualization and hasn’t used this? It’s also no surprise that Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer were fi nalists. Both are nearly in equal use by voters, but still a good distance from vSphere. The Editor’s Choice award goes to Splunk this year, for a visually appealing product and equally appealing name.

RCA WINNERvSphere 5 - VMware Inc.VMware vSphere Standard starts at $995 for one processor with up to 32GB vRAM entitlement per processor ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALIST Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V - Microsoft Corp.See bit.ly/182OjOg for licensing details ■ microsoft.com

RCA FINALIST Citrix XenServer 6.0 - Citrix Systems Inc.Pricing ranges from free to $1,000 per server for the Advanced Edition, $2,500 per server for the Enterprise Edition, and $5,000 per server for the Platinum Edition ■ citrix.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Splunk App for VMware 3 - Splunk Inc.Free ■ splunk.com

Dell vStart 50, 100, 200 series - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ dell.com

FabricCache QLE 10000 - QLogic Corp.Contact for price ■ qlogic.com

FlashArray 400 Series - Pure Storage Inc.Contact for price ■ purestorage.com

FlashSoft for vSphere - SanDisk Corp.$3,900 ■ sandisk.com/products/fl ashsoft/vsphere/

FlexSuite QLE2600 and QLE8300 - QLogic Corp.Contact for price ■ qlogic.com

MethodologyAs in years past, we sent out the Virtualization Review Readers’ Choice Awards survey to approximately 20,000 of our readers via e-mail addresses we have on fi le. We also made one vote solicitation through the Virtualization Review newsletter. We kept voting open for two weeks, then combed through the responses and tallied the results. Readers span the IT spectrum, from executives to managers to the various professionals who get their hands dirty deploying technology on the front lines. It’s readers who make this guide possible, and it’s you we thank for participating every year.

http://www.f5.com/cloud



HC3 - Scale Computing $25,499 for 15-30 Virtual Workloads Compute Resources, 96GB RAM, three Quad-Core Intel CPUs, 6x1GbE or 3x10GbE Storage Resources, 12 SATA or SAS drives, 6TB to 24TB RAW storage ■ scalecomputing.com

Memory Channel Storage - Diablo TechnologiesContact for price ■ diablo-technologies.com

Oracle VM 3.2 - Oracle Corp.Oracle VM has no license fee, only a support fee ■ oracle.com

PROMISE VTrak S3000 - PROMISE Technology Contact for price ■ promise.com

Proxmox Virtual Environment - Proxmox Server Solutions GmbHContact for price ■ proxmox.com

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers 3.2 - Red Hat Inc.Free, fully supported 60-day trial; $2,994 Standard Subscription for one year ■ redhat.com

Riverbed Granite 2.5 - Riverbed TechnologyContact for price ■ riverbed.com

ScaleMP vSMP Foundation 4.0 - ScaleMP Inc.Contact for price ■ scalemp.com

Virtuozzo Containers - Parallels IP Holdings GmbHContact for price ■ parallels.com

V-locity 3 - Condusiv Technologies Corp.Contact for price ■ condusiv.com

Desktop Virtualization & VDIHere’s yet another category in which VMware pretty much ran over the competition, earning RCA Winner with VMware View. Citrix XenDesktop snagged an RCA Finalist award, along with the popular Parallels Desktop. Dell vWorkspace remains a strong contender here, once again earning Editor’s Choice honors.

RCA WINNERVMware View 5.5- VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTCitrix XenDesktop - Citrix Systems Inc. Contact for price ■ citrix.com

RCA FINALISTParallels Desktop - Parallels IP Holdings GmBH$79.99 ■ parallels.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Dell vWorkspace - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ quest.com/vworkspace

Accela - Cisco Systems Inc. (via WHIPTAIL, recently acquired)Contact for price ■ cisco.com

AMAX Virtual Desktop Series - AMAX Information Technologies Inc.Contact for price ■ amax.com

Moka5 for BareMetal - Moka5 Inc.Contact for price ■ mokafi ve.com

Ceedo Enterprise - Ceedo Technologies Ltd.Contact for price ■ ceedo.com

Connection Broker 7.6 - LeostreamContact for price ■ leostream.com

Desktone Desktop-as-a-Service - VMware Inc.Call for pricing ■ desktone.com

Desktop Cloud Computing Appliance Gen 2 - V3 SystemsContact for price ■ v3sys.com

IO Offl oad Engine - GreenBytesContact for price ■ getgreenbytes.com

Invicta - Cisco Systems Inc. (via WHIPTAIL, recently acquired) Contact for price ■ cisco.com

Konect Elite - desktopsites Inc.From $490 per year for a fi ve-user pack to $17,500 per year for 250-user pack ■ desktopsites.com

Leostream Connection Broker - LeostreamContact for price ■ leostream.com

Leostream Cloud Desktops - LeostreamStarts at $10/month per desktop ■ leostreamdesktops.com

N-series - NComputingContact for price ■ ncomputing.com

NexentaVSA for View 1 - Nexenta Systems Inc.$35 per seat license, 100 seat minimum ■ nexenta.com

Nimble CS Series CS260 - Nimble StorageStarts at $38,000 ■ nimblestorage.com

P10PS Series Desktop Touchscreen - GVision USA Inc.Contact for price ■ gvision-usa.com

Pano System for VDI 6.0 - Pano Logic Inc.$1,399 for fi ve-seat starter kit, includes software and fi ve endpoint zero-client devices ■ panologic.com

Profi leUnity FlexApp - Liquidware Labs Inc.Contact for price ■ liquidwarelabs.com

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops 3.0 - Red Hat Inc.Free 60-day trial; $4,494 Standard Subscription for one year ■ redhat.com

RES Automation Manager 2012 - RES SoftwareContact for price ■ ressoftware.com

RES Baseline Desktop Analyzer - RES SoftwareContact for price ■ resssoftware.com

RES Dynamic Desktop Studio - RES SoftwareContact for price ■ ressoftware.com

RES Virtual Desktop Extender - RES SoftwareContact for price ■ ressoftware.com

RES Workspace Manager 2012 - RES SoftwareContact for price ■ ressoftware.com

SmartVDI Host Platforms - ClearCube Technology Inc.Contact for price ■ clearcube.com



Stratusphere FIT - Liquidware Labs$6.95 per user for 180 days ■ liquidwarelabs.com

Stratusphere UX - Liquidware Labs$39 per year ■ liquidwarelabs.com

Symantec Workspace Streaming 7.5 - Symantec Corp.Contact for price ■ symantec.com

SysTrack 6.1 - Lakeside Software Inc.Contact for price ■ lakesidesoftware.com

Teradici PCoIP Hardware Accelerator APEX 2800 - Teradici Corp. $2,395, available via distributors ■ teradici.com

Thin Browse - ThinLaunch Software LLC$39 per user for 1-50 users ■ thinlaunch.com

Thin Desktop - ThinLaunch Software LLC$29 per device for 1-50 users ■ thinlaunch.com

ThinPrint Server Engine 9 - Cortado AGStarts at $29.95 per user annually, with volume discounts ■ thinprint.com

Unidesk 2.0 - Unidesk Corp.Starts at $150 per managed desktop, with volume discounts ■ unidesk.com

V3 Desktop Cloud Orchestrator 1 - V3 SystemsContact for price ■ v3sys.com

VDI-in-a-Box - Citrix Systems Inc. Starts at $975 for a 5-pack ■ citrix.com

Login VSI - Login VSIContact for price ■ loginvsi.com

Verde 7 - Virtual Bridges Inc.Contact for price ■ vbridges.com

vIO - GreenBytesContact for price ■ getgreenbytes.com

Virtual Desktop Platform - VDIworks Contact for price ■ vdiworks.com

vSpace Management Center - NComputingContact for price ■ ncomputing.com

vSpace Server - NComputingContact for price ■ ncomputing.com

vSTAC VDI Appliance - Pivot3 Inc.Contact for price ■ pivot3.com

WorkSpace iQ - Centrix Software Ltd. Contact for price ■ centrixsoftware.com

WorldDesk for Enterprise - WorldDeskContact for price ■ myworldesk.com

Mobile Virtualization & Bring Your Own Device The VMware Horizon Suite made some signifi cant strides on the mobility front, including the support from a handful of Android smartphone makers to make their phones VMware-ready. It’s those kinds of initiatives that probably had some impact on readers, who went on to vote Horizon to the top of the category as this year’s RCA Winner. It knocks Citrix down a notch (it was the winner here last year) to RCA Finalist, along with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. Fusion-io Inc. takes home Editor’s Choice for its ioVDI product.

