Virtual Desktop Strategies, Virtual Server Management
Business Wire | August 28, 2023
VMware Explore 2023 — Data and intelligence play a key role in enabling automation and implementing a successful hybrid work strategy, but a holistic approach is required to maximize its advantages. Today, VMware announces modern AI integrations to the Anywhere Workspace platform, part of the VMware Cross-Cloud services portfolio, that automatically optimize employee experience, drive new vulnerability management use cases, and simplify application lifecycle management. VMware Anywhere Workspace is the only hybrid work platform that integrates digital employee experience (DEX), virtual desktop infrastructure and apps (VDI and DaaS), unified endpoint management (UEM) and security to enable a seamless and secure workspace on any device or location.
“Last year, we announced our Autonomous Workspace vision as a path forward for organizations to navigate the challenges brought on by hybrid work,” said Shankar Iyer, senior vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. “We are thrilled to unveil new advancements for our customers that expand data sources and insights, integrate with technology partners for improved security, and unify app delivery strategy across all virtual desktops and apps. These innovations continue to progress our vision of providing the next evolution of digital workspaces.”
Integrated AI-Driven Platform Scales Experience Management
VMware continues to leverage data, intelligence, and automation to improve the employee and IT experience by introducing new Insights and Playbooks based on greatly expanded data and machine learning algorithms that enhance DEX remediation capabilities. These updates broaden access to data, help strengthen VMware Insights, and allow for remediation of more issues.
VMware will now enable delivery of new app performance scores, in addition to existing mobile device, desktop, and virtual environment experience scores. If a SaaS app service goes down, IT is proactively alerted and employees are automatically notified. This allows IT to quickly resolve the outage without dealing with inbound support tickets and employees don't waste time trying to access unavailable services.
But simply providing IT with more data is not enough to empower them to work smarter. VMware’s AI-driven Insights feature now provides anomaly detection that informs IT of potential experience issues for frontline devices and VDI environments, in addition to mobile and desktop environments. Today’s announcement of new Playbooks enables IT to create step-by-step remediation workflows to resolve incidents more efficiently and use success rate analytics to automate the resolution process and streamline execution over time.
“Workspace ONE Intelligence has been a game changer for us when it comes to automating life cycle management inside UEM. We have been utilizing it for automatically tagging devices and assigning them into smart groups. We have also used several dashboard templates for monitoring our security stance and helping remediate high-risk security threats,” said George March, manager of digital workspace and development, Information Technology, USA Health. “Next on our roadmap is implementing the ITSM connector, and with the addition of remediation playbooks, we are so excited about the way it will streamline our help desk support teams workflows.”
Unique Partner Integration Powers New Security and Manageability Use Cases
Ensuring end-to-end manageability and security for today’s distributed workforce is critical and requires a holistic approach to vulnerability assessment, prioritization, remediation, out-of-band support, and reporting. Collaboration with a best-of-breed partner ecosystem that offers speed, breadth, and depth in vulnerability management is necessary to protect against sophisticated attack vectors. VMware is committed to innovating together with our technology partners to provide customers with more secure and seamless hybrid experiences.
Today, VMware continues this mission by announcing an expanded partnership with Intel through a one-of-a-kind, cloud-native integration of Workspace ONE with Intel vPro®. This chip-to-cloud integration makes it easier to secure and remotely manage work devices entirely from the cloud, with no additional on-premises infrastructure and management software needed. Through line of sight and out-of-band management of vPro powered devices, IT teams can have below-the-OS vulnerability insights, and visibility to reduce the impact of potential exploits quickly and efficiently. Using Workspace ONE, customers can have centralized visibility into Intel vPro-powered PCs and accelerate patch remediation cycles for devices located outside of office perimeters, even if the devices are sleeping or powered off. This improves security and compliance by accomplishing higher patch saturation with fewer remediation steps and reduces potential disruption to employee productivity.
Modern App Management Simplifies Virtual Environments
Managing and delivering apps across VDI, DaaS, and published app environments has become increasingly complex and inefficient due to silos of legacy tools used. VMware recently introduced Apps on Demand, powered by VMware App Volumes, to unify app management and intelligently deploy apps to published app hosts or non-persistent desktop environments, all based on real-time app usage.
Today, VMware announces additional expansion of App Volumes support to deliver apps on demand to persistent virtual desktops. Now in beta availability, customers with persistent VMware Horizon environments will be able to use App Volumes to capture their apps once and deliver to many persistent virtual desktops. This automates the app delivery process with up to 99% compatibility and reduces management time and costs for any desktop or published app environment. VMware App Volumes is the only solution to help organizations deliver and manage apps across VMware Horizon, Citrix, Microsoft, and Amazon virtual desktop and app deployments as part of VMware’s Apps Everywhere vision.
Boeing: A ‘Hybrid Workforce Innovator’
The Boeing Company (Boeing) has used VMware Workspace ONE across the United States and in more than 65 countries to support its global workforce of 140,000 employees who develop, manufacture and service commercial airplanes, defense products and space systems for its customers. At VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas, they were named ‘Hybrid Workforce Innovator’ as part of the 2023 VMware Customer Achievement Awards for the Americas for enabling its workforce to work from anywhere in the world, improving the user experience while reinforcing and advancing security for devices and applications.