RCA WINNERHorizon Suite - VMware Inc. Contact for price ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTCitrix XenMobile - Citrix Systems Inc.Free with Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and Citrix CloudGateway ■ citrix.com

RCA FINALISTSystem Center Operations Manager - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE ioVDI - Fusion-io Inc.Contact for price ■ fusionio.com

2X Client for RDP/Remote Desktop - 2X Software Free ■ 2x.com

Biscom VMware File Transfer Appliance - Biscom Inc.Contact for price ■ biscom.com

Citrix Receiver - Citrix Systems Inc.Free with Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and Citrix CloudGateway ■ citrix.com

Cortado Corporate Server - Cortado AG $119 per user, or $4.97 per month ■ corporateserver.cortado.com

Dell Wyse Cloud Client Manager - Dell WyseContact for price ■ wyse.com

Dell Wyse PocketCloud - Dell WyseContact for price ■ wyse.com

Intelligent Mobile Edge - Extreme NetworksContact for price ■ extremenetworks.com

Moka5 - Moka5 Inc.Contact for price ■ mokafi ve.com

Parallels Access - Parallels IP Holdings GmbH$79.99 per year ■ parallel.com/access

System Center 2012 Confi guration Manager - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com

vLogix Mobile - Red Bend SoftwareContact for price ■ redbend.com

Be sure to log on to VirtualizationReview.com

and download the expanded Ultimate

Virtualization Buyers’ Guide, which includes

descriptions for every product listed here.

You can access the PDF directly from

VirtualizationReview.com/2014RCA.



Thin-Client & Zero-Client Computing

Dell has seen some rough times with its core business, but has been mildly successful with two acquisitions: Wyse and Quest. Products from those two companies continue to thrive. The Dell Wyse T10 thin clients repeat as the RCA Winner for thin clients. From Quest, the newly dubbed Dell vWorkspace Thinshell is a skinnier, thinner Windows shell replacement. This takes a spot as an RCA Finalist. Last year, it was a Preferred Product with the longer Quest Workspace Desktop Virtualization ThinShell moniker.

Co-fi nalist Teradici Corp. and its PCoIP Zero Clients have proven to be quite popular with readers once again this year. The Editor’s Choice award for this category this year goes to 10ZiG Technology and its line of thin clients it sells through the channel.

RCA WINNERDell Wyse T10 1 - Dell WyseContact for price ■ wyse.com

RCA FINALISTDell vWorkspace ThinShell - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ dell.com

RCA FINALISTTeradici PCoIP Zero Clients 1.7.1 - Teradici Corp.Starts at $299 ■ teradici.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE 10ZiG Zero Clients - 10ZiG TechnologyContact for price ■ 10zig.com

2X OS 7.3 - 2X SoftwareFree ■ 2x.com

AG7600 - Computer Lab International Inc. (CLI)Contact for price ■ computerlab.com

Devon Terminal Operating System - Devon ITContact for price ■ devonit.com

JC6100C Cloud Computing Model - Computer Lab International Inc. (CLI)Contact for price ■ computerlab.com

NoTouch Desktop 2.34.0 - Stratodesk Corp.Contact for price ■ stratodesk.com

Remote Desktop Reporter - RDPSoft $199 per monitored Terminal Server; with volume discounts ■ rdpsoft.com

UD2, UD3, UD5, UD9 Series - IGEL TechnologyContact for price ■ igel.com

Userful MultiSeat Linux Zero Clients - Userful Corp.Contact for price ■ userful.com

Virtualization Management & Optimization

Even with the sheer number of competitors in this category, VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite emerged as the runaway RCA Winner. It can manage such a comprehensive list of components within the VMware ecosystem that there’s little need to rely on third-party tools. RCA Finalists include Microsoft System Center and Veeam Management Pack for VMware, both worthwhile toolsets. For this year’s Editor’s Choice, it was SolarWinds Virtualization Manager. We like that it’s a fairly comprehensive alternative to many of the management tools out there at a fraction of the cost.

RCA WINNERvCenter Operations Management Suite 5.0 - VMware Inc.Standard Edition starts at $1,250 per 25-VM pack ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTSystem Center - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com

RCA FINALISTVeeam Management Pack for VMware - Veeam Software$450 per socket ■ veeam.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Virtualization Manager 6 - SolarWinds Inc.Starts at $2,995 to monitor up to 50 VMs; priced to scale up to 15,000 VMs ■ solarwinds.com

AppSense User Virtualization Platform - AppSense Ltd.Contact for price ■ appsense.com

Aptare StorageConsole Platform - Aptare Inc.Contact for price ■ aptare.com

Argent for VMware - Argent SoftwareContact for price ■ argentsoftware.com

Aternity Frontline Performance Intelligence Platform - Aternity Inc.Contact for price ■ aternity.com

athene - Metron-Athene Inc.Contact for price ■ metron-athene.com

AX Series - A10 Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ a10networks.com

Axxia Network Accelerator - LSI Corp.Contact for price ■ lsi.com

BlueCat IPAM Solutions - BlueCat NetworksContact for price ■ bluecatnetworks.com

Bocada vpConnect 8 - Bocada Inc.Contact for price ■ bocada.com

CA LISA Platform - CA TechnologiesContact for price ■ ca.com



CiRBA - CiRBA Inc.Contact for price ■ cirba.com

Cisco Nexus 1010 and 1010-X Virtual Services Appliances - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com

Cisco Virtual Network Management Center 1.3 - Cisco Systems Inc. Contact for price ■ cisco.com

CloudPhysics – CloudPhysics Inc.Contact for price ■ cloudphysics.com

Desktop Central 8 - ManageEngineContact for price ■ manageengine.com

dsNet Manager - Cleversafe Inc.Contact for price ■ cleversafe.com

Embrane heleos - Embrane Inc.Contact for price ■ embrane.com

EMC Isilon Scale-Out Storage Platform - EMC Corp.Contact for price ■ isilon.com

EnhanceIO SSD Cache Software - Stec Inc.Contact for price ■ stec-inc.com

Enterprise Manager Virtual Edition - F5 Networks Inc.$9,995 ■ f5.com

Equalizer OnDemand - Coyote Point Systems$3,595 ■ coyotepoint.com

Foglight for Virtual Desktops - Quest Software, a Division of Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ quest.com

Grid Engine - Univa Corp.Contact for price ■ univa.com

HIPAA Essential - SilverSky Contact for price ■ www.silversky.com

Hitachi Command Suite 7.3 - Hitachi Data Systems Corp.Contact for price ■ hds.com

Hosted Monitoring for In-House IT Departments - LogicMonitor Inc.Contact for price ■ logicmonitor.com

Hotlink Hybrid Express - Hotlink Corp. $300/year per Amazon EC2 Instance; free version supports 10 Amazon EC2 Instances ■ hotlink.com

Hotlink SuperVISOR - Hotlink Corp. $1,500/year per host; free version supports 3 hosts/15 VMs ■ hotlink.com

HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Server 7 - Hewlett-Packard Co.Free when managing HP Storage under support contract; contact for other pricing options ■ hp.com

HyTrust Appliance - HyTrust Inc.Contact for price ■ hytrust.com

IgniteVM 8.2 - Confi o Software Contact for price ■ confi o.com

Intigua - IntiguaContact for price ■ intigua.com

ioTurbine Fusion-io - Fusion-io Inc.Contact for price ■ fusion-io.com

IP Address Management Freeware - Infoblox Inc.Free ■ infoblox.com

Librato - Librato Contact for price ■ metrics.librato.com

MozyPro - Mozy Corp.Contact for price ■ mozy.com

Netuitive 6.0 - Netuitive Inc.Contact for price ■ netuitive.com

NetWrix Change Reporter - NetWrix Corp.Contact for price ■ netwrix.com

Novell Endpoint Lifecycle Management Suite - NovellContact for price ■ novell.com

OmniCube - SimpliVity Corp.Contact for price ■ simplivity.com

OnCommand Management Software Portfolio - NetAppContact for price ■ netapp.com

OneFabric Data Center Manager - Enterasys Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ enterasys.com

PAN Manager Software - Egenera Inc.Contact for price ■ egenera.com

PCI Compliant Hosting - Layered Technologies Inc.Contact for price ■ layeredtech.com

PerfectDisk - Raxco Software Inc.$599.99 per host with unlimited guests ■ raxco.com

PHD Virtual Monitor - PHD Virtual Technologies Contact for price ■ phdvirtual.com

PlateSpin Migrate - NetIQ Corp. Contact for price ■ netiq.com

Precise Transaction Performance Management - PreciseContact for price ■ precise.com

Riverbed Virtual Cascade - Riverbed TechnologyContact for price ■ riverbed.com

Simpana - CommVaultContact for price ■ commvault.com

Simplify Desktop - triCerat Inc.Contact for price ■ tricerat.com

SolarWinds Mobile Admin - SolarWinds Inc.$699/seat, $2,995 unlimited seats ■ solarwinds.com

Splunk App for Citrix - Splunk Inc.Free ■ splunk.com

Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise - Quest Software, a Division of Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ quest.com

StorageCraft ShadowControl ImageManager 5.0.5 - StorageCraft Technology Corp.ShadowControl ImageManager is included with the ShadowProtect license; additional licensing is required for individual jobs featuring ShadowStream, intelligentFTP and HeadStart Restore technology ■ storagecraft.com

Stratusphere FIT - Liquidware Labs Inc.Contact for price ■ liquidwarelabs.com

StruxureWare for Data Centers - Schneider ElectricContact for price ■ schneider-electric.us

Terra Alta - Akamai TechnologiesContact for price ■ akamai.com

Unifi ed Communications - Avaya Inc.Contact for price ■ avaya.com

up.time 7 - Uptime Software Inc.$99 per element monitoring ■ uptimesoftware.com

http://www.silversky.com



Vblock System 700 - VCE Contact for price ■ vce.com

vCapacity 3.3 - Refl ex Systems LLCContact for price ■ refl exsystems.com

Veritas Dynamic Multi-Pathing for VMware - Symantec Corp.Starts at $900 per processor and is licensed based on processor type and number of cores ■ symantec.com

VirtualWisdom - Virtual Instruments Inc.Contact for price ■ virtualinstruments.com

VMTurbo Operations Manager - VMTurbo Inc. Contact for price ■ vmturbo.com

WorkSpace iQ - Centrix Software Ltd.Contact for price ■ centrixsoftware.com

Xangati Management Dashboard 5 - XangatiContact for price ■ xangati.com

Zenoss Service Dynamics - Zenoss Inc.Contact for price ■ zenoss.com

Cloud Infrastructure & PlatformLast year, VMware’s whole story focused on the cloud—particularly the hybrid cloud. The centerpiece of that story is vCloud Director, the orchestration and provisioning tool that takes virtualized datacenters a bit further along on their evolutionary path. It’s also this category’s RCA Winner. This year, vCloud Director had some healthy competition from RCA Finalists Microsoft with Windows Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) with its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). A new entry this year, TwinStrata CloudArray, got the editors’ attention for its combo cloud/on-premises play, earning an Editor’s Choice award.

RCA WINNERvCloud Director - VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTWindows Azure - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com

RCA FINALISTAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Amazon Web Services LLCContact for price ■ aws.amazon.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE CloudArray - TwinStrata Inc.Starts at $0.19 per gigabyte ■ twinstrata.com

6fusion IaaS Marketplace - 6fusion Inc.Contact for price ■ 6fusion.com

AppCluster for Public Cloud - Sanbolic Inc.$8,000 per server ■ sanbolic.com

AppFog CenturyLink - AppFog Inc.Contact for price ■ appfog.com

Apprenda Open Platform as a Service - Apprenda Inc.Contact for price ■ apprenda.com

Application Services - AT&TContact for price ■ att.com/hosting

Aria Subscription Billing Platform - Aria SystemsContact for price ■ ariasystems.com

Arista 7050 Series with EOS 4.10 - Arista Networks Inc.$13,495 ■ aristanetworks.com


Arista 7150S Series with EOS 4.10 - Arista Networks Inc.$12,995 ■ aristanetworks.com


AvailabilityGuard/Cloud - Continuity SoftwareStarts at $1,000 per physical server ■ continuitysoftware.com

BIG-IP Global Traffi c Manager - F5 Networks Inc.$23,995 ■ f5.com

BIG-IP WAN Optimization Manager - F5 Networks Inc.$4,995 ■ f5.com

BIG-IP WebAccelerator - F5 Networks Inc.$9,995 ■ f5.com

Bluelock Virtual Datacenters - Bluelock Contact for price ■ bluelock.com

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management - BMC Software Inc.Contact for price ■ bmc.com

Canopy - CanopyContact for price ■ canopy-cloud.com

CAStor - Caringo Inc.Contact for price ■ caringo.com

Chef - Opscode Inc.Contact for price ■ opscode.com/chef

Citrix CloudPlatform - Citrix Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ citrix.com

Cloud Computing Services - Expedient Data CentersContact for price ■ expedient.com

Cloud Foundry - PivotalContact for price ■ cloudfoundry.org

Cloud Hosting - Hosting.comContact for price ■ hosting.com

Cloud Intelligent Network - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com

Cloud Management Portal - Virtacore Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ virtacore.com

Cloud CORE - Geminare Inc.Contact for price ■ geminare.com

CloudPhysics - CloudPhysics Inc.Contact for price ■ cloudphysics.com



CloudBees Platform as a Service - CloudBees Inc.Contact for price ■ cloudbees.com

Cloudera Enterprise - Cloudera Inc.Contact for price ■ cloudera.com

CloudFrames - CloudFoundersContact for price ■ cloudfounders.com

CloudHub - MuleSoft Inc.Contact for price ■ mulesoft.com

Cloudify - GigaSpaces Technologies Inc.Free ■ gigaspaces.com

CloudSwitch Enterprise - CloudSwitch Inc.Contact for price ■ cloudswitch.com

CumuLogic Cloud Application Platform for Enterprises - CumuLogic Inc.Contact for price ■ cumulogic.com

Data Center Fabric - XsigoContact for price ■ xsigo.com

Datacenter Transformation and Outsourcing - Cloud Solutions - UnisysContact for price ■ unisys.com

Dell Active System Manager - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ dell.com

Dell - Dell Multi-Cloud Manager - Dell Inc. Contact for price ■ dell.com

Engine Yard Cloud - Engine Yard Inc.Contact for price ■ engineyard.com

Enterprise Cloud - Terremark, a Verizon CompanyContact for price ■ terremark.com

Enterprise Cloud Computing - Savvis, a CenturyLink CompanyContact for price ■ savvis.com

Enterprise Cloud Services - Hewlett-Packard Co.Contact for price ■ hp.com

Enterprise Cloud Services - SunGard Availability ServicesContact for price ■ sungardas.com

Eucalyptus Cloud - Eucalyptus Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ eucalyptus.com

GoGrid Big Data Solutions - GoGridContact for price ■ gogrid.com

Hitachi Content Platform - Hitachi Data Systems Corp.Contact for price ■ hds.com

Hybrid Clouds - Virtacore Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ virtacore.com

IBM Platform HPC Cloud - IBM Platform ComputingContact for price ■ ibm.com

iCloudRecovery - Geminare Inc.Contact for price ■ geminare.com

iland Cloud Services - ilandContact for price ■ iland.com

iland LabCloud - iland Contact for price ■ iland.com

Intalio|Create - Intalio Inc.Contact for price ■ intalio.com

Joyent SmartDataCenter - Joyent Inc.Contact for price ■ joyent.com

Leostream Cloud Desktops - Leostream Corp. $20 per desktop ■ leostreamdesktops.com

LongJump Platform as a Service - LongJumpContact for price ■ longjump.com

Managed Hosting Service - Terremark, a Verizon CompanyContact for price ■ terremark.com

mCloud Helix - Morphlabs Inc.Contact for price ■ morphlabs.com

Moab Cloud Suite - Adaptive Computing Inc.Contact for price ■ adaptivecomputing.com

NaviCloud Platform - NaviSite Inc.Contact for price ■ navisite.com

Nebula - Nebula Inc.Contact for price ■ nebula.com

NephoScale Cloud Services - NephoScaleContact for price ■ nephoscale.com

Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform - Nutanix Contact for price ■ nutanix.com

OpenShift Enterprise PaaS Solution - Red Hat Inc.Contact for price ■ redhat.com

OpSource Managed Hosting - OpSource Inc.Contact for price ■ opsource.net

Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud - Oracle Corp.Contact for price ■ oracle.com

Oracle Fabric Manager - Oracle Corp.Contact for price ■ oracle.com

OS33 for SMBs - OS33 Inc.Contact for price ■ os33.com

PAN Cloud Director - Egenera Inc.Contact for price ■ egenera.com

Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure - Parallels IP Holdings GmbHContact for price ■ parallels.com

Rackspace Open Cloud - Rackspace U.S. Inc.Contact for price ■ rackspace.com

Riverbed Stingray Traffi c Manager Application Delivery Controller-as-a-Service - Riverbed TechnologyContact for price ■ riverbed.com

Sales Cloud - Salesforce.com Inc.Contact for price ■ salesforce.com

SoftLayer Private Clouds - SoftLayer Technologies Inc.Contact for price ■ softlayer.com

Software as a Service - Savvis, a CenturyLink CompanyContact for price ■ savvis.com

Stackato - ActiveState Software Inc.Call for pricing ■ activestate.com

Stratosphere Cloud Computing Platform - Datapipe Inc.Contact for price ■ datapipe.com

Tier 3 Enterprise Cloud Platform - Tier 3 Inc.Contact for price ■ tier3.com

VM6 Manage Cloud Platform - VM6 Software Inc.Contact for price ■ vm6software.com

XAP Elastic Application Platform - GigaSpaces Technologies Inc.Contact for price ■ gigaspaces.com



xStream Enterprise Cloud - Virtustream Inc.Contact for price ■ virtustream.com

Cloud StorageYou’ve got to hand it to Amazon Simple Storage Service. It’s a truly simple concept, easy to use, reliable and cost-effective. It’s almost too big to fail. Readers recognize that, which is probably why it’s the runaway RCA Winner for Cloud Storage. Dropbox drops down a notch from last year, to RCA Finalist, joining EMC Atmos. The Editor’s Choice goes to Hitachi Cloud Storage Solutions for its fl exible, highly scalable solutions.

RCA WINNERAmazon Simple Storage Service - Amazon Web Services LLCContact for price ■ aws.amazon.com

RCA FINALISTDropbox - DropboxPro Edition starts at $9.99 per month for 100GB, 200GB or 500GB plans; Team Edition plans start at 1TB for fi ve users; contact for price ■ dropbox.com

RCA FINALISTAtmos - EMC Corp.Contact for price ■ emc.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Hitachi Cloud Storage Solutions - Hitachi Data Systems Corp. Contact for price ■ hds.com

Abiquo - Abiquo Inc.Contact for price ■ abiquo.com

AcerCloud - Acer Inc.Contact for price ■ cloud.acer.com

Aryaka - AryakaContact for price ■ aryaka.com

Asigra Cloud Backup - Asigra Inc.Contact for price ■ asigra.com

AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service - AT&TContact for price ■ att.com

Ayrris - Appistry Inc.Contact for price ■ appistry.com

Box - BoxContact for price ■ box.com

Carbonite Business - CarboniteContact for price ■ carbonite.com

Cloud-Integrated Enterprise Storage - StorSimple Inc.Contact for price ■ storsimple.com

CloudAlly - CloudAllyContact for price ■ cloudally.com

CloudArray - TwinStrata Inc.Starts at $0.19 per gigabyte ■ twinstrata.com

CloudScaler - Caringo Inc.Contact for price ■ caringo.com

Elastic Content Protection - Caringo Inc.Contact for price ■ caringo.com

iCloud - Apple Inc.Contact for price ■ apple.com

MagFS - MaginaticsContact for price ■ maginatics.com

n5 Storage System - NexGen Storage Inc.$55,000 ■ nexgenstorage.com

NexentaStor - Nexenta Systems Inc. Contact for price ■ nexenta.com

Panzura CloudFS File System - PanzuraContact for price ■ panzura.com

Profi tBricks Infrastructure as a Service - Profi tBricksContact for price ■ profi tbricks.com

Riverbed Whitewater Cloud Storage Gateway - Riverbed TechnologyContact for price ■ riverbed.com

SF6010 - SolidFire Contact for price ■ solidfi re.com

Symform Cloud Storage Network - Symform Inc.Contact for price ■ symform.com

Cloud Security Privacy and trust are big issues this year. In the cloud, trust issues are exponentially more diffi cult to overcome. RCA Winner in the Cloud Security category—Trend Micro Inc. for its SecureCloud product—has an edge on the competition, having established itself as the market leader in giving users a sense of safety and security. The votes for RCA Finalist were tight, going to IBM Cloud Security, McAfee Cloud Security and Symantec O3 Cloud Identity and Access Control product. The Editor’s Choice winner here is Acronis International GmbH for its easy-to-use, simplistic Cloud Backup Solution.

RCA WINNERSecureCloud - Trend Micro Inc.Contact for price ■ trendmicro.com

RCA FINALISTIBM Cloud Security and Infrastructure Management Services - IBM Corp.Contact for price ■ ibm.com

RCA FINALISTMcAfee Cloud Security - McAfee Inc.Contact for price ■ mcafee.com



RCA FINALISTSymantec O3 Cloud Identity and Access Control - Symantec Corp.Price is based on hardware appliances or service subscriptions on a per-user schedule ■ symantec.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Acronis Cloud Backup Solution - Acronis International GmbHContact for price ■ acronis.com

2X SecureRemoteDesktop - 2X Software $29.95 ■ 2x.com

Access Manager - NetIQ Corp.Contact for price ■ netiq.com

BIG-IP Access Policy Manager - F5 Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ f5.com

BIG-IP Application Security Manager - F5 Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ f5.com

BIG-IP Edge Gateway - F5 Networks Inc. Contact for price ■ f5.com

CA CloudMinder - CA TechnologiesContact for price ■ ca.com

Check Point SMB Cloud-Managed Security Services - Check Point Software Technologies Inc.Starts at $19 per month ■ checkpoint.com

Cloud Backup Services and Recovery Off erings - EVault Inc.Contact for price ■ evault.com

CypherX - Afore SolutionsStarts at $150 per subscriber ■ aforesolutions.com

CloudPassage Halo - CloudPassage Inc.Contact for price ■ cloudpassage.com

Dome9 Business Cloud - Dome9 Security Ltd.Contact for price ■ dome9.com

KONA Security Solutions - Akamai TechnologiesContact for price ■ akamai.com

Governance Controls - RightScale Inc.Contact for price ■ rightscale.com

HighCloud Security - HighCloud Security$3,000/10-pack, with volume discounts ■ highcloudsecurity.com

Okta - Okta Inc.Contact for price ■ okta.com

Oxygen Cloud Enterprise - Oxygen Cloud Inc.Contact for price ■ oxygencloud.com

Panda Cloud Protection - Panda SecurityContact for price ■ pandasecurity.com

QualysGuard Cloud Platform 7.4 - Qualys Inc.Contact for price ■ qualys.com

QualysGuard Private Cloud Platform - Qualys Inc.Contact for price ■ qualys.com

Security Solutions for Cloud Providers - Fortinet Inc.Contact for price ■ fortinet.com

Managed Security Service - SilverSkyContact for price ■ silversky.com

StillSecure Cloud NSA 1 - StillSecureContact for price ■ stillsecure.com

Cloud Software

More readers continue to fl ock toward Citrix ShareFile. It’s like Dropbox (RCA Winner in 2013) on steroids, with some sophisticated management and collaboration features that tie into other Citrix products. NetIQ Corp. and Salesforce.com are new RCA Finalist award winners this year. NetIQ has been providing IaaS with its Cloud Manager successfully for quite some time, and Salesforce.com has had a strong cloud play ever since it tacked the .com to the end of its name. Zenoss Inc. earns an Editor’s Choice here for its simple but comprehensive cloud monitoring service.