“VMware Anywhere Workspace helps us manage and protect end points, provide a common platform to access apps and tools, as well as helping facilitate a digital experience for our employees,” said Kristina Ross, Boeing Workplace Solutions director for Research & Technology. “Workspace ONE helped streamline our transition from traditional PC lifecycle management to Windows 10 modern management which was enabled by our shift to a SaaS-based solution for the company. Today, we have a unified view to oversee all endpoint requirements, and the adoption of SaaS enhanced our scalability and ability to shift focus from infrastructure to business facing solutions.”
About VMware
VMware is a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control. As a trusted foundation to accelerate innovation, VMware software gives businesses the flexibility and choice they need to build the future. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to building a better future through the company’s 2030 Agenda.
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Server Virtualization
businesswire | August 03, 2023
Tachyum® today announced that it has completed porting of all the software necessary for chip validation on the Prodigy FPGA prototype before it is sent for tape out with the successful running of the Xen hypervisor on a QEMU software emulator.
Xen is a type-1 hypervisor providing services that allow multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical host system, sharing resources such as memory, processing and devices. Its bare metal capabilities allow the Xen hypervisor to communicate directly from the host’s hardware, acting like a lightweight operating system. It supports four types of virtualization: paravirtualization, full hardware virtualization, full virtualization with a set of paravirtualization drivers, and paravirtualization with hardware virtualization support.
Tachyum demonstrated its support of XEN running in three different modes:
Standard “dom0” mode – the most privileged domain and the only virtual machine that has direct access to hardware by default. From dom0, the hypervisor can be managed and unprivileged domains (domU) can be launched.
Hyperlaunch – enabled seamless transition for existing systems that require a dom0. Provides a new general capability to build and launch alternative configurations of VMs, including support for static partitioning and accelerated start of VMs during host boot while adhering to the principles of least privileged.
Dom0less – a set of Xen features that enable the deployment of a Xen system without a control domain (dom0). It is a hyperlaunch-like configuration with static partitioning without using dom0. This means that there are no virtual devices and hardware resources are statically assigned to a specific virtual machine using the passthrough method.
“In order to assure that Prodigy truly becomes the means for transforming data centers into Universal Computing Centers, we need to ensure that it can properly handle any number of components, software and technology available now or in the future,” said Dr. Radoslav Danilak, founder and CEO of Tachyum. “By successfully running Xen in our Prodigy software emulator, we can confidently assure organizations that they will reap the full benefits of Prodigy when it becomes commercially available. I’m proud of the work of our highly skilled software team as they continue to complete the final components needed before tape out.”
Prodigy delivers unprecedented data center performance, power, and economics, reducing CAPEX and OPEX significantly. Because of its utility for both high-performance and line-of-business applications, Prodigy-powered data center servers can seamlessly and dynamically switch between workloads, eliminating the need for expensive dedicated AI hardware and dramatically increasing server utilization. Tachyum's Prodigy delivers performance up to 4x that of the highest performing x86 processors (for cloud workloads) and up to 3x that of the highest performing GPU for HPC and 6x for AI applications.
About Tachyum
Tachyum is transforming the economics of AI, HPC, public and private cloud workloads with Prodigy, the world’s first Universal Processor. Prodigy unifies the functionality of a CPU, a GPGPU, and a TPU in a single processor that delivers industry-leading performance, cost, and power efficiency for both specialty and general-purpose computing. When hyperscale data centers are provisioned with Prodigy, all AI, HPC, and general-purpose applications can run on the same infrastructure, saving companies billions of dollars in hardware, footprint, and operational expenses. As global data center emissions contribute to a changing climate, and consume more than four percent of the world’s electricity—projected to be 10 percent by 2030—the ultra-low power Prodigy Universal Processor is a potential breakthrough for satisfying the world’s appetite for computing at a lower environmental cost. Prodigy, now in its final stages of testing and integration before volume manufacturing, is being adopted in prototype form by a rapidly growing customer base, and robust purchase orders signal a likely IPO in late 2024. Tachyum has offices in the United States and Slovakia.
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Virtual Server Management, Security
prnewswire | July 14, 2023
Scale Computing, the market leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions, today announced that Scale Computing Platform (SC//Platform) has been qualified on the Lenovo M90Q and the Simply NUC Topaz and is available as a part of the HE100 series of products. The company also announced that SC//Platform is now available from Simply NUC as a pre-integrated enterprise offering through their website. Scale Computing's award-winning SC//Platform allows users to run and manage applications from anywhere with cloud-like simplicity and performance built for edge computing.
"No matter what hardware configuration customers choose, it is the same innovative software and simple user interface powering their infrastructure and managing the heterogeneous fleet of hardware. SC//HyperCore and SC//Fleet Manager make it easier for IT to manage edge infrastructure and for customers to afford," said Jeff Ready, CEO and Co-founder of Scale Computing. "We are excited to partner with Simply NUC; they are a trusted and reliable partner with extensive knowledge of the NUC and other small form factor systems. By combining the power, simplicity and reliability of Scale Computing Platform with Simply NUC's expertise, expansive network and online configuration tools, we are providing organizations with a comprehensive and scalable edge computing solution with the fastest path from pilot to production."