RCA WINNERShareFile - Citrix Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ citrix.com

RCA FINALISTCloud Manager - NetIQ Corp.Contact for price ■ netiq.com

RCA FINALISTSalesforce.com - Salesforce.comContact for price ■ salesforce.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Zenoss Cloud Monitoring - Zenoss Inc.Contact for price ■ zenoss.com

AppZero Application Migration - AppZero $500 per source machine ■ appzero.com

Acumatica Cloud ERP - AcumaticaContact for price ■ acumatica.com

Asigra Cloud Backup - Asigra Inc.Contact for price ■ asigra.com

Centrix WorkSpace Universal - Centrix Software Ltd.$70/user per year ■ centrixsoftware.com

Cloud Cruiser Enterprise Edition - Cloud CruiserContact for price ■ cloudcruiser.com

CloudTest Platform - SoastaContact for price ■ soasta.com

Dell Wyse WSM - Wyse Technology Inc.Contact for price ■ dellwyse.com

Embotics vCommander - Embotics Corp.Contact for price ■ embotics.com

Enterprise Cloud for HR and Finance - Workday Inc.Contact for price ■ workday.com

Fusion Tables - Google Inc.Contact for price ■ google.com

HotLink Hybrid Express - HotLink Corp.Contact for price ■ hotlink.com



Intacct Financials - Intacct Corp.Contact for price ■ intacct.com

Komodo IDE 7.1 - ActiveState Software Inc.Contact for price ■ activestate.com

NetSuite ERP - NetSuite Inc.Contact for price ■ netsuite.com

Oracle Cloud Application Foundation - Oracle Corp.Contact for price ■ oracle.com

Oracle Taleo Enterprise Cloud Service - Oracle Corp.Contact for price ■ oracle.com

Pano System for Cloud 1.0 - Pano Logic Inc.$999 server license for up to 200 users; $149 each for Pano Zero Client ■ panologic.com

Piston Enterprise OpenStack - Piston Cloud Computing Inc.Contact for price ■ pistoncloud.com

Puppet Enterprise - Puppet LabsContact for price ■ puppetlabs.com

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Hosting Service - Intuit Inc.$54.99/user per month ■ intuit.com

SAP Cloud Business Applications - SAP AGContact for price ■ sap.com

Virtustream xStream - Virtustream Inc. Contact for price ■ virtustream.com

Z-Business Enterprise Editions - Zuora Inc.Contact for price ■ zuora.com

Zenoss Service Dynamics - Zenoss Inc.Contact for price ■ zenoss.com

Zoho Business Apps - Zoho Corp. Pvt. Ltd.Contact for price ■ zoho.com

Business Continuity VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager takes top honors here. That’s no surprise. It works well with vSphere, and most of you have deployed that in some fashion. Even so, Veeam Backup & Replication came in as a strong second, along with IBM and its IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, both earning RCA Finalist awards. Dell’s AppAssure takes Editor’s Choice honors for its ability to recover data or VMs across dissimilar platforms.

RCA WINNERvCenter Site Recovery Manager - VMware Inc.Standard Edition pricing starts at $195 per VM ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTIBM Tivoli Storage Manager - IBM Corp.Contact for price ■ ibm.com

RCA FINALISTVeeam Backup & Replication - Veeam SoftwareContact for price ■ veeam.com

EDITOR’S CHOICEDell AppAssure 5 - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ appassure.com

Acronis Backup & Recovery - Acronis International GmbHContact for price ■ acronis.com

Actifi o 100T - Actifi oContact for price ■ actifi o.com

Actifi o 6 - Actifi oContact for price ■ actifi o.com

Altaro Hyper-V Backup 3 - Altaro Software$395 Standard (up to fi ve VMs); $545 Unlimited ■ altaro.com

Avance - Stratus TechnologiesContact for price ■ stratus.com

AvailabilityGuard/SAN - Continuity Software Starts at $20,000 ■ continuitysoftware.com

Backup Exec 2012 V-Ray Edition - Symantec Corp.Contact for price ■ symantec.com

Bluelock Recovery-as-a-Service - BluelockContact for price ■ bluelock.com

CA ARCserve Backup - CA TechnologiesContact for price ■ arcserve.com

Cloud Recovery/Auto Failover - Geminare Inc.Contact for price ■ geminare.com

CrashPlan PROe - Code 42 Software Inc.Contact for price ■ code42.com

DocRetriever for SharePoint - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ appassure.com

Double-Take Availability - Vision Solutions Inc.Contact for price ■ visionsolutions.com

FalconStor CDP with RecoverTrac - FalconStor SoftwareContact for price ■ falconstor.com

Eaton UPS Backup Power and Monitoring - Eaton Corp.Contact for price ■ eaton.com

EVault Data Backup Software - EVault Inc.Contact for price ■ evault.com

everRun MX - Stratus Technologies Contact for price ■ stratus.com

EX Series - ExaGrid Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ exagrid.com

FalconStor Virtual Tape Library (VTL) - FalconStor SoftwareContact for price ■ falconstor.com

FarStone Total Backup Recovery Server 8 - FarStone Technology Inc.Contact for price ■ farstone.com

ftServer - Stratus Technologies Contact for price ■ stratus.com

HotLink DR Express - HotLink Corp.$25/month per protected VM ■ hotlink.com

iland Continuity Cloud - ilandContact for price ■ iland.com

MailRetriever for Exchange - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ appassure.com



NetBackup - Symantec Corp.Contact for price ■ symantec.com

nScaled Recovery-as-a-Service - nScaled Inc.Contact for price ■ nscaled.com

NTP Software Universal File Access - NTP SoftwareContact for price ■ ntpsoftware.com

onQ Appliance - QuorumLabs Inc.Contact for price ■ quorumlabs.com

Ontrack Data Recovery Services - Kroll Ontrack Inc.Contact for price ■ krollontrack.com

OpenGear IM4200 - Opengear Inc. Contact for price ■ opengear.com

Paragon Drive Backup Server - Paragon Technologies GmbHContact for price ■ paragon-software.com

PHD Virtual Backup and Replication - PHD Virtual Technologies$550 per socket ■ phdvirtual.com

PHD Virtual CloudHook - PHD Virtual TechnologiesContact for price ■ phdvirtual.com

PHD Virtual ReliableDR - PHD Virtual Technologies$250 per VM ■ phdvirtual.com

PlateSpin Forge - NetIQ Corp. Contact for price ■ netiq.com

rCloud - Doyenz Inc.Contact for price ■ doyenz.com

Replicator for SharePoint - Metalogix International GmbH$13,500 per license ■ metalogix.com

Scout SSE - InMage Systems $399 ■ inmage.com

Scout Cloud - InMage SystemsContact for price ■ inmage.com

SEP sesam - SEP AGContact for price ■ sep.de/us/home

StorageCraft ShadowProtect Virtual 4.2.5 - StorageCraft Technology Corp.$215 for perpetual; $25 for MSPs ■ storagecraft.com

StorageCraft Cloud Services - StorageCraft Technology Corp.Starts at $0.35/GB monthly, $0.28/GB a month for partners ■ storagecraft.com

StoragePoint - Metalogix International GmbH$3,995 per TB ■ metalogix.com

STORServer Virtual Machine Backup - STORServer Inc.Contact for price ■ storserver.com

Trustyd Remote Backup Appliance - TrustydContact for price ■ trustyd.com

Unitrends Enterprise Backup - Unitrends Contact for price ■ unitrends.com

Tintri ReplicateVM - Tintri Inc.Contact for price ■ tintri.com

Veeam Backup Management Suite - Veeam SoftwareContact for price ■ veeam.com

Veritas Cluster Server - Symantec Corp.Contact for price ■ symantec.com

vmPRO - Quantum Corp. Contact for price ■ quantum.com

vmPRO 4000 - Quantum Corp. Contact for price ■ quantum.com

vmProtect - Acronis International GmbH$599 per CPU or per socket ■ acronis.com

vRanger - Dell Inc.$769 per CPU ■ quest.com/vranger/

Zenith BDR-G12 - Zenith Infotech Ltd.Contact for price ■ zenithinfotech.com

Zerto Virtual Replication 2.0 - Zerto Contact for price ■ zerto.com

Zetta DataProtect - Zetta Inc.Contact for price ■ zetta.net

Virtualization AutomationThis race was a tight one, but HP Cloud Service Automation fi nished at the top to get its fi rst RCA Winner award. HP has a veritable feast of cloud services, and Cloud Service Automation keeps them all straight. It barely beat out RCA Finalists IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator and PHD ReliableDR, both worthwhile contenders. IBM has lots of enterprise fans, so it’s no surprise that it fi nished highly. PHD ReliableDR is unique in that it makes DR a set-and-forget kind of job. Editor’s Choice goes to Red Hat Inc.’s CloudForms, based on technology from its acquisition of ManageIQ.

RCA WINNERHP Cloud Service Automation - Hewlett-Packard Co.Contact for price ■ hp.com

RCA FINALISTIBM SmartCloud Orchestrator - IBM Corp.Contact for price ■ ibm.com

RCA FINALISTPHD Virtual ReliableDR - PHD Virtual Technologies$250 per VM ■ phdvirtual.com

EDITOR’S CHOICERed Hat CloudForms - Red Hat Inc.Contact for price ■ redhat.com

Cloud Lifecycle Management - BMC SoftwareContact for price ■ bmc.com

ioTurbine - Fusion-io Inc.$3,900 ■ fusionio.com

JAMS - MVP Systems Software Inc.Contact for price ■ jamsscheduler.com



rPath Cloud Engine - rPath Inc.Contact for price ■ rpath.com

vProfi le 3.3 - Refl ex Systems LLCPricing is about $595 per socket ■ refl exsystems.com

Storage VirtualizationVMware’s acquisition of Virsto this year did wonders to the storage hypervisor’s credibility. It easily won RCA this year, displacing last year’s champ. NetApp, last year’s winner, still managed an RCA Finalist spot, alongside Hitachi Data Systems and its increasingly popular 3D-scaling storage platform. Atlantis ILIO gets the Editor’s Choice award for its ability to simplify and optimize storage via a VDI scenario.

RCA WINNERVirsto - VMware Inc.Starts from $5,000 per TB ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTNetApp V-Series Open Storage Controller - NetAppContact for price ■ netapp.com

RCA FINALISTHitachi Virtual Storage Platform - Hitachi Data Systems Corp.Contact for price ■ hds.com

EDITOR’S CHOICE Atlantis ILIO - Atlantis Computing Inc.Contact for price ■ atlantiscomputing.com

6000 Flash Memory Array - Violin Memory Inc.Contact for price ■ violin-memory.com

AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series - Dot Hill Systems Corp.Contact for price ■ dothill.com

Avere FXT Series Edge Filer 1 - Avere Systems Inc.Starts at $25,000 ■ averesystems.com

BrickStor - RackTop LLCContact for price ■ racktopsystems.com

Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones - Brocade Communications Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ brocade.com

Cloud Storage Assurance - Geminare Inc.Contact for price ■ geminare.com

Coraid EtherDrive SRX Storage Arrays - Coraid Inc.Contact for price ■ coraid.com

Coraid EtherDrive VSX Storage Appliance - Coraid Inc.Contact for price ■ coraid.com

DNF Storage - Dynamic Network Factory Inc.Contact for price ■ dnfstorage.com

Drobo B1200i - Drobo Inc.Contact for price ■ drobo.com

Emulex LightPulse Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters - Emulex Corp.Contact for price ■ emulex.com

FalconStor Network Storage Server - FalconStor SoftwareContact for price ■ falconstor.com

HUS VM Storage Virtualization System - Hitachi Data Systems Corp.$156,000 ■ hds.com

Hyper ISE - X-IO TechnologiesContact for price ■ x-io.com

InMage Scout - InMage Systems Contact for price ■ inmage.com

Melio - Sanbolic Inc.Contact for price ■ sanbolic.com

Nasuni Storage - Nasuni Corp.Contact for price ■ nasuni.com

Nimbus E-Class - Nimbus Data Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ nimbusdata.com

Nimbus S-Class - Nimbus Data Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ nimbusdata.com

Gemini All Flash Arrays Nimbus Data Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ nimbusdata.com

NST5000 - Nexsan Corp.Contact for price ■ nexsan.com

Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform - Nutanix Inc.$120,000 ■ nutanix.com

PernixData FVP - PernixData Inc.$7,500 ■ pernixdata.com

Promise VTrak S3000 - Promise Technology Inc.Contact for price ■ promise.com

Pure Storage FlashArray 400 Series - Pure Storage Inc.Contact for price ■ purestorage.com

SANsymphony-V - DataCore Software Starts at under $10,000 for two licenses ■ datacore.com

Scale Computing HC3 - Scale Computing Starts at under $25,000 for 3-node cluster ■ scalecomputing.com

SkyEagle - Skyera Inc.$1.99/GB, or $0.49/GB with data reduction technologies ■ skyera.com

SSDNow E100 Enterprise SSD - Kingston Technology Corp.Contact for price ■ kingston.com

StarWind iSCSI SAN and NAS - StarWind Software Inc.Contact for price ■ starwindsoftware.com

StarWind Native SAN for Hyper-V - StarWind Software Inc.Contact for price ■ starwindsoftware.com

STEC PCIe Solid State Accelerator (SSA) - STEC Inc. Contact for price ■ stec-inc.com

StoneFly IP SAN - StoneFly Inc.Contact for price ■ stonefl y.com

StorageX - Data Dynamics Inc.$500 per TB ■ datadynamicsinc.com

StorSimple Appliances - StorSimple Inc.Contact for price ■ storsimple.com



Tintri VMstore - Tintri Inc.Contact for price ■ tintri.com

VeloBit HyperCache 2 - VeloBit Inc.$1,250 per CPU ■ velobit.com

ViSX Performance Storage Appliance - Astute Networks Inc.$32,000 ■ astutenetworks.com

WD Arkeia Network Backup - Arkeia Software and Western Digital TechnologiesContact for price ■ arkeia.com

Tegile Zebi - Tegile Systems Inc. HA2400, $168,000; HA2800, $235,000 ■ tegile.com

Network Virtualization Networking technology is evolving. Pretty soon, we’ll wonder what a server closet looks like as network virtualization gains traction. RCA Winner VMware is putting lots of work toward this, and its vSphere Distributed Switch is one key. Another is VMware’s NSX, dubbed RCA Finalist. Cisco’s Nexus 1000V is the other fi nalist, blazing a path for network virtualization with its highly popular virtual switch. F5’s BIG-IP Local Traffi c Manager gets the Editor’s Choice for the work it has done in network optimization and performance.

RCA WINNERVMware vSphere Distributed Switch - VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTVMware NSX - VMware Inc.Contact for price ■ vmware.com

RCA FINALISTCisco Systems Nexus 1000V - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com/go/1000v

EDITOR’S CHOICEBIG-IP Local Traffi c Manager - F5 Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ f5.com

BlackDiamond X Series - Extreme NetworksContact for price ■ extremenetworks.com

Bluesocket vWLAN - ADTRAN Inc.Contact for price ■ adtran.com

Citrix NetScaler SDX - Citrix Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ citrix.com

Dell Networking S6000 - Dell Inc.Contact for price ■ dell.com

Ethernet Switch Systems - Mellanox TechnologiesContact for price ■ mellanox.com

IBM Distributed Virtual Switch 5000V - IBM System Networking$819 per socket ■ ibm.com/networking

IBM RackSwitch G8264 - IBM System Networking$37,999 ■ ibm.com/networking

IBM RackSwitch G8316 - IBM System Networking$35,999 ■ ibm.com/networking

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 - Microsoft Corp.Contact for price ■ microsoft.com

Netronome NFP 6xxx - NetronomeContact for price ■ netronome.com

QLogic 8200 Series Converged Network Adapters - QLogic Corp.Contact for price ■ qlogic.com

Riverbed Steelhead Appliances - Riverbed Technology$995 ■ riverbed.com

Virtualization SecuritySecurity is an issue that seems to keep many enterprises from committing to the cloud. Perhaps Trend Micro Inc.’s RCA winner Deep Security will help turn the tide. Cisco snags two RCA Finalist awards here, with its Cloud Firewall and Virtual Security Gateway. Kaspersky Lab ZAO gets Editor’s Choice with its Kaspersky Security for Virtualization.

RCA WINNERTrend Micro Deep Security - Trend Micro Inc.Contact for price ■ trendmicro.com

RCA FINALISTCisco ASA 1000V Cloud Firewall - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com/en/US/products/ps12233/index.html

RCA FINALISTCisco Virtual Security Gateway - Cisco Systems Inc.Contact for price ■ cisco.com

EDITOR’S CHOICEKaspersky Security for Virtualization - Kaspersky Lab ZAOContact for price ■ kaspersky.com

Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall - Barracuda Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ barracudanetworks.com

Bitdefender - BitdefenderContact for price ■ bitdefender.com

Ixia BreakingPoint Actionable Security Intelligence - IxiaContact for price ■ ixiacom.com

Catbird vSecurity 5.1 - Catbird Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ catbird.com



Certes TrustNet Manager - Certes Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ certesnetworks.com

Check Point Security Gateway - Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.Contact for price ■ checkpoint.com

CloudLink Secure VSA - AFORE Starts at $4,000 ■ aforesolutions.com

Digital Guardian - VerdasysContact for price ■ verdasys.com

ESET Endpoint Solutions - ESET North AmericaContact for price ■ eset.com/us/business/eset-for-business

FortiGate-3950B - Fortinet Inc.Contact for price ■ fortinet.com

FortiGate Virtual Appliances - Fortinet Inc.Contact for price ■ fortinet.com

GigaVUE-HD8 - GigamonContact for price ■ gigamon.com

Porticor Virtual Private Data System 1.12 - Porticor Ltd.$99/month per appliance; $599 for AWS, VMware ■ porticor.com

PowerBroker for Virtualization and Cloud - BeyondTrust Inc.Contact for price ■ beyondtrust.com

QualysGuard Virtual Scanner Appliance - Qualys Inc.Contact for price ■ qualys.com

Invincea FreeSpace Enterprise - Invincea Inc.Contact for price ■ invincea.com

Safe Access 6.0 - StillSecureContact for price ■ stillsecure.com

Symantec Critical System Protection - Symantec Corp.Contact for price ■ symantec.com

Symantec Endpoint Protection - Symantec Corp.Contact for price ■ symantec.com

Tripwire VIA Platform - Tripwire Inc.Contact for price ■ tripwire.com

Ultra Protect (Netilla) - Ultra Electronics AEP Networks Ltd.Contact for price ■ aepnetworks.com

vGW Virtual Gateway 5 - Juniper Networks Inc.Contact for price ■ juniper.net

VM Fortress - Tresys Technology LLCContact for price ■ tresys.com

vTrust - Refl ex Systems LLCPricing is about $595 per socket ■ refl exsystems.com

WatchGuard XTMv Series - WatchGuard Technologies Inc.Contact for price ■ watchguard.com

Websense Triton - Websense Inc.Contact for price ■ websense.com

Virtualization Training You need to update your IT skills as quickly as information technology and tools continue to improve. That’s where training companies like RCA Winner Global Knowledge Training LLC shines. It continues to update its course catalog with highly relevant cloud and virtualization material. It also has more than 150 locations globally, and comes highly

recommended by many Virtualization Review readers. RCA Finalist New Horizons also garnered quite a few votes. PluralSight Inc. recently acquired TrainSignal, which had a heavy emphasis on cloud and virtualization training. Fast Lane earns an Editor’s Choice for its focus on high-end networking and virtualization courses.

RCA WINNERGlobal Knowledge Training LLCContact for price ■ globalknowledge.com

RCA FINALISTNew Horizons Computer Learning CentersContact for price ■ newhorizons.com

RCA FINALISTPluralSight Inc.Contact for price ■ trainsignal.com

EDITOR’S CHOICEFast LaneContact for price ■ fastlaneus.com

Ascolta TrainingContact for price ■ ascolta.com

Capella UniversityContact for price ■ capella.edu

DeVry UniversityContact for price ■ devry.edu

Hatsize Corp.Contact for price ■ hatsize.com

Intense SchoolContact for price ■ intenseschool.com

InfoSec InstituteContact for price ■ infosecinstitute.com

ITT Technical InstituteContact for price ■ itt-tech.edu

Kaplan UniversityContact for price ■ kaplan.edu

Learning Tree InternationalContact for price ■ learningtree.com

Learn iT!Contact for price ■ learnit.com

MeasureUpContact for price ■ measureup.com

NetCom LearningContact for price ■ netcomlearning.com

QuickStart TrainingContact for price ■ quickstart.com

University of PhoenixContact for price ■ phoenix.edu

VR

Flash Storagefor VirtualizationFor Dummies (eBook)

Register to download this eBook from Wiley Publishing compliments of Tegile

http://www.tegile.com/flash

Flash Storage for Virtualization For Dummies', introduces you to the options flash technology offers to meet the increasing demands on storage created by virtualization.

http://www.tegile.com/flash


VIRTUAL

By Elias Khnaser

INSIDER

ILLU

STR

ATIO

N B

Y M

AX

GR

EGO

R

How the Cloud Will Explode in 2014”Everything is achievable through technology: Better living, robust health and for the fi rst time in human history, the possibility of world peace.” Not sure about the world peace, but overall, that’s well said. That’s Howard Stark, Iron Man’s father in the latest movie. When you look at the innovation of today and what we can expect in the future, that statement truly represents what we can achieve through technology.

Most of that fi ctional technology is starting to become real. Big data analytics, mobile, cloud, social and, of course, security got close-ups in the story. I predict those exact technologies—especially security—will be trending into 2014.

SecurityThe proliferation of mobile devices is bound to present security threats in 2014 and beyond. So far, we haven’t seen widespread attacks on mobile devices, but to think that will never happen is naive. As a result, the wider adoption of MxM technology will accelerate, especially if vulnerabilities surface at a more rapid pace. Security will also be a signifi cant focus around the cloud. Now that enterprises have accepted the cloud and are using it more extensively, many security questions are arising and the need to protect data in the cloud will be ever more crucial next year.

Flash arraysThe storage industry will wrestle with all-fl ash arrays in 2014, with new players like Cisco entering the market and existing players intro ducing or improving their all-fl ash arrays. There is room for consol i da tion, so expect to see HP in particular make an acquisition of some sort. While I believe hybrid arrays will be the winner when the dust settles, all-fl ash will dominate storage headlines.

Desktop as a ServiceThe VMware acquisition of Desktone and the Amazon introduction of Workspaces will no doubt make 2014 the year of DaaS. It will likely amount to serious conversation, but no real implementation aside from some limited use cases. The importance of DaaS is in its future direction. Between 2015 and 2016, we might see

DaaS being taken seriously and possible deployment methods with enterprises. This will require some other aspects of technology to improve, specifi cally remote protocols and bandwidth availability.

IT Department RestructureIT management will start to take a serious look at current IT departments’ siloed structure and make corrective changes to position resources for the transformation happening with these trends. The storage, networking, virtualization and compute silos we have will start to converge into a datacenter role, especially as software-defi ned everything starts to become a reality.

IT Broker Services Build OutVendors will release products that help IT departments become brokers. By brokers, I am talking about the ability to have one enterprise-wide resource store that can aggregate local applications and resources with external resources, cloud and others and present them in a meaningful way. This is more than just the current self-service portal and app stores. Brokerages will help departments branch out and include services they can’t offer today.

In-Memory Database AdoptionBig data analytics will be a widely-discussed trend for a long time. As a fan and believer that big data analytics will change the world, I believe we’ll see more movement from conceptual talk to implementation and value extraction. I’m predicting the adoption of in-memory analytics and processing will signifi cantly increase as we start to deploy and leverage big data analytics. I expect the major database vendors will innovate products specifi cally geared towards in-memory, which is a requirement in my opinion to generate the real-time analytics the business needs.

The year 2014 will defi nitely be a cornerstone for big data analytics, cloud and social. I also predict some acquisitions and consolidations, which you can read about on my online blog. VR

Elias Khnaser owns professional services fi rm The Elias Khnaser Company. He’s an expert on VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, and has authored many books and published a number of training videos on the subjects of virtualization and server based computing, primarily Citrix and Terminal Services. He has blogged for Forbes and eWeek.

At Home, In the Offi ce, On the Road

CONNECT WITH US:

Visit:

Follow:Twitter.com/VirtReview

Like:Facebook.com/VirtualizationReview

VirtualizationReview.com

http://www.VirtualizationReview.com

http://www.Twitter.com/VirtReview

http://www.Facebook.com/VirtualizationReview


EVERYDAYVIRTUALIZATION

All Else is Virtual, So Why Not the Apps?Before virtualization was a centerpiece of my IT practice, I spent a lot of time dealing with application owners talking about application topics. With virtualization, I’ve been spending a lot more time dealing with infrastructure topics to make everything better for the application owners.

Whether or not they really appreciate that level of focus is a whole other topic. It’s important to note that applications are still what really matter in an infrastructure solution, whether that’s a physical infrastructure or one built on virtualization as a cornerstone technology.

I’ve seen categorical improvements across the board. In memory technology, there have been great improvements both on servers and in hypervisors for performance, capacity, cost savings and usage effi ciency. The processor realm has continually improved in performance and density, with additional points for energy effi ciency. That has been a huge important advance recently. We all know how and what storage is doing. If you haven’t heard, it is awesome. There’s a huge network change among us. We’re all still taking that in for now, but that’s not all that we can do.

Sure, we’ve made incredible advances in how we administer this virtual environment. Go back to 2006 or 2007, when the vSphere client or later on Hyper-V Manager consoles was your only view into the virtual environment. We really had quite a limited view and reach of the potential back then. Now we have incredible automation options for performance, resource management and even self-provisioning. There also are enhanced administration and availability techniques.

With all of that being said, have we really changed how we handle our applications? We’ve come so far with this virtualized infrastructure in terms of everything else, so is the application the problem now?

I talk to a lot of people around the world who are operating at varying levels of virtualization maturity. One factor is consistent. Those who embrace the infrastructure with clear lines of communication to the application teams, coupled with superior virtualization implementations, are best equipped for the future.

The application change is the hard part. In many of those scenarios, there is a bit of stakeholder education required. A simple conversation can make a huge difference: “If the application fi ts here, we can do all of this.”

Before anyone calls foul here, I get that all applications can’t be changed that easily. In fact, for the best part of my career, I worked in the industrial supply chain automation space. Even today, that would be a tough sell when trying to virtualize applications.

But each application that is a pain point in our environments is an opportunity for advancement. Can we have those conversations with our application owners? Can we get involved with the application process? From the IT standpoint, it’s a risk versus reward decision. The risk is there may be a lot of time invested, with no changes made. The reward is possibly removing your last pain point in your datacenter. Wouldn’t that be worth it to you? VR

Rick Vanover (vExpert, VCP, MCITP) is a software strategy specialist for Veeam Software based in Columbus, Ohio. His areas of expertise include virtualization, servers, storage and Windows systems.

We have come so far with the virtualized infrastructure, so is the application the problem now?

By Rick Vanover

Vanover Online! For more practical virtualization information from the Rickatron, check out

Everyday Virtualization online at bit.ly/AluIP

Visit VirtualizationReview.com for live and on-demand webcasts. You’ll get tips and learn about technologies that can improve and grow your business. Watch these free webcasts without leaving your desk. This month’s featured events include:

techlibraryWEBCASTS

Register Today! VirtualizationReview.com/techLibrary/webcastsFollow Us: Twitter.com/VirtReview

Conquering the Top 5 Enterprise Data Protection Challenges

Advanced VM SQL Server Backup & Recovery

Debunking Cloud Backup Myths

FREE WEBCASTS!

http://www.VirtualizationReview.com

http://www.VirtualizationReview.com/techLibrary/webcasts

http://www.Twitter.com/VirtReview


IMA

GE FRO

M SH

UT

TERSTO

CK

Five Reasons 2014 will be the Year of VDI

Mike Matchett is a senior analyst and consultant with IT analyst fi rm Taneja Group.

Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) fi nally breaks

out. VMware buying Desktone proves

two things: One is that VMware is serious

about service provider scales of cloud

building. Two is that DaaS has proved both

viable and profi table for service providers

and productive and cost-effi cient for subscribers.

Providing VDI as a cloud service only makes sense.

It becomes elastic, dynamic and pay-as-you-go.

Letting new users self-provision desktops and apps

online with a few clicks changes the whole way the

rest of the business views IT. “What? No waiting

for three days for an IT guy to stop by and install a

bunch of stuff ?”

TAKE

1

Mobile devices are becoming productive endpoints. Between BYOD and an increasingly distributed workforce, supporting workers productively across any device has been a challenge. We see more devices, OSes and protocols supported to the point where by the

end of this year, practical VDI options should reach critical mass. There will be no need to force users to choose between PC, Mac, dedicated thin client, Android or iOS clients, nor between Windows or Linux virtual desktops.

TAKE

2VM-aware storage directly addresses IO

bottlenecks. We all know the dirty secret of VDI

is that storage is really the problem with scaling

out properly. Part of the problem is a fundamental

misalignment between traditional storage and how

hypervisors work—LUNs and fi le systems. Now

we have solutions like Atlantis ILIO for memory-based VDI

acceleration layered over older SAN/NAS and Tintri’s newest

VMstore T650 for directly integrated VM-aware storage that

can support 2K+ VMs for massive VDI hosting.

TAKE

3

Applications are becoming more “app” like. Finally, we see

more business productivity applications with more app-like

features, UIs or even lightweight app alternatives. This takes a

load off the need for high-end desktop services to start with.

It also frees up resources for those users and applications that

really need them.

We haven’t even mentioned advances in CPU, network, VDI protocols

or fl ash technology that also accelerate the client VDI experience. If

your organization has previously toyed around with VDI, but shelved the

idea, it might be time to revisit virtualizing desktops, either wholesale

or in select parts of your organization. The potential OpEx savings and

productivity opportunities should be motivation enough. The good will

from your business counterparts will be priceless.

TAKE

5

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has long been hailed as the capability we should all be using. In many cases, the truth is performance becomes slow at scale. Hidden storage costs outweigh the intended cost-effi ciencies. That may all be changing with new products and capabilities designed to overcome those limitations.

There’s a fl urry of virtual desktop news lately: VMware is buying Desktone to ramp up its DaaS cloud/service provider capabilities. Virtual Bridges VERDE is rolling out support for multi-tenancy (and dual-monitor Linux for us dev geeks). NComputing is bringing down the costs of Citrix session virtualization. Even the convergence and hyper-convergence players are getting serious about VDI.

We can think of fi ve reasons 2014 will be the year VDI adoption really ramps up:

Hyperconvergence provides building blocks for VDI infrastructure. It’s almost too easy to build a fully featured datacenter with “simple” Lego-like infrastructure solutions like Simplivity, Scale Computing and Nutanix Hyperconverged infrastructures. Besides its

built-in VM-aware storage, Simplivity announced its OmniCube can incorporate a PCoIP offl oad engine and NVIDIA GPUs to ramp up VDI scale and performance.

4TAKE

TAKE FIVE 5 TIPS AND TRICKS TO TAKE WITH YOU : : BY Mike Matchett

http://www.liquidwarelabs.com/customers

Get your backups offsite 50x faster

Get more out of your virtual infrastructure

Recover in minutes, not hours!

Veeam Backup & Replication v7

for VMware & Hyper-V

Taking Modern Data Protection to the Next Level!

To learn more, visithttp://go.veeam.com/v7

http://go.veeam.com/v7

Documents

Cloud Infrastructure & Platform - Virtualization Review