SC//Platform is a powerful, all-in-one platform uniquely designed for running applications at the edge. Lightweight software is packaged for uncontrolled, non-IT environments and managed centrally, making it easy to run applications anywhere they are needed, while also reducing workloads for IT teams. Using patented HyperCore™ technology, the self-healing platform identifies, reduces, and corrects problems in real time. Users achieve results quickly and easily, even when local IT resources are scarce. SC//HyperCore makes ensuring application uptime simple for IT to manage and more affordable for customers.
Also available as part of SC//Platform is Scale Computing Fleet Manager with zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) and Secure Link features. ZTP provides cloud-like simplicity for administrators, allowing them to centrally configure clusters in SC//Fleet Manager prior to nodes arriving on-premises, decreasing the installation time by 90% or more. Secure Link enables cloud-like simplicity for administrators, allowing them to access the HyperCore UI for in-depth cluster management with the click of a button without needing expensive or complex remote access solutions. Edge deployments are just a click away on any browser, on any device, anywhere.
"Scale Computing is the leader in delivering highly performing, highly available, and highly reliable IT infrastructure solutions. SC//Platform is unique in that it provides expandable, fault-tolerant architecture, automated intelligence for self-healing, and remote management with cloud-like orchestration, creating the most highly available environment for edge computing," said Aaron Rowsell, Simply NUC CEO and Founder. "Today's business leaders need efficient application deployment and management, which SC//Platform on Intel® NUC and other small form factor devices delivers — with high performance, in a smaller, easier to manage solution. We're excited to partner with Scale Computing to take Simply NUC's offerings to a new level for distributed enterprise and edge computing."
About Scale Computing
Scale Computing is a leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions. Using patented HyperCore™ technology, Scale Computing Platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and corrects infrastructure problems in real-time, enabling applications to achieve maximum uptime, even when local IT resources and staff are scarce. Edge Computing is the fastest-growing area of IT infrastructure, and industry analysts have named Scale Computing an outperformer and leader in the space, including being named the #1 edge computing vendor by CRN. Scale Computing's products are sold by thousands of value-added resellers, integrators, and service providers worldwide. When ease-of-use, high availability, and TCO matter, Scale Computing Platform is the ideal infrastructure platform.
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Virtual Desktop Tools
globenewswire | August 14, 2023
Applied Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: APLD) (“Applied Digital”), a designer, builder, and operator of next-generation digital infrastructure designed for High-Performance Computing (“HPC”) applications, today announced it has formed a strategic partnership with ZEDEDA, the leader in edge orchestration. The strategic partnership will enable Applied Digital to use ZEDEDA’s award-winning management and orchestration software solution, powering Applied Digital’s new integrated on-demand Transmutable AI cloud service offering to address the exploding demand for AI computing resources and infrastructure.
Transmutable AI allows customer workloads to run seamlessly across a commutable infrastructure environment. This new service will augment Applied Digital’s recently launched AI cloud service by leveraging Applied Digital’s bare-metal infrastructure. By integrating ZEDEDA’s management and orchestration service, this offering will enable enterprise customers to purchase and use GPU resources on-demand and at scale across all of Applied Digital’s data centers for both virtualized and bare-metal edge and cloud AI environments.
The service will provide customers with a seamless experience, encapsulating dynamic on-demand and long-term allocation, fully integrated with orchestration, storage, and networking across all instances and applications. Customers will be able to purchase GPU resources by the hour and allocate any Applied Digital resources needed during a project's initial development, enabling effortless scaling as the project progresses into production. The new service is expected to go live during the second half of 2023.
“As our customers leverage AI workloads and HPC applications in increasingly new and innovative ways, we must be able to provide the resources they need where and when they need them,” said Wes Cummins, CEO of Applied Digital. “ZEDEDA’s cloud-native orchestration platform, coupled with our next-generation proprietary data center assets, provides the ideal foundation for us to seamlessly deliver these resources.”
The surge in AI and machine learning-based applications has created new demands from customers to dynamically access the compute resources needed to execute and scale critical AI, machine learning, and HPC workloads.
“We’re excited to partner with Applied Digital,” said Said Ouissal, founder and CEO of ZEDEDA. “We believe the cloud computing paradigm should be extended everywhere, and we have already witnessed this at the far edge of the network. Generative AI is now demanding new learning and inference infrastructure requirements, specifically in power efficient environments, validating that edge computing is truly ubiquitous and transformative”.
About ZEDEDA
ZEDEDA makes edge computing effortless, open, and intrinsically secure — extending the cloud experience to the edge. ZEDEDA reduces the cost of managing and orchestrating distributed edge infrastructure and applications while increasing visibility, security and control. ZEDEDA delivers a distributed, cloud-native edge management and orchestration solution, simplifying the security and remote management of edge infrastructure and applications at scale.
About Applied Digital
Applied Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: APLD) designs, develops, and operates next-generation data centers across North America to provide digital infrastructure solutions to the rapidly growing high-performance computing (HPC) industry.
